They will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will plant vineyards and drink their wine; they will make gardens and eat their fruit.
We are a little behind on blogging. Holy Week and the Triduum were busy, plus the kids decided to start a little Strepidemic running through the house. So what can we say, it's been an off week. Happy cows are tasty cows! The willow and witch hazel in the pasture are starting to leaf out.… Continue reading Catch Up
Saturday was a brief spell of good weather between two rainy stretches. I took advantage of it to replace one of the frost-free hydrants. Taking off the old hydrant is easy. Just pin the elbow on the bottom and twist it off. I took the extra step of cutting the poly pipe and installing a… Continue reading Closing up part of the ditch
We dug a ditch yesterday. Why? Because we are the dwarfs. And therefore we are digging a hole. (Diggy diggy hole, diggy diggy hoooooooole!) Actually, there is more to it than that. Last year we knew that we had some leaks in the water line somewhere so we spent a good chunk of the autumn… Continue reading More Plumbing
This week has been too busy, we have only had a grand total of two hours to work on farm projects all week. One of those hours was spent gathering information. In the garden beds, in direct sunlight in the middle of the day, soil temps are about 50 degrees. Under the cold frame the… Continue reading Hoop Bender
Coldest morning of the year this morning. 25 degrees when I got to the farm at 5:30, so of course all the water troughs were frozen. This picture is from about 6:45, not 5:30. We've been having issues with this particular frost-free hydrant, one of the oldest ones I think, that the previous owner put… Continue reading Disappointment
This is why I like having all the tools for each particular type of job (e.g. fencing, plumbing, electrical, etc.) whenever possible, in some kind of consolidated kit, or at a minimum in a consolidated location. Seppi and I were able to grab the tools and get this job knocked out in about 10 minutes.… Continue reading Quick Job: Check valve on water line
Tuesday was the day we installed the pump. It was not a particularly smooth process. As the saying goes... Measure once, Cuss twice. When I measured for the box I was planning on using a simple sheet of plywood for the walls, then halfway through building the box I decided to make them out of… Continue reading Installing the Pump
Measure twice, cut once. The pump for our rainwater catchment system is an inline RainFlo MHP75A Automatic Booster pump. The idea is that it will pump water from the catchment tank to the water lines that feed the pasture. Obviously, this means that the pump needs to be mounted on a sturdy surface, and additionally,… Continue reading Building the Pump Box
We continue the electrical/plumbing project behind the shop, a little at a time, as we have an hour here or there. We really should try to hit it hard this weekend, but it is always hard to get time away from all the urgent things to get to the farming. We have deepened and widened… Continue reading Putting in the Conduit
Little Farm in the Big City 