Rose of Sharon

Before we sold the old house I moved some of my favorite plants. The Rose of Sharon shrubs at the old house always bloomed by my birthday. The ones I moved have not bloomed until this year, on my birthday!

The original shrub I got came from my in-laws old property. It had many babies at our old house, some of them with the original purple flowers, some with more of a magenta flower, and these lovely white ones. I moved the white ones because they are my favorite and I figured some of their babies would have purple flowers. It's so nice to see an old friend on my birthday.

Back to Work on the Garage

Alan finally was able to get back to work on his garage/shop today. He got up early and bought drywall and was able to get the hardest pieces (under the mounts for the garage doors) on the ceiling up today.

His drywall lift was great. He was able to do all this without any help. That meant I could spend time in the garden and two hours picking berries. He says the rest of the drywall will go up much faster. I just can't wait to get his shop set up.

And Down Came the Tower

In our little valley there is very little reception for the radio, tv, and cell phone. There is no cable out here either. The prior owners of our house had a satellite dish but we just don't watch that much television. I wish we had better radio reception and you have to go outside to use your cell phone. Years ago, before satellite dishes and the internet, the prior owners put up an antenna tower in the side/front yard. We don't need/want/use it and it was in the way of the excavation for the garage end wall and expanded parking area. So down it came.

The tower was attached to a concrete pad by three bolts. Two of the bolts were hinged.

By unbolting the third bolt the tower could, theoretically, fold on the remaining two hinges. But we didn't want the tower to fall. So in came the winch (coming off the red Defender in the picture above.)

The Defender held the tower up, while Alan on his tractor pulled the tower out of the tree limb it was stuck in.

The tower unbolts into three sections. In total it is 28 feet tall. Anyone want to buy a tower? After all that work we had a nice roast turkey dinner with friends.

It's a Sheep Chair

Our sheep came with horrible hooves. The vet worked on them twice but they still needed a lot of work. Holding the sheep and trying to trim their hooves didn't work (they are still a little wild.) Enter Premier's "Deck Chair." This thing is great. It was easy to put together and held the sheep well. The only problem we had was due to the fact that our sheep are various sizes. The smaller the sheep, the more it was able to struggle in the chair. Our largest sheep, Mama Sadie, sat there just as calm as could be.

We were also better prepared for some serious hoof trimming. The spray bottle of soapy water and a good stiff brush made it so much easier to see what we needed to do. The second pair of hoof trimmers, bought when I couldn't find the others, made it possible for Alan to do their front hooves while I worked on their back hooves.
Before cleaning:

After cleaning:

After trimming

Their hooves still have a lot of cracking and flaking and some pockets. I have read about increasing the copper in their mineral to improve their hooves. Must do more reading about that. At least we have no more "elf hoof" sheep.
A quick injection of the second CDT and it was a tip out of the chair.

Definitely a good purchase.

Pruning for a Little Fruit Tree

My copy of Grow a Little Fruit Tree arrived just in time for the solstice pruning. Here is one apple tree before:

and after:

I have learned so much from this book and I'm excited to plant more fruit trees using this method. But the real proof will be in how these trees grow over the next few years.

Getting Better at Fencing Paddocks

I am finally feeling comfortable with my method for fencing the paddocks within the perimeter fence. These $1.99 step-in posts from Tractor Supply work well to create a "gate" at the end of a run. I can adjust the tension with the blue baling twine and untie the twine for a "gate" if I need to move the sheep.

These little gizmos are only 80 cents from Premier 1 but are worth their weight in gold when it comes to splicing two lengths of electric rope together or making a loop.

I also use these hooks to attach the rope to the electric wire and energize the rope. They add a little tension so if I have a short straight run I can use these to make a gate.

I need to get another spool to wind up rope as I am moving fencing. This stuff likes to get tangled. The spool is also nice to hold the longs ends left when I have a short run.

The sheep have totally adjusted to the paddock system and the electric rope.

Berries, Berries, and More Berries

We are in the height of berry season here. I was very late getting up my blueberry cage. We put it together two days ago and the blueberries are starting to ripen today. I am trying a different type of netting this year. Last fall I bought a 28x28ft piece of netting instead of piecing three foot rolls. It took three people to get the netting on but it seems to be working better. I am not sure how well it will survive the season as it is a lot flimsier than the old rolls. The netting feels like it will tear easily.
Every year when I put up the cage I can't remember which part goes where. Each joint is numbered but I forget where the numbering starts. NUMBER ONE POST GOES IN THE SOUTH WEST CORNER! Now I should be able to figure it out next year.

The raspberries are producing well this year. So far this season I have frozen 7 cups of red raspberries and eaten them on my cereal every morning. I have also frozen 6.75 cups of black raspberries. I'll make jelly when I have more time.

Today I picked 10 pounds of gooseberries and probably have nearly that much left on the two bushes. I made a gooseberry crisp and a gooseberry cake. Both were very tasty. The BBC has the best recipes for gooseberries. I still have too many gooseberries and will have to make up a compote to freeze. It will take forever to trim the "top and tail" from all those gooseberries.