Greenhouse Blues

In order to plant a garden from seeds, you have to get the seeds to sprout. So I’m told by Donna. Since this is easier to accomplish and can be started earlier in the year in a greenhouse, we purchased a greenhouse. We got it on line after much research and consideration. It was constructed of plastic walls and flexible supports. It was secured to the ground by tent like tie downs. Donna planted hundreds of seeds in many trays and placed them on shelves. She watered them and cared for them with motherly tenderness. Then the wind came. The greenhouse, though guaranteed to withstand high winds, does bend out of shape. When the top of the greenhouse was pushed to the side by the 40 mph wind, the shelves were displaced and the seed trays wound up on the dirt and the seed pots dispersed throughout the greenhouse. The labels Donna had placed in each pot were also strewn over the entire greenhouse area. Without the proper nameplates, the garden was difficult to plan. However, the garden turned out to be very productive and we enjoyed many and tasty vegetables throughout the season. Much credit is due to Donna for the great effort and prolific harvest. The greenhouse, on the other hand, did not make out so well. The Texas sun and wind took its toll. The crossbar on the west side of the greenhouse failed during a good wind. While we waited for the manufacturer to respond to our request for a new support, the plastic sleeves holding the supports dried out and ripped. The remaining supports were then allowed to spring forth from the plastic loops and protrude into the air. The greenhouse then collapsed. Before Donna loaded the pile of plastic and support junk into the truck, I drew this posted picture as a memorial to our first greenhouse experiment. Next time maybe we will use glass and steel. A good friend recommended a PVC pipe construction with two layers of plastic sheeting. However, I am not sure this will last through the Texas wind and sun either.

Garden

This is an image of our backyard. Donna has planted herbs and strawberries along the pool and fenced it from the rabbits. When we had the pool put in, only dust surrounded the pool and blew into the water. We had to brush the pool sides each day to help clear the water and keep the filters working properly. Now, the grass around the pool is thick and the herbs smell like perfume on the breeze. This is the perfect place to sit at sunset and enjoy the county quiet.

Basket of Pears

Our pear tree has been picked. We harvested about 50 pears and Donna is drying them for snacking. I put several into a small basket and added some peppers and beans for a small picture. I used a new technique for me, stippling. If you would like to see my webpage, please visit: www.artbydavidanddonna.com.

If you would like to learn more about stippling, there are many websites to visit. One I like is www.ehow.com/how_4452437_use-stippling-drawings.html. This site has instructions and tips.

Where the Pavement Ends

The road in front of our farmette is paved until you pass the driveway, then it turns to gravel. The traffic is light but we get cars, trucks and tractors. We live just west of several large farms and tractors are always pulling large, spidery looking, farm equipment. The type of equipment depends on the time of year and crop they are tending. The tractors are moving slowly and do not vary their speed as they pass the house. The trucks do not slow down for the transition from pavement to gravel, they just brace for the bumpy ride they are about to get. The cars, however, slow for the adventure ahead. Some even turn around in our driveway at the sight of the gravel extending in front of them for several miles.

Sometimes I stand on my front porch and watch the fields across this street. The farms are laid out in an uneven checkerboard pattern and run from south to north down into the small valley we overlook. In the spring, some of the squares are brown from the winter and some are the green of early winter wheat. Some fields are still brown from tilling and awaiting seeds to be planted. Others are yellow with uncut hay Farm houses dot the countryside and large round hay bales line the fences. In summer, the fields change color again. From the heat of the Texas summer sun, the milo turns a golden brown with reddish brown heads rising up over the leaves of the plant, nodding in the ever present breeze. The harvest begins in the fall and the farmers struggle to keep up with the work as time is short to complete the job. After the crop is in, the farmers have time to plan for winter and the cycle begins again.

As the road is in a transition and modifies the speed of the traffic and equipment passing the house, the speed of my life is also modified. I am now retired and have the time to do the things long put off because of a hectic fifty year career in high-tech sales. The trucks plunge ahead, the cars turn around and the tractors plod along: which do I follow? I think I’ll be a truck and dive into the opportunities now available to me on the road ahead. I am fortunate to be able to pick what I will do. Art, public service, hobby farming, or just reading the books I have set aside for so long. I have a place set up with an easy chair and lamp next to my book case for this occasion. I have a studio at the back of the house for drawing, painting or pottery. Of course the requisite refrigerator and TV are also there. I could help my wife with the greenhouse, the chickens or the horses if I am in a helpful mood.

This transition may be at the end of the pavement, but there is lots of gravel to go.

Old Barn and the Hot Corner

Two pictures I drew several months ago. The Old Barn is located on a back road between my gym where I workout three times a week and the mechanics shop of a friend where we sit and discuss the issues of the day. The shop has much charm. This is a drawing of the Hot Corner. Hot because the wood stove is located here.

Cold Corner and Farm Clothes

These two drawings represent two basic events in my day to day activities. The Cold Corner is located in the mechanics shop of my friend. Opposed to the Hot Corner where the stove is located, the Cold Corner is the location of two important items, the toilet and the soda machine. The second drawing is of several pieces of clothing I wear when working around the farmette.

The Fence

Shortly after we moved to our new farmette, Donna and I decided we needed to fence off a small plot to build a chicken coop. We purchased some materials to build a fence for the chicken outdoor area. We laid out the yard and located the places to dig our fence posts. We became completely exhausted after digging only several fencepost holes. As we started to dig our next posthole, our shoulders announced, with severe reverberations, the presence of a “small” rock about six inches down in the dirt. After several blows of a rock bar, we had sore elbows and shoulders from the vibration, but no luck in breaking through the “small” rock. We tried digging around the stone to pry it out. At this time, we found out the true size of the stone. It was very large and connected to China, we were sure. Relocating the fence posts and cutting new lengths of fence were our only option as we did not want to relocate the boulder.

While we were deciding what to do, our neighbor walked over to chat. We explained our dilemma. With a sigh and look you see on the faces of adults about to explain some well known fact to a child, he demonstrated the proper way to dig and set a fence post. He poured some water on the dry, hard ground and waited several minutes. When he started to dig, the posthole digger sank deep into the soft earth. Our mouths hung open at the simplicity of this strategy. When the hole was the proper depth, he put the fence post into the hole. Then, pushing a bag of cement near the hole, he hit the end of the bag with the shovel edge and tore the bag open. The cement poured into the hole and he lifted the bag to complete the filling. Removing the bag, he then took the garden hose and wet the cement until it was fairly stiff. With the rock bar, he mixed the cement in the hole and announced he was finished with this hole and moved to the next.

After this we put in fence posts at three per hour instead of three per day. By using the fastest method possible we were able to get some work done. Putting up a fence turned out to be a great way to find the largest boulder on our property. With this new knowledge of fencepost erection, we were able to relocate all the fence posts in short order and avoided moving the boulder.

Tractor - Mower

We thought we needed a tractor and went shopping for one. We visited the local John Deere and Co. and Kubota dealers. After discussing horse power, four wheel drive, gas or diesel, cab or no cab, tire type, power steering, PTO power, active or passive type and price, we were totally confused. Then came the discussion about attachments. These included front end loaders, box blades, straight blades, under belly mowers and brush hogs. This brought on much more confusion. The one thing we did understand is that tractors are very expensive. Not understanding what we wanted a tractor for, other than mowing the grass, we decided to buy a ride-on lawn mower with a buggy attachment to move hay to the barn and an under the belly mower attachment to cut the larger pastures. We also purchased a 22” power mower for the grass around the house. The small mower lasted about a month. The rocks and tough grass broke the mower each time we used it. After several trips to the local mower fixer, we abandoned the 22” mower completely. We still use the ride-on mower and buggy, but the end is near.

The ride-on mower has a mid-deck, or under belly, cutter for grass. It has three cutting blades run on a pulley and belt system. The cutting blades are held by a housing with the pulley on top. The housing is designed to break before the blade or belt system. So, whenever you hit a rock either the rock breaks or the housing breaks. We have gone through three housings so far. The first time a housing broke, we went to buy one at the nearest supply store in a town about 30 miles from home. While there, the man behind the counter became aware that I did not know what I was talking about when describing my problem. He asked me if I had a grease gun to grease the bearing after I installed the blade and new housing. I stared at him in wonder. He then asked me if I was a farmer as all farmers had grease guns. Before I could answer, he asked me to show him my hands. As I held them out, palms up, he shook his head and told me I was not a farmer as my hands were soft looking. He suggested I take several housings and a grease gun and call him if I needed advice. I bought the housings and attaching parts, but not the grease gun. Don’t ask me why.

In order to get to the blade housing, you must drop the deck and disconnect the belt system. It was all I could do to get the deck out from under the mower. When I discovered that the housing was attached by bolts tightened by King Kong, I went to the neighbor. He brought over his portable air compressor, generator and air tools. I saw a long list of new tools we would need float before my eyes. He removed the broken housing, attached the new housing with blade, greased the fitting with his grease gun and started the mower engine. I asked if we were going to attach the deck. He then drove the mower over the deck and lined it up for reattachment. (You don’t have to drag the deck around if you have a mower with the engine that moves.) We then discovered that the deck was bent and one of the supports was half torn off. My very good neighbor then brought over his spot welder and fixed the torn support. He then used his “come along” to bend the deck into shape. More tools to be purchased were added to the list. After this we raised the deck back onto the mower. After the blade housing broke several more times, my wife and I became expert in the replacement. We have fixed other broken parts on this mower by ourselves and have begged for help from our neighbor several times. The mower is often broken from rough use and rocks.

The mower has moved many bales of hay, cut our fields several times and broken down a few more times since our original blade mounting. However, the real problem is that there are jobs we need done that the mower will not handle. We would like to move the 20,000 pounds of horse manure we have in the pasture next to the barn. Donna would like to make compost from the manure and turning it is required. We started by hand, but the amount of manure grows much faster than our ability to turn it. We also need tree stumps moved, rocks carried, dirt dug for compost pits, and other small farm chores that need a tractor, not a lawn mower.

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter what you are driving when the next opportunity to learn something comes about. The first time Donna used the mower, she started to cut the pasture near the chicken coop. Hiding in the tall grass was a water spigot. About six inches high and imbedded in concrete, it was almost invisible. Adding to the impending disaster was the fact that this was Donna’s first ride and the braking process was not readily available to her. The result was a broken spigot with water shooting into the air.

Responding to the call for help and finding out that she was uninjured, we discussed the problem at hand. Where is the water cut-off? While the puddle was growing at a very fast pace, our neighbor came to the rescue. He showed us the pump house and where the valve was to turn off the water. The handle to the valve was broken, so, he showed me how to turn off the valve with a wrench. (The valve is still broken, 3 years later). After thanking him, we then asked how to fix the pipe. After a fast lesson in pvc piping, we left for the store to buy pipe, pipe cutter, bends, tees, joiners, and purple and orange sticky stuff to make the join. Several attempts and some hours later, we made the join and buried out first mower and pvc piping mistake. We also noted at this point that we would need work gloves, shovels, work boots and clothes. Too bad we didn’t know yet what we didn’t need to know.

Murder In the Coop

When I was a kid in NJ, my mother and I would walk across the street from our garden apartment to the line of stores to shop. One of the stores was a chicken store. The walls were lined with wooden boxes made of dowels. Each box contained several chickens. The smell in the store was strong but pleasant and sweet, like birds. The sounds were muffled clucks and women talking in a low voice. Then, without warning, the owner would drop the side of one of the boxes and grab a chicken by the legs, pull the chicken out, and close the box quickly. The noise increase was instant. Chicken wings flapped, screeching reached a fever pitch and I put my hands over my ears. When I next looked up, the man was giving a bag to the nearest customer. As you can see my understanding of this process was very incomplete. I thought the chickens were soft, pleasant, cuddly birds. I retained these thoughts and memories until we put in a chicken coop last year.

My latest thoughts about chickens are these. Roosters are very loud tough creatures with little regard for anything but getting to the hens and eating. I have been attacked by several roosters and have taken to going to the coop with a three foot long 2 x 2 for self defense. I act kindly to animals but do not like to be attacked by birds with spurs that are three inches long. I find that roosters are so hard, that a 2 x 2 to the side of the head leaves them a little stunned but unharmed. Hens are tough in other ways. They put up with the roosters. When we first put the chickens in the coop, we had too many roosters for the number of hens. This resulted in tired and abused hens and much fighting among the roosters. At sunset, when the chickens would retire to the coop for the evening, loud thumps could be heard from within the coop. Roosters would fight and fling themselves and others into the walls. On more than one occasion, we would find dead chickens in the coop when next we entered to collect eggs. To relieve the rooster pressure within the coop, we gave away 17 birds to a neighbor who wanted to start her own coop. The coop has been much more quiet since giving the birds away and egg production has increased. The balance of five hens per rooster seems to be a winner.

The Move

Our first Texas home was a ranch type house with a pool just out of the back doors and centrally located on a one acre lot. It had a large metal shed at the back of the lot. The house was located in a fully developed subdivision next to a large reservoir. We added some concrete around the pool and built an arbor to sit under to protect us from the hot summer sun. We installed a hot tub near the pool just outside our bedroom door. In the front of the house we built a Florida room mostly of glass to hold our parrots. The separate room allowed us to keep the rest of the house at a temperature good for humans, not the 80 degrees good for parrots, and separated us from the loud screeching of the birds at dawn and dusk. We liked living in this house very much. The only problem, not enough land to have our horse on the property. Donna was showing in the local Arabian horse shows and we kept the horse in a barn owned by our trainer. We wanted our horse in our back yard. The desire for more land, the widening of the main road and the increase of population were moving us toward our decision to move to the country. When an old neighbor called to ask if we wanted to sell our house to them so they could move back into the neighborhood, we said yes. We made the deal and started to look for our new home. After several false starts, we bought a house on ten acres with a small shed. We would have to add to it, but we were excited at the prospect of building a barn and studio. We also were going to convert the garage to a bird room and add a cover for the RV. We contracted a moving company and started to pack.

All was proceeding well until it came time to move our bed. Our bed is a country style bed. It is made of cedar logs and weights about a half ton. Moving it required several large men for disassembly and reassembly and a few extra dollars to the movers. Once in place, it can not be moved by my wife and me, Even with the help of several neighbors it can not be moved. I know this because after the installation into our new country home, I tried to close our bedroom closet door and found that the bed was in the way. The door has been open for the last three years. It is a king bed and quite striking. We are very proud of our country bed.

I bought the bed as a surprise for my wife. Donna and I were wandering around a Texas “Old Town” near our home. We wandered into a furniture store and looked at the wooden furniture made to appear as if it were built in the 1850’s. Donna liked the cedar bed very much. Because it was expensive, we passed it by. I went back and bought it and had it shipped and installed in our bedroom one day when Donna was not around. She would be very surprised. As it turned out, we were all very surprised. After the surprise presentation of the bed to Donna upon her arrival home at the end of the day, we showed the bed to our house guest. During the oo’s and ah’s, our guest noticed and pointed out to us, a small bug on the bedpost. “This is a cool way to make it look authentic, paint a bug on the wood,” he said. With that, the bug moved. Then we noticed that there were many other bugs and more were appearing as we stood there. Also, small holes were appearing in the bed legs and cross members. After several minutes there were hundreds of bugs. They turned out to be cedar borers. We closed off the bedroom and slept in another room that night. In the morning, I called the exterminator and told him to come to our house, NOW! I also called the furniture store and spoke to the manager. He thought I was completely off my rocker when I told him to come and get his bed and bring my money back to me, NOW! He was not impressed and did not seem to want to help us in any way. I started to make threats if he did not move this bed out of our bedroom and back into his store, NOW! He sent a truck with several men to remove the bed. While awaiting the truck to take the bed, the exterminator arrived. He walked into the bedroom with me and didn’t see any bugs. My wife lifted her clothes and a horde flew out and settled all over the room, even on the ceiling. The exterminator took several steps back and made a face that showed even he was disgusted with these bugs. I had never seen an exterminator repelled by bugs before, even in my frat house while at college. That is saying something

Dead bugs all around, a sickening smell from the exterminator’s chemicals and me creaming at everyone. This is what greeted the manager of the furniture store when he showed up. One of his men had called him from the truck and told him what was happening in our bedroom. He finally believed me and came to see. He approved a new and even larger bed to replace the buggy one. The builders of the beds showed up to help with the new install and explained the problem with the bug bed. It seems that the bed logs were not soaked long enough in the solution to kill the cedar borers. The manufacturer guaranteed that this new bed would not have any bugs. The bed is over ten years old now and still no bugs. We and the bed have been through a lot. So, let it sit where it is.

Moving from a small Florida cracker house to a large Texas ranch style house was simple. Load the truck with everything we owned and unload into the new house. Moving to a much smaller country home in North Texas was not so simple. We gave away a truck and a half of “stuff.” Old furniture, boxes of bric-a-brac and electrical equipment were also piled by the road for large trash pickup. Some of the better furniture was rescued by the locals.

When we had decided what to move to our new country home, the trucks were loaded and off we went. We couldn’t stay in the new house without furniture, so we used the RV in the new back yard as temporary quarters until the movers could unload. Night one was a quiet time and dark sky was a wonder. We could hardly sleep.

Day one started with a thunder and lightning storm. We awoke to a downpour that set off the alarm on the septic system. The alarm was a small bell but the ring was incessant. Where was the power for the alarm coming from? How do we turn it off? Why was the alarm going off? Why was the water from the rain not draining from the land? Why did we have six inches of mud on the bottom of our shoes making us stagger around like the undead of a zombie movie?

We called our realtor who gave us the phone number of a septic person who came to our rescue and pushed a button. This reset the alarm. We made an appointment for him to return and inspect the system. The answers to all the questions were simple. The alarm sounded to let us know that water was high in the tank and it needed to be pumped out. Just throw another switch. The inspection told us that this system had lots of alarms but just a level and power switch. We disarmed the alarms and all has been quiet since. We get the inspector back four times a year to test the water and working parts of the system. We also have to put in chlorine tabs regularly, and they can’t be swimming pool ones, but rather specially made for the septic system and considerably more expensive than what the pool gets. It is an aerobic spray system for land that does not perk well.

The rest of the move was uneventful. We had the usual issues with doors being too narrow for the couch and mud being tracked into the house by the movers. But, all in all, the move went well and we learned a few things about our new home.

I Am a City Kid

I was born and raised in a city, Elizabeth, NJ. Elizabeth was a city of about 125,000 people and divided into several distinct areas. The Hill, The Berg, the Port and the North End were enclaves of lower to middle class working people. It was a typical city. As cities change rapidly, I have no idea how things are today. Perhaps I will visit and see.

I was educated in a high school with 1200 other kids. I went to a commuter’s (no dorms) college in a nearby city, Newark, NJ. With about 300,000 residents, Newark was the largest city in NJ. My college was in the part of the city going through many changes. Buildings were being torn down to make room for the college’s expansion and new businesses. Other parts of the city were being torn down to clear areas of rubble from the riots of the late ‘60s. I moved many times during the next decades, but always to another city.

I finally moved out of the city to an unincorporated area of North Florida near Gainesville in Gilchrist County. With more cows than people, Gilchrist was my first experience with rural living. We owned a one acre lot with a small cracker house. The structure was built of cinder blocks, had one window air conditioner and a carport attached. We converted the carport into a master bedroom with a second bath. We removed most of the falling down wooden pole shed and used the remainder of the building for storage. We also put a pool and studio behind the house and had the sliding door from the kitchen open onto the pool deck. The house was in the country, but we were not quite there yet. I used to stand in the middle of the paved road in front of our house and look both ways. In one direction I could just make out the blinking red light at the closest intersection, about a mile away. In the other direction the road went to the horizon with no interruption. We were not farming or even growing a garden. Our blueberry bushes had berries, but most went to the birds. We spoke of the farm life, but had to wait ten years before starting a real attempt.

After Florida, we moved to a small town near Dallas, Texas, and lived there for a decade. The small rural town went from rural to suburban to downtown during those ten years. We lived on a dead end road off a dead end road, but the main drag, just one quarter of a mile away, was scheduled for upgrading to a six lane, divided highway. My wife and I decided to move to what would become our first retirement home. We moved to a farm community about 40 miles north of our old home and well into the rural life.

So You Want to Move to the Country

There once was a man from New Brunswick (NJ)
Who wanted to live like a hick.
So he bought him a farm
And with lots of alarm
He found out that he didn't know dick!

There are mounds of information available about moving to the country. Each state has its own published data. You can get advice from University and County Cooperative Extensions and the County NRCS. They warn you of all types of issues that keep you on your toes from the first time you come to the country. But, once you decide to make the move to the rural life, you will find out more than any brochure can tell you. Each area of the country, each patch of a county, has its own character.

When my wife, Donna, and I moved to the country, we had expectations and a picture of how life would be. Some turned out to be true, much was not even close. We have learned many things about farming, living off the land, rural life in general and country thinking.

With our move and my retirement, I thought I would write about what we learned. I also decided to illustrate my writing with drawings. After many attempts with various materials, I decided that pen and ink was my most loved drawing method. I will post my drawings and tell the story behind each. My drawing has become more compelling then my writing and is turning into an avocation. Please take a look at my website, www.artbydavidanddonna.com.

Drag Races

I was at the drag races a few weeks ago at a strip about 20 minutes or so from where we live. While watching some friends running their dragster, I drew some fast sketches. They needed some color to make them more interesting and easier to understand.