Winter Storm Warning

 

Well, here we go again.  The weather service is predicting that we are going to get a 'dusting' of snow.  

 

But with this prediction, we have a little bit of a different situation here at the Krooked Pine Farm.  After five months of looking for employment, I am now working for a 911 center nearby.  My first day was yesterday.  For the next 6 months, I will be on probation and in training.   So with this weather prediction, we three trainees were sent home as we were really useless in answering phones and sending calls for assistance to the people in the communities. 

 

It seems that the weather service kind of underestimated the speed at which this storm was going to come in.  I was still at work when the Blacksmith posted these pictures to let me know how bad it was already at home. 

 

 

For those of you that look at this and think, "that's nothing."  You are right, for an area that has the infrastructure to take care of it.  We live in the south in Georgia.  Due to this rarely happening, Georgia does not budget for such happenings.   This is what the weather service expected.  This is a dusting.  This, most anybody could handle.  But it did not stop at this. 

When I got home, this is what it had become.

 

 

A little while later, we had this.

 

 

A short time after this, we had this.

 

 

And finally, after the snow stopped, we had this.

 

 

Even this, for people who live in areas that get snow all winter long, is nothing.  But in the south, this is a disaster.   The grocery stores are stripped bare of any kind of bread or milk.  These are the first things to go. 

 

The Blacksmith and I are well set to weather most any storm.  We have two, four wheel drive vehicles.  We have food stocked including bread and milk.  But this time, we realized that we were very low on propane gas for our back up heat supply.  Our home is, unfortunately, total electric.  If the power goes out we are without heat.  So we have a old propane heater that will heat our entire home, if needed.  Thankfully, the propane gas company is just down the road about six miles. 

 

This is what we saw in route.

 

 

Turns out, we were not the only ones getting propane.

 

 

So, we got our tanks filled.

 

 

For somebody from, say, Michigan or Wyoming or Montana, they would laugh at how we react to something as simple as three inches of snow.  I, also, think it is kinda funny, as I have driven an eighteen wheeler in much worse weather than this.  But, the roads that I drove on had snow plows and road sanders or salters.  In the south, we are lucky to have a dump truck throw out a little sand on the bridges here or there.  Some cities have a road scraper go through town to move the worst of the snow off of main street and some of the other major arteries so the ambulances and fire trucks can move around town.  

 

So, please, don't laugh at us too hard.  We are just not used to this kind of weather.  If you look at my earlier posts, you will see one of the last snow storms we had.  That was back before we had even moved our home onto our land.  The Year so Far in Pictures

 

So, for those of you in the south, be careful and try to stay home.  For those of you elsewhere, be thankful you have the infrastructure to help deal with these little 'dustings'.  Stay warm.

 

 

Shared with:  Down Home Blog Hop 



So Ready For Spring

 

 

Well, yesterday evening about dusk we decided to go ahead and fill the one raised bed that we built over the weekend.  It took five tractor bucket loads of medium to fill it.  We used two big bucket loads of the top soil in the bottom of the bed, then we put 3 bucket loads of compost on top of that and spread it out.  Sorry, did not get pictures of the filling but here is the finished product.

 

 

 

 

We were worried about the sides bulging out once it was filled so before we filled it we took two 36" long stakes and pounded them into the ground about midway down the side of the bed on each side.  We then screwed them to the side of the bed.  The sides then became very sturdy. 

 

 

The good news is we got a line on some more lumber that we will go get next Sunday afternoon.  We are getting enough for at least 2 more beds and they will be longer.  This bed is 10' long.  The new lumber is supposed to be 12'. 

 

Now, Blacksmith and I are novices at growing a garden.  We are learning together.  I have read so many books and read articles online and Blacksmith has researched via Youtube.   I have the Square Foot Garden book and I am going to follow some of what is in it but we cannot afford to buy all the medium that the writer recommends.   So, we are going to try to use the "lasagna method" on the next two beds and see how that does.

 

While researching last night, I came across the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Planting Chart.  This will come in so handy.

 

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Garden Chart

 

This same website had a calendar and list of chores to be done so you can stay organized.  This also, will be handy.

 

University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Garden Calendar

 

Now, to try to get all my seeds organized so that we know what is going in the beds first and to know what to start as transplants when the time comes.

 

Vegetables

 

We also have some research to do in starting our herb garden.  We have the seeds.  I know that some need to be in pots all by themselves or they will take over the bed and I know that some are good to go in the bed all by themselves.   It is learning which ones are which is the problem.

 

Herbs

 

 So, the farm is now getting the garden together.  It is just a slow, steady walk to get it all done.  Thanks for coming on the walk with us.  

 

This post shared with:

Down Home Bloghop Number 71

Beautiful day for working on the farm.

After the "polar vortex" came thru we then had thunderstorms which came thru yesterday morning.  It then cleared off and this morning is absolutely beautiful.   So we decided that today would be a good day to work on some of our farm's infrastructure.  We now have one raised garden bed completed and just need to fill it up with growing medium.

 

 

We were lucky in that the only thing this cost us was the fuel to go get the lumber and some long decking screws that we already had.  A good friend had the lumber lying around and said we could have them.  We built the bed by cutting two of the long pieces down to four feet wide and then cut one long 4x4 post down to 4 sections of 15 inches long each.  See the pictures for reference.  We then screwed everything together to make the box.

 

 

 

We then, using the tractor, moved it in to position, in the yard to its final resting place.

 

 

With a final push, it is in place.

 

 

Later, when it is a little dryer, we will put the growing medium in it. 

 

 

This second pile is forest compost that we found under one of the piles of debris from where we had some pine trees taken out.  It is very rich.  We also have access to some composted cow manure mixed with straw.  We will mix the three together before filling the bed.

 

After setting the bed in place, we went up to our pallet stack and did some recycle work.  Using a sawsall, Blacksmith cut the nails to reduce the pallets into lumber again.  We are working on extending our walkway off our deck so we don't have to walk in the mud so much.

 

 

 

 We now have some lumber to not only extend the boardwalk but to have our uprights to start our chicken coop.  These are 10 feet long. Yah! 

 

 

These are 4 feet long.

 

 

And thru it all we were supervised by the ever present Tootie.

 

 

 After we reduced several pallets down to their individual components, we moved everything back down to the house. 

 

 

 

 We had the section just in front of the steps done but it need to be extended.  We added another 10 feet of boardwalk and now we no longer have to walk in the mud to get to the front porch.

 

 

After this, Mr. Blacksmith got creative and moved our walkway lights from the ground up on the grab rail.  They not only will give more light but now they will be able to get more sunshine to charge their batteries. 

 

 

So, today was a very productive day.  Now to go clean up and fix supper.  Hope your day was as good as ours. 

 

This post shared with:  

Down Home Blog Hop Number 71

Winter time Tootie

     As everyone knows we had a "polar vortex" move into the south.  People in North Dakota may be used to 6 degree weather or colder but us southerners never get used to it.  Last night we had heavy wind with a threat of sleet, freezing rain, and/or snow.  We missed the bullet on the sleet and snow but we got hit head on with the COLD.  Tonight, we are supposed to have a low of 6 degrees with a wind chill factor of below 0.    Our cat, Tootie, does not know how to handle this.

Tootie- I want to go out, now. 

 

Me- Ok, but you are not going to like it.

10 minutes later:

 Tootie- Ok, Mom, let me in.

 

 

Me- I told you, you would not like it.

 

Tootie- Ok, I have warmed up, I want to go back out.

I will do better this time.

 

 

 

Me- Ok, but I still don't think you will like it.

 

 

 

Two minutes later:

Tootie-  Ok, Ok, I believe you.  Let me in.  I do not want to go back out.

BRRRRR!  MEOW!

 

 

 

 

 

 Shared with: http://www.tillysnest.com/2014/01/down-home-blog-hopnumber-70-beehive.html