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!

Garden Tools

here are a few pics of handy tools past & present. this one was made from an 8'' ripsaw blade, a brass latch bolt, a mesquite branch and a braided length of pink mason's twine. I cut the blade into shape and on the largest edge, i just cut off the teeth of the saw and ground a utility edge to it. the latch and the rope keep a bit of tension on the blade to keep it tight. due to its thinness, it was a nice sharp blade that took out weeds nicely. I gave this to Tara when she lived at the Ivyglenn address when she had started her garden.

This next one was my personal favorite because of its thin blade and the curve of the handle. the blade is from an old squarepoint shovel, mesquite handle, and some lag screws I had in the garage. It kept an edge nicely and was great for weeding in hard to reach areas.

This final one was also made from an old squarepoint shovel and

some bolts, and 1/4 '' galvanized steel pipe and a floor flange. this one I made for Jill and she used it on occaison. it was very good for

slicing weeds (or toes ir one was not careful!). I used it on occaison

and we still have sixty toes.

the Family Dog

Yes...it begins.
we all recall the little girl in her pig-tails dressing the dog in her bonnet and...UNDOE-PANTS!
there must be some truth to the fiction because Nataile yesterday had Max sitting in a corner and was putting a yellow washrag on his head and changing its shape.
"Now you're cornflower"...washrag changes shape, still on dog's head-
"Now you're getting married"...another change-
"Now you're Jewish..."

Jewish!
I'm going to have to watch that show again. Where are the Jews in there? Can I get a Jew verification please? Oh, I can feel the grey hair a-comming. Oye Veh!

HI MAX!!

Meet Max, our new AZ Humane Soceity dog. His full name is Maximillian Fatdoggeeus. We'll be going on daily walks to turn him into Maximus Schwartzebeagle.