Saturday, February 19, 2011

Working in the barn - Some pruning

We are still in the warm period. It was almost 60° in the wee hours this morning.
Around 1 AM a light rain began. Don't know yet if it was measurable.

I had an extremely blah day yesterday. Let's hope today is better.

Plans for the Day (optimistic here)

Milk cow
Finish cleaning Milk Barn
Plant some more lettuce seed
Tidy the house
Take care of chickens (got 5 eggs yesterday), turn them outside and water them
Pick up limbs from the yard (blasted Elm trees)
Tidy garden shed (where I keep the tiller and other gardening tools....have DH get it up and running.
Sharpen hoes.

If I get half these done, it will beat yesterday.

I have spent the early part of the morning reading blogs and articles about various greenhouses. I still have my pvc gh ends and the base boards. I should begin with those and then ad lib using what I have on hand. I got some good ideas on various sites. DH was less than enthusiastic but I will just use him for the grunt work.......

Well back to finish up yesterday's blog. It is now Saturday morning 4:45 AM, 56°.

I had a productive day yesterday but didn't follow my list too closely. I did milk and that went well so I milked her out.

I stayed out in the barn without coming back to the house. I began work on cleaning the back side of the barn where we milked the cows. This is now my 'potting shed'.Midway through the cleaning, I got side-tracked by a seedling Osage Orange tree brushing the roof line. I went out back and decided to do some tree cutting and pruning before finishing the cleaning job.



Of course, this required getting the saw, dragging the drop cord from the old barn across the barn lot the the trees....just barely enough cord to reach. Had to make a minor adjustment to the old barn door so I could open the hallway section where I plug in the drop cord. I want to show the clever fasteners used in this old barn...will do that later.

Mission accomplished. DH will do the clean up later. We have a huge brush pile back on the farm which we leave for the critters to hide in.


I hope to be able to pile some old wasted hay back where the trees were to keep down the weeds and especially poke that got 15 feet tall last year.
The other side of the ramp is the apricot tree. I did some pruning here too. I hated to remove all the low growing limbs because if I am lucky enough to get a crop, they are so easy to pick. I did remove some though.

I turned the chickens out and fed them some scratch and kitchen scraps. We got 7 eggs.
From Chickens
This is my favorite hen, a Black Australorp.
It was very windy.
From Chickens
then I was able the catch the wind blowing in the right direction to show her in all her finery:
From Chickens

We are out of bread so I will be in the kitchen this morning.

8 comments:

  1. Glenda ~ I always enjoy reading about life there on your farm. What lovely, good, egg laying hens you have. Enjoy making bread today and whatever else you happen to get into.

    Love and hugs ~ FlowerLady

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  2. Bet the gals where glad to be out and about in your nice weather and that you got a good milk out of Willow. Been really windy here too since yesterday morning. It blew all night and is still going strong today. 1:00 AM? 5:15 AM? Gosh. Do you never sleep, Glenda?

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  3. That black chicken is beautiful.

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  4. Oh, she's a beauty alright! I did need her picture to go with the blog yesterday! Glenda, how in the world can you get so much done? You are like my Mother in Law (that's a compliment, by the way) she never can just sit down and relax...always one more thing in her list! I'm sure you learned somewhere along the way, prob. your folks, to do a little here and a little there and just keep after it. These warm days sure have my spring fever going...have a great weekend sweetie!

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  5. Glenda you sure are staying busy,I hope you have a great day today. It has been windy here today too. Yeasterday was very pretty part of the day. We had a little rain in the evening. I love your chickens. Blessings jane

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  6. Your black chicken is just delightful~! So pretty. Can a chicken be pretty ~ well this one is and so regal looking.
    All this busy ness is good for all your joints and well keep you looking and feeling young.
    Have a Tiggeriffic Day~! ta ta for now from Iowa:)

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  7. Oh that Black hen IS a beauty! You were so busy that I know I would have a hard time keeping up with you!!!...:)JP

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  8. I enjoyed seeing your chickens. I get sidetracked quite often. I hope your apricot tree does well. I am not good at figuring out how and when to prune trees and bushes.

    Oh, I think the mud prints on my critter post are from an opossum.

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