Aaron's Bushcraftings

this is my Old Hickory 7'' butcher knife i modified to a Kephart-style blade. the sheath is cardboard wrapped in duct tape. the firesteel was a birthday gift and the cord is hunter orange 550 paracord.
I got the knife from the thrift store for $2 about 2 years ago and the firesteel about the same time for my birthday.

2014 garden

Here's another one the Great Leslie can try on for size! Natalie and Jessie found some dead potatoes in the fridge around New Year's. They tossed them in the compost bin. 2 weeks later they discovered sprouts so they transplanted them into their garden boxes. Today Nattie dug up her spuds, 1.5 lbs worth of boiling potatoes. She is so happy!

mid-may

the flowers are blooming and in the front yard, will likely continue to do so till mid-June, because of the shade of the large (unknown type) tree we have in the front yard. in the back, the grass is rising from the dust, the sunflowers are now about 10-12 ft tall, and the pumpkin(?) is setting fruit.
I planted a "mr. stripey" tomato plant on the east side of the west garden (say that ten times fast!) and it's as tall as Jessica. my lettuces are now going to seed and they look disturbingly like dandelion seeds...
i have volunteer cornstalks interspersed with the pumpkin and it came from the molded chicken scratch grains...go figure. i'm drying raddish sheeds on the back porch and i'll have enough to do several plantings next year...anyone want some seeds?
i had a drip line hose system that just wasnt cutting it for any of the garden, so I switched to a soaker hose laid on the ground and tapped into my yard sprinkler system for automatic watering...now, I have more time to enjoy my garden instead of worry about it.

St. Patty's Day

Well here we are again. we put in several things last month, radishes, carrots, nasturtium, tomatos, and marigolds (or as natalie used to call them "miracles"). here are a few pictures. these radishes are called "easter egg" because of the pastel pink color. they also go well bewteen lettuces (I didn't even know that lettuces repells the radish beetle, but dave the garden guy says so in his book). these are mild in flavor and come in "long egg" shape too!  the lettuces (according to dave) can act as a trap crop for aphids and these lettuces are also a "cut and come again type".

 



Natalie-Edison-school board meeting/concert

here are some pics of natalie's concert. enjoy

Garden Tools II

I've done some repairs/modifications to existing tools i've had around the yard.

This first one is a digging bar. I made it from the leftover beak side of a pick-mattock i bought last year from wal-mart.the bar is 3/4 black pipe with a piece of 5/8'' rebar down the center for additional wieght. I used plumber's putty to join the pieces after grinding down a nipple on the end of the beak.This fit just perfectly into the pipe! Dad's addage of measure 2x cut 1x works well, but I've modified it a little. Measure  & cut ad nauseam infinitum.
The second piece is the companion to the digging bar. it's the mattock side. I originally bought the pick/mattock from Walmart last fall. Three weeks ago i was clearing a small weed patch and stopped to rest a moment. while leaning on the handle,it snapped with no warning! I'm just grateful I wasn't swinging it at the time! Never buying garden tools from Walmart again (and if I can I'll just craft them from what I have lying around!)
Third is a leaf rake. the handle snapped about three weeks ago, so I put a piece of 1/4-in. PVC pipe onto it, shoved 5/8-in. rebar down the center adn bolted it on. Viola!
The last one is the first one I made almost a year ago and was the first one i did. I'd just bought the new leaf rake adn rather than throw out the older one wich had some badly bent tines, I just cut off the outer ones and re-aligned the innner ones. Now I have a rake that can get into the chicken house door to clean it out. (Eeww!)
I'll post pics here later.

I decided to get the garden going again, so here are a few pics of the things I've done to get it ready for late winter/spring. I made a screen and was able to get this stuff from it.
the wood I got from some old pallets. they cost me between $1-$3 depending on if they were good or trashy. i got them from a local pet supply company.I've made two garden boxes from the old pallets as well as a compost tumbler and sifting station.

here are a few pics of the work Jill and I did on the yard today.As you can see,the chickens have worked hard this past year to give us all this good stuff. Also, you can see Jill is excited to dig into this! We got 3-4 wheelbarrows worth and topped off our large plots.

Finally, here was our supervisor, working hard to make sure we didn't abuse break times. The last pics are of our new composting/sifting station. I'm happy to say I used stuff I had at home already (not really happy about the ammount of stuff I have for use though...)

If you look closely, you'll see i have my wheelbarrow under the sifter. i've tried it already & it works great, although I must say the chickens do a much better job of breaking down the stuff into small bits. I just love those little feathered tractors!