Rhubarb and dirt

It rained on Tuesday and is supposed to rain on Friday.  So I haven't cut my hay yet.  Lots of people misread the weather forecast for this week and have hay down and wet.

Thursday night I decided to dig the weeds and grass from around my rhubarb plants and my three remaining strawberry plants.   In past years I have lost most of my strawberry plants to weeds and grass, and all my raspberry plants.  So if I didn't remove the weeds and grass now from my rhubarb plants and remaining strawberry plants I may lose them too.

It took longer than I thought it would, but I got it done.

Two strawberries

My four little strawberry plants have survived.  Today I found two strawberries on the plants.

Garden path

I tried again this year to have a garden. I was late in rotor-tilling the garden area in early June.  Once I got the ground tilled I needed to lay down concrete blocks to have a path along the fences on the west and south sides.  When I had a garden before I had grass paths on those sides and they were a pain to mow in addition to getting muddy when it rained.  And I had various concrete pieces I needed to use instead of having them just sit around.

I laid down some blocks on the west side and then the rain started.  Lots of rain in June.  I finally finished the west path during Tammy's yard sale when she didn't want me around.

Then interruptions again.

The past few days, after letting the horses in the fruit tree and garden area, I thought I could quickly finish the path on the south side.  I finally finished today.

Needless to say - no garden this year.  But this effort should make next year's garden preparation go quicker.


The view of the area after I took up the plastic and boards used to kill the grass.  For the most part they did, but not completely.  It was tough going through the roots with the rotor-tiller.  In the photo following this one you can see how the grass is coming back.

As you can the paths are not straight.  I tried to align the large blocks with the fence posts and the fence is not straight.

Also as you can see, I had so many concrete pieces of different sizes and styles.  As these pieces were gathered over the years, instead of purchased just for the garden I had this and that and not enough of one style.

Function over style once again.  Good thing Tammy is not here else I would get crap on how bad it looks.

The three odd pieces in the middle... odd and ends left over.  They are not part of the path.  I just left them here for now.  They will come in handy when I lay plastic down later to kill the grass for next year's garden.

Garden prep

I plan to have a small garden this year.   A few days ago I put down some plastic and boards to kill the grass to make rotor-tilling the ground easier and have less roots for grass to re-grow.

Daisy inspecting my work.

Yellowjackets and apples

The yellow-jackets have been bad this Summer.  Now they are turning their attention to the apple trees. I picked a lot of the Transparent apples as they are ready (and bruise very easily when they fall to the ground).  I planned to wait to pick the apples from the other apple tree as those apples are tart and only sweeten after a hard frost.  However the yellowjackets aren't waiting and are attacking and eating these apples too.  Sunday, in between the rain showers, I picked most of the apples from the "apple pie" tree.

Considering how hot and dry the last half of the Summer has been I am surprised how large the apples grew.  They also ripened a little earlier though the heat made have had something to do with that.


The yellow-jackets mostly ignored me as they were very focused on the apples and would move away from me to get to another apple.  I was stung one my finger once when I grabbed an apple with some yellow-jackets on it that I didn't see.  I was stung by a yellow-jacket trying to get away.  Yes, it hurt.

Sometimes there is only a small hole in an apple's skin and there are a dozen or more yellow-jackets under the skin eating furiously.  I shake the apple and the yellow-jackets are like clown after clown coming out of a small clown car.

The yellow-jackets are so full of food they have trouble flying.  Here they are in the bucket and are having trouble flying out of it.

Here is a 32 second video of a yellow-jacket having trouble getting lift.  "Go, little one, go!  You can do it!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vge9FcQMjJE

Rhubarb weeding

After I weeded the raspberry patch I turned my attention to enlarging the strawberry and rhubarb patch.

I was able to save five strawberry plants from the encroaching grass.  Or "maybe" save as the jury is out on how they will survive transplanting.

This year the rhubarb plants have done well and are larger than ever.  I need to enlarge the dug up area around the plants as the leaves were now hanging over in the grass. This is as far as I got before I got distracted by other projects that required my attention.

Daisy would keep me company as I dug.  Sometimes she laid in the freshly dug dirt and other times laid on some concrete blocks that gave her a view.

http://tallpinescat.blogspot.com/2013/07/cement-block-sitting.html

Raspberry weeding

I lost my strawberry patch last year to grass...

Now this year the grass is trying to take over my raspberry patch.

Daisy came to keep me company while I weeded.  Sometimes she would search for mice, sometimes she would lay in the shade or in the raspberry patch, and sometimes she would act 'crazy'.

Here is a 1 minute 48 second video of Daisy and the raspberry patch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X81PRfN8UaI

Garden failure

This happened before I went to North Dakota.  I don't want you to think I tried to plant a garden this late in the year!

I planned on having a garden this year.  I hadn't had a garden for several years now and the grass grew in the old garden spot.  After I used Bob and Jan's rototiller to dig their garden I came down to dig my garden.

For the past month I had laid plastic and tarps over the spot where I was going to have a garden.

When it came time to remove them to dig the garden I found the black plastic killed the grass while the blue tarps did not.  Unfortunately I had more blue tarps than black plastic.

I mowed the grass then started to rototill.  The grass roots were dense and the ground was harder than I expected.  After a number of passes to break up the ground I looked down and saw lots and lots of grass roots.

 Healthy looking grass roots.

Very healthy looking grass roots.  Too healthy looking.  I lost my strawberry garden because I couldn't keep the grass roots out.   So I threw in the towel and quit roto-tilling.  I will have to find a way this Summer to kill the grass and its roots.  Then next year I will have a garden.

Once I quit roto-tilling the garden Daisy came and played in the freshly dug dirt.  Follow this link to her blog to see her in action.

http://tallpinescat.blogspot.com/2013/06/in-garden.html

Harvesting Potatoes

It's potato harvesting time. Last week the potato trucks started running to the warehouse down the road.  The trucks run six days a week all day for quite a few weeks.  That's a lot of potatoes.

Last week I dug up for Bob and Jan, their potatoes and onions. I had planted the potatoes and onions for them late Spring this year.  They gave me half of the produce.  The potatoes are two varieties: reds and Yukon Gold.  Yum.  Tammy and I already ate some of the really small potatoes in a crockpot meal she had made.

Mowing the fruit tree and garden area

Now that the horses are finished eating the grass in my fruit tree and garden area I mowed the leftover grass to give the area a cleaner look.  This was harder than normal as the grass was dried and tougher than normal.  Also hindering the mowing was some of the the grass was longer than the mower deck and stiff enough that the mower's suction didn't suck it into the blade to be cut.

This was dusty dirty work and my lawnmower quit when I was mowing and would not re-start.  I discovered my air cleaner was filthy and solid was dirt and dust.  Shaking and scraping the dust and dirt off the cleaner still left the air cleaner looking dirty.  So I ended up buying a new air cleaner.

The lawn mower still didn't want to run.  I took out the spark plug to find it black.  I scraped the carbon off the plug using sandpaper.  Cleaning the plug did the trick as my lawn mower now started.  After cleaning the spark plug I also found that the mower ran much longer on a tank of gas,

Next up: changing the mower's oil.

Strawberry patch weeding

I spent several days last week and on Sunday weeding my strawberry patch.  It has been years since I completely weeded the patch.  Usually I get half to two-thirds done before something else requires my attention.

This year, due to the wet weather, the patch was especially overgrown.  The following photo is when I only had 1/4 of the patch left to weed.  The whole patch was like what you see at the far end.  Yes, it was bad!

If these were not such great and hardy strawberry plants I would have given up on it and plowed it under and started new.  But I had gotten these plants a year after I came out here from a woman who pastured her horses here.  She had brought them from Miles City, Montana for her strawberry patch so they had to be tough plants.  And these plants are ever bearing, which means I get strawberries up until it freezes in the Fall.  And the strawberries taste very good.

So I painstakingly pulled weeds and grass for hours and hours.  My hands were sore.

The strawberries next to the rhubarb had been weeded once earlier this Spring.  That is why they look better.

I was surprised to find as many plants as I did among the grass and weeds.  It was a challenge to save the plants as the grass roots grew in and around the plants, and sometimes pulling grass also pulled up the plant too.

Completely weeded.  For now, as I have no illusions that I got all the roots.

Not only did I find strawberry plants among the thick grass, I also found a number of strawberries as the birds could not reach them.

Tuesday night I let the horses into the fruit tree and garden area in order to eat the tall grass down.  This is how I protect my strawberries and rhubarb.  Even if the horses didn't eat the plants, they do like to roll in the dirt.

Yes, the grass is a little tall in the fruit tree and garden area.

Ripening tomatoes

Guess what?! Surprise, oh surprise!   Many of my picked green tomatoes are ripening this year.  That has never happened when living here in Montana.   And the change has happened over the last two weeks after I returned from North Dakota.

The tomatoes a few weeks ago:

The tomatoes now:

They may not be juicy vine ripened tomatoes, but beggars can't be choosy.

And my three pumpkins are ripening nicely:

Garden tomatoes

I picked a number of the green tomatoes from my garden a month ago before I left.  Here are what some of them looked like when I returned.  Mostly still green.  Unlike when I lived in Minnesota, here in Montana I have the hardest time turning green tomatoes red. (and I have tried everything).

You can see that a few of them are turning red. Of course it is a race to ripeness versus mold. Usually the mold wins.

Corn! It's whats for supper

From my garden tonight.  Yum!

Fall stump smash pepper

A cold front came through Saturday evening and the full effect was felt Sunday. I didn't get much done Sunday. The warmest it got was 60 degrees. The wind blew. Off-and-on it would sprinkle rain briefly. The wind took some leaves from a few of my trees.

Yuck.

The day wasn't good for painting. I decided to try spraying one tank of herbicide on the weeds in the south pasture. That didn't go well as after 2/3s of the herbicide was sprayed it began to rain for real. I took shelter under and behind a large pine tree. I kept dry and didn't get too cold. The wind blew harder and moved around slightly so I had to move around also to try to keep out of the wind.

So much for spraying herbicide.

I decided to retrieve my pail of water I had left back when I had a bonfire on several tree stumps. I took my shovel along to fill in the holes left. I took an ax along as one stump had a side root that didn't burn.

I filled the first stump hole in with no problem. The second stump was a different story. I found the stump had burned down to below ground level and to where the stump separated into multiple tree roots. The more I dug the more tree roots I found. The stump hadn't been larger than normal but the roots were numerous and covered a large area.

I ended up digging and chopping almost half the roots from the ground. I dug to a depth of my waist when I stood in the large hole. Even though I tossed the dirt where I thought there were no roots, a few times I had to move some of that dirt because the roots went there.

I scraped/smashed my finger during the dig.


I dug on the tree roots for over three hours. I lost track of time. I came back to the house when it was getting dark only to remember the weather forecast was for it to freeze tonight. It is down to 37 degrees currently. I had to cover some of my garden. If I can make it through the next few nights the forecast is for it to warm up again.

I picked a few garden items. I was surprised to find some animal (a mouse most likely) ate the bottom off my largest green bell pepper. And also the seeds inside the pepper.

Deer damage

Here is what the deer did to my garden last week.

And not just deer. Bugs got to my broccoli.


My poor, poor garden.

On the bright side I had some corn from my garden tonight and it was yummy!

Multi-task day

I did a little of everything today.

First I weeded more of my strawberry patch.

In the photo you can see I had weeded earlier this month the rhubarb and a few of the strawberry plants .

More strawberry plants can be found under that tall grass. With so much grass the weeding is slow going.

I actually found and ate one strawberry from a plant that had been weeded around before, and a number of those strawberry plants have blossoms.

While weeding I kept an eye on the cattle. They come into the corral between 9 and 10 am and take their siesta break until noon to 1 pm. I wanted to let them into the hayfield and wanted to time it when their siesta was over. I want them to see me open the gate so they know it is okay to go through it. This is kind of working. When I open the gate, and they are nearby, they come right over without me herding them. Whether they are making the connection of me giving them permission to go into a new field is unknown.

All but one heifer immediately went into the hayfield. One had lagged in the corral and she watched the others go into the hayfield. She stood there and watched them as if she couldn't believe her eyes at what was happening. I called her and she came to and through the gate to join the others.

Then it was here and there to check it all out. Cattle would rush here and there to join other cattle in case those cattle had found some "primo" grass to eat.

With a larger and more open area the herd didn't stick as tight together as they normally do as it was easy to see where the others were.


I let the cattle into the hayfield through the north pasture gate. I then closed it as I want them to access water and the river via the middle pasture. This will give the north pasture a rest. All but four cattle knew the middle pasture gate was open once they wanted something to drink. The other four wanted to drink from the water through and came to the fence along the barn.

Later a number of cattle would come to the corral fence. I think they wanted into the corral to take their siesta. I guess I did a really good job imprinting the barn and corral on them.

Later in the afternoon I noticed the two girls from the house south of the ranch were along the fence with a number of my cattle. They have a fruit tree and I saw they tossed the cattle some fruit.

Each of the past several days I have fed my cattle apples that have fallen from my trees. Here are a couple photos of my apple trees loaded with apples. The photos don't really capture the effect of all the apples on the trees.

I painted a second coat of red on the fascia on the garage and the well pump shed. Tammy has been asking me all the time how much I have painted since she left. "Umm... not much."

So I think I have finished painting the fascia on the house, garage and well pump shed. I still had paint left in the can so I decided to finish the can by painting the barn. I ended up painting two walls of the barn's addition. I had to do a little scraping of old paint off the bottom two boards of each wall.

Tammy picked out a pretty red, don't you think? Even though the white trim has not been repainted the red already makes it stand out.

I have found that I didn't buy enough red paint. I had measured the areas to paint and calculated how many gallons I would need. But I found that I went through over two gallons just on the fascia when I only used a little over a gallon of primer on the fascia. Then this is all I was able to paint on the barn with 2/3 of a gallon. I only have two gallons of paint left for the rest of the barn and that is not enough paint. I don't get the newspaper so you'll have to let me know when Home Depot has a sale on their paint again.

Lastly I sprayed weeds. I sprayed two tanks of herbicide today. Yesterday I sprayed a tank over the yard, fruit tree and garden area and part of the NE pasture. I went over the rest of the NE pasture and the part of the north pasture I had sprayed a week or so ago. In addition to catching the weeds I had missed the first time I found quite a few new weeds had sprouted up. Still, I am making progress as it took me three tanks of herbicide to cover what took me 10 tanks the previous time.

Five minutes after I finished spraying it began to rain. We can always use more moisture so I won't complain about the potential of the rain washing the last tank of herbicide from the plants. It could be worse, I could have hay still in my field.

The two neighbors' hay is still out there. The big field is mostly baled with large rounds and small squares. The other guy is having more baler problems. He told me that a bearing broke on his baler last Sunday and that is why he didn't get the hay baled before that day's rain. He was out baling this afternoon but after getting almost a third of the field baled it appeared as if he had more baler problems. On the plus side for these guys is that tonight's rain appears to be light.