Thanks to all that have shown patience over the last couple of days of slow/no postings, I’ve been heads down clearing the deferred maintenance items and tackling urgent new requirements.
We had about a dozen large (100 footers) trees that were encroaching (read as: could have taken out a cabin) that we hired a pro to come in and drop. I have no problem dropping any tree, but when they stand a good chance of falling on one of the cabins, I wanted someone licensed and insured. So he and his crew got them down and me and my son-in-law cut them into 30 or 40 foot sections and drug them over to our burn pile.
While the trees were falling, the cows were birthing. Because we have about 25 acres of woods that border our two main pastures, and because when a cow is ready to give birth she goes to the most remote spot she can get herself to, I’ve had to go out and scour the ravines and brush to make sure they are doing OK. So far so good. Last year we had one that could not birth so we had to pull the calf from her stillborn. We were able to save the cow, but only because we recognized that was having issues. And the only way you can know a cow is having issues is to find it!
I also needed to clear up the garden. This year was the first year for my garden in its current location. The soil was so poor that most of my plantings would start but not do well. I’m commuted to beefing up the soil, so have a fairly large compost pile that I’m building. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m collecting cow dropping and using those as the primary ‘fuel’ for the pile, the balance is a half bale of hay left over from cutting the fields and the sparse remains of what the garden produced.
Finally, I broke down and washed the windows on the cabin. This is easy to do on the inside side, but all of the windows are either single hung or stationary. There are 36 widows that can be washed and 7 that cannot. I’ve built my cabin on a hillside. This means that the windows off the back side of the house are 10 or 12 feet above the ground (to the bottom of the window). These are cleaned with an extremely long telescoping pole with a soapy brush (for cleaning) and a squeegee (for ‘streak free’ water removal).
So that’s where I’ve been and done over the last couple of days.