Long post for the long winded

Yep, love my truck!

I have been tugging along in the work around the property, and not keeping this updated more, I apologize, so here is a nice long read for your entertainment! I have been keeping myself busy doing a lot of the smaller projects around here, so lets recap on the progress made.

Building the stairs to the coop

I took out the chainsaw and got my first experience on handling one of those things. After I was done cutting down three trees in a short amount of time, I was kicking myself on chopping down trees in the past with an axe. I know I want a simple lifestyle, but on occasion, little things like power tools are just awesome! I think its just a matter of having a healthy balance between simple and wasteful, and the world will be alright. I tell ya what you can keep though- a non powered push mower... one came with the property, and either it is dull, or they suck. After cutting the same row about seven times to get close to the desired height of grass, I am over it, I have no desire to ever use one again.. :P

Steps installed!

The other day while sitting on the porch, we found the on/off valve to a faucet that is really close to the garden under the porch (thanks to the toddler that brought us a piece of the deck board that wasn't nailed down.. kids find the most amazing things). I turned it on and found out real quickly that the pipe was busted right where it came out of the ground. So my newest project which I'm in the middle of doing, is to dig a trench to extend the faucet head out to where the garden is about thirty feet away or so. That will make life easier in the long run instead of our current situation where we run a plethora of hoses from different faucets over 100' away from the garden. So, plumbing 101 is my next goal at attacking. I swear by the time I am done here, I will be a straight up handyman!

Ramp for my chickens!

2 hinges and a sliding lock = chicken door

Put screens on the windows

Looking good!

I have worked more on the coop. I added a staircase to the door, installed a chicken door and ramp and put screens over the window openings to help prevent unwanted creatures from wondering into the chicken coop. All I have left to do is install the angle siding to connect the roof to the side paneling (mostly just for looks), and add more perches and/or laying nest boxes if I want to later on, then it is finished! The stairs took more time than I thought it would take. I decided to only buy one piece of wood that was pre-cut to make a 3 step staircase and use that as a template to make more for support. Everything went slow for some reason, but eventually I got the staircase built and went out and installed it. Again just like the coop, I had to dig down a few inches on one side to make it level with the door, after some kicking, stomping, cursing, and more digging, I finally got it to sit in there pretty straight and hammered her in! I jumped up and down on the steps and they didn't budge, and I am no small guy, so I am happy! After that I took the jigsaw and cut out a 13" wide section out of the bottom panel to create a chicken door. Took that piece of wood, threw some hinges on it and a sliding lock and boom, its a chicken door! Obviously I had to put in a ramp so my little chickens can go in and out as they please during the day, it just looks cool and so cliche of a chicken ramp... I love it.

One thing I know for a fact that grows through clay and rock is grass and weeds! Apparently it is what I am really good at growing in my garden. Every morning I sit out there for a little while with my hoe and dig up grass that is finding its way into my garden beds. Aside from the grass, surprisingly, the potatoes are doing very well! Its almost time to add soil and filler so they grow more and produce more. I am just delightfully surprised to see them grow.

I added 4 Romain lettuce plants, and 4 iceberg head lettuce plants, that were established to my lettuce patch, so hopefully they will take root and maybe do better than the seedlings. My lettuce seedlings aren't out of the race yet, I do have a few that look like they might turn into legitimate plants soon! Finally, while going through Walmart on Easter Sunday after church, I saw a knee high double stemmed Beefsteak tomato plant for only $10, that already has about 15 baby tomato's on it... so I had to buy it. It was sold as a container plant, but I transplanted it anyway for hopes that it will take root and do better with natural ground nutrients and water.

Sun setting over the firepit

Full moon lit up the night

 Aside from keeping busy, wildlife is always abundant here, some good some bad. Mice and Rats are a common woodland and farm creature, with them they bring disease and ticks and fleas, and in the middle ages, they brought the black plague. With that said, I am on a quest to rid the area of these cute creatures, sad, but they have to go. So that has been a side thing that has been going on for about a month now. I am starting to see less and less of them, so I think we are curbing the population a little bit. Good wildlife is always welcome by me. We have so many lizards, I have gotten pretty good at catching them again. After you catch them, they stop freaking out after a minute and actually will sit on your arm and crawl on you. The toddler loves them, and I love them too, they can eat all the insects they would like! I haven't seen a single snake since my encounter with the two copperheads, but wouldn't mind seeing a rat snake here and there doing their part to help curb the mouse population in the woods (I am positive they are).

Dragonflies are everywhere! Thank the Lord, cause I heard they eat mosquito's, and the more they eat, the less that fly near my ear, and I am eternally grateful for that. The bats have also helped with the insect count, and I always say hello to them as they swoop through the air at dusk. I am probably going to build some bat houses to encourage them to stick around the property (just don't want them in the property, say "no to guano!"...lol)

Another Arkansas Sunset

4- 4 leaf clovers! I must be lucky!

I have the luck of the Irish!