There are several outdoor chores I tackle on a regular basis. One is ta
ckling the many piles of dead Mountain Cedar trees in view of the house. Mountain Cedar is not actually a cedar tree, but is related to Juniper. Each pile contains 2 to 5 dead trees. The trunk branches of the trees I am saving for various purposes. My first goal is to build a compost bin. I bought a plastic compost bin at Lowe’s but it started breaking within a few weeks of use. It was a colossal waste of money. I still use it but only until I have built a better one. I plan on using the smaller trunk branches for the compost bin. I am saving the really big branches for fencing. Many around here use Cedar for fence posts. The smaller branches and twigs I am burning, along with other waste. Hopefully I will finish this project by the end of the summer.
Another project is my tiny vegetable garden. The previous owner left some planters with wonderful black soil. Last March I cleaned out the dead plants and planted some vegetable seeds and baby vegetable plants. Because there is no fence I have been in battle with raccoons. Friday I discovered my 8 inch tall pepper plant had been completely eaten. Today I took the seeds from a red bell pepper I purchased on my last trip to Kerrville and went out and planted them all. Hopefully some of the seeds will sprout and the raccoons will leave these plants alone. I am praying for my plants protection.
Besides the little vegetable garden I have planted a lot of watermelon seeds right into the ground. So far I do not have watermelon plants but I keep hoping. If I ever do get a bounty of crops, I plan on sharing. At the moment there is only me, though I pray that changes soon. But even so it will be awhile before there are enough folks here to eat everything that is grown. There are a lot of hungry poor people around here to share with.
Friday I spent four hours in the morning working on these two projects. My pile of Cedar branches is growing. I was able to burn two tree trunks. I then filled my watering can with rain water from my rain barrel and watered my little garden. I obtained the rain barrel last December when I attended a rain water catchment seminar in San Antonio. I learned a lot and am very thankful for the rain barrel. I brought it out here on the first trip of the move and we just put it in the back of the house where it stayed until yesterday. The first time I checked out the barrel after moving here, I was surprised to discover it was more than half full. We had placed it in a great location for water to flow into the barrel from off the roof. Within another month the barrel was totally full. Just one problem, we had placed it on the ground and I was unable to attach a hose to the spigo
t to get the water out. It needed to be elevated. A wooden platform was lying around so I grabbed it and moved it near the barrel. I had to wait for someone to come help me lift the now full barrel onto the wooden platform but once I got that help I was able to screw the hose onto the spigot and start drawing water from the barrel.
It didn’t take me long to realize I did not like the barrel behind the house. Everything I needed to water was in front of the house. So every time I wanted some water I had to grab my watering can, go fill it up from the rain barrel or the only outdoor water spigot, which also is in back of the house, then walk around to the front of the house to water the plants. Then I would make another trip around to the back of the house to refill the watering can. This became very old real quick.
Well, Friday I emptied as much of the water as I was going to be able to empty. The water was now coming out at such a slow rate I just left the spigot open to let it drain onto the ground. Saturday’s I like to do relaxing jobs and just stay inside. There is plenty to do inside too. But Sunday after church I decided to go out and try and move the barrel to the front of the house. It was easier to do then I had expected. Once everything was moved to the front, I positioned the platform on some rocks to elevate it even more. Then I hauled the barrel onto the platform and hooked the hose to it. I made sure to place the barrel at a spot where the rain would likely flow off the roof.
Now all I needed was some rain, but rain had not been in the forecast. Saturday through Monday wind was forecasted and it has been very windy. The rest of the week was suppose to be partly sunny. But not once had I seen rain forecasted for the entire week. So I expected a long wait before my rain barrel started filling up.
Guess what, this morning it started raining. I went outside to see if the barrel was catching any rain and noticed the rain was missing the hole by a couple of inches. So I put some shoes on and went out in the rain to move the barrel so the water flowing off the roof would land right in the hole. I also took the lid off the compost bin so it would get a little water. So far today I have seen three short storms. Not much rain has fallen but it doesn’t take much to fill up a rain barrel as even a little rain pouring off a roof is a lot of water.
An hour ago when it started raining again I decided to check the forecast. It had drastically changed from just a couple days ago. Rain is now forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday. I just heard thunder way off in the distance. At this rate I should be able to use the rain water to water my little vegetable garden in a short amount of time.
Thank you Jesus for today’s rain.
ckling the many piles of dead Mountain Cedar trees in view of the house. Mountain Cedar is not actually a cedar tree, but is related to Juniper. Each pile contains 2 to 5 dead trees. The trunk branches of the trees I am saving for various purposes. My first goal is to build a compost bin. I bought a plastic compost bin at Lowe’s but it started breaking within a few weeks of use. It was a colossal waste of money. I still use it but only until I have built a better one. I plan on using the smaller trunk branches for the compost bin. I am saving the really big branches for fencing. Many around here use Cedar for fence posts. The smaller branches and twigs I am burning, along with other waste. Hopefully I will finish this project by the end of the summer.Another project is my tiny vegetable garden. The previous owner left some planters with wonderful black soil. Last March I cleaned out the dead plants and planted some vegetable seeds and baby vegetable plants. Because there is no fence I have been in battle with raccoons. Friday I discovered my 8 inch tall pepper plant had been completely eaten. Today I took the seeds from a red bell pepper I purchased on my last trip to Kerrville and went out and planted them all. Hopefully some of the seeds will sprout and the raccoons will leave these plants alone. I am praying for my plants protection.
Besides the little vegetable garden I have planted a lot of watermelon seeds right into the ground. So far I do not have watermelon plants but I keep hoping. If I ever do get a bounty of crops, I plan on sharing. At the moment there is only me, though I pray that changes soon. But even so it will be awhile before there are enough folks here to eat everything that is grown. There are a lot of hungry poor people around here to share with.
Friday I spent four hours in the morning working on these two projects. My pile of Cedar branches is growing. I was able to burn two tree trunks. I then filled my watering can with rain water from my rain barrel and watered my little garden. I obtained the rain barrel last December when I attended a rain water catchment seminar in San Antonio. I learned a lot and am very thankful for the rain barrel. I brought it out here on the first trip of the move and we just put it in the back of the house where it stayed until yesterday. The first time I checked out the barrel after moving here, I was surprised to discover it was more than half full. We had placed it in a great location for water to flow into the barrel from off the roof. Within another month the barrel was totally full. Just one problem, we had placed it on the ground and I was unable to attach a hose to the spigo
t to get the water out. It needed to be elevated. A wooden platform was lying around so I grabbed it and moved it near the barrel. I had to wait for someone to come help me lift the now full barrel onto the wooden platform but once I got that help I was able to screw the hose onto the spigot and start drawing water from the barrel.It didn’t take me long to realize I did not like the barrel behind the house. Everything I needed to water was in front of the house. So every time I wanted some water I had to grab my watering can, go fill it up from the rain barrel or the only outdoor water spigot, which also is in back of the house, then walk around to the front of the house to water the plants. Then I would make another trip around to the back of the house to refill the watering can. This became very old real quick.
Well, Friday I emptied as much of the water as I was going to be able to empty. The water was now coming out at such a slow rate I just left the spigot open to let it drain onto the ground. Saturday’s I like to do relaxing jobs and just stay inside. There is plenty to do inside too. But Sunday after church I decided to go out and try and move the barrel to the front of the house. It was easier to do then I had expected. Once everything was moved to the front, I positioned the platform on some rocks to elevate it even more. Then I hauled the barrel onto the platform and hooked the hose to it. I made sure to place the barrel at a spot where the rain would likely flow off the roof.
Now all I needed was some rain, but rain had not been in the forecast. Saturday through Monday wind was forecasted and it has been very windy. The rest of the week was suppose to be partly sunny. But not once had I seen rain forecasted for the entire week. So I expected a long wait before my rain barrel started filling up.
Guess what, this morning it started raining. I went outside to see if the barrel was catching any rain and noticed the rain was missing the hole by a couple of inches. So I put some shoes on and went out in the rain to move the barrel so the water flowing off the roof would land right in the hole. I also took the lid off the compost bin so it would get a little water. So far today I have seen three short storms. Not much rain has fallen but it doesn’t take much to fill up a rain barrel as even a little rain pouring off a roof is a lot of water.
An hour ago when it started raining again I decided to check the forecast. It had drastically changed from just a couple days ago. Rain is now forecasted for Wednesday and Thursday. I just heard thunder way off in the distance. At this rate I should be able to use the rain water to water my little vegetable garden in a short amount of time.
Thank you Jesus for today’s rain.
