Category: SMTL

Postings have been nonexistent over the last couple of days as I’ve been busy getting the winter work done in the garden. Some of that work took quite a bit of research and, despite my killer analytical skills, I should have researched a little more.

I did manage to get 4 apple trees in the ground along with 3 each peach, pear, and plum. The research involved determining which variety each required which ‘pollinator’. These had to align with my taste in fruit. Finally nailed it all down and was able to find all that I needed at a nursery between Huntsville and Madison in Alabama. I put these trees as shown in the diagram below.

The large square in the diagram is my garden (60 by 120) Mid size boxes are large planting areas where crop is rotated from one to the other. The small boxes are 4 X 12 raised bed planting boxes, there are 27 of them.

So, between getting the fruit trees in, planting 6 blueberry bushes, cleaning up the mess in garden that was left over from last year, and feeding the cattle I’ve had little time to post.

Super Bowl beginning in a few minutes, y’all take care !

Seven? Seven degrees on Wednesday evening for my little place here on the Tennessee/Alabama line. That’s damn nippy. Here is the historical reference (where ‘today’ is Wednesday of next week):

I won’t be alone with this misery, looks like half of the nation is going to get spanked.

It also looks as if the cold has it’s old companion–snow. Y’all stay safe.

There are many places like this here in my neck of the woods. Every time I drive past one of these old homesteads I think of who might have lived there and what their lives were like.

Time and life has moved on and the earth reclaims what these folk scratched from the it in the course of their lives.

I am determined to catch my own live bait, so I bought a 5 foot cast net a few weeks back. I’m (so I tell myself) manly, strong, smart, quick, and fairly coordinated so this should be no great challenge. After watching several video’s and applying a few discontinuous practice session I’m no closer to mastering this manly task than I was before I started.

Then I see this video. I am now a completely broken man. She is better at 90 lbs with a 8 ft net than I am with a 5 ft net.

The Christmas madness is over and I have a little breathing space before the soaking rains move into the area. Oh, then there is this:

I’m dropping all of the wife’s mandated taskings and heading out to the Elk River a little later this morning. I’ve put new line on the fishing rigs; 8 lb for the Crappie and 20 for the Bass. I’ll let you know how it comes out.

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.  

I read an article about Harley a short while ago on Breitbart that I believe completely misses the mark.  I’ll point out the error of there ways shortly, but reading the article brought to my mind some of the many journey’s I’d taken.  Below was shot at Yosemite a couple of years back.   Photo’s of your host with mods by paint.net. 

Looks like we are going to finally catch a break in the weather.  We have not had any reasonable amount of rain here for several months and this has hurt the farmers in area; particularly those in corn and beans.  All of the corn has been harvested and I suppose the soy beans will be taken from the fields in the next couple of weeks.  Cooler weather is also much appreciated as the fishing (not the fisherman) has been terrible.

Have a great day!

 

Not much chance of catching a weather break here in southern Tennessee.  The heat is bad for fishing and we could really use some cooler temps as deer season approaches; opening of bow season is this Saturday (22nd).  

This will be the first season that I’ve hunted with a bow (actually cross-bow) and was looking forward to dropping a monster.  That’s not going to happen any time soon as the bucks will stay well hidden away until the weather cools.  Next week (below) shows some moderation.

On the upside, the cross-bow I picked up throws bolts down range at 370 FPS.  That’s a blistering speed for a $300 bow.  It came with a inexpensive scope but will still group three bolts in an inch at 30 yards.

 

I finally stopped and took a couple of photos of an old homestead that is along Al. Hwy 207 roughly 3 miles south of the Tennessee line.  For a couple of reasons I’ve been reluctant to take photos anywhere except on my own property.  One of those reasons is that unless you have a death wish you don’t just—More—