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.
I hate it when projects have to get shoved to the back burner. God, in His merciful love, has therefore seen fit to decree that the farm shall always be filled with projects that are continuously being shuffled around the stove, to continue the metaphor, that I may learn patience, trust and detachment. One of… Continue reading Un-Ditching the Ditch
Early this year, in January, I think, we had two big willow trees on the farm cut down from some 30-40 feet tall to about 6 feet tall. There were several reasons for this. Both were in inconvenient locations. One was shading the garden and slowing the soil warming in the spring. The other was… Continue reading Tree Hay
Bit of a time crunch, but we got it done (enough) in plenty of time, at least two hours to spare. Saturday morning, bright and early at the Home Depot when they opened at six, Ryan made the decision to save over a hundred dollars by switching to 3/4" PEX instead of the 1" PEX… Continue reading Plumbing and Trenching.
Uncle Adam got time to do some digging yesterday. And... He found our water line! Only about 20" down or so, which is not typical for water lines around this place. It also makes me feel a bit ridiculous for having dug four feet down for part of the trench. We will leave that little… Continue reading Found it!
Another hour and a half of digging, still no water line.
Saturday morning, just like most mornings right about now, Daddy was digging a ditch, somewhere between 5 and 6 AM, and he looked at where the ditch started... And where the ditch was going... and realized that this is more or less the line where we want to build a gate across the driveway. This… Continue reading Squirrel!
Actually, it probably will not be the last ditch. But we have broken ground on the next stage of the rainwater catchment project. This is the trench that will run water out of the tank and splice it into the line running out to the pasture. And this is why hand tools for digging rather… Continue reading A Last Ditch Effort
Well, the water collection system survived its first rain storm... Mostly. We got a little over an inch of rain from Friday morning to Sunday night. The gutter downspout simply didn't work, it just ran out the fitting around the pipe. So Uncle Adam took the top off the manway on the tank and jammed… Continue reading Water Catchment System, Damage Report
Our rainwater catchment system has three parts, in the simplest analysis. Collection, storage, and retrieval. Phase one, and by far the most expensive part, was setting the the storage system, that is, the big 5,000 gallon tank. Phase two we knock out last weekend, setting up the collection portion of the system. This is the… Continue reading Rainwater Catchment System, Phase II
We have been doing site prep for a water tank install for the last couple of weeks. It was supposed to Arrive on Good Friday, but had to be delayed until the following Tuesday. It was supposed to arrive at 8:00 AM but at 6:30 in the AM I got this picture from Adam. It's… Continue reading Installing the Water Tank
Little Farm in the Big City 