A little road progress

It’s very hot here now, and so terribly dry, that Jim and I decided we’d spend just a few hours in the morning today, tomorrow and Monday working on the road into the property.  We left at seven this morning, and were unloaded and working just before eight.

 

That blue thing on the back is the chipper.  It can handle up to a six inch branch or tree, but we usually just chip things about three inches and smaller, and cut everything else into firewood.

Here’s a picture from the highway, looking down the easement which we are building the road on. 

I don’t know if you can see well enough or not, but I inserted a white arrow down near the end of the easement.  That’s a quarter mile to that point, then our easement turns to the right and goes a hundred feet or so further into to the property entrance.  The arrow is pointing to the neighbors gate.

 Same area, but taken from near the bottom, about a hundred feet in from the same gate, looking back towards the highway.  I inserted another white arrow in this photo, pointing at a green t-post which marks the boundary of the easement.  It’s sixty feet wide, and goes from the treed fence line over to the post.   

 One of several large piles of dozed trees.  This is the one we started to tackle today.  I’m so very grateful that we have a grapple for the front end loader, as we are able to get a hold of a tree and drag it out of the pile… a nightmare job otherwise!

 Jim chainsawed up trees while I hauled and stacked the resulting firewood, and I chipped all the branches less than three inches in size.  You can’t even tell we worked on it for four hours!

And one of many, many stumps, roots and dirt intact.  Anyone have any brilliant ideas (from experience) on what to do with all of these?  They are too large to haul with the front end loader, but we can drag them with a chain.  Maybe enough dirt will bounce off doing so to burn them?

Scrappy quilt progress

And yes… I’m actually making progress!  In between gardening, watering and road work, I keep squeezing in a few minutes here and there to work on this.  There will be a black border (appliqued) between the center and the pieced border.

I dug up twenty one more pounds of potatoes this morning, rejoiced over the gorgeous worms in the soil, added some compost, and replanted the bed with purple hull peas.

After planting the peas, I cut mint to dry.

I filled seven trays like this, and by the time it’s dry, I should have more culinary herbs to dry.  I did marjoram and oregano last week, my basil isn’t big enough to dry yet.  I’m also going to dry some berries, and some blackberry leaves… one of my goals this year is to learn to make my own tea blends.  I love mint teas, and so I’m growing a variety of flavors… spearamint, mint julep, chocolate, apple, orange, sweet and peppermint.

Our peaches should be ready to pick any day now, the blueberries are ripening and of course the strawberries go all summer long.

I ground wheat last night and we had sourdough waffles for breakfast, with fresh berries!  Yummy!

Did I mention I’m down seventeen pounds?  Woohoo!

The long road

Jim and I had a long, brutal weekend!  We spent from ten in the morning until after eight in the evening out on the land both Saturday and Sunday.  The quarter mile stretch from the road to our property entrance has been dozed.  I would never choose to put that long of a run in a straight line, but of course the choise wasn’t ours as that section is a deeded access easement, sixty foot wide.

Remember me saying I’m too old to drive fenceposts and I’d never do it again?  Yeah.  I drove quite a few this weekend.  I’m definitely too old.  Especially when it’s ninety five degrees outside and it hasn’t rained in two months.

We now have huge piles of downed trees that will have to be cleaned up before the actual road construction can begin.  Jim will man the chainsaw, and I will man the chipper.  What can be cut into firewood will be, and the rest will be chipped for mulch.  I think I’d almost drive fenceposts than to feed the chipper all day, it’ll beat your body up!

I think it will probably take us the better part of a year to finish this section of the road. It isn’t going to be an easy one to build, which means it isn’t going to be cheap either!  We have two homesites picked out at this point, one of which will be nearly another half mile in length… so a total driveway length of three quarters of a mile.  The cost to build is one thing, but I’m more concerned about the annual maintenance on it.  That’s a long stretch to keep on top of!

We had to tear down the fence along the highway so the dozer could clear out the trees, and then put it all back up again.  What a job that was!  Old rusty fence, tangled up, bleh.

Garlic!

Last year, not much of anything grew.  This year, even though it’s already been almost 2 months since we’ve had any rain, much of our stuff is doing well.  We’ve lost four more fruit trees and a number of pines, but the peach trees are loaded and looking good, as well as the blackberries, blueberries, elderberries and mulberries.

This morning I dug up our two beds of garlic.

After I bundled it for drying, I ended up with thirteen dozen bundles, not too shabby!  Once it’s dry, I’ll braid it and hang it for storage.  Man, I love gourmet garlic!  I tend to favor the hot and spicy varieties.

I’ve also started digging up potatoes.  Yum!  As I dig them up, I’m planting purple hull peas in their place.

Inside, the bug to make a quilt has bit again, and I’m actually working on two.  This one I’m making (not sure if I’ll like it) out of a lot of my old stash.  I’m trying to use up as many plaids as I can.  This is called “Flower Box” from the book “Anka’s Treasures”.  The blocks will be sewn on point against a black background, with flower appliques in the borders.

I’m off to meet Jim for lunch, get some hay, and call it a day!  Yeah right… LOL