Hail in Kentucky

We had a short lived hail storm this afternoon. There was some high winds and heavy rain but it only lasted about 20 minutes. The hail only fell for about 2 minutes.

The hailstones accumulated on the end of the porch but they were all over the place.

They were mostly pea to marble sized.

We got the chain-link fence put back up by the gateway.

We transplanted some of the strawberries to the raised bed.

Default Gateway

We put a field gate into the barnyard from the backyard. Since there is no field fence to the sides of it for support we had to make a gateway. We did other things too, of course.

 We got the raised beds filled with dirt.

 We mixed in compost.

 The compost is covered with top soil. We didn't want our lettuce and strawberries touching poo.

The ducks get in the yard from time to time. Luna is learning how to herd them.

She does well. the ducks know where to go so that helps. That crooked gate is the one we replaced.

 We borrowed Andy's tiller and got the garden tilled. We added bunny poo.

 Lisa planted lettuce and onions. I picked up some collards and tomatoes today when I went to Lowe's to buy more screws and another 4x4.

 Lenny was outside enjoying the spring weather. He found his way out to the garage.

 We aren't raising turtles, this is a wild one in the creek.

 The lettuce and onions are in this bed.

 We got some forsythia. It has yellow flowers in the spring. They'll go in the front yard on the steep slope out from the porch.

  After the first trip to Lowe's. Posts and concrete. They had electric fence wire on sale at Tractor Supply so we bought 4000 feet.

 We used the 4 wheeler to haul the supplies out to the gate building site.

 I used the hand auger for the holes.

 The Macintosh apple tree is blossoming.















The Macintosh is getting bigger.




 The gate before hanging.

 We got a Mantis tiller. The ground has been too wet to use it yet. I tried it out in the wet garden and it just filled with mud.

 The finished gateway. It's six feet wide so we can get the 4 wheeler through it. The height is 90 inches.

 Tomorrow we'll hang the chain link back to the post on the right. We wanted to give the concrete plenty of time to harden.

 The ground is sloped down to the right so I put a 4x4 sill across the bottom. I packed the sod up to it so it wouldn't be as hard a bump. I'll get more gravel for the other side.


 Lisa leading the ducks.

Duck Pond

We've been having fun with the ducks. They aren't particularly clean animals but they're funny.

 We thought the water dish was getting too small for them to swim in. They can only fit four in it at a time now.

 There's a pond right over there. They seemed big enough to at least visit the pond. We want them to understand this is their pond, not the one in the back pasture.

 They follow Lisa around anyway and they herd easier than sheep so we set off waddling to the pond.

 They didn't know what to do with it so we made them get in. We assumed instinct would take over and they would automatically start behaving like ducks.

 Nope, nope, nope, nope. They were having nothing of it and high tailed it back to the barn. We just stood there and watched them run home.

Rose of Sharon

We moved the second Rose of Sharon today. Lisa worked on it all day, digging the new hole and pruning the branches. She got a good start on digging up the root ball too. After I got off work we finished digging it up. It was quite a bit larger than the first one was last year.

The hole where it used to be.

The new spot.

The weeping cherry is in full bloom.

Close up of the weeping cherry blossoms.

Silver Laced

The chicks are in at Southern States. We got some silver laced wyandottes this year. Last year we got the gold laced variety. They were good egg producers so we hope these will be too.

 

The chicks are in the tub for now.

  They may graduate to the yellow wagon soon.

I built this TV antenna. It’s a DB4 HDTV multidirectional design with a galvanized wire reflector. I made it from wire coat hangers and left over wire from the rabbit cages.  Lowe’s had the 300-75 ohm converter balun for $4. It’s only good for the UHF spectrum but all our stations are UHF anyway. I was expecting a higher gain but it works fine on a short cable. I’ll need an amplifier to wire the other TVs. Direct TV jacked up our rate by about 30% so we cancelled them. This picks up 13 local channels off the air and we signed up for Netflix for $8 a month.

  It picks up golf so what else could you want?

We got a new string trimmer. It works with the attachments from the others that we’ve had in the past. I put up some brackets to hang it and the attachments.

It’s a Cub Cadet 4-cycle so no mixing gas anymore. After all the years of mixing oil and gas for trimmers it was counter intuitive to put straight gas in this and start it up.

Miter Saw

We got a new compound miter saw at Harbor Freight. I tested it out right away and built some cage frames and raised plant beds. I'm sure it will be getting a workout on a regular basis.

 The new saw in action.

 Assembling the raised garden bed. The plan is to have four of them.

 I got two made this week. They look like a couple of coffins out in the yard. We need to get dirt in them and some flowers. The back one will have the strawberries in it.

 The 4x4s are embedded in the ground 7" to help stabilize the boxes. We'll fill them with topsoil and compost.

 I assembled the ends first then added the side boards.

 The ducklings are doing well. The weather has been nice so they got to come outside.

  The girls have been enjoying the nice weather too.

 Ducklings are much smarter than chicks. They can be herded. Luna noticed the herding factor.

Chicks would never be able to walk a ramp like this. They are in the stall now, they got too big to stay in the wagon. Harvey and Beavis have to share at feeding time.

 Lisa set up a corral for them outside of the stall. They escaped from it within a few minutes. They didn't leave the barnyard.

 Lisa is herding them back into the corral.

 The duckling herd. They escaped again later when the sheep came up. They stayed in the barnyard then too.

  There is a nice puddle in the corral where the water drips off of the roof. Ducks like puddles. They are going to love the pond when they get big.

 The duck puddle in action.