Whatcha Up To???

[ksk]

Yet another storm started at 0615 here. No hail, but a lot of lightning strikes all around us... we got another 0.77" of rain. It's hard to get stuff planted in the garden again this spring. Now the sun is out...

Ventured out to pay the quarterly taxes this morning.

We got 0.9 down the road from you.I'll never be able to get my tractor to back pasture to put corn in a feeder,as I stuck it last week trying to do so.I planted corn yesterday.I was hoping to plant tomatoes,squash and cucumbers Friday but now looks like next week if I'm lucky.More rain in forecast this Sunday.

 

[whistech]

Got 2.3 inches here today but none of the hail they were predicting, thank goodness. Mr. Ranch and everyone, have you seen many hummingbirds this year? I saw 3 or 4 a couple of weeks ago and put out my feeders but I haven't seen anymore.

 

[Mr_Yan]

Just enough rain here to get the roads and sidewalk wet and make you turn on your windshield wipers. Lows tonight will flirt with freezing.

Just got one light bar hanging over soil blocks we made and seeded on Sunday (kale and broccoli) - five LED 60 W equivalent bulbs at 840 lumins each mounted in a row on a 42 inch long 6 inch wide piece of ply. On either side of this bar I tented foil lined rigid foam insulation. I'll post photos of the set up this weekend.

 

[w_r_ranch]

have you seen many hummingbirds this year? I saw 3 or 4 a couple of weeks ago and put out my feeders but I haven't seen anymore.

We've only seen 2 here the past few days... we expected to see many more by now.

 

[ksk]

We've only seen 2 here the past few days... we expected to see many more by now.

Put mine out 2 weeks ago,seen none.

 

[w_r_ranch]

ksk, they normally start showing up between March15th - 20th here. Weird year...

Made 2 passes of the garden with the tiller & then formed half of the rows.

 

[ksk]

ksk, they normally start showing up between March15th - 20th here. Weird year...

Made 2 passes of the garden with the tiller & then formed half of the rows.

I'm not one to complain about the rain but I'm wet over here.Glad I put in raised beds but would like to do some things on my place.It is dry enough for me to mow around the house tomorrow.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Did the weekly shopping.

Set half the stakes in the rows that I finished forming yesterday.

 

[Mr_Yan]

I realized we live in utter pandemonium in this house. Tchaikovsky's 1812 was playing on the computer and I was sitting on the couch playing sudoku for a break. The 1.5 year old was climbing up a toy box, going over the arm of the couch, and face planting into the couch cushion, laughing and rolling off the couch to repeat the process. The 4 and 6 year olds were holding couch pillows bigger than each of them and playing sumo crash pillow fight. While doing this the 4 year old is wearing a bathrobe that looks like a 1950s smoking jacket over denim overalls and the 6 year old is wearing patterned tights with about 4 different skirts over them. This sumo pillow fight started with the 4 year old was running around as a T-Rex terrorizing everyone else.

And this all seemed perfectly normal.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Made rolled wheat bread.

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Made rice with salsa this morning before heading down to the garden. We'll warm it up at suppertime.

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Planted the green beans & put the inoculate on them. Then planted the jalapenos, serranos, eggplants & tomatillos.

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[wolffman]

Spent the day dialing in the CNC lathe I recently acquired. I'm really impressed with the accuracy and finish so far.

Need some parts? For the Homegardening crew, I'll build your parts for the price of material + shipping.

 

[whistech]

Wolffman, I love it, what brand did you get? I programmed machine tools in the early 1980s.

 

[wolffman]

Wolffman, I love it, what brand did you get? I programmed machine tools in the early 1980s.

This is just a little Tormach lathe. For the price I paid, I could have bought a 10 year old used 'professional' machine. But, this machine handles the intensive CAD/CAM whereas the older machines won't. So far I'm impressed, it's holding .0005" and cuts 316 stainless no problem.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Dieter said he feels neglected because I haven't posted a picture of him this week, LOL!!! My lil' buddy was 14 weeks old last Thursday & he now weighs 38 lbs (he eats like a possessed pig)...

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[w_r_ranch]

Doing the beginning-of-the-month chores (computer maintenance/backups, clean toilets, jacuzzi & tubs/showers). I still need to do the septic system but it's fixing to storm & the temperature has dropped 10 degrees in the last hour. UPDATE: The storm missed us. We got just 0.035" of rain, although there was lots of thunder.

Water hanging baskets, pots on the porches & the wild flower seeds that I planted under the trees.

 

[wolffman]

It was supposed to be bad weather today with lots of rain. We are getting lucky, and it's passing just to the north of us. Fine by me, don't need it on the young tomatoes right now.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Bought a new squirrel barrier (collar) for Mrs. Ranch's bird feeder. Being that I used an oversized galvanized pipe for the post, I had to enlarge the center hole of the collar to make it fit.

 

[ksk]

Doing the beginning-of-the-month chores (computer maintenance/backups, clean toilets, jacuzzi & tubs/showers). I still need to do the septic system but it's fixing to storm & the temperature has dropped 10 degrees in the last hour. UPDATE: The storm missed us. We got just 0.035" of rain, although there was lots of thunder.

Water hanging baskets, pots on the porches & the wild flower seeds that I planted under the trees.

Ranch we ended up with .5 here.The wife and I went over to Oakland to pick up chicken fried steak dinners at the VFD and could see the storm going down I-10 at Weimar at 11:30 am.I saw on the news last night that Dairy Cone got hit hard in Columbus.

 

[Mr_Yan]

I've been rebuilding a section of fence and my back yard garden beds since 5:45 AM Saturday. I just got driven inside by rain after getting ready to set the side wall of the garden bed.

Old garden was a 2x4 frame with T111 ply as the center portion. The new one will be 2x4 frame with corrugated galvanized roofing as the center panels. The theme of this weekend seems to be "What was I thinking" as I uncovered layers and layers of different projects in my garden from various years.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Formed the rest of the garden rows & set the stakes for the tomatoes. Everything will be planted tomorrow.

Watered the wild flowers around trees (starting to sprout) & the garden.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Made a pot of pinto beans, then made Spanish rice to go with the beans. The will be served along with previously prepared smoked brisket for supper.

Planted the butternut, acorn & spaghetti squashes, cucumbers, soybeans & garbanzo beans. it was a lot of bending over & my back said 'enough', so I will do the tomato transplants tomorrow. I then watered everything.

 

[Mr_Yan]

@w_r_ranch Could you post your Spanish rice recipe? Most of the ones I find when looking around are either very involved (just shy of a true pealla) or at the level of chopped onion and ketchup with white rice.

 

[Mr_Yan]

I took the day off from working on this garden bed rebuild. After driving hard for three days I am feeling every major muscle group.

 

[w_r_ranch]

Well, it's too windy to plant the tomatoes today (I don't want them to get torn up), so I did the weekly shopping early.

Made bread.

Tomorrow lil' Dieter will be 15 weeks old so I weighed him again (so Mrs. Ranch can adjust his meal size) & he's up to 43 lbs. now. He's not so 'little' anymore, LOL!!! I picked up another 2 bags of puppy chow for him while I was out shopping.

 

[ksk]

Planted tomatoes,squash,cucumbers,peppers and egg plants yesterday.So far there holding up to the high winds.