We worked on some pasture fence repairs today, mostly pulling out some janky stuff and putting up new chicken wire to keep the chickens in the pasture.
We passed the cold frames on to a new owner today. They didn’t seem to make much of a difference in the garden.
We’re using some kale florets that we picked today in our stir fry dinner.
We got a nice shot on the trail cam of a deer walking through the monofilament like nothin’. So we installed polypropylene deer fencing around the garden. It seems to be working, but we’re keeping the trail cam out there in case the deer try anything.
I planted the last batch of corn today. The previous plantings are all up.
We’ve been picking a few beans here and there, but I think we’re just days away from a good crop starting.
We installed three lines of 50lb monofilament around the garden a few days ago. The same day, the field across the street got mowed. The guy who mowed said he saw several deer bed areas. Since that day, the garden is doing better, but we don’t know if it’s because of the monofilament fence or the mowed field.
The volunteer orach plants (from the ones that went to seed last year) have been doing really well. We got our first handful of bush beans today, and there are tons of blossoms. I think the peas are done (healthy vines but noore blossoms). The third planting of corn is sprouting.
Yesterday, our friend help us get the town-behind lawn mower that our neighbor gave us running. A kit with a carburetor, spark plug, fuel filter, and air filter was $20. Next I need to buy new wheel bearings for it and for the small tractor trailer.
We changed the oil and spark plug in the Sears tractor.
The Case tractor is not doing so well. The past few weeks, it has been hard to start, which was not a problem before. I replaced the spark plugs today. Most of them were black with carbon. I also topped off fluids. It took about 3 quarts of fluid in the torque tube and a gallon of oil in the transmission. The 3-gallon cooling system took a gallon of coolant. I replaced the engine oil, and there was coolant in the oil. That probably means it has a bad head gasket. Also, yesterday the clutch started to fail. Today I had to use the hand clutch, and even then, I had to turn off the tractor to change gears. One of the back wheels still has a slow leak, too.
I re-routed the temporary pasture fencing on the north side of the barn so that I can access the tractor parking area again. The sheep will probably have that extra pasture area finished off in the next two weeks or so.
The chickens have finished off my kale. 🙁
We worked on building the trail today by spreading wood chips. We also put up fencing around the fruit trees that we planted a few weeks ago to insure against deer. I pruned the pear tree today. I probably removed about 30%, which is more than you should for a pear tree. It might cause the tree to grow over-vigorously this year. But there were a lot of branches growing downward, across the center of the tree, or crowded.
We also dumped about three tractor buckets of wood chips on Heather’s hügelkultur garden row.
The boy lamb looked quite a bit better the day after his first shot five days ago. However, he has continued to run a fever of 104, and he has been lethargic compared to his sister. She is very empathetic and spends a lot of time with him. This morning we gave him his second (and final) antibiotic shot. A few hours later, he was already looking better. But we don’t know if it will last.
Started building the pasture fence. We’re using stock panels and T-posts.
