On a Roll...

This morning I moved all the dirt from around the pond that wasn't needed for back filling and put it out in the thing I can only call a rose garden - although it isn't much of one and I am not sure I want one. It will fill in where I dragged away the slate to surround the pond. There was a good bit of dirt, but I am glad it's out of my way.

My father stopped by and we got Mr. W's lawn tractor running. It had been giving him some difficulty. When I was little, I very much wanted to be like my father. First, I wanted "a tail". It irritated the daylights out of me that my father and my grandfather each had a tail, but I didn't. I expected mine would grow eventually. It never did. The good news is, I learned to appreciate what I DO have - figured out how it's way cooler than a tail, even. But I always thought I'd at LEAST grow up and fix cars, weld things, and make lawnmowers run. Today I had my vicarious small engine thrill for the year. Best of all, we don't have to push pull or tow the very new lawn tractor back to the place I got it from - which is good since we don't have a trailer to tow it back with! And when one invests in a big birthday present for one's spouse, one expects it to last more than a half a year, frankly!

While he was here Dad also got me started on my next for the birds DIY. Ready?

A SQUIRREL BAFFLE! (Click for larger image - baffle is under feeder)

 (Also known as a Yoshi Torture Device)

This bird feeder was made for us by our friend (and my 5th-or-something-like-it cousin, actually) Mike's brother Dwayne. Mike took down a pretty good sized oak from our old house to use in making boards for work he was doing on his home for his wife Donna. I suppose really the work is for both of them, but then Mike, like Gene, could probably live in a 10x10 foot hut and not really care that there were cracks in the window and dust bunnies like mountains under the bed, so really, it's for Donna. Anyway, once the boards were milled, Mike had his brother make us this feeder out of some of the board as a thank-you gift for the tree. He got quite a bit of lumber out of it. We could have cut it up for firewood, but it was so straight and so big and so perfect that it deserved to be lumber, not cord wood. Now we have this bit of our old house with us! But I know all about bird feeders and squirrels, so I copied, sort of, my father's squirrel baffle.

To make the baffle, I punched a hole in the center of a six-inch aluminum vent cap, which I then attached to a two foot long piece of six-inch vent pipe using sheet metal screws. The whole thing then slides down the pole and rests on top of a hose clamp that's been screwed onto the pipe the feeder is mounted to. Squirrel jumps up, hits the baffle, and tumbles to the ground. My father's is a little different, but he's had it for ages now and has never seen a squirrel in his bird food. I hope it works. Yoshi is pretty sure the whole thing is just there to torment him. I can't wait until the squirrel finds it. He thinks it's torture now? Just wait!

After Dad left I went shopping for FISH! I got two Shubunkin goldfish and one orange Oranda. They are adorable and I love them. I named them, even.

(Spot, Fido and Rover)

This is probably like naming your food, because I assume something will kill them off before long. I mean, seriously. They are fish, living in a pond, in the backyard. What could go wrong, right?

(Rover and Spot snacking)

For now, I have Fido, Spot and Rover. Since these are fairly simple names, when one gets knocked off I can just sub another fish for the dead guy, christen it in honor of the deceased, and move on. This is my hope. Sadly, I have already become ridiculously attached to their finny selves, most particularly to Fido.

(Fido, Faithful Finny Friend)

I already love him, very much. And you can see that he simply adores me. Or he's just happy for the food. I prefer to think it's love.

Uh oh. Poor Yoshi. All this fish love and baby chicken nonsense and bird feeding and bathing and garden and pond making - very little of which involves him - has finally driven him to the end of his rope.

(Yoshi's hitting the bottle)

Maybe time for the boy to have a nice hike and a little fetch time. Tomorrow, I promise, Yoshi. Right now, momma needs supper and then a nice movie and some knitting, and eventually an eight-hour nap!

Baths, Puddles, and a Baby Meat n' Eggs Rematch

Did I mention that I was not sure how I felt about the stability of the bird bath on top of the post? Well I wasn't sure, and after playing with it a bit I decided to make a modification. I added a floor flange (about $4 at Home Depot) to sit atop the pipe clamp.

Above is what the flange looks like when it's not upside down under a pot on a chunk of EMT. It's attached to the terra cotta pot, which is then attached to the basin containing the water and a rock (for sunbathing!). 

See? Flange! It adds tremendous stability to the whole shootin' match. Really, I just like saying flange. Flaaannggge! FLANGE!

I also moved some rocks today. Slate really. Most of those pieces are pretty big. That pile used to be in the middle of the yard around what I believe used to be a rose garden of sorts. I am not moving the roses, and actually have added to them and mulched them while I try to decide what to do with the area, but the slate was so badly overgrown and I needed it for my mud puddle. I need to figure out how to cut it or break it though. When I say big, I am talking an inch and three quarters thick, and 3 feet long! Lot of work, but I saved a fortune.

Speaking of - the puddle looks ever so slightly more pond-ish today. It still needs a lot of work - more backfilling, now that I've watered the heck out of what was there, then mulching, laying of slate edging, etc. But the solar pump came today and worked brilliantly. So brilliantly that I had to submerge it lest the sprayer send all of the water out of the pond! I really expected much less flow from the little thing. At some point I will get some kind of a spitter, or I will make one, but for now this keeps the water moving. 

I have another project coming up - some of the pieces are featured above. More will be revealed! I am hoping to have that one done by tomorrow. Hint: the folks who use the new bath in the back yard will appreciate this new project, maybe even more!

And... CHICKS! Because I can.

These little brown guys (girls?) are Cochins. They are very forward and friendly, the first to run over when I put my hand in the tank. They climb onto my hand and sit, trying to be taller than all the other chickens. The fluffly yellow chick I believe is a Delaware. The bigger chick to the left, with the chipmunk stripe on it's head... I am just not sure, but I can't wait to find out!

I love this - the little Silver Laced Polish laying down? That is totally a grown-up chicken thing. It's practicing adult chicken dust bathing in a pile of shavings! I really love it when they act all grown up! Another Delaware is hanging out, and a White Crested Black Polish behind. The other two, the smallish kind-of chipmunk-ish-y things? I am unsure, but leaning Silver Penciled Hamburg.

Last, meat v. eggs - a week 1.5 rematch. They arrived a week ago today. One week ago. And this is where we are now - this egg bird is actually bigger than the bird I used for the last match up. I couldn't catch her, the slippery bug!

Flashback

I started blog-trawling my own blog for no reason other than to reminisce. I got led down some paths I'd forgotten about. I don't have links, but the pictures were fun to see again, so I am going to post a few for you, and for me. I started this blog in 2005. Wild. So much has changed and so much has stayed the same!

I got a label maker! You can't see that he is giving me a rude gesture beneath the brim of that hat. He did not like being labeled. Silly man. If he hadn't sat still, it wouldn't have happened.

 I got a GRANDDAUGHTER!

 Boo was so young...

 Somewhere in there we got Dazee for a time

 And then Yoshi...

 But always we come back to Boo. Momma's Boo.

 It's impossible to resist.

 April grew really fast.

 Girl totaled her car but brought home a Gerbil to replace it.

 My mother and Dazee at Halloween. She was so excited to see that dog in that chicken suit!

 But always there was Boo...

I went to a Toby Keith concert (I love my husband I love my husband I love my husband...). Although this photo is labeled "drunken cowgirls", I am holding, I wish to point out, a Stewart's root beer.

Girl graduated, which was before she wrecked her car and before April was born. Here is her hippie homeschooler graduation portrait, complete with bare feet and tassel over the ear.

Before Yoshi, Dazee or even Boo... there was Kioshi. And I had hair halfway down my back that made a huge braid and took three days to dry. Oh, and we lived in a totally different house.

 Kioshi did not like the new treadmill at the new house.

 My father, however, really liked my first book.

 Meg had a rooster named Tut who turned out to be a girl.

 See, there's that Gerbil...

Tucker, dad's dog, discovered that the only way to make the treadmill not move was to sleep on it. 24/7. Worked, too!

 I had a three dog afternoon with Dazee, Boo and Abby.

We took a cruise - and then took pictures of the pictures they took of us to save cash. Worked, too. Well. Except for the distortion and warping...

Boo always knew the way home. And always was ready to take it at the first opportunity!

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite!

For The Birds (Literally)

And for me, too!

Yesterday I was surfing the inter-webs for some kind of upcycled DIY birdbath that would cost me less than an arm and a leg, or even just less than one arm OR one leg. I found a few that I thought were sort of cute and pinned them to my Pinterest - this for instance, from HGTV - a sink recycled into a birdbath:

It really did not work for Gene at all. There was even nose-wrinkling and a clearly and simply stated "...tacky." in response. I saw some baths made of logs with empty pots atop them, some made just of a pot set on a rock or slab on the ground. I found these - teacups - from Something Wonderful! Loved-loved-loved this, but Gene didn't, and so the idea was discarded:

But then I found this at Home Stories A to Z...:

Now this I love with one exception. It's entirely too... blue? Too ... matching? Too something. It doesn't look like something you'd find on a farm. Not that I am a farm, but I still have a farm brain. I wanted something more earthy, maybe mis-matched, and as cheap as possible - preferably made predominantly with stuff I already have on hand. And as the Beth at Home Stories A to Z says right in her entry about this bit of adorableness "Be creative and add your own flair, pot sizes, rebar size, birdbath top, paint color, etc." In the end I came up with this, and I'll even tell you how!

First, remember that I am hugely cheap and will find a way around spending money any way I can. I foraged in my basement in the tag sale pile until I found a red-rimmed white enamel basin that was destined for a new home. Then I dug up some terra cotta clay pots from the wealth of them that I have acquired over the years. They aren't all the same size, some are stained and chipped, and I didn't even measure them - which became a small issue later, but I am getting ahead of myself. 

We did not have any re-bar, which the original plan called for, and I needed some annuals to fill the pots, so I headed for the store. I found 1/2 inch EMT, a type of electrical conduit, for $1.20 a 5-foot length. Re-bar was $5.20 for 10 feet, and I'd have had to cut it. By using the EMT I saved money and time. It may not last as long as re-bar, but based on my experience with EMT in the past, I suspect it will come pretty close.

I pounded the EMT two feet into the ground in the not-yet-finished (so please don't mind the dirt piles and uneven mulch and infant perennial plugs!) pond garden. At the base I set the largest pot, and then began to slide others down, tipping them as I went. Two wider pots were not cooperating with me - the width of the pot was too great to allow it to rest against the EMT center post AND on the edge of the pot below, which it must in order to be stable. It kept tipping, slipping, and in general annoying me. To compensate, and to avoid a trip back to the store, I used pliers to gently chisel away at the 1/2 inch center hole of the pot until it was more of an oblong shape. This allowed the wider pot to rest against it's neighbor below and the center post, giving it needed stability. I continued placing pots up the post, dry-fitting as I went along.

"Measure twice, cut once" as the saying goes. Or, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". Either way, I am a big fan of dry fitting projects. Once I was certain that all of the pots would stay in their angulated positions, I filled them with potting soil. I glued the second-largest pot to the underside of my enamel basin and set it aside. It will take 24 hours to cure fully, so after taking the "finished" picture I removed it from the post - carefully - and set it enamel-pot-side-down to cure.

Oh! I was really frustrated that my last pot would not sit squarely on it's tipped downstairs neighbor. There's really nothing for it to rest on but a bit of pot edge. I solved this by putting a hose clamp onto the EMT at the height of the pot rim so that the screw part of the clamp is opposite the edge of the pot, as above. This way the last pot rests on the pot below and on the hose clamp, which allows it to be more stable and level.

TAH-DAH! Not to bad for an hour and some pondering and even a tiny bit of sweat (it's getting warm out there in the sun!). The pots are planted with very inexpensive sweet alyssum in purple and white, and dusty miller. I love the sage-y silvery haze of dusty miller, and it is very likely to self-seed at the end of the season, so really it's a two-fer.

When I got home from the store the Asphlundh guys were almost in my door yard. These are the things that drive Yoshi completely mad, or used to. Today I convinced him to be more or less silent while they did their job and trimmed our trees away from the wires. He was less than amused by my demands for silence.

When I took baby chicks to visit my neighbor the other day, she asked what was up in my backyard...if you don't know, it does look a little unique. I told her, and I will tell you, too. 

Above, believe it or not, is a tiny little vineyard. Between each pair of posts is a grape vine. Some make wine, some make raisins, some are just for eating and juice and jelly.

And below, we have an orchard. Can you see it? Hint: I was standing right in the middle of it.

It's a little harder to see. But look closely - that's apple, quince, peach, plum, cherry and apricot trees; 15 in all. Mostly apples, though!

Last fall Girl and I planted a bunch of daffodil and narcissus bulbs in the front yard. We naturalized them, just scattering them around. I hope that someday they will fill the whole yard. I think the squirrel dug up about half of them, so of 75 original bulbs we have many fewer flowers. But they will grow and in time there will be hundreds! For Mr. W. this means no mowing until the flowers go by. You think he'd be pleased with this, but he seems rather insistent that he needs to mow soon. Luckily his lawn tractor is down with some sort of illness that prevents starting. (It wasn't me, honest!).

Last but not least, who wants some gratuitous chick pics? Ready?

CHICKS!!

MORE CHICKS!!

CHICKS AGAIN!!

OK, that's enough of that for now. I love it when they do "normal chicken" things, like the little Polish scratching and preening in those last two images. I am starting to make more guesses about what breed some of the more obscure chicks may be. I think we may have Delawares and possibly some Hamburgs. I can't wait to see them all grow!