Added 155 square feet more of 6.5″ fiberglass insulation to the attic. It’s about 80% done.
Archive for May, 2009
Insulating
27 May 2009Doing
27 May 2009Every day of my life, I should do at least one thing to make my family better able to survive and thrive in the coming changes. There is not time to have off days.
- Food
- Growing
- Cooking
- Preserving
- Water
- Shelter
- Heat
New Well — Not!
26 May 2009I dug a hole by hand down to about 4′, then I put in my sand point with one 4′ length of pipe attached and started driving it down with a sledge hammer. It was going very hard at first, then seemed to stop altogether. Then I noticed that it didn’t seem very tight in the ground, so I pulled it up, and up it came without the cast iron point! The threads where the point attached to the screen were all bunged up also, not fixable.
So now the tip is 5′ or 6′ down, probably not retrievable, and I probably couldn’t fix it even if I could get it out. Very disappointing. I haven’t thought of any options yet other than filling in the hole.
Why did it break? I don’t know. I know there’s plenty of sand underneath us here, but I wasn’t into it yet. Maybe there was just too much resistance. But how do I get that hole deeper before starting to drive the sand point so that I do get into the sand? I dug as deep as I could with a shovel and a post-hole digger — maybe get CR to come over here with the auger attached to the back of his tractor. I wonder how deep that will go? I wonder how deep I need to go?
Creepy Weeds
26 May 2009At some level, you have to admire weeds — they are the tough guys of the plant kingdom. They’re adaptable, hardy, and prolific — that’s practically a definition.
However, when growth of any kind becomes too strong and aggressive, it becomes almost creepy and disgusting. Witness the underground runners on this quack grass I just pulled out of wood chips (the one going off to the right is about 8″ long):
Yes, it’s only creepy from a human perspective, and I do admire them in an abstract way, but still….
Planted
26 May 2009Planted another 30′ of potatoes today, which makes a total of 150′. Today’s planting was of the Yukon Gold that we bought.
The potatoes that got frosted are coming back.
Planted sweet corn, short row of kale, collards, pole beans. Should have planted kale and collards much earlier. Planted collards in a longish row next to the blueberries. I dug it up and turned it over beforehand, and although it looked quite rich, dark with lots of earthworms, there’s a lot of rotting wood chips and bark in there. We’ll see how they do in those conditions.
I planted the pole beans along the wooden fence. I used the top half of the 42 oz oatmeal boxes (used the bottom half for pots). I laid down newspaper on top of sod, set the boxes on top, dropped in a double handful of compost, then filled the rest with garden soil. Planted three bean seeds in each, then filled around each one with straw. They’ll probably need water until their roots get down in the soil under the newspaper. I’ll staple some fencing up on the fence to give them something to grab onto.
Ending and Beginning 