It has been a wet early summer for us. May and June saw more rain than I think we have had during that period than any of the years since we moved here. Not complaining, I think it is a wonderful and very welcome change from the drought like conditions of the previous several summers.
The rain has aided in my quest to do less paid work and more work for myself on the property. Good thing, because there is an endless list of things to do.
The garden
Our tomato starts were the best we have ever grown. Nice big stalky plants. Carefully babied and planted later so they don’t get cold shock and stop growing for weeks (ref: every other year we tried ☹️).
We started almost 100 plants and I think I planted 75 which is a ridiculous number of tomato plants for us. We will see in a few weeks whether we get a crop off. Stay tuned.
Also put a new rhodo in the yard and two new blueberry bushes that as of a couple days ago had a nice little crop of berries forming. Yay! The Saskatoon bushes have never bloomed in 5 years so fingers crossed for the blueberries.
Deck and tree fall cleanup
Most of the damage from the January tree fall was cleaned up a couple months ago but this week I finally got around to moving the shed deck. This move, from the side of the shed to the front (door side) allows what we hope will be better parking for the fleet.
Moving wasn’t too hard either. My little electric Warn winch and some tow straps and a couple opportune tree trunks together with a collection of spare 2×6’s and it moved reasonably easy.
Firewood
I’ve managed to split half of the rounds stacked in the yard from the last couple of trees that came down. I figure another day and I’ll be done the rest and I can start to haul it over to the mother inlaw’s .
Trailer(s)
After a couple years being embarrassed at the state of my enclosed trailer I finally got around to working on it. I installed the two extra vents to hopefully get a better handle on the condensation problems it has. Nice because I bought them two years ago.
As part of that exercise I completely reorganized the inside. Much much better. So much so that I think I could use it as a mini workshop and not just a cold storage place for seldom use tools. All I have to do is figure out how to get power to it, or how to fit it up by the house. Unfortunately those are both difficult to solve right now. I either have 1) not enough money to trench a power line or 2) too many vehicles sitting on the driveway.
That other trailer which we will call Peter needs a new deck. A new deck means I will need to do from frame straightening as well because the existing deck has quite the bow in it. Someone in Peter’s past really overloaded the poor guy. I haven’t started this work yet but it is floating higher up in the to do list.
Landscape steps
After a year hiatus work on the landscape steps has restarted. I had hoped to be farther along this weekend but once again the rain chased me indoors and I had to settle with watching sports on TV.
My Elysium 