Spring duties

[Mortblanc]

Very nice weekend here, sunshine and no rain for a change.

I have spent the weekend working on equipment for the homestead. Repair and tune up for the little tractor, same for the rototiller. Uncovered, cleaned and started the boats and their motors. Fresh gas for everything and air in most of the tires.

I have a brush pile to burn and a garden cleanup to finish. Cleanup of the chicken house also with manure to spread from that.

It has been a long cold winter.

Planting time here in a couple of weeks. Then the long wait until things start coming in for the table.

[Mortblanc]

Well I got half the front garden done and lost air in one of the front tires.

Also realized that one of the three mower blades was not turning.

Parked the tractor on the concrete patio and called it a night.

Got up early this AM and tore into the machine. A couple of washers and a good crank down with what you people call a "spanner" solved the problem of the spinning blade. A half bottle of tire slime hopefully cured the flat tire. At least I got the remainder of the garden mowed with no further problem.

Good thing too, it is clouding up and storms are moving in.

[Barneyboy]

fixed my Mitsubishi chugger bug ,done my soil" chicken poo and compost " in my garden ready for planting,and made 100l of fuel

[Steve]

Tried my tractor mounted rotavator this weekend. It's a heavy duty Italian job. As I haven't ploughed the veg field yet, I tried it on a small strip of the pig field.

"Wow" I thought, "it's turned that grass into a patch ready to plant, I wonder how it buried all the grass so well".

Then I looked inside it. The grass had been ripped out of the soil and compressed into a mass around the central shaft. It took me an hour to get it all out. Lesson learned.

[Straight Shooter]

Loved that post MB....more please ! well i am way behind with pretty much everything TBH ...its just the way things are at the moment and cannot do much about it , but I intend to chip away when I am able to, will get there in the end i am sure.

[Mortblanc]

Oh I have plenty to do!

Still have some repairs to the house from winter damage,

also must pressure wash the entire house.

And if I get around to it before every bug in creation wakes from hibernation I need to get under the house and straighten out some bad routing on the plumbing.

[MaryN]

I love this time of year. It's new fencing and fence repairs for us. Cleaning out the manure pits - neighbours waiting to take away the muck for their gardens - and checking over the pasture. New paint to slap on some of the garden pickets - will probably dab a bit of blue paint on a couple of the chickens to brighten their days! Rotavating the veggie patch and digging runner bean pits ready to fill with manure to feed the runners. Mini polytunnels already out on the veggie garden warming the soil for planting legumes. Oh, the fingers are tingling and getting greener by the day.

[Mortblanc]

I game the house a change of clothes and a bath today.

I have vinyl siding on my place and vehicles passing by on the road had popped stones from under their tires and the missiles had punched holes in the siding. I had so many holes to repair after 6 years that I decided to strip the entire front and replace everything.

After doing the front I had to pull out the pressure washer and clean the other three sides so everything would match up.

It is supposed to be nice tomorrow and I will do some trim painting. Then it is time to crank up the mower again.

[bigpaul]

clearer and tidied "garage"(double sized wooden shed really) which doubles as my workshop, after the winter I can now get to my workbench and get some work done, tidied drive/yard, planted broad beans and pumped up bicycle tyres. will be taking a load of plastic waste to the "recycling" centre later in the week. got to go to a hamlet on Dartmoor later on this morning and pick up a camo net that was advertised on freecycle

[Steve]

I'm collecting two intact boars today, to look after the ladies. I hope to hear the patter or tiny sausages, sorry, trotters, this year :-)