Off The Beaten Path

Winter started weirdly here. It was seven degrees above freezing and then it was suddenly minus thirty. And snowed. And stayed gross. And today, it is five above freezing, it rained this morning, and we’ve actually had sunshine. There hasnt been much of that in the last month. I took the opportunity of the thaw…

We have been racing the winter weather, trying to get the shed finished. Winter won. We did get the roof on ahead of the snow, but we’ve called it quits until spring with the build incomplete. The doors are up but the two windows on the front aren’t. We’ve stapled vapor barrier over the inside…

We started the greenhouse rebuild in September. We hoped it would take us one month. Today is December 1. We aren’t done. When I wrote last, it was early Oct and we had the steel half-walls up. It looked like this: In the two months since, we have strapped the sides and ends, added slabwood…

We havent made as much progress in the last month as I’d like, but we have made progress. The greenhouse/shed is not finished, but it is farther along than it was. This past week saw the diagonal braces installed and the first of the steel put back on. We’re reusing the steel that was on…

The last month has been a long year. A lot has happened. We have the firewood here (but not stacked yet) We have begun the process of rebuilding the greenhouse. We started by taking the steel, plastic and tarping off the tent structure, and then setting the new walls up outside the the existing frame.…

As usual, Summer has gone by faster than we’d wish. Fall will shortly be upon us and then the endlessness of winter. I’ve accomplished some of what had been planned for the season, but by no means all. We finally finished the kiddos’ structure. The tarp roof it came with is considerably too small, so…

Every once in a while, you hear a story about how someone put their very last dollar into a slot machine, pulled the arm, and hit a $280M jackpot. It’s a fun dream, but that isnt reality for most of us. We may joke about finding a duffelbag stuffed full of nonsequential bills buried in…

First day of summer, and things are almost violently green. We’ve mown 3/4 of the established orchard already, so we’re months ahead of last year on that score. We’re making progress on building the kids’ play structure The grapevines, t-posts and corner posts are in place now. I still need to get the diagonal braces…

My new linden trees are leafing and appear happy. The butternut and persimmon trees havent leafed YET, but hopefully soon. The asian pear is leafing and doing fairly well. I have planted out 5 hackberry (2 in the orchard, 3 in the nutwood), 5 buffalo berry, several high mallow, some meadow sage. I still need…

Seed starting, especially without an actual indoor space is a fraught prospect. Some things do fine. Other things categorically do not. I have seeded out my tomatoes and peppers twice now and have yet to see a single sprout. It is supposed to warm up significantly this week, so hopefully they will decide to be…