Starting New

 Hmmmm to say it's been a while since I have blogged has is a vast understatement lol.  

Quite a bit has happened in life so I'll just be starting this poor thing over and going from there.  

Stay tuned and I'll see if I can get this this thing started and going again lol.

New MF GC1720

I have been meaning to post pictures and a review of our latest addition on the place. We purchased a MF GC1720 with some nice attachments. It comes with a front end loader and small backhoe that is easy to remove. We also got a 4' tiller and 4' brush hog to go with it.

Here are a few pics.

We also have a few older implements that will work on it. The tractor has a 25 hp engine and is 4 wheel drive. It can do a lot more than you figure lol. There are a few more things I want to get for it like a post hole digger but it is a nice little machine.

She does have a name too, "Red haired Sally".

New Fence and Gate

Wow, I can't believe it has been a year since I have posted. For that I sincerely apologize as we have had a lot going on in the last year. The oil bust hit us pretty hard causing me to seek other stable employment but that's enough about me.

The fence I started has finally been completed!  It was a fun venture and we have gotten a lot more done since then.  We put a gate in at the road. We have also been repairing the current older fences on the property or rebuilding them.

Here are some pics.

We hope to get everything fixed/repaired soon so that we don't have to worry about our dogs wandering around and give us the ability to start getting a few larger critters. 

That's all for now so see ya later!

Starting the fence

Wow, it looks like I haven't blogged in months and I do apologize for that. With that being said let me give an update to my latest project. 

A while back we had split some cedar posts from some trees we had cut down for the corners of the new fence we are putting in.

           Here is the start.

The finished corner by the road. 

Here is one of the H braces to go across the small creek running across the property. 

Now here soon once we get the T posts we can start running the barbed wire. The fun section will be in the bottom with the creek. The ground is so saturated there the posts might pull out. I guess I will find out soon lol. 

Well see you later all!

The vacation, or worcation.......lol

Well I have to say if I could have gotten one of the cats to help out things would have gone a whole lot faster.

I have been extremely busy the last few weeks at work so I have not been on here at all and I apologize for that.

At work they informed me that I needed to figure out some dates to use up my vacation time by the end of the year so I didn't lose them.  After checking the schedule to make sure no one else asked for the week I picked this last week of July.  It worked out really well pay wise.

Last week I kinda made a small checklist of things to get done here at the homestead since we had decided that we had not saved up enough yet to take a vacation.  Well it seems that things keep slowly getting added to the list as we go along but it has been going well.

The first major thing was I went and borrowed my father-in-laws tractor and brush hog to mow the knee to waist high grass and weeds on our twelve acres that we live on.  About 4 acres is wooded so that left me a decent amount to mow.  Our ground is pretty hilly so its not so easy to mow.  It has been a while since I have ran a brush hog and I quickly found out why its so labor intensive lol.  

One of the additional things that we did was use the front end loader to help boost me up to do some tree trimming.  This is when I showed the DW how to run the tractor.  She then decided she wanted to work on the driveway filling in a few potholes that we had.  She did a very good job doing it.

Now one of the unexpected side jobs we got to do is that the DW found out where our water line was when she was scraping some rock off the hill to put on the driveway.  It seems the water line had migrated up, along with the hill being washed down some.  The plus side was since the water was off to fix the line I was able to fix a water hydrant in front of the house that had been broken for quite a while.

The other thing we used it for was to cut up and move a rather large fallen tree out of the way so we could get to the barn at the backside of the property.

Now other than normal chores such as mowing the lawn, garden etc the only other project for the week will be finishing the siding on the back of the house.  I'm hoping this project doesn't grow like the others but if it does, I will tackle it like I always do.

I will say though I hope to take an actual 'vacation' on my next one and get in some rest and relaxation.  The problem is that I don't know if it's in my nature.

Update On The Strawberry Patch

Here is a picture of the strawberry patch we had started this year.

I think its off to a pretty good start.  Most of the plants have now sent out runners out from themselves so I'm hoping most of this area will be covered by the end of the season.

I will say I can't wait for that to happen so I can see how much I can harvest off of these next year.

I know the rain we have gotten this year has helped them out very much.  Also putting down the cloth and mulch helped to keep out the grass and keep in the moisture.

The rest of the garden has been doing very good.  I think we are getting an idea of what we want to plant and how much for next season.

So how has your garden been doing this year?

Lazy Days...

These last few days have seemed to be pretty lazy here around the homestead.  When I was on my day's off we were able to get a few things done but not a whole lot.


I went back to work yesterday morning for the shift change meeting and that is all I have done work wise.  It seems we are stuck in the cycle at work with being in between rig jobs right now.  It happens every once in a while.  The thing about it is that it can be a good thing and a bad thing.  The good thing is that I can get caught up on some rest, but the bad thing is that I'm not getting near the hours either.  Gotta love those two edged sword situations lol.

One of the other problems is that I really don't want to get started on a project here at the house only to get called into work part way through it.  When I sit for a long period of time though I think how I could have used that time a little more productively.  I guess I need to figure out some short projects that can be done quickly I guess.

The boys seem to have a huge amount of energy here recently.  If I could only figure out how to harness that I'd be in business lol.  They have been driving us nuts bouncing around here.

The garden has been doing great.  We have been fortunate with a good amount of rain and cooler weather than normal.  Today for example it has been cloudy all day and has tried to rain a few times so its pretty humid out there.

Well that's all I have going on right now.  Who knows maybe the week will pick up and it will be gone before we know it.