6.18.2019

outside shift

Our land work has shifted from the inside to the outside, weather permitting. We are seeing dryer days, or at least occasional dryer days. Consequently our barn remains a work in progress. I am not much help with bendy, building or heavy duty type stuff but offer anyways. I think I just slow down the process :/ Most of what you'll see shared is all Brad's hard work, and work hard he does.


manure pit (politely labeled) 
freshly poured containing walls
Yard work is not a priority, but lessening constant sandy dirt tracked inside by multiple large dogs (& people) is. Over a span of several days Brad graded and graded, and graded some more, before spending our first hot weekend seeding and covering the sizable area between our house and barn. We went from an extended wet cool Spring to **bam** hot Summer! 

view from house deck of work in progress
view from driveway
view mid-way 
Ticks, coyotes and mosquitoes have taken the fun out of hiking with the dogs on our property this Spring. Sadly, our daily walks abruptly stopped. From what I can see our paths have become lush and overgrown. 

We ordered mosquito eradicators for around the house & barn, with hopes that after 15 days we should see improvement. 

mosquito eradicator
We planted three Autumn Blaze Red Maples along our driveway, where the Maples won't be an issue for our horses (they are toxic). Looking forward to seeing their Fall color! Happy Mother's Day to me!!


three new little trees, mid-left
Hay will be a challenge to put up this season in WI, due to wet weather. Our hot dry summer like weather lasted briefly. We are back to cooler days, which I like. Not ideal for growing things tho. 

Brad reseeded another field to grass hay. Two fields should provide us a healthy supply, and then some to sell. IF we ever get a good stretch of dry sunny weather. He also did most of the field work to replant two of our other fields back to alfalfa to sell. 


Autumn Maples with teeny tiny alfalfa in foreground.
The neighbors lawn is mid-strip, our new hay field behind.

A few weeks later we put in four apple trees at the bottom of our property. Cortland, McIntosh, Gala and Jonathan. Not sure how much we will spray etc, might just let them grow natural. I know I know apples get wormy, so we will be looking into a happy medium.

Brad up-cycled materials to build four protective cages.
Hopefully it gives the apple trees a fighting chance from destructive deer.
We are starting to designate a couple small garden beds. Repeat after me, ONLY A COUPLE garden beds!! We have waaay too many gardens at our old house. We put them in when we were younger and stupid ambitiously passionate about gardening. As you likely know, gardens are ever changing and never ending back breaking work. I learned the hard lesson many moons ago that planting Perennials doesn't mean forever, silly me. 

Altho I still love gardening, my body doesn't. Plans are to relocate some favorites perennials to our new home, return some beds at our old home to grass and redo the remaining. They need to be more manageable. Hopefully I can hand the care over...someday. This is one hefty goal, that I know won't get completely done. I'll be happy with whatever does get done.


For now, I am enjoying annuals and potted summer camp plants at our new home.

Brads old boots are made for planting

Barn post got finished & forged iron hanger mounted
I promptly refilled and hung repurposed baskets

New barn planters I "won" (the right to buy) at a fundraiser.
Table geranium is several years old, one of the plants I still overwinter *^*

Brad finished off westside of barn

He also built one raised veggie garden bed
to try, before possibly adding a couple more


Hope everything is going & growing well for all of you! Looking forward to catching up soon!!

7 comments:

Linda said...

Amazing! And I assume he also has a day job. I don’t know how he does it all. Yes, flower gardens are a lot of work. Mine suffered badly when we ran that practice. Now, I’m enjoying my gardening time again. The mosquitoes are awful here, too. I need to buy some of those eradicators. Although, once we dry up they’ll be less of an issue. I’ll file it away for next year.

Grey Horse Matters said...

You've gotten a lot of work done! I know how grueling it is to keep up with gardens that's why I don't have them anymore! My daughter planted a lot of veggies and fruit in containers this year in the fenced in garden pen. We'll see how it goes and see if she wants to put in raised beds next year. She found a baby bunny last night! I love the red maples, unfortunately, the woman we bought the farm from was a moron and planted them along the top paddock(catch pen)fence line and we really have to stay after the leaves in the fall. I like your manure pit, we've got to do something with the dumpster and are thinking of putting it into a hill behind the garage. We'll see. There's always so much to do around the farm in warmer weather. It's nice that you're able to start from scratch and do things the way you want. Everything looks beautiful. Love the boots!

aurora said...

Linda, Brad does have a day job. I think he finds working on our homestead rewarding. More of a labor of love, where everything that gets done makes such a useful difference. Yes, eradicators work best early in the season and should last for 3 months. We have noticed a big difference. We ordered ours online from Valley Vet.

Arline, a hillside sound like a great place to put a dumpster pit. Of course moving it & hillside prep will be challenging. What kind of fruit grows in containers, besides strawberries? I miss my fresh strawberries & plan to grow them again. I love container gardening. Happy harvesting!!

I am happy to report our wet weather is good for something, our grass is up and growing! Planted trees are thriving & veggies are coming along in our raised bed. Getting hay off the fields is a different story.

Grey Horse Matters said...

I think she’s got blueberries and strawberries. We have peach,apple and plum trees behind the garden. I honestly don’t remember what she planted back there but I hope they work out for her.

aurora said...

Sounds yummy!! We may plant more fruit if the apple trees make it.

Shirley said...

Looking good! I love flower gardens full of perennials, buying annuals is crazy expensive. Roses and day lilies seem to thrive well here.
I'm quite surprised that mosquitoes aren't a big issue here considering there is a pond on the property. But maybe because the water level fluctuates so much they don't use it as a breeding ground? We also have a lot of swallows who like to munch on mosquitoes. I vaccinated for West Nile this year - first time in a few years that I have done so, but it seems there are cases fairly close by every year.

aurora said...

I love daylily's, mine will be getting split and coming here. I am thrifty when buying annuals. I used to start from seeds, but found a garden center with $1.49 wave petunias! Fuchsias are my fav annual, and those are pricy here. I only get a couple. I used to over winter my fuchsia's, but they make a royal mess, get leggy and flower sparingly the following years. It's just not worth it. My old perennial garden beds were beautiful back in the day. I miss them, but not the work. You are lucky to not have mosquitos!