A little later start to the morning yesterday after soaking but with the sprinkles overnight I was fine with it as it gave the plants a slight chance to dry off before I went tromping through them. As it was I ended up soaked from the waist down but did get 17 pounds of squash picked. We watched the Hawks game more our of curiosity at how horrible it has become now with all the virtue signaling still going on.
A little after noon some little storm cells dumped some rain for a short while as they raced past us.
My newest project is this giant cable spool. I had it setup next to the swing set and have rocks and wood blocks screwed to it for the boys to climb on. The goal is to take the spool apart and use it as a privacy screen for our hot tub. The spool 7 feet across and was held together with 5 long bolts. I had to get @stryeyz to help me with them since I could not be on both sides of the spool at the same time. We got all but 1 nut removed which just would not pass the end of the bolt, so I left it to cut with the sawzall.
I used my impact wrench to remove the bolts which are 3 feet long, except for the one still stuck. The spool was still fairly solid feeling at this point and wasn't wobbling around yet.
Once I started to remove the inner slats the spool started to lose stability and became a lot more wobbly.
I used the recip saw and metal blade to cut through the bolt. It went a lot faster than I expected and as the cut neared the end the spool started to lean down hill. This bound the blade and I had to stop cutting while I straightened the side out. I got the bolt cut and then let one side fall over as I rolled the other to the truck to lean against. The sides are SUPER heavy and pretty awkward to move by myself.
I went to go lift the one side up to stand it up and found it to weigh a few hundred pounds. I could just get it about 3 feet off the ground before having to drop it. I started to look at the wood and figured that I can remove some of the wood and lighten it up dramatically. There are 3 planks in the middle that hold every piece on the other side together which means I can remove the outside pieces. The center will still hold it together more than strong enough but it should be light enough that I can move it around and lift it to standing.
I managed to get the spool apart and the 4 boards removed before I got hot and needed a break. Today I will get the other 4 removed, pull the exposed nails, and try to roll it into place.
The peppers had some that needed to be picked since they have spots and one cracked. I also picked 8 jalapenos that are big and older. The peppers totaled 3.25 lbs.
In the evening before getting dinner going we got the next batch of Minnesota Midget melons into the freeze dryer for batch number 48. 2 trays were in the freezer already so we just had to fill the other 3 trays. It took us about an hour together to cut them up and get the trays into the dryer.
The melons are really small and it is about baseball sized. I've got a pretty good system for processing them and it takes me a few minutes per. We also now have another 60 grams of seeds to add to the supply that were dried from the first two trays, the other 3 trays of seeds are drying on a tray now.
No pics but I also cut open an Armenian Cucumber for the seeds and got them onto a paper towel to dry. I need to pop a bunch more open so I can get a healthy supply for sale. During the day I spent some time making up labels for seeds and have Yellow Salsify, Pear Melon, and Armenian Cucumber ready for the seeds to be dried. I am trying to decide where would be best to list them for sale, I'm not sure if Etsy allows seed sales or not but I have an account there still.
Today J is at school, I need to pick, work on the spool and hopefully get it moved into place, have to check the squash garden as more melons should be ready, pick some more of the potatoes, and this evening I have our board meeting for the co-op.
^Affiliate/Referral Link^
Signup With my Link and we BOTH get 25K RBN
Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
If you find this post useful or entertaining, your support is greatly appreciated by upvoting, following, and sharing!
Bitcoin : 1C6idTJBJ3CJJt9kHoKi4av1XLzg8eQ7rv
