Too damn busy

Okay so I've been a little lax on putting anything up.
In my defense I've been traveling a bit for work and trying to wrap up the whole move thing in between horse shows and being chaperone for the kid's school field trips.

I did happen to come across something that I found really neat as far as recycling stuff goes. Re-purposing a tractor tire into a water feature / landscape pond. I can see me doing this as I find the sound of flowing water really relaxing.

If you know who originally put this together drop me a line as I'd like to give them credit.

Weed Control?

Okay, file this under what I did and when I did it.

In the past if I had weeds I'd sprinkle it with some round-up that came in a handy hand pump container or take the weed whacker to it.... Well after cutting the lawn the other day, it dawned on me that with 34 acres that's going to take a tractor trailer load of these stupid 1 gallon cans of round-up. The thought of weed eating the entire fence line also wasn't real appealing....I can almost hear my weed whacker shaking in fear at the mere thought of it.

So what's the next best thing? Spray it. And the best way to spray? With the atv of course. Found one of these things laying around the barn a couple months ago and figure I better put it to use.

Let me be the first to say that not all weed killers are created equal. I went into the local grange to try and get a handle on what to use as I have pasture areas and wooded areas with fencing going through both. Apparently they don't make a good old fashioned one spray does it all.

So here's how I broke it down. I got some cross bow for the pasture grass area. It apparently is some potent stuff and will kill everything BUT grass (even trees) but is picky about briars and other hardy things but can't be beat on leafy weeds. Good old fashioned round up is still the best stuff around for killing everything down to the dirt, including briars of all kinds. (including grandma's rose bushes.)

So with sprayer wand in hand I made my first run around the place last night. I can tell you already that my next project will be to rig this sprayer up on a toe behind cart and add some arms for spraying the pasture.

Creative Problem Solving

I'll make someone a good wife someday....

I like to cook...on occasion..okay...more often than I'd like to admit. I also run a mean vacuum cleaner but that's a different story. Anyhow, I do like to cook. Inside in the winter outside in the summer. Since winter won't seem to go away this year I have a hankering for some good stick to your ribs kinda food and figured I'd share the recipe....I'll share more from time to time.

Old Settlers' Baked Beans:  

 Ingredients: 

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1/2 pound bacon, diced
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup KC Masterpiece®
• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• 1 can (16 ounces) pork and beans, undrained
• 1 can (16 ounces) kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 can (16 ounces) great northern beans, rinsed and drained

Directions:

In a large skillet, cook beef, bacon and onion until meat is done and onion is tender. Drain any fat. Combine all remaining ingredients except beans. Add to meat mixture; mix well. Stir in beans. Place in a greased 2-1/2-qt. baking dish. Cover and bake at 350° for 1 hour or until heated through. Yield: 8-10 servings.

Personal note: I like to use a cast iron skillet for mine and not some pansy glass pan.

Such a Nice Winter We're Having This Spring!

Well, it's been a year in the works but the official move to the farm is almost over. There's just a couple odds and ends left at the old house. It's been a rough couple of weeks and it seems like the past few days have been the hardest. It's absolutely amazing how much crap you can accumulate over 13 years.

To bring everyone up to speed. We've had our home up for sale for the past year. To say the current housing market sucks would be an understatement. After countless showings and a deal that fell through, we close at the end of the month.

So between last year and now I've spent my time fixing things up around the farm. Last summer I spent most of my time rebuilding the old bank barn. Let me explain this a little further cause as I type that it doesn't sound that impressive.

The original homestead can be traced back to the William Penn land grants. The bank barn was built sometime in the late 1700's early 1800's and is probably the oldest structure still standing on the old hunk'o'dirt. The whole place is stone and hand hewn logs so you can't just run to home depot and pick up some boards when something needs replaced.

Had an Amish crew come in and replace a 20 foot section of old stone wall. Replaced the hay mound floor. That's no typo, here come's your history lesson; Back in the day, before modern hay equipment the farmer would "mound" cut grass/hay in an area in the barn. Normally the floor in that area had gaps between the boards to let air circulate and the dedicated area in the barn became known as the hay mound....at least here in central pa. As with most things I'm sure it varies from place to place. Moving on...I also replaced half the floor of the equipment bay. This meant I had to replace some hand hewn beams. Built a new front wall to the livestock bay in the lower floor and constructed 6 new stalls...that was all done before Christmas.

Once it got cold I set to clearing overgrown pasture. They were packed so full of brush and trees we have decided to call the farm green briar just as a reminder of all that we've gone through. Now that it's warmer I'm putting most of my effort into replacing fences.

So that's it in a nut shell...my past year in 4 paragraphs. We'll see where we go from here.

Truer words have never been ..... typed?