Building a Greenhouse or what did I ever do before 3 1/3 acres, chickens a big truck and 10 foot utility trailer.

This project started out because I am mostly crazy and wanted greenhouse to extend my garden growing season. Maybe I should point out that my "garden" consists of three four foot by four foot raised beds that the chickens use to dust bath in making it difficult for anything to grow. And like everything I do it got out of hand, I started by wanting a 10 x 10 polypropylene hoop house like this

which would have been about $300 and taken one day to erect. To me wanting a 10 x 12 do it yourself greenhouse for about $800, six trips to Lowe's/Home Depot, ordering metal siding from my local hardware store, one more trip for a cinder block foundation plus a load of gravel for the floor not to mention the compost bin from Tractor Supply then hand digging the footers for a level foundation and starting the last week of October so I could get rained on wind blown and occasionally frozen. Because I want lettuce in January! To hopefully look like this.

And that's where a big truck and a 10 foot utility trailer come into the picture. I should also state that I wanted to do it myself, getting Marks help only if I couldn't figure out a way to do it alone.

The first trip to Home Depot resulted in 90% of the lumber I was going to need to frame the greenhouse. Picking a plan that had a barn or more properly gambrel roof turned out to be easier than I thought. After I learned how to cut 22 1/2 degree angles on fourteen 2 x 4's it was a snap but only if you discount all the very bad words that came out of my mouth. This is where not having neighbors comes in handy and the dogs and chickens don't care what obscenities spew out I me. 

So with the help of the chickens I had lumber to cut up and frame. It went from a trailer load of flat lumber to this.

Did I mention I am not a contractor so I built the frame then I crawled around on my hands and knees to hand dig a foundation. It was in my foundation work that I realized that I rock at making things level but I suck at square! So many very very bad words later I am level and square and I have a lovely little foundation.

After leveling and squaring then some more framing plus more sailor language and new bruises it resulted in this.

Then I wrestled with end walls and trusses and that's where the language really became colorful and the dogs and the chickens were embarrassed to belong to me. Some more bruises and a banged up thumb later as I was attaching my roofing material it was at that precise moment that I learned I rock at level and square but plumb, not so much!! Insert bad language here and maybe a piece of lumber tossed across the yard for good measure. Plumb means I have slanting walls, not good when you want something to last more than five minutes. Mark helped me fix that problem so now I have level, square and plumb down. I argued with 26 inch 8 foot lengths of plastic roofing in a wind storm, which resulted me me on an eight foot ladder trying my best not to become a kite. And that's when it started to hail on me. A few days later and two more trips to the hardware store more bruises and foul language I had this.

And with the exception of Mark helping square up the foundation, hold the red siding while I attached it, help with a few of the roof pieces and help me hang the door this project was completed by me! And it only took a month!! I still need dirt for my inside garden bed and a step for the door but it is sealed up and ready for me to plant some kale. A few details are the door handle made from a garden trowel and repurposed pallet for my garden tool holder. I think Mom and Grandma would approve.

So here's to a longer growing season!!

Wonder what my next project will be?

Bugs

I love the country life, being born and raised in a small town it was not to difficult to revert back to living in a small community after living in some moderate sized cities. I love hearing the distant crow of the neighbors rooster in the mornings and the lonesome sound of the train whistle as it lumbers by about a mile down the road. I much prefer the sound of the many song birds we have in this area to the police sirens of the city. It is not as though there are not bugs in cities there are and some pretty nasty ones to boot but I think out here in the country there is not as much competition with the human population. We have quite a few beneficial bug on the farm, I am seeing ladybugs and have come upon a few praying mantis nests. My lawn such as it is has a large population of bees from the big bumble bee to the tiny mason bee. The one bug that is on my hate list, a bug that I am convinced has evolved over millions of years to come to this spot and time only to make me completely insane is the tick. As far as I can see there is no reason what so ever for the existence of a tick in any of its forms, they are evil, vile, literally blood sucking parasites.
My tick saga begins about two weeks ago when the temperature went from 35 degrees to 80 pretty much over night. I noticed a tick on one of the dogs, it was pulled off and disposed of. Then it got warmer and the humidity level rose and we had a war on our hands. In thirteen years of English Cocker Spaniel ownership I have never shaved my boys bald it was a point of pride they have such lovely coats however and my apologies to my breeder Lynda for the bald state the boys are now in, it was the only way I could find the ticks without turning into a monkey and grooming the dogs every second of the day. So two little boys shaved and bathed then the big dog bathed then flea and tick pesticides properly applied and some due diligence on my part the problem seemed to be in hand. Did I mention that was probably because it got cold again. Round two began when Mark was setting on the deck running his hand through his hair and pulled out a tick!! I was so enraged at this point that I grabbed the needle nose pliers and the candle lighter and burned the tick to a crisp then pulverized the charred corps into dust, it ain't EVER coming back! Then a few days later I found one crawling me ME, the I am so grossed out dance immediately followed with another tick funeral pyre. Later that night Mark gave me one of those fancy little hand held BernzOmatic butane torches, the kind you see the TV chefs use to toast meringue on a fancy pie. This little torch burns so hot that it turns the tick orange right before it crumbles into dust!!
As cool and efficient as my new little toy is I still don't want to spend hours a day doing tick checks on us or the dogs so what is a tiny farm to do? Why turn to the Internet of course!! I am sure we would go broke buying pesticide to spray 3 1/2 acres every time it rains not to mention that it would be harmful to everything. Seems chickens are a good at eating bugs especially fleas and ticks. We are going to get chickens for that very reason but because as Mark likes to point out I am incapable of doing anything "normal" I had to have a hand built coop made with reclaimed wood from a guy 100 miles from us with a wait time of six weeks. He has my deposit check but it is still six weeks. So by the time I get it up and running with chickens it will probably be cold again and the ticks will hide for the winter leaving me plucking and torching ticks all summer. What is plan B? Turns out plan B may be a fowl known as a guinea hen. What you ask is a guinea hen, well to me it kind of looks like what might happen if a chicken had an affair with a wild turkey.
But I digress, here is the great thing about guinea hens a pair of hens can clear 2 acres of ticks!! and fleas plus they are not particularly fond of snakes either they also range out farther thusly keep the pests down on a mini farm. They do require a bit of training because they are not coop birds but to keep them safe at night they need to be in a coop although not as elaborate as a chicken coop. So next on the list of stupid things I have done is setting up a coop and training guinea hens, anyone want to volunteer as my guinea hen wrangler?

30 Days in 168 Square Feet with Mark three dogs and a fish

After being obsessed for the last few years with living small I finally got my chance. How small you ask well we are in 168 square feet if you want to break out a tape measure it would be eight feet wide and twenty one feet long. That includes everything bedroom, bathroom, kitchen-living room-dining room. And I love it!!! admittedly it is not a lifestyle for everyone but it is working very well for us. So well we decided to build a deck instead of starting construction on a house. There are a few things I have learned about living this small, the first being that it is totally amazing the "things" I can do without. What you need vs what you want. And how it proves a theory I have had for years that if you are not happy inside "more" will not make you any happier. And so we have been laughingly calling out new space the Mini Mansion.

So what is it really like to live in 168 square feet with a husband, three dogs and a fish. There is a lot of bumping into each other dogs included, more frequent trips to the grocery store as there is not a pantry. Weekly visits to the Laundromat, where I meet the most fascinating people, like the guy who asked me if it was ok to use his fragrance free laundry detergent to wash his hair. And a lot less cleaning! We do not have cable, dish or satellite instead we have a digital TV antenna and a 17 inch TV which picks up a beautiful digital signal for CBS, NBC, FOX, PBS as well as Create TV and Me TV. I get Internet through my iPhone and if I want to use the laptop I head to the local coffee shop where they happily serve me coffee while I surf the Internet. Instead of hearing ambulances and people walking by the house at all hours I now hear the stream in the backyard cows mooing, roosters crowing and the train go by a few times a day. When I open my front door at night to let the dogs out I am greeted by the big dipper shining in the night sky. So are you ready to move to the countryside yet?? Well as Paul Harvey use to say "And now the rest of the story." I had told Mark last summer that I couldn't wait for the first snow storm I envisioned myself on the couch looking out the big windows at puffy white flakes gently drifting down in the moonlight while I sipped coffee and counted my blessing. This was not to be my first snow storm, we moved in January into the middle of the field because the electrician/plumber was not done setting the well pump or running the electricity. That meant we did not have power or water, no worries we are self contained we have propane and batteries and we will buy water, life is good!!!! For two days anyway, then the temperature dropped for the South it got cold in the single digits at night and not above 20 during the day and then it snowed. We were burning through propane and in the middle of the night everything quit working, dead batteries, so start the Nissan back it up to the Mini Mansion plug in the power and let the car idle for a few hours. Life is good!!! For two days anyway, it warmed up just in time for the toilet to plug up, our fault as we were not putting enough water through the system because we didn't have any water because the electrician/plumber doesn't work in a blizzard. Finally about two weeks in we had water and power and let me say that when you are taking spit baths with cold water the fact that you can turn on a faucet and actually get hot water will make you do a happy dance!! We are settling in the dogs are falling into a new routine life is good!! For about two days!! Then we had a mouse invade, let me just say I HATE mice, dirty smelly disease ridden yuck!!! I went insane put decon everywhere and Lysoled and clorxed everything and when I say everything I mean everything. No mouse droppings for a day or so then we turned on the furnace and it smelled exactly like burning straw. That's because it was burning straw, my little mouse friend had built the cutest little next in my furnace duct, well dryer vent ducting really but that's not the point. Mark looked at me and asked if I wanted to clean it out or if I wanted new, I just stared at him, right he says lets go to the store and get new. We left things torn apart and went to the hardware store came home reinstalled new duct and put it all back together. No more burning straw life is good, until later that night. We pulled the bed out for the night and my mouse friend is running back and forth behind the bed, I screamed Mark screamed the mouse screamed and ran up over the bed and headed for the bathroom. Mark was yelling to get him a bag to he could trap the mouse put it in the bag and get it outside, I grab a bag while he is vainly attempting to catch the little squatter. The mouse shot past Mark toward me I kicked it back toward Mark as he turned around it darted to the left through Nicks crate and under the bench seat for the table. This encited more caios as the table was torn apart and the vacuum employed to try and suck the little grey devil out of the corner. After the adrenaline rush had passed and more disassembling we discovered a hole which must lead to the great outdoors and realized the offender had escaped. Now we are sealed foamed and mouse free until the next time. Then Blu rolled in something green, slimy and stinky which he does on a regular basis and this required a bath. Did I mention my bathtub is about 3 feet long and maybe 18 inches wide and I have a 7 gallon water heater and that giving Blu a bath is a lot like chasing around a 25 pound little black greased pig. There was water and shampoo and dog hair everywhere but he was clean, until the next time. Cut to a few weeks later and for now things are as calm as they ever get for me. The puppies run and smell and dig and roll and are exhausted at night after keeping track of all the critter coming and goings on 3 1/2 acres. I asked Mark what it was like to live in 168 square feet and he just said that it is cozy. The fish has a great view of everything up on his perch next to the TV. As for me, we have everything we need and nothing we don't well except for the Fig Trees in the bathtub but that is a another story.

Life so far in the Mini Mansion

After traveling 2400 miles we picked up our new home and are now half way back to where we started from.

After nine days on the road 3 in a motel and the rest in the Mini Mansion at a BLM campground in Utah to Canyon De Chelly national park in Arizona to a dust bowl in Shamrock Oklahoma we have stopped for a day of much needed rest at Horsehead Lake in the Ozark forest in Arkansas.
As I was quickly becoming a mean, stinky, hairy woman it was in Marks best interest to find a place to say for more than one night. So here we are on the edge of Ozark national forest and as much as I hate mornings I am glad the dogs got me up because the view was worth it.
Here is what I have learned so far living mini on the go, the lighted parking lot at Wal-mart makes me feel safe when I walk the dogs at night the lights put off a romantic glow in the trailer right until you go to bed and the skylight above the bed lets the light shine in your eyes, I looked over at Mark and seen him blinking probably could have read a book!! Found some cardboard and put it in the hole to block the light, perfect!! until it fell on me at 3 AM and scared the crap out of me. Not to self don't park under lights. I hate dust so staying in a dirt RV park in Oklahoma was not a good idea by the time I swept the floor I had enough to to plant a nice little garden, note to self don't park in the dirt. Blu dog has learned that if you want to get from one side of the table to the other it is easier to walk across the table than go around. Cole has learned that it is pretty cool to stretch out on the bottom bunk and snore like a buzz saw. Nick has learned that it is easier to be even closer to me in a small space. Mark has learned that every time he leaves the cabinet door above the sink open his wife will hit her head on it. And me well I have learned that home cooking means tearing off the lid pealing back the cover adding boiling water, stir and let stand for 3 minutes is as good as it gets. And so here we are at the lake paved level spot, leafs on the ground and no dirt no spotlights in the eyes and I finally got that hot shower that turned me back into a human.
PS if you ever go to Monument Valley don't buy the Indian print blankets they are made in India

Be Careful What You Wish For!

For a few years now I have been obsessed with Jay Shafer and his Tumbleweed tiny houses. The premise is all about living small and living simply with only the things you use the most so that you have more time with friends and family. If you are interested in his designs you can click here: http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/  It is a style of living that would not be suitable for everyone I understand that however with my Virgo neat freak orderly personality it makes perfect sense to me. When we got serious about buying property I was ready to move into 200 square feet, Mark on the other hand was appalled, not that he minded living small just not that small. Except now we are going to live temporally ever smaller. We may have sold our house, we accepted and offer with a closing date the end of January. I will not feel as though it is a reality until we are signing the papers. Meanwhile we need a roof over our heads and water not to mention a climate controlled environment and most importantly hot coffee in the mornings. We are putting in place the things we need like a pump for the well so that we can actually get water out of the ground, electricity so that I can have my coffee because it would be extremely ugly if I didn't get my coffee every morning. Decorative fencing so that I am not chasing black dogs around 3 1/2 acres at 3:00am. All this effort so that we can move into an 8x24 foot RV if you do the math that is about 190 square feet or 38 square feet per live body that will inhabit the trailer. It's a good thing two of the bodies only weigh 25 pounds, but the big dog is like a third person, thank heavens they don't need close or we would be in trouble. As luck would have it our kids own this mini mansion on wheels and because they love us and understand that we are a bit crazy they are letting us use the trailer for an as yet to be determined amount of time. If you are desperate to see what it looks like here you go http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OdYiytooRc
Now that the steps have been set in motion Mark is talking about living like this for a few years and I am trying to figure out how to get the house build faster than the proposed 7 months!!! Oh how attitudes and opinions fluctuate in this house. We are also having a 20 x 21 foot two door barn built on the farm to store our stuff in so we have access to it and are not paying storage fees plus later it will give Gertrude a nice place to rest in between mowing's and a shop for Mark to tinker in. Technically we will be "camping" on our property and as long as we move the trailer every six months our "camping" starts over, by moving I mean hook up the trailer drag it around the block and put it back or maybe we could really go camping for the weekend. Well we would need someplace with power because my little Betta fish need his heater. Not sure where his bowl will go yet but we will figure it all out as we go. As soon as we get the mini mansion set up I will post pictures and give a tour. Can't wait to wash my clothes at the Laundromat, kinda makes me feel like a newlywed again!

I Think My Tractors Sexy, As Sexy as She Can be For a 66 Year Old

I like old things, I see value in old things. You are just as likely to get in the car with me and hear Nat King Cole or Doris Day blasting out of the radio as you are OneRepublic. I love the papery thin skin and blue veins of an older woman's hands. I like old trucks with ones with a long bench seat covered in vinyl so when you hit a bump in the road the springs in the seat make you bounce up and hit your head on the ceiling. I like the sounds that older things make like the creek that an oak floor makes when you walk on it, the hum of an old refrigerator and the chiming of a grandfather clock. So I guess it is fitting that for now we have put off buying that Kubota B3200 shiny new orange tractor that Mark wants. And instead have purchased a 66 year old 1949 Ford 8N tractor.

For some that may seem like a slightly crazy thing to do but lucky for me I married a mechanic so he can keep the old girl going for awhile longer. Lest you think I am too far up in the crazy tree you should know that the Ford 8N was the most popular tractor in North America. The N series tractor was manufactured by Ford from 1939 to 1954, the 8N was produced between 1947 through 1952. Between 1939 and 1954 nine hundred thousand N series tractors were made of that nine hundred thousand, five hundred and twenty four thousand were the 8N. What this means for us is some pretty amazing stuff. Due to the popularity of this tractor the Owners Manuel as well as the Service Manuel are still in print and available for purchase. eBay has 51 pages of items available from the entire tractor to fenders and air filters. The local Tractor Supply store still carries tires and the AMP and oil gauges.
I named her Gertrude before we even went to look at her. For me it was love at first sight. She is showing her age with dings and rust but I don't care. Gertie and I are a lot alike she is a little slow to start and so am I, she doesn't go that fast but she gets the job done so do I, she needs lead in her tank but then again so do I, we are both a little odd but we are alright with that. Gertrude will teach me patients because after all when you are riding along on an old tractor with a shade umbrella attached to the fender mowing your lawn you really shouldn't be in a big hurry and in return I will keep the rain and snow off her hood and her motor running for as long as I can. So if you are feeling nostalgic and need to know what it feels like to wrap your fingers around a big old narrow plastic steering wheel while you bounce along on a metal seat come see us. It's not quite as fun as Grandma pushing me around her yard in that old green wheel barrow but it's awfully close.

How To Plant A Tree

Or rather how not to plant a tree, just dig a hole and toss the tree in cover it up and you have fruit, its not rocket science right? Wrong!!! well kind of. Contrary to what I posted on Facebook we did go Black Friday shopping for fruit trees but I did not beat anyone with a Fig Tree to get the last 50% off peach tree. I reserve that kind of anger for something really important like not being able to find a knit sweater pattern on Ravelry so I can use up yarn I already own, anyway back to the trees. The nursery has a great selection of fruit trees we purchase two apples, one apricot, one nectarine, one peach and an Asian pear. We had plotted out where we were planting the trees the day before we had also hauled loads of mulch for a lovely ring to be placed around each tree for weed suppression and moisture retention. On Friday Mark diligently dug six very large holes as the trees were in 4 gallon containers, I remember asking him if he were digging a new well for water or was he on his way to China he laughed I laughed and he kept digging.

Since we are planting things that will need attention and come back every year I decided to buy a gardening journal to help us keep track of what we planted, where we planted it, when to prune it etc. On Saturday we spread our mulch rings around the base of the trees and came home knowing that Sunday would be a much needed day of rest. I sat down and started to enter the trees in the journal and upon doing some Internet research I stumbled up some planting information. I looked at my tired husband and announced "the trees are too deep and it is going to cause us problems" I researched more articles and Mark watch 7 or 8 YouTube videos and so the truth was finally admitted, all six trees are too deep. So what! whats the worst thing that can happen, well it turns out a bunch of bad things if you actually want the tree to live and produce fruit. First we will have a basic tree lesson. Trees do not like to be deep because they get there water from the surface not from some magical water source ten feet under ground. If you plant them to deep the roots will grow up not down looking for water, so what the roots reach the top and get water whats the big deal. I have one word for you: girdling now for me this word conjures up a garment that my Grandmother use to wear it took a crane and three or four strong guys to help you get into the thing and the purpose was to make you look more svelte.

Comfortable yes?? But I digress, back to trees and tree girdling which makes the tree roots wrap around the tree trunk and strangle the tree finally killing the tree it looks like this. Come to think of it they are not much different

Next is the problem of base support, if the roots cannot spread out to form a large base the tree cannot support its self and falls over. Also when it come to fruit trees there are three varieties, standard, semi-dwarf and dwarf, all this means is how large the tree will be at maturity. We purchased semi-dwarf trees. They get to be semi-dwarfed by grafting a stem to the trunk of a standard size fruit tree if you bury the joint you will change the size of the tree at maturity. I have no burning desire to climb a 30 foot orchard ladder to pick fruit. I am sure that there are other reason not to plant them deep but these two were our main concern. Let me state that our trees were at a minimum 8 inches to deep. What to do, what to do??? We decided to move the six foot diameter mulch rings and dig the trees up and start over, no big deal. Except if you remember in the first photo Mark is in a short sleeved shirt no jacket, that's because it is 60 degrees and we are sweating. Cut to Sunday it it is a balmy 30 degrees with an 8 mile an hour wind yippee. We look a lot like Ralphie's little brother from the movie A Christmas Story. Just in case you don't know what that looks like here you go

We fixed it!! all six trees were dug up and replanted at the proper depth mulch rings reinstalled and no animals were harmed in the process. Now all the trees are watered in and hopefully happily waiting to be pruned in late winter and will bear fruit for years to come. Our lesson learned is to do more research when planting because no one wants to go through this again.