Field Project and Update on Things

Field 6-22-2014

You can see a big change in the field from last week.  In just a few days, it has sprouted green seedlings in the foreground.  I think it is soybeans, but I am not sure just yet.  In the background, rows of sticks have been put in next to some tomato plants.  I'm thinking some pole beans may be going in there too.  I've also noticed that some bales of hay or straw have been stacked at the edge of the filed.  There is a trailer parked at the far side of the field.  I'm thinking that might be storage for tools or fertilizer.  This morning it was 72 degrees Fahrenheit and winds were calm.  The sky is overcast, but there is only a small chance of rain or thunderstorms today.

Speaking of thunderstorms, we have had some bad luck this week.  A strong storm came through on Thursday in the late afternoon.  The winds were 50 to 60 miles an hour.  My husband and I were watching the hail come down when a strong burst of wind ripped off the top half of a tree and dumped it in our yard.  It brought down the whole crown of the tree plus about thirty feet of the trunk.  We spent most of the day yesterday cutting up the tree and removing the debris.  We have been reaching the exhaustion point from working on repairs after the plumbing disaster, and now this.

We lost power for several hours.  It was hot and humid.  At least the electricity was back on before morning.  Many times when we lose power, it lasts for several days.  We were lucky this time. I just want to remind readers that if I don't make a blog post or post a notice that there is a reason for no blog post it generally means the power has gone out.  In bad storms, we have lost it for as long as ten days.

The storms have been increasing in intensity around here.  In the last three years, many of the trees on our property have been damaged by storms ripping them in half.  We have a lot of trees that are so damaged that they need to be taken down.  It is really expensive to have trees taken down now.  In the last year or so there has been so much tree damage all over the state that every tree service has more work than they can handle.  

Anyway, cleaning up a downed tree diverted us from the plan of finishing up from the plumbing disaster.  I had hoped we would be done with it this weekend.  We were down to the last few items that needed work such as installing shelves and building a protective cover for the new drain clean out that was place in a closet..  We have stalled at unpacking the boxes in the den.  The rug in there is old, and pretty much the worse for wear.  We decided it needed to be replaced.   Yesterday morning, before we started the tree clean up we went out to look for an area rug.  We had an idea in mind, but rug prices have gone up since we last went rug shopping.  So we decided that we needed to bring our vision of the room in line with the reality of our budget.  It will result in a much more mundane carpet I expect.  At that point we decided to table the rug shopping and go home to clean up the debris.  When we have a chance, we will go get samples of different colors of carpet to see what works with the room.  In the mean time, the items that go in the den will remain packed up because it is no use putting them out and then having to move them off again to get the carpet under the bookcase.

Our other ordeal from yesterday was to shop for a new lawn mower and weed whacker.  Our lawnmower from the cabin was damaged beyond repair on the last trip up.  The lawnmower hit a stump.  Ordinarily the lawnmower has a pen that gets thrown so the mower shaft won't be ruined.  The pen did not drop for some reason, and the shaft lawnmower was bent.  It could not be repaired, so we took it to the dump.  Strangely, the same thing happened to the weed whacker.  It hit a stump and flew into pieces.  The spring that flew off was never found.  So we had to buy a new weed whacker too.  We will use the new machines at the house, and the older ones at the house go up to the cabin.  It is just much sooner than we had planned on doing it.  Anyway, my husband had been doing a lot of research to find the best mower, studying the best deck size, motor size, etc.  He finally decides on a particular mower.  There is only one dealer in our area, and it is not close to the house.  So we drive all the way out there, only to find that he does not stock the model my husband has decided upon. So we head for the home store to purchase a mower that had as many options that he wanted as possible.  That took up half the morning.  Although we gave up on purchasing carpet for the day, we did purchase a mower and weed whacker, so I guess the morning was not a total loss.

We are slowly but surely moving towards completion of the plumbing disaster clean up.  Today my husband is removing a stack of scrap molding from the work room.  My outdoor work bench is finally uncovered so that I can get to it.  It is the first time I have seen it in months. 

Now that things are winding down, I can finally get back to work on my projects.