Some Rain

 It's the big weekend!

he UN-official start of summer

Two days of 91 degrees did nothing to alleviate the moderate drought.  We did get some rain Wednesday 5/27 around 6:30pm, it was predicted to be worse than it was for us anyway. got a little more on the 29th

I took Friday off before Memorial Day, a bit cool, good for working. I did some mowing before the weekend, Rose and I went food shopping.  It's supposed to rain all weekend now, WTH?

No more signs that the bear has been through...

We have not seen the fawn yet, Rose is quite sure the doe was dropping a fawn the other night.

The Maple 'Copters from the Old Farmers Almanac

Only once before have we seen this many helicopters come down from our Maple trees, the cherry trees are loaded with flowers this year too.  Not sure if it's because of the drought last year, or if it's a sign it'll be a bad winter.

Only Time will tell...

 

 

Our DR String trimmer broke a bolt that holds the ball head on the machine, it's 7+ years old now, seems a lot of stuff here is breaking down lately. Jarrod said he has an easy-out that'll remove the broken bolt from the shaft.

Yay!  I took an educated guess based on when Rose remembers her dad having the tiller growing up, I found a manual that appeared to be the right vintage online. I started with 50 year old tillers and found a 4 speed Horse model tiller manual.  Appears this was the right one, I ordered a Troy Bilt Genuine OEM Belt Gw 9245 from Amazon. It took all of 20 minutes taking off the old belt and prying the new one into place over the pulleys!  I was confident enough I bought two belts, whew... sometimes I get lucky.

Saturday the 29th, pretty much rained all day today, a nice slow rain, just what we needed. I'm sure it won't resolve our moderate drought here in New Boston, it can't hurt though.

We're watching the weather here, supposed to till the garden, we'll have to watch for a window on Monday... 

Our 2020 Garden below after one pass through with the tiller, it takes 3-4 passes to get the leaves, grass clippings, peat, and stuff chopped in good, 2021's garden will be bigger.
 

 

Zeb is watching, so you'd best be good!

Let the summer season begin

Let the Summer begin

The Cabana, or Gazebo, we've always called it a cabana,  anyway it's up, we had to buy a new one this year. A new one was $60 more than purchasing a new cover and bug net for it.   Bugs get bad here at times. We struggled this year the frame went up easy enough, other than taking a nice chunk out of my thumb.  Putting the cover on was a different matter they always seem to be small, we have to stretch the cover to get it on, this year we also had to use a 3lb dead-blow mallet too.

We pulled Rose's Dads old Troy-Built tiller out of the barn, it's ~50 years old, we had the motor replaced a few years back.  It's always a learning exercise at the beginning of the season trying to figure out the controls, lots of levers, knobs, all the labels are long gone, I do have a manual I pulled from the web, someday I'll read it all, it's pretty amazing going into minute details on how to maintain this beast, how to take the entire thing apart and fix what's broke.

I rolled it out of the barn, checked and saw some gas in the tank, switched the fuel shutoff to on, pushed the primer bulb 3-4 times and pulled. I pulled, then pulled some more, pushed the primer bulb again 3-5 times, it wouldn't fire. 

I started to doubt the position of the fuel shutoff, "it happens" so I reached down to flip it to the other position, The tiller wouldn't start, something is wrong, noticed I couldn't smell gas, you know that smell then the engine is flooded smell you get when you've over primed an engine. hmm, so I switched the fuel shutoff back to what I assumed was "on" in the first place and the fuel line came off the gas tank. Interesting no fuel dripped out, none, I saw gas but with the tilt of the tiller sitting in the driveway apparently there was not enough fuel.

I added more fuel, crappy gas can nozzles, don't get me going on these stupid EPA regulated pieces of crap that take at least 3 hands to operate, I spilled the obligatory quart of gas trying to get a pint or two into the tiller. I tried 3 different fuel cans (we keep several cans just for the generator) the first nozzle leaked like a sieve, put that aside, the second can the nozzle wouldn't slide to allow fuel to flow, WTF? Finally hoisting the third can up to the tank, the nozzle worked adding a quart or two into the tank.

I pushed the Primer bulb 3x and it rumbled to life instantly, YAY!  Once I found it, I adjusted the choke, and she smoothed right out.  Now I just need to find the lever to get her to move, all the labels for the various adjustments have long curled up and fallen off. I pulled up on the longest lever and away we went, off to the back yard to change belts.  That's a story for another day.

The old (7 or so years) Husqvarna tractor is still giving us some grief... I poured Baking soda and water over the battery terminals replaced both rusted batter bolts, replaced the fuel pump, and air filter.  It's running again, still requires starter fluid to get her running though.

Our Lilac by the driveway is in bloom you smell it every time you walk by.

Our Old House

The Bird house in the Lilac

We're tired of all the pollen this year it's coating everything.  Can't wait to be able to sit in the Cabana again.

Both the rototiller belts that I had are slipping too much to be of much use.  I ordered two new ones that'll arrive Saturday.  Hah they arrived Friday evening.

It's Crystal's Birthday on Saturday 5/22,  Jarrod invited us to go over there this evening for dinner. 

It's the local "Yard Sale extravaganza" in Hillsborough, a town wide event, New Boston used to do these too but that effort ceased once the woman running it couldn't run it any more.  We'll caravan with Jarrod's family.  Not that we need more stuff, it's the adventure, and you never know what treasures you'll find.

The bugs Black flies are bad this year, well, they're always bad,  the Skeets are just arriving too.

Sunday it's supposed to be 91 degrees today 

Iris's are blooming now too.

The black cherry trees bloomed, it's snowing petals across the back yard now.  With the heat today everything is going to POP today.
 

Stay safe out there...

 

 

The Big Day

The Big Day... Mothers Day!

The Saturday before Mothers day we hit Home Depot, and Devriendt Farm for a couple peat flats of flowers we don't have seed for.

Amazing plant prices, WTH... But there's no inflation... LOL.  A single tomato or pepper plant is $4.00 each now, a Rhubarb plant in a 6" pot $16, single Raspberry cane in a 6" pot $12, funny, we mow this stuff down on a regular basis here...

We need to think about splitting up the Daffs, Hostas and Rhubarb next spring, maybe sell some of them at the end of the driveway.  I'm going to try and pin some of the Blackberry bush canes in a pot to propagate some of those too.

Forsythia would be another plant to pot up for sure, we have plenty of pots left over from our greenhouse days. 

Rose has a rack of bottles on the sill with Daffs...

Orioles are here, tried to get some pics, you'd think they knew I had the camera out, very elusive... oh, and the goldfinches arrived today 5/8.

 

Our pet Sparrow that sits on the back porch every night is back, he brought his girlfriend one night for a sleepover, we haven't seen her since, fickle sparrow.

Our Lawn tractor died, just died, no power to anything, not even the hour meter turns on, great, we depend on the tractor to move so much material on the farm. I ordered an ignition switch, and solenoid to see if that'll work, hopefully cheaper fix that the repair shop.

The boys were over a couple weekends ago and we cut down a BUNCH of the wild roses, I need to go check on how they are drying out.

Out dump trailer tires need replacing, they're cracking and losing air over a weeks time, I have the tires buy need to change them out yet. I'll wait until we're done hauling the Wild Roses to replace them.

Boat trailer need to have the LED trailer lights replaced too.  Getting dunked in the water every time you launch and pickup the boat takes it's toll. 

We're hoping to start putting up the cabana this week, boy the weekends go fast lately.

Jarrod, Crystal, James and Jason came over Sunday, NY Strips, loaded baked potatoes, and Buttercup squash from last years garden made for a great meal.   

Jason mowed the field with the new tractor on Sunday!

MAY DAY

MAY DAY

May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries, not the US though, it is rarely recognized in the country where it began, the United States of America.

 

We got some rain, and some wicked winds on Friday 4/30, we were driving through town last night, Rose thought one gust was going to lift the back of the RAV4 it hit the car so hard.  It's a good thing we didn't put the Cabana up yet, we'll wait till Mothers day, that has historically been safe, it's been an odd year thus far weather wise.

We had the grands over for several days helping us out here on the farm.

They worked with us on the Wild Rose bushes holding back the wild rose canes with steel tined rakes so I could cut the main trunks with a chainsaw. These gnarly wild roses that have overtaken the field road to the point that you have to drive the tractor down the bank into a ditch to escape the thorny branches that reach out to grab you as you attempt to skirt by.  Some of them are a good 25+ feet across, the canes are lined with a hooked thorn, I swear if you ever fell into one of the bushes you'd never get out they hold so tenaciously.  Rose would help me and the boys with branches that would hook me in multiple places so badly that I couldn't move without driving the thorns deeper.

We moved the Wise Ol' Owl sculpture to the front yard bed.  It's a bit gangly and takes two preferably three people to relocate it. He looks good there in his new spot.

Jason and I replaced the downstairs toilet, he's a big help.

Jason helped us open up the camper, he and Rose took the tarp off the camper and opened the slide.  Squirrel or chipmunk got into the camper, Rose was in there and found pink insulation hanging out of the A/C.  I'll have to open the A/C to remove the stuff.  We caught a mouse in there in a snap trap, I'd removed one or two earlier this year in traps.

Spring has sprung here on the farm, all of the Daffs have opened at once. Rose brings in several at a time and has them on the sill in the Kitchen, or the dining room table.

Dads crazy Plum tree (crazy because it sends up volunteer suckers everywhere along it's roots), If anyone wants one we've usually got plenty ;-).   below it is just about to bloom, the south side has just started opening it is the sweetest smelling tree on the farm, you can smell it half way across the yard. The sweet smell is only surpassed by the Honeysuckles later this summer.  Truly a stunning tree. Due to the drought we didn't get any plums last year, but we got a bunch in previous years.

 

Our apple trees buds are just starting to open

 

Lilacs are happy this year, both the ones we planted and the old wild ones blossoms are starting to open up.

 

Remember the Rhubarb that was barely poking up out of the ground a couple weeks ago, it's now putting up stalks, I want to try something different this year with it, maybe stewed rhubarb over ice cream, yum.

Today is working on cars day, I need to replace the Tucson battery before it strands us somewhere.  It died once this winter, had to throw it on the battery charger for several hours before it would start up.

Garden plants up under the lights are growing like weeds, we may need to plant them out early.  Just about time to get the garden turned over, which means I'll have to change the belt and get the tiller going, etc.

The ticks are still bad, I need to get the tick stuff down, but timing has been wrong, I need to put it down just before a rain preferably.

What are the odds.  We're at Walmart in Hooksett, NH, I need a new battery and to have the TPMS sensors replaced in my tires.  So they had the parts but couldn't fit us in today Saturday, they said we can do it Sunday around 2PM, so the technician is writing our name down on the schedule and there's Jarrod Sanborn listed on the schedule for something at 1PM just before us. WTH are the odds on that?  See you Sunday Jarrod!