Kitchen drawers and pulls

Once the weather got nice it was time to put poly on the cherry drawers Chris had built so far. 

Poly station set up in the car port

A whole lot of drawers

The drawers in the stack by the stove also needed poly and also needed some help on the drawer pulls. My plan to use Loc-Tite to hold the antique spoons to the mounting bolts worked great all winter. Then summer hit and I don't know if it was the humidity or what, but the glue started to fail and the pulls fell off. Not all of them, but quite a few. So I needed to come up with a different mounting mechanism. I decided to try a two-part epoxy called JB-Weld. I also figured some extra attachment would be a good idea so I grabbed some jewelry copper wire and some embroidery floss and got creative. 

Copper wire, beads, embroidery floss

The wire (or floss) wraps around the spoon and then attaches (or ties) to the mounting bolt. So not only is the spoon glued on, it's got some extra support from the wire.

I like the contrast between the silver and copper

I think the floss looks surprisingly good and mixes up the textures a bit.

The drawers on the North wall are getting the same type of treatment. Note that the cherry here hasn't been exposed to light as long so it looks a lighter color than the drawers above. It'll all mellow out to approximately the same tone as time passes.

Getting more creative as I do more of them

A far shot for perspective

This stack is actually five drawers in total (one is out of the frame). I'll center long ice tea spoons on each drawer here rather than using two pulls on each one. There are two more stacks on this wall and one will be forks, the other knives. So I'll have full place settings on the North wall. Very fun.

Compost bins

One nice thing about having chickens? The ability to create compost. I've been cleaning out the coop into a fenced pen (you can just see it to the right in the picture below). The area was full to the top of the fence and has composted down into something that's ready to be put in the garden. I realized that I needed another pile so I could easily keep ready compost from in-process compost and decided to put together a few compost bins. Easiest way to do that is with pallets so that's what we did.

Banging in supports

The double bin went together quickly with a few screws and rebar posts. Newly soiled bedding will go in the left bin and I'll move it to the right bin as it ages and gets ready to be used.

The bins are very close to the coop to make it easy to use as I clean and they're also very close to the garden to make it easy to use the compost when it's ready. These bins are kept out of the general chicken area as it's not a good idea to let your chickens work their own feces.

Looks a bit blasted, doesn't it?

So that the chickens could get in on the compost action in a safer manner, I added another single bin to the chicken pasture. This one gets only kitchen and yard waste; they can work the grass clipping and veggie leavings to their hearts' content.

Inside the pasture which also looks blasted

I built these in the early spring so the ground looks horribly brown and dead. Fortunately these areas are now bright green with grass, rye cover crop, and all kinds of weeds and things that chickens like to eat. The whole pasture thing has worked great - the chickens get to semi-free range and I haven't yet had any issues with the fox getting in there. I'm down to two chickens due to his predation but since we've adjusted our grazing behavior we haven't lost any more. 

We have plans to build a junk wood fence around this area so that's more secure, but so far the welded-wire fencing is working well enough.

Making a log bee hive

Chris has wanted to get into bee keeping for quite a while. But he wasn't overly enthused with the idea of buying hives or swarms. So he did a bit of research and came across the idea of a log bee hive. A more natural, so to speak, approach to bee keeping. Google "log bee hive" and you'll see lots of ideas and suggestions on how to go about doing this. 

We had taken down a tree up by the future garden site but left quite a stump since the tree was a twin trunk. Ultimately that's what he decided to convert into the hive. 

Chris sawed off two segments of the trunk then hollowed out the core. A ledge was created to support the honey bars.

Hollowed out and ready for bars.

The bars

Nails keep the bars in place

Bars attached (and the other segment with cap)

Custom fitted cap

A local friend and bee keeper donated some wax to use to seed the bars. Chris melted it down in a double boiler and then smooged it onto the bars. Hopefully bees will come and use that to jump start the hive.

Melting down some bar wax

He placed the two segments back onto the stump and then drilled an entrance hole. The hope is that bees will be magically attracted to the stump and start a hive. A vial of queen pheromone stuff was also donated by our friend to help things along.

The chickens are always a help

The stump needed a cap to keep the rain off so Chris build a stick frame...

The cap base

...and then covered it in overlapping can lids. He ran out of lids before completing the cap so added a funnel just to protect the top. Once we've acquired more lids he'll finish it off with those and I'll get to use the funnel for something else. Maybe a bird house? Dunno yet.

Look close and you can see the dividing line between segments

He also needs to do a cap for the front stump, mainly for the cuteness factor but also to reduce the chances of the stump rotting. 

No bees yet, but it's early in the swarming season. We'll keep our fingers crossed and see what happens through the summer. Wish us luck!

Miscellany - including a garden update

The gardens have been in since Memorial day weekend and frankly they're not doing all that great. I lost several plants to something that was chopping them off about an inch from the ground. Then the little bugger would just leave the plant - didn't even eat it! The losses included two cherry tomato plants, one beefsteak tomato, a watermelon, and lots of basil. I put coffee grounds around the plants because someone told me that would help again cutworms and then someone else said that cutworms take the plant at ground level and that's not what I had. Whatever I had, it's gone now and I haven't lost anything else. Not sure if it was the coffee grounds or if I just managed to chase it away. I also lost a summer squash plant to a nasty grub that I quickly fed to the chickens. That was the only grub casualty. My cold frame was a complete failure - what few things germinated were eaten by something when the plants were just an inch or so out of the ground. Argh! Fortunately the second plantings have faired better and I'm hopeful for a decent harvest despite the issues.

In happier news, check out this guy! I had a hard time getting the shot as I was in the house when I saw him. Snapped a couple through the screen then tried to open the door but he took off as soon as he heard me. We've decided he's a blue bunting.

Extremely blue despite catching him through the window screen

 The goldfinches are still loving the thistle feeder and we have an incredible number of them.

Lots of goldfinches

My gladiolas bloomed for the first time in four years! Apparently they are finally in the right spot.

This is part of the front flower garden. I decided it needed some way to distinguish it from the yard a bit more clearly.

Before

So I added a mini rock wall.

After

I think it looks great and I'll be building a few more of these along the rest of the gardens.

The chickens approve

And we got a great shot of our resident coyote at the very back of our property. Isn't he gorgeous? And his coat is excellent for this time of year. We've been hearing sounds from a whole pack but only got a shot of this one. We've seen him before in the winter and his condition is still really good.

Cleaning and clearing out the stuff, so much stuff!

I've been mentioning here and there about clearing out kitchen stuff in anticipation of the kitchen being done. I've found some cool stuff, some weird stuff, and some useless stuff (at least useless to me). 

One thing I've realized about all this stuff is that cleaning up first requires making a huge mess. How huge? Take a look:

My Room: wrecked again

Cooper making use of assorted blankets/linens 

Dining room? Maybe?

It's supposed to be a dining room!

The good news is I got so much done. Emptying the boxes and really going through them resulted in actually putting things away instead of just shoving it into another room or closet. I donated boxes of stuff and feel good that someone else will get use out of it; and I love the fact that it's out of my house. My project room is better organized and I even cleaned out the dressers in there, sorted the items by type, and labeled the drawers so I have some hope of finding the pillow fabric when I need it. The upstairs bathroom, which has been treated as a big storage room for four years, now contains only bathroom related items, and we'll be able to work on the room when it's time to install the actual bathroom. 

All-in-all, it's been a pretty good May.

Catching up on May

May always feels so busy. Getting the gardens ready, enjoying sunny days and pleasant weather (okay, not so much this year since it's been so cold but there have been some nice days), spring cleaning the house, and all that stuff.

The yellow delicious apple tree has blossoms! Definite win there. The McIntosh is just starting to leaf out, and the honeycrisp has leaves but no blossoms. The cherry tree has lots of little leaves and the plum tree looks dead. Hopefully it's not.

Pretty artsy, eh?

Chicken meet blossoms

 The Goldfinches are really enjoying the thistle feeder. I wish I'd gotten one of these years ago.

A typical view

And since I'm now having to keep the chickens in their pasture more often I decided to build them a salad bar. Basically you make a box and cover it with hardware cloth. Then set it on the ground, plant seed, and let it grow. The chickens can't get to the seed so it has time to actually germinate and when the plants get big enough you move the box to a new location and repeat. The chickens get to eat what you planted.

Building the box - did I mention the cold weather in May?

Inside the pasture

It's been a couple weeks since I planted it and the seedlings are coming along nicely. I'll move it after Memorial Day and get a new plot going. If this works really well I'll probably build more boxes so I can have multiple grazing areas growing at once. 

The cold frame I planted isn't exactly setting records for germination. The cilantro has come up great but very little else. Looks like the seed was just too old. So I'll get starts and plant them Memorial Day weekend instead. And I'll refresh my seed supply.

Planting the cold frame

This post is documentation for the cold frame - boring to all but me. Sorry.

I banged together a quick & dirty cold frame the other day and decided the dirt inside was finally warm enough to put in the seeds. Here's what I planted (on April 28th) and the seed packet info so I'll know when to harvest stuff.

Zinnia: height 12"-18"; days to germinate: 7-14; blooms summer to fall

Pansy: not a bit of info on the packet.

Crimson Sweet Watermelon: plant in hills, days to germinate: 7-14; maturity 85 days; harvest when bottom of melon is yellow and when the little "curlicue" of the stem dries up (and how cute is it that the seed packet actually put curlicue in quotes?)

Mammoth Russian Sunflower: height 9'-12' (yes, feet); days to germination: 7-14; blooms midsummer to fall

Compact Basil: height 10"-12"; days to germination: 5-7; maturity 70-80 days

Sweet Basil: height 12"-24"; days to germination: 5-7; maturity 65-75 days

Cilantro: days to germination: 7-10

Parsley: harvest in 40-60 days

Rosemary: days to germination 15-25; maturity approx 150 days(?!?) (and they want the plants 36 inches apart. 36! No rosemary in upstate NY is going to get big enough to need 36 inches between the plants; obviously I need to apply a big of gardening common sense).

So, a mixed bag of info on the ol' seed packets. I'll pick up starts for most of my veggies or direct sow them at the end of the month. I plan to scatter old seed for the chicken garden just like I did last year. Hopefully it'll do just as well - I got a decent harvest of squash and corn for the birds.