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FCL :: Day in the Life :: Aug 11, 2019 (Big Pasture Seed Prep, Caterpillar Tunnels Coming)

Spent some time this week tilling, grading, raking and drag harrowing the big pasture, readying it for seeding in a few weeks.

Second bucket gardening pallet is coming along well. Seedlings in the soil blocks are also doing well, especially the Okra.

Deuce get’s a lot of face time, as usual.

Received and tested our first (of many) Premier 1 electric poultry fence. Works like a charm. Poor Deuce got volunteered to test the fences ability to repel an aggressive predator, and the fence turned his ass around VERY effectively. Thanks Deuce … for taking one for the team.

Caught DJ (male duck) trying to mount the chicken hens again. He damn near drowned one hen. In his defense … I suppose … if you’ve ever seen ducks mate, they often do so floating in a pond, where the drake (male) holds the duck (female) mostly underwater while doing his business. What DJ doesn’t realize is hens are less prone to float. Oh, and that HE’S A DAMN DUCK NOT A CHICKEN!!!

I’ve decided to procure two or three 100′ x 14′ caterpillar tunnels between now and the end of the year. One of them will be used for aquaponic gardening (e.g. eight tilapia fish tanks an twenty-four veggie grow beds). The other tunnels will be used as greenhouses to grow crops year around.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: 28 Jul – 04 Aug 2019 (Soil Blocks, K9 Play Date, Kamikaze Dragonflies)

Another HOT week with limited outside project work. Can’t WAIT for September!

Created 640 soil blocks and planted some broccoli, cauliflower, beets, kale, cabbage and okra … all to be transplanted into garden rows by the end of the month.

Moved bucket-based cucumbers and basil into raised bed frames, and added a set of new cattle panel trellis’ to support cucumbers, beans, peas and other viney plants.

I know … I know … too much footage of Deuce and his damn tractor tire. I think I need to dig a big ass hole with the front loader and just bury the damn thing about 3 feet below grade. The tire, not Deuce!

Picked up a new Glock 19X and TLR-1 LR for evaluation. More to come (review wise) in the future.

My neighbors adopted a 10 year old male GSD/Labrador mix about a week ago, so we scheduled a doggie play date to introduce Miko to Deuce and Hunter. They got along GREAT. Miko and Deuce pretty much ignored each other, which was a pleasant surprise. Never know WHAT Sir Shitzalot (Deuce) will do around others. In this case, he was more interested in playing with the kids.

Just for grins, I do a little frame-by-frame analysis of two dragonflies that dive bombed Deuce while he was in the duck pond. At full speed, you can barely see the dragonflies buzz through. But, in slow motion, you can see how amazingly agile those damn things are. If you watch the second dragonfly that comes in from the lower-left, it executes a “turn on a dime” maneuver that … as a pilot … just freaks me out. I can’t imagine how many G’s that thing pulled in that maneuver. Try doing that in a Cessna 172 and it will shed its wings and become a lawn dart. I doubt even the F-22 Raptor can do that!

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 20, 2018

Took about 10 days of patient (mostly) waiting to get my Mahindra 1526 tractor back from the dealer’s service department, who did a 200-hour “scheduled maintenance” on it, e.g. changing all fluids (engine oil, transmission/hydraulic oil, front axle grease, etc.) and filters.

I ask a lot from that tractor, probably more than it was designed for, so I take good care of it. For example, I’m using the front loader to dig a pretty good sized farm pond, down to about 8+ feet in depth, and should probably be using a backhoe implement, because the loader isn’t really designed for digging like that. Puts a lot of stress on the loader, thus on the hydraulic subsystem.

The swarm of bees I caught and hived a few days ago have already consumed the 8 quarts of bee syrup I put in the top feeder the other day! Damn … those are some hungry bees. But, they are still very docile and seemingly busy busy busy building out the comb infrastructure, so feeding them is the lease I can do. They will pay me back in honey later, trust me. 😉

Chickens, ducks and rabbits are all doing well.

Discovered … quite surprisingly … a tremendous amount of veggie seed growth in the soil block mini-greenhouse. There’s a school of thought that you should water new soil block seeds for the first three days to allow them to get established … then water them aggressively every day. So, today was day three and when I opened the greenhouse I was shocked to see a LOT of green. The cucumbers in particular ‘went nuts’ and sprouted up about 3 inches in 3 days! Yikes, I’m going to have to brave the heat this week and get the first few seed beds prepared in the raised bed plot.

We had a severe thunderstorm watch in effect this PM, but didn’t get any rain overhead. Beautiful evening clouds nonetheless.

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 16, 2018

All the young ones (rabbits, chickens) are doing well.

We planted 320 veggie / melon seeds in the new soil block mini-greenhouse.

Added a new Springfield Armory M1A chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor to the inventory. Can never have too many M1As.

That young doe seems to be visiting us every day now, and getting progressively closer to the house. I think she likes baiting Hooey into the chase (SCUD-mode).

Hunter was kind enough to share her rotisserie chicken with me.

It is supposed to be oppressively hot & humid for the next few days … so we’re looking for indoor projects to tackle. 😉

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 14, 2018

Wow. Another long day.

Got the soil block tray system (now a mini, standalone greenhouse) completed and deployed into the garden pasture. Got 4 trays of soil blocks ready for seeding.

And, got the new bee hive fed with 8 quarts of bee syrup.

Trimmed the doors for the last set of 3 rabbit cages and poly-stained them.

Baby sat the rabbit litter so Hooey wouldn’t eat them (again!).

Add in the ambient heat and humidity, and you complete the ‘recipe’ for a long-ass-day.

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FCL :: Daily :: June 13, 2018 :: Bee Swarm Capture

We started out with three bee hives about 2 years ago. Last spring, all three of the hives swarmed, one of them twice, and I caught every swarm but one. So, we ended up with seven hives. However, in the fall — and for reasons still unknown — all seven of the hives swarmed out and vacated ALL of the hives! No bees left. It was weird. One of them even left a ton of capped honey in the hive when it left.

So, with that backstory, it is indeed interesting to see a bee colony swarm back onto the property. The swarm yesterday looks to have taken up residence in the workshop, probably in the hive boxes I have stored in the rafters.

But, it looks like the queen didn’t like the  location (probably too damn hot!) and they swarmed out again today, creating a “bee ball” up in the same ol’ tree they always seem to swarm into.

Looks like I  captured the queen on the first attempt, and there are signs she has decided to stay put in the new hive. Because her swarm is relatively small, I decided to go ahead and capture the subset of bees I missed the first time, and add them to the hive as well.

Lotsa sweat … but no stings, so a very successful swarm capture all the way around. 😉

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FCL :: Day in the Life :: June 11, 2018

Our day actually started at about midnight, when a huge thunderstorm passed overhead with a few lightening strikes on the property, one that destroyed our internet router/modem.

Spent some time (0:45 min) standing out on a spot on the property known to have the strongest AT&T wireless signal, chatting online with a Century Link CSR. Finally got a technician scheduled … but not for nearly TWO DAYS (without Web, music, TV, phone, …). Aaaarrghhhh.

Used gun maintenance supplies to clean and fix my Rigid finish stapler. Well worth the time and effort. Now I know how a pneumatic nail gun works on the inside.

Had a swarm of bees take up residence in one of many vacant bee hives I have stored in the workshop rafters. I’m used to my bees swarming OUT of my hives and back into Mother Nature … not the other way around

Sans web access, I had a lot of time to just play with the animals.

As the sun started to set, I worked in the garage designing a 3-tiered platform for the wood soil block seed trays I made the other day.

Something … not sure what … deer (I hope) or coyotes (I fear) were tripping motion sensors along the property perimeter all damn day. More than usual. As we wrapped up our day, they went off again, so Hooey and I took off, me on the KTM 990A and her on foot, to do a quick check around the property. Didn’t find anything. Alas.

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New ‘Elliot Coleman’ Soil Block Seed Trays

A friend introduced me to using soil blocks to germinate and sprout plants in a greenhouse (thanks Greg!)

I borrowed the design concept from YouTuber St. Fiacre’s Farm regarding the building of Elliot Coleman soil blocking trays from plywood, developed a cut plan to create 9 such trays from a single sheet of 4′ x 8′ plywood, and got busy.  See cut plan at the end of this post.  Basically, rip two (2) 20″ section, then two (2) 3″ sections from the plywood.  Then cut the individual bottom, back and side rail pieces according to the plan.

I opted to apply a coat of Minwax Polystain (color: Pecan) to help protect the plywood from our southern humidity.

After a few days left to completely dry and cure … I’ll make some soil blocks and get some seeds planted.

I need to grow SOMETHING to help feed all these chickens, donkeys, ducks and rabbits! 😉

Cut Plan: 9 Soil Blocking Trays from 1 Sheet of Plywood