Chickens, Ally, and More Dirt

A week or so ago, I was invited to do a little segment on Backyard Chicken and Turkey raising on our local NBC station.  So I brought Mr. Rooster, the beautiful chatoyant black feathered fellow and three of his girls - a Red star, an Americauna, and a New Hamshire cross.  They were a little puzzled by it all and were really funny, clucking and talking.  Too bad Mr. Rooster didn't crow.  Now that would have been funny.

It's been an extra busy month for our sweet Ally.  She turned 16 on March 13th. For a special treat she and I went to our favorite pancake house and invited Grandpa Lee to join us.  It was a heart warming time.

 March 21st was World Down Syndrome Day and Ally's class tie-dyed socks in honor and support of everyone who was born with trisomy 21.  The whole school got involved.  Another special day.

And on March 25th, Ally decided to get baptized.  I was humbled to be part of it and to experience the joy right along with her.  My heart was freshly filled with love.

And we continue to make progress on the building site in between raindrops and downpours. We skimmed off about 6 -8 inches of topsoil where the barn will be built. And I think we have about 20 loads left to take out of the basement and dump on the side of the driveway to make it super wide and tall.  Then Gary will take loads of topsoil for the edges to grade away..... I have visions of wild flowers and ornamental grasses filling and decorating the borders.

But alas, the spring rains have come.  Red clay is super-slimy when wet and tractors and trucks can not grip.  The site preparation is paused.

Today's Journey Joys: a body that heals from a nasty rattly cold, tulips sprouting and daffodils beginning to bloom, peonies poking their heads up and pussy willows fluffy.  Sprouts in the basement and new chickens in the coop.

Wax and Driveways

Over the past several years I have been accumulating a lot of bee's wax.  Every time one enters the hive there is burr comb which is scraped away and saved.  And every time we harvest honey, the cappings on the honeycomb must be removed before we can extract the honey.  This leaves us with quite a bit of wax.  Over the summer months I used my solar wax melter to render the wax.... a slow and tedious process which required three renderings for each load and resulted in small quantities. By the time summer ended, I still had a huge tub of wax left.  I stored the wax in the basement.  But it was time to do something with it.  I needed to clean out the clutter in the basement so that I could set up my spring shelves for plant starts.  

I found some net screen material we got at an auction and cut a piece big enough to tuck under the edges of the Nesco cooker.  I placed about an inch and a half of water in the pan and then set the pan in the cooker.  I piled the comb on the net and covered it.  After setting the temperature to 220 degrees F., I worked around the house doing other things and left the wax to melt and drip through the netting.  And in less than 20 minutes I could smell the honey trapped in the wax.  It was a yummy sweet smell just like one experiences when opening the hive in the heat of summer.

The tub in which I was taking the wax was brimming full even after filling the cooker.  But I was able to place more and more wax on the screen as the wax melted.  It dripped through the screen and floated on top of the water. A couple of hours later this entire tub full of wax was rendered through the screen.

The screen caught almost all of the debris, propolis, and detritus.  When the wax cooled it became solid and slipped right out of the cooker.  We have one final rendering to do in order to get the last of the debris and stuff out of the wax.  Perhaps this coming weekend?
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There was no time to render wax this weekend. Because, once again we were moving fill dirt from our "basement" to our new east driveway.

Gary started the day with completing the last of the digging of the borders of the new house. All that was between where the backhoe dug would be moved.

As usual, Gary and I would scoop up the dirt, load the truck and drive across the field to the new driveway.

Depending on where we wanted to fill, I would back the truck up and dump the load while Gary would "place" it.  Here we are working on the last S curve towards the road.

Before we can make it to the road though we had to insert... yes, one more time.... another culvert. Here, the County road folks suggested that we place a 24 inch diameter culvert.  Our driveway would be super wide so we made sure that the length was sufficient.  The culverts were delivered by our local Menards truck - the first "big" truck to drive on our new driveway!

We had a little preparation left to do before placing the culverts.

Once connected and placed we went back to filling the truck and covering the culvert.  You can see there is a lot of fill needed.

Thirty two degrees but we were toasty warm in our nice black insulated coveralls.

After about 20 loads or so the Gator made the first attempt (as always) across the culvert.  Yeah!!!

The rest of the weekend we simply dug from the basement, filled the truck, and dumped load after load after load of fill.  We eventually dumped 52 truckloads last weekend and now we can drive the truck all the way to the road (although it is quite bumpy and still needs another thirty or so loads to be wide and high enough).

Sunday evening brought clouds, cold, and yes, snow.  It's lovely.  Our hope is that it will melt this week; the soil will dry and we can again go back to making the driveway.  Time will tell.  If not, there is plenty to do on the farm!

Today's Journey Joys: bright sunshine, full moons, and sparkling planets, birthday girl's 16th, tomato sprouts, upcoming television spots with chickens, dreams of warm weather and growing greens.

Edges and Fills

This Saturday morning proved to be a brilliant, bright, and warming day.  Although windy, the sun radiated heat bringing temperatures to the mid fifties.  The bees were eager to find something to sustain them until the pollen and flowers began their spring blooming.  I discovered that the bottom of my uncapping tank had some thick, semi-crystallized honey left over from the last honey harvest in the fall (ah....yes, I forgot to finish cleaning up!). Anyway, it was a perfect opportunity for me to place the tank outside and let the hungry bees "clean-up" for me.

Because frankly, we had other important tasks to attend to.

It was time to attach the second half of the 3 foot culvert and hopefully, oh-so-hopefully, move enough fill dirt to get access across.  

It all began again with bringing the culvert across the road.

This is where we left off last weekend.  Water flowing through the culvert, but edges needing straightening and debris needing removing.  Thankfully the ground was dry!  No slip-sliding into the brink today.

So after placing the culvert in a clearing, Farmer's Husband Gary set out to lessen the incline at the edge of the creek.  Somehow, we would need to get close enough to scoop out the bricks and straighten the stream so the culvert could rest straight and true. It turned out that we needed to approach the creek from both sides in order to get the distance we needed.

But prior to placing the culvert in, the coupler needed to be attached.  So Gary gently raised the culvert we placed last weekend with a chain attached to the tractor.  While that was elevated a couple of inches, Gary separated the coupler with a bolt and nuts so that it wouldn't spring back after closure.  We still needed to have it opened to attach the other culvert.  And remember, these things weigh several hundred pounds.  It's not like you can just lift it into place and fine tune the line-up by hand.

Here comes the culvert!

We wiggled that big culvert to just the right angle and while Gary held it in place, I got the coupler around it.   Then we attached the bolts to tighten it together. Success!

Now to haul load after load of fill so that we can drive over it.

After eight loads or so, there was enough fill for the Gator to make the first pass.  The sun still brilliantly bright.

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More fill would be needed before the heavy tractor and fully-loaded truck could safely drive over it.
So back to loading and dumping I went...

I would dump the load and then Gary would strategically push it in place. By mid-day the next day, we could drive over it and I no longer had to back the fully loaded truck down the hill.  I could drive straight across, dump my load, and then turn around in a clearing (while Gary move the dirt) and drive straight back up.  Yeah!  Backing down a hill with a curve was really hard for me.  Farmer's Husband Gary had to direct me each time.

The next day we assessed our building site and planned our next steps.  The top soil was pushed to the side and the corners of our future home were pinned with step-in stakes. Remember hypotenuse triangles?  And I thought 9th grade geometry class would never be helpful!

We decided in the afternoon that it was time to dig the edges of the basement so that the borders would be clear and so that we could move only that dirt which needed to be moved. Farmer's Husband Gary and I measured 3 feet from our pins and painted the ground with marker's paint so that Gary would know where the edge of the bucket should rest.  I got the laser level out and set, and then created a story-stick (measuring tape basically) out of a young oak sapling we had to remove.  The slope of our building site required that Gary slowly bring up the bottom of the trench as he progressed northward. Otherwise we'd have an unlevel house.

As Farmer's Husband dug, I would scoop up the dirt and load the dump truck.  By the end of the afternoon Gary had finished the west wall of the basement....but dusk was fast approaching and we had to stop. Perhaps next weekend, weather permitting, we can complete the other two trenches and extend our driveway fill.  On the 10th of the month the last of our four culverts is due to arrive - a 24 inch diameter 40 foot double wall HDPE pipe. If we can get that in and covered, we will have access from the Road! Then the fun work really will begin!

Today's Journey Joys: A weekend without getting a truck or tractor stuck, sunny smiling skies, the foundation taking shape, ibuprofen for sore muscles and backs, Mr. Rooster crowing, honeybees preparing for Spring buildup, green grass sprouting, daffodils breaking ground, computer repairing by Ben, and the first day of chess club for Ally.

Back to the Culverts

During the intervening days from last week when record temperatures, blue skies, buzzing bees, and singing birds filled the air, I scurried over to our new "road" with the Gator.  The temperatures were more typical for February. The skies had dropped some wet precipitation, and the clay fill for our new driveway was shiny, greasy and slippery after the melted morning frost. Our hope was that it would dry throughout the week.  The three foot culvert needed to go in.

So on Thursday, when Farmer's Husband was home, we endeavored to place the new culverts.  The galvanized culverts are 14 gauge steel, 3 feet in diameter 50 feet long (after coupling them together). Eventually the seven foot riser will be attached in the pond-side as well, but probably not for a year or so as our new created driveway will need more and more fill during its settling year.  That additional water would make fine tuning of the driveway's surfaces a little more complicated.

It all started with picking up the 26 foot long section and carrying it across the road.

 The "creek" from the 2-3 acre lowland trickled slowly into the ditch where it eventually met a river.  From where I am standing on the berm to the bottom is about 4 and a half feet deep.  The edge is filled with soft dirt.  And, as you can see there are still roots and concrete to remove from the bottom before we can place the culvert. Gary gently placed the culvert temporarily in the ditch.

Around the back access road to the other side of the creek Farmer's Husband drove his JD 4720 (our biggest workhorse on the farm) and dug out the old root and straighten this end of the flow so that the culvert would be settled on the bottom.

 This end Gary had straightened last weekend as one of the last things to do before dusk arrived.  But the area where the riser would eventually be attached needed to be enlarged before we placed the culvert and so the big, heavy tractor and backhoe wiggled its way to the the bottom of the berm and dug gray, sloppy-wet mucky clay out of that area.

We placed the culvert in the broken berm and had to dig out (by hand) the edges where the seep preventer would be attached.  In hindsight, we would have dug this perpendicular trench prior to resting the culvert and seep preventer in the berm.... sure would have made inserting this section of culvert into the berm much, much easier.

What's a seep preventer?  I'm glad you asked.  I didn't know either.  What I discovered is that critters like muskrats and crayfish like to burrow near the edge of a culvert.  When they do that they create passageways for water to penetrate and of course that weakens the berm.  The seep preventer does just that.  It prevents burrowing alongside the culverts and prevents water from traversing its way outside of the culvert.  All the water must therefore go through the pipe.

Putting the seep preventer on was a little tricky.  I almost lost a couple of fingers when I accidently dropped my end of the top component of the metal preventer and my fingers pinched between the top and bottom sections.  Ouch!  Got a nice bruise and swollen index finger but all the parts were still attached!  While I recovered, Farmer's Husband bolted the two sections together while the tractor held the culvert out of the hole.

Now, in theory, one should only have to drop the massive heavy culvert into the clay berm and the culvert with the metal edged seep preventer should settle nicely to the bottom of the trenched stream. In theory.

Ah.... not quite.

Since the backhoe was already near, Gary considered whether the boom could press down the culvert. He was able to get it in a couple of inches.  But no more.  Thankfully though, the flowing water could still go under the culvert.  Otherwise that "pond" would have quickly enlarged.

But even with lots of effort and changing positions on the culvert, the backhoe could not press the pipe and preventer into the clay soil....

 Perhaps the loader could?

Unfortunately by now, the drizzling rain had begun.  Rain and fresh clay soil with an incline are not a good combination.  Yes, you guessed it. Turning the tractor around at the edge of the marshy field resulted in burying the tractor to the axles, hanging up the back hoe and getting our poor JD 4720 stuck yet again.  This time we had a 4+ foot edge to keep away from.  But the slope of the driveway, and the slippery clay kept making the tractor slide towards the culvert and the "cliff" of the berm every time we tried to get out.  We wouldn't be walking or driving out of this one.

Thankfully, there was a nice strong black walnut tree on the other side of the driveway. Farmer's Husband and I grabbed some thick chain and the mega-strong come-a-long.  And yes, he winched that tractor out of the slippery, pond edge.

 After about an hour and a half of "pulling", the tractor was free and Gary drove it up the driveway as fast as he could before even more rain came.  With a little slip-sliding, he made it up the driveway, around the building sight, across the upper pond berm and down and around the previously made culvert and marshy area.  Coming from this direction, where there was still grass on the berm and less incline, we thought we could press the culvert and seep preventer into the edge with the loader. At first only a few inches were achieved.  But then Gary got this marvelous idea about adding a little more weight to the loader and to wiggle-waggle the culvert into the ground with a back and forth motion on the culvert.

It worked!  The culvert is now at the bottom of the "creek" and water is flowing through it and not around or under it.  Yeah!

Half the culvert is in.  It was simply too slippery to continue and so the second half of the culvert and the adventure of attaching a coupler to the existing culvert in the broken berm, would have to wait another day.  The rest of the weekend was cold and wet with rain and snow.  But I am eager to get access.  Perhaps next weekend?

Today's Journey Joys: aching muscles which heal, safety (and fingers!) from dropped metal seep preventers, a strong come-a-long, unstuck tractors, flowing water and the soft trickling sound, green grass peeking out from under golden dried blades - they too longing for spring, and seed starting next weekend!