Last summer many of our plans went undone due to Hubby not feeling well for most of the summer. (We now believe that he has Lyme and Bartonella.)   There was only so much I could get accomplished.

Then with the cold and difficult winter those things that needed doing did not get done. So with the warmer air (we had a threat of frost last week) I have again looked around and made plans to “accomplish” certain things this summer. This is in addition to getting my garden up and growing.

So just in case you think we sit around and do nothing all day long except enjoy one another’s company I thought I would share with you what we have and will be up to.

This is the old grain crib that I started on last summer.  It is my goal to get this crib down and salvage what bits and pieces of it that I can.  I have already had a request for boards to make walkways through the mint beds.  There is some of it that is suitable for the furnace and we would have used more of it this winter except we couldn’t get to it because it was covered with snow.

To make matters worse after the spring snow thaw we had a pile of brush that had been snowed covered.  When the grass starts to grow here it takes a very short while until it begins to eat whatever is on the ground.    And usually the person on the mower just mows around it….

My biggest concern on Monday was the brush pile.  The grass had already began to consume it.    As I began to burn the brush pile I remembered that we needed pea fence material. So I trimmed off several branches and collected a nice pile.  I also saved out some long branches to put up for my “Telephone Pole Peas”.  

There was some wood in the brush pile that had “fireplace” size branches so Hubby came out for a few minutes to cut them up before he was called back to the house to help his dad.   Needless to say, that made it easy for me to just keep feeding the fire.  

And then there was the rose bushes by the barn that needed to be cut back. And since I had a fire already going it seemed wise to just get the mess cut back and the thorny canes put into the fire.

I managed this chore without drawing blood!  I decided to mulch down the grass.  Overall this job did not take too long and it felt like a real accomplishment.

While I was working on burning branches and tearing down more of the crib Daughter#2 was working on the rhubarb patch.  It still looks pitiful but not as bad as last year. Some of the new plants took root.  She got a lot done yesterday and then finished it up today.  Go here for those pictures.  As you can see she did a fabulous job!  She gets and extra dessert tonight.


This morning I went out and re-lit my burn pile, scooping in the twiggy stuff that had fallen out of the pit…added in more crib wood and the wandered off to side dress the tomatoes with compost.   As I began to do this, I began to think that some of these tomatoes are about ready for the cages to be put on them.  I had such success last year with compost that I wanted to put down the compost but that meant that I had to pound pickets.  You have to put down posts here in order to hold the tomato cages in place or on a windy day they will end up ripping out your tomatoes and taking them to the next county.  Now this is not an easy job.  The pounder itself probably weighs 20 lbs.   I only managed to get 20 plants mulched, staked and caged out of about 50 but it is a good start!!  A major accomplishment for the day considering that I was tired from not sleeping well last night.

I also mowed down all of the high grass from where the brush piles had been.   Hubby came home at 4pm from taking my dad in for a blood draw and asked if I wanted to go to town for a few minutes.  I was exhausted and gladly put up my tools.  

We will call this brush pile number two but in reality it is a mess that has been sitting now for several years.

Many moons ago,  my brother was visiting and decided to see how much pull he could get with his new truck...So he hooked onto the old crib barn and gave it a pull.  After a few pulls there was a big mess.. he was quite pleased with himself and I just groaned knowing the time it was going to take to clean it up.

After the said brother pulled it down he wanted to take out some useable boards, and in doing so, he twisted the mess into a bigger mess, then he drove away back to his home far far away.  

I have attempted to work on it from time to time but honestly, this is one pile I cannot do myself.   We did not want to torch it because we believe that there is some stuff that we might like to salvage from it and under it. (I lost my favorite hoe about the time of this incident)  Also, there are quite a few cedar boards still in good condition that can be used in repairing another barn.  Plus lumber that can be recycled into raised beds or compost bins or some other project that requires a boards. 

A little history on what used to be this building.  My parents always called it the crib.  I just knew it as a barn.   I do not know how long the building was there.  I do know that there used to be an old log house out beside it but I am pretty sure "the crib" was built by my grandfather. My grandfather used to have a sawmill out beside it as well and I can tell that some of the boards used in this building are in fact rough cut boards probably from his sawmill.  I suspect that the lumber my brother took out of it was some of these rough cut boards that had come from grandpa's sawmill.  I also remember my folks talking about grandpa using wood from another structure.  It is very obvious that the building has used wood in it.

In the early 1960's, a tornado came across this property and took down the log house that sat out there and every so slightly twisted the crib.  It stood for 40 years with that twist in it, which always fascinated me.   

Well, enough history and back to the beginning of what may indeed turn into quite a lot of work.  For starters, a project like this is not without some danger.  It has to be done from the top down and up until a year or so ago, I felt pretty confident climbing up on it but it has sat just one season too long and some of the boards have aged to the point of deterioration.  I have to be a bit more careful about stepping with my full weight.  Also there are a lot of nails to be wary of.   Not to mention the sections that all came down together that my brother twisted up with the steel cables when he yanked out the boards he wanted.

While the deterioration makes climbing on it more tedious, it has actually made the work easier because it does not take a sledge hammer to the pieces apart.

Just wanted all you all to know that there is progress on more than one front going on here at the farm.  So check back frequently to see how it is going. Ya'll have a good day now!

My children have on more than one occasion heard me exclaim "I live and breathe to clean up your Daddy's brush piles!!"  What started out as a frustration has grown into an affection joke.   I married a man in the Army, and lived and loved him for the twenty-two years.  During those twenty plus years, he was gone a lot, but it seemed that any time he was home he would make a brush pile for me to clean up while he was gone.  (Now, you know this is an exaggeration, yet there is some truth to the matter.) 

Some things never change and retirement certainly did not change old habits in my darling husband.   After retirement, and in our new surroundings, a brush pile began to take shape. 

It has been on  my agenda for two years now, to tackle this mess but conditions are not always right for burning brush piles...  This week, things were 100% right for this kind of work.  

We found this elderberry grow in the middle of the mess and decided to leave it for tincture, wine, and cordial.   Eventually this ground will be used for more herbs. 

We had a good time with this project and look forward to the next one.