After the drop off at school and getting my post out I got the summer squash picked. They gave me 18 pounds and today I am going to let them grow since there was not a lot of them of much size after the picking. I am having to let some of them go to get huge so I can have seed savers.
With the summer squash picked I got R loaded up and we went up the hill to the winter squash garden. There were only 7 more melons that were ready to pick leaving abut 20 more on the plants. There is some cooler weather coming so I may end up pulling many of them before hand, but I will have to see how cold it looks like it will get.
The gophers had hit the big pumpkin plants so I had the 4 to pull. Much of the butternut was ready to pick along with 4 of the 5 remaining Sucrine du Berry squash. I got a whole 2 delicata from apparently a single plant that grew and accidentally broke one of hte remaining acorn squash from its plant.
After weighing I have another 342 pounds of winter squash. This puts my season total at 1166 pounds of winter squash with more still in the garden to be picked. I left some butternut, marina d chioggia, acorn, and the melons to go. My season total so far is up to 4400 pounds of produce picked from the gardens.
After lunch for R and I I headed out to keep on working on the spool. I finished pulling the remaining boards off of it to lighten it up and mashed all the nails over so I didn't poke myself. It was a whole lot easier to stand up now with the weight off of it.
The rock climbing holds really helped me to have good leverage to roll the thing up the hill to the house.
The hardest part of the move was to get it over the hump at the top. Once by the house I leaned it there for a bit so I could prep the area I was putting it.
The two trees that are my main supports.
I remembered that I had a 2x6 that was warped in my wood pile that would not be very useful for much. It ended up being the perfect length to fit between the pine tree and the chokecherry.
After rolling the first spool in I discovered that I needed the 2x6 on the other side of the pine tree so after a bit of shuffling I had it correct. I let it sit against the tree while I worked on the other side and took a break to cool down.
After a break to rest I got back on the spool. I had to drop it on the ground and I found that I had made a slight mistake. The side I was now removing has the nails pounded through from the other side, so I had one hell of a time getting the boards off.
I was prying so hard on the boards that I totally bent my crow bar out of shape. It is nearly useless now it has straightened out so much. I was dripping sweat and frustrated so took another break for fluids and to cool off.
I figured it was time to get a bigger hammer and I found my railroad pry bar that came with the property. This thing is a beast and still has a chisel tip that ended up working wonders on getting the boards to let loose. In what amounted to a fraction of the time I had been working on it the rest of the boards were removed.
I rolled the second spool up the hill to then along the house. I had to be careful not to let it roll off down the hill as I turned the corner to get it to roll along the 2x6 support.
It rolled into place nicely then after shifting them a bit to make it easier to screw to the 2x6 I attached the old spool slats to the spools to fill in between them.
All of this is due to the neighbor house being an air bnb and the trees and bushes loosing their leaves for the winter. It had been in my head since I built the pad and so it was really nice to finish it.
I spent a good long while soaking my aching body before finally crashing for the night.
This morning's soak was really nice and it is truly the way to start the day. The jets massaging the still really sore muscles in my back helps keep me from becoming ultra sore during the day.
After taking J to school I will be picking more tomatoes to go with the ones that @stryeyz blanched and diced last night. I need to get the cherry tomatoes in the kettle and heating so I can strain them of their peels before adding the juice to the tomatoes from last night then I will can all of it today. I also need to get the next round of grapes picked that are ready. This afternoon I am going to get my materials list made up for re-roofing the studio which is mandatory to be done before winter.
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