Muggy- ness

My word has it ever been muggy so far this year. Outside for 10 minutes and sweat just pours off of you. Hope this whole summer isn't like this.
Spent the majority of last Saturday weeding and there were a lot of them. Probably spent about 4 hours working on the beds. Got some mulch and mulched all of the beds except the garlic. Still have a few weeds coming up in one of the beds. If you don't get them out with the roots they come back on you. And the strawberries really needed it. Wow that was bad.

Before

After. Not as many strawberries as I'd hoped so may get a few more. May actually get some next year.

Tour.

First tomato. A Solar Flare. 

Pre- mulching. 

The Wife picked some marigolds for $0.15 a piece so I planted the around the tomatoes. 

A few apples are hanging on for this year. Hope they're good. 

My rose seems to be doing well. I planted it next to the building. 

Someone is going to be picking beans this year. 

Overall view. Lots of work. 

WOF of the Week. 

Well I cleaned the living room carpets Sunday morning so I stacked their beds in the kitchen. Princess here isn't laying on the floor like a common dog. 

Until next time, stay inside.

2016 And Here We Go

Well let's see what 2016 has in store. I hope this year will give me a chance to lay back some and quit working all of the time. I've purchased a golf membership the last two years and used it a total of maybe 5 times? Rarely played paintball last year. Haven't gone backpacking since I don't know when. Bought a new pack 3 years ago and haven't used it once. It's nice too (it looks nice.) Heck, we didn't even go anywhere for vacation last year. Used maybe half of my vacation days last year, most at the Christmas Holidays.
After typing all of that and reading it, I do need breaks more often!
I know I haven't been posting a lot lately, been busy. That and lack of ideas too. But here's a good one.
List of things I've got going on:

• Still working on the upstairs of the house. Got the other main room and a half bath framed out. Need to do some wiring, insulation, etc. Also got to run main power up there too. I'll take some pictures for you later. We'll discuss this more....... quiet.
• We put in a pool last year. Still got to stain the deck though. 
• I also have to stain the deck on the back of the house. 
• Paint the front porch.
• Hah! Still haven't fixed my wife's bathroom ceiling! But now she wants tongue and groove wood on the ceiling (probably after seeing my sheetrock finishing skills upstairs. Hey, I can build it.) That and she bought some paint for the walls. 
• Laid out for some tile backsplash in the kitchen. Left it up to the wife to get it. So far she hasn't. 
• Work. At my job. Still do that.
• Finish some small furniture projects.
• Do some misc repairs and painting around the house. Starting to look a little rough. 

Smaller list than normal but the upstairs work entails a lot of things! Doors to cut down and install, electrical rough-ins, hvac units, carpet, etc. I keep busy. 

I injured my back December 4th and am now almost pain free. Almost wanted to get back to working out (my injury cause to begin with) but I figured I could wait a few more days and ease back into it. I've been taking steroids and muscle relaxers. Also got some pain meds but don't really affect me. My wife and I also joined a gym. She's been going and I believe is going to work with a personal training for 20 sessions. I joined for the cardio machines and a few leg machines. I have a bench, curl bar, free weights, and pull-up bar in the garage. I need to pick up some weight plates and a straight bar for the new program I'm doing. Ease back into it I say. And I have to admit I miss working out. Looking forward to get back into it. 

We cut the TV cord a few days ago. Had Directv for the time living in this house and it was nice except for a few big downpours. But with the cost going up I decided that was enough. I upgraded our internet and we have been streaming everything now. My oldest has a netflix so we've been using it and have successfully binged through Longmire (all four seasons), and have started Hell on Wheels. I signed up for a Hulu Plus free trial ($8.00 a month with commercials) and have started watching Vikings, Wings (old TV show) and currently watching Bob Ross. Yes we don't have live TV and will miss things but that's OK by me. We may get a digital antenna so my wife can watch the news in the morning. There's enough stuff out there. BTW, Longmire season five starts Septemberish.

Oh we got a cat. Not sure I told you that? 

Leia (Goes with Chewy the dog)

Took a trip through the garden Sunday during the windstorm and pulled some turnips. Cabbage still coming end but it's demise may be coming next week. Garden needs a good weeding. 

Garden is definitely going to be smaller this year. For sure. I couldn't keep up with it with everything else I had going on. Farmer's Market idea never materialized (thankfully.) I need to get some good compost (add composter to my list above) for the beds. They don't start selling manure around here until May which is after I plant. Need a source. 

Ordered some flower seeds for my wife but I don't think I'll need but a few things this year. Maybe look for some different squash and a new tomato. I've said before that I saved a lot of seeds from last year. A lot of different tomato varieties and we were given some pepper seeds in trade for some of the Solar Flare seeds. And I am definitely going to get my onions started from seed this year. I don't know why but I seem to fail at this.

Getting late and Bob is almost finished the third episode so I'm out for now. 

Happy Trees!

 

Past Week Review

My Staycation was last week and this morning on the way back to work I had a chance to mentally take stock of what I got accomplished.
Not as much as I wanted but enough.

Finally got the out building sided, painted, ramped, doored.

Saturday morning.

Sunday evening shots. Painted it to closely match the house.

I have to level out the ramp a little and secure it to the ground and build a step for the door. A lot of work when you do most of it by yourself. 

We also got our daughter-in-law moved out of their apartment and now she is a full time resident on our half acre. She brought her cat, Gunner, which likes to terrorize the dogs. Ginny wants to play and Chewie ignores him. They'll get along soon enough. 

I also built a berm bed for flowers at the north side of the garden. 

Speaking of daughter-in-laws, she has been good enough to start an herb collection this weekend, including planting out The Wife's herb bed I bought her. 

Tour some more.

Strawberries are finally coming in. We have a lot of sets on.

Two year old bush beans have come up but no corn sprouts yet. I did check to make sure the seeds were good. 

Blue Lake pole beans have also started up.

Garlic and onions.

Overall garden view as of Sunday, April 28th. 

Landscaping looking good after some minor clean- up work. 

Hope everyone has a good week!

April 7th

It has been a little while. Things have been happening.

We got the additional 3 beds filled and planted most of everything out. Hoping we don't get another summer like we did last year. We'd like some green beans this year!

Thinking of planting the green beans between the new and old beds. I held them back to have enough room to get to the watering house. Still have to run the new water lines and install all of the drip emitters.

Potatoes have finally decided to make an appearance.

We had some more 50/50 mix brought in as well as a truckload of mulch to do everything we needed done; front, side flower beds and between the garden beds. The Wife did most if not all of this work. She did a great job. And we still have some left after doing the new herb bed too. 

While said Wife worked on mulching around the gardens Saturday, The Boy and myself played in a big paintball game we've been planning on for a few months. 

Didn't play Sunday as we had a busy day planned doing other things. The Oldest Boy went on his next deployment, leaving at (finally) 4:30 am. Needless to say when we got home it was straight to bed. Not sure how long this one will last. 

One with the family taken by his wife. 

We know this wasn't easy on her. 

That's what I got for now. 

Crop Mobs and Layouts and

It's cold for our area. 3 degrees with whatever wind chill this morning when I left for work. I just bundle up a little more. As I have said, it's easy to put on more when it's cold but you can only go so far when it's hot! Got a few seed orders yesterday which surprised me as I ordered them on the 1st. One came from Oregon too. One order left and it has my WV 63 tomatoes in it.

I ran into an article a while back and saved it to post here sometime as I found it interesting. Crop Mobs. Heard of them? I haven't until I hit that article. Here it is as I can't find a web link to it.

So after that I did some more research and lo and behold, Crop Mob was started in my region of NC. Here's a link to their site. Crop Mob Basically what it is is a group of people that mob others to help. Not all are farmers either. Read up if you'r interested. 

I spent a little free time and made up an overhead view of this year's garden on Excel. I thought of using one of those garden planner programs but I honestly don't have the time to learn something new right now. Big To Do list. Here it is....

Definitely not set in stone but a general idea of what I want where. 

Speaking of lists, I took a look at the one I made at the beginning of last year just to see if i actually did any of it. Here it is BTW. And here it is with answers.

Build outbuilding CURRENTLY WORKING ON

Design and build water holding tanks to catch water from outbuilding for gardens Compost barrels SEE ABOVE

Finish framing upstairs for rec room and bathroom ONGOING BUT WITH DIL MOVING IN BETTER GET OFF MY BUTT

After electrical and plumbing complete, finish upstairs SEE ABOVE

Fix and finish side table NOT YET

Fix broken small chair NOT YET AND I NOW HAVE ANOTHER ONE TO FIX

Build two more card stock holders for The Wife ODDLY ENOUGH, DONE

Build trellis (pergola) over current garden beds NOT HAPPENING

Expand garden with in- ground plantings DONE

Start remaining seeds (a lot) this coming weekend DONE

Finish garage ceiling WORK IN PROGRESS

Yard sale WE NEVER GOT AROUND TO THIS BUT THERE WILL BE ONE THIS SPRING!!!!!

Fix cold water faucet in small bathroom NOT YET

Fix The Wife’s bathroom ceiling and repaint it HAH, NOT YET EITHER

Build Chewie’s new water and food dish holder NOT A BIG PRIORITY TO ME- FIL CAN DO THIS

Re- bend lawn mower blade bent when hitting big rock AHHHHH, LAZY AND WENT AND BOUGHT NEW ONES. I DON'T ACTUALLY HAVE A FORGE HERE ANYWAY.

Patch holes where I screwed up hanging living room curtains ACTUALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS

Touch- up paint on walls around house HERE AND THERE

Finish and hang pictures in my bedroom DONE

Redo front flower beds and KILL ALL BERMUDA WIREGRASS! REDONE BUT THIS EFFIN WIREGRASS.... YOU CAN'T KILL THE SHIT. IT ACTUALLY GROWS THROUGH THE FABRIC!

Fix lazy susan in kitchen DONE

Greenhouse NOT FOR A WHILE

Fix small car and sell FIXING CAR FOR DIL USE NOW

Taxes (Uhhhggg) DONE. HATE TAXES. 

Fix small 4 wheeler and sell NOT YET

Build paintball enclosure WHERE IN THE HELL DID I COME UP WITH THIS IDEA????

Build golf club holder for bags and shoes FOUND CHEAP UNIT ON CRAIGSLIST

Invisible fence for the WOF's NOT YET

Pool? That means decking. NO POOL YET

Landscaping the side yards DONE

And I’m sure there’s more; stuff that pops up everyday

Winning the lottery IF I HAD WON, YOU'D BE SEEING DEAD SPACE HERE

So in looking at this list it appears I didn't do a whole lot but I did. I worked out of town A LOT last year, it rained and rained and rained and rained and rained, and I did other things. Painted the home office, painted Squeak's room, set up Bubby and DIL in new apartment, items that just pop up and need fixing, etc. Seemed like the year flashed by. Working out of town as much as I did really took up time I needed to be here, especially on the garden. This means that The Wife is going to have to step up and help me out some more. 

Now my 2014 list:

• Finish outbuilding, including rain catchment system and composting bins
• Expand garden with three new beds and more plowed area and run water lines for them
• Repair existing water lines and install valves at each bed (so I can control what gets watered when)
• Build seating area near garden to enjoy the gnats.
• Build bird houses for Purple Martins!
• Finish repairs on small car. 
• After outbuilding is complete, move all items for there out there
• After items moved out of garage, finish ceiling finishing, including two new lights
• Finish 4 wheeler repairs and sell
• Garage sale March 1st.
• Build three paintball marker holders
• Finish Wife's bathroom ceiling
• Finish upstairs
• Patch holes in living room. 
• Back splash in kitchen (needed)
• Fix small furniture pieces
• Power wash and stain back deck and front porch
• Gutters and downspouts on front and back of house. Garage can wait. 
• Invisible fence for dogs. This will be nice to do. 
• Play more golf so I can enjoy my membership. 
• Lottery (to pay for all of this crap)

That's my general list for this year and I will be happy to get it all or mostly done. Well this should wrap up this post. What's on your list this year?

Stay warm kids. 

Seed Orders and Layout

Been a pretty good Woffie type of day. Cruised through my seeds on hand then poured over the catalogs. I am going to try more varieties of the same type of plants this year. I always have my standards but I want to experiment some to see if some different varieties will do well in this soil.
What I have on hand and what I am ordering.
Tomato
Large Red Cherry
Big Boy Hybrid
Black Krim
Beefsteak
Rutgers
Brandywine Pink
German Johnson
Katja
Abe Lincoln
Cherokee Purple
Eva Purple Ball
Amish Paste
Kosovo
Better Boy
West Virginia 63
Crakovic Yugoslavian
Costoluto Genovese
Scarlet Topper
Yellow Brandywine

Pepper
Yolo Wonder
California Wonder
Big Dipper
Perfection (True Heart)
Sweet Banana

Cucumber
Marketmore 76
Sweet Burpless Hybrid
Patio Snacker

Other
Fordkook Zucchini
Straightneck Squash
Black Beauty Eggplant
Early Long Purple Eggplant
Sierra Gold Melon
Clemson Spineless Okra
Alaska Pea
Honey Rock Melon
Obsession Hybrid Sweet Corn
Silver Queen Swee Corn
Chioggia Beet
Romance Carrot
Utah 52-70 Improved Celery
Inchelium Red Garlic

Also have the allotment of herbs: Basil, Parsley, Mustard, Lavender, etc. Amazingly I still have a bunch of flower seed packets too. I am not sure if they are worth anything now but they'll be worth a try I guess. I am going to be companion planting around the vegetables with some flowers that will hopefully help ward off some of my pests that like to eat. Beneficial insects may make their way on the half- acre too. I have never used them before so there will be some more research.

Will be adding on to the garden again this year. Get a tiller and I go crazy, leaving no dirt un- turned. Rotating the crops around some; moving onions and potatoes into the 6 small beds, tomatoes in the upper plowed areas, build a new herb bed by request and two more raised 4' x 8' beds. I did a quick sketch on the  pad with a cool app that lets you write on pictures.

Well that's what I have for now. Things will change here and there (definitely not planting all of those tomato varieties) but for the most part this is the plan. Hope your planning is better than mine.

Last but definitely not least it is The Wife's birthday today. Happy Birthday dear :)

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin........

Been on the run as of late visiting family and friends up north in the great state of WV. A big shout out on my updated header. We left early Thursday morning and came back last night. In that time frame we had two more gift openings, a Christmas big family get together, bowling twice, dinner with my sisters :), dinner with our great friends from the farm, shooting guns, general family photo shoot, and a few late nights but nothing too bad. It was The Wife, Squeak, Bubby and his wife, and myself on the trip up, and just myself, Bubby and his wife on the way back. I talked Amy into staying longer so Squeak could spend more time with his grandparents. The WOFs have been in doggie jail all along and I have to pick them up after work today. I forgot the blanket this morning so there will be fur everywhere in my back seat! I took pictures of various places I went to and posted them to FB, sort of a "Where's Jp" type of thing. Fun to do actually and I got some good responses.

In downtown Marietta, OH looking north up the Ohio river. The bridge links Marietta to Williamstown, WV.

Fenton Art Glass in Williamstown, WV. The main foundry shut down a few years ago and they are selling out the gift shop now. Sad to see it go. 

Gun range at Mountwood Park. The boys love shooting guns. 

Ground- level shot on my in-law's street. It was a photo for guessing and one of my friends came very, very close to naming it.

Picture of pictures hanging inside Jimmy Colombo's restaurant in Parkersburg, WV. All of the walls are covered with pictures and they have the best house salad dressing around. I may experiment to see if I can match it. 

Dinner with sisters night then bowling. Young against old. Young....

And old. And the old ones kicked the young one's butts. Been a looonnnggg time since I've been bowling. 

Taken from Fort Boreman Hill. That is my old stomping grounds below you, Parkersburg, WV. On the left is the Ohio River and in the forground is the Little Kanawha River. the bridges lead to Belpre, OH (damn Buckeyes.) Notice the floodwall? Concrete and earthen walls protect Parkersburg from floods as it has had it's share of them, the worst I believe was in 1913. 

Two views of the courthouse, dry and flooded. 

"Let's be Friends." Back when we used W.Va. as the state abbreviation. 

Took all of my seed books north to finish my garden planning but barely looked at them. And now have another catalog to look through this evening. That makes me about 7 catalogs now. Need anything looked up let me know. Off to finish my work day (yippee.)