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I cleared 1/3rd of an acre of dead grass that was a meter high with a tiny underpowered weed whacker that's just over a meter long. I had to hunch over a lot, my back is sore as hell  Oh well, spring is here, time to get back to work  Ordered my seeds for the garden, laid out the sump discharge, filled in a hole where the sump drained (where it should not have) last spring and I never bothered to fix it last year, heh. Oh and I paid my taxes, ugghhh.
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Apr 2, 2012 07:41
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Did you not have a neighbour who could loan you a decent mower or, even better, a small swather? Or is this the back end of the property and you had sopping wet ground issues?
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Apr 2, 2012 08:39
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You could always try spraying a roof with a borax solution. Odds are it could help stop microbial/plant growth, and there's nothing really that an EPA (or Canadian equivalent) can complain about in it.
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Apr 2, 2012 13:25
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lonelywurm posted:Did you not have a neighbour who could loan you a decent mower or, even better, a small swather? Or is this the back end of the property and you had sopping wet ground issues? It wasn't wet, thankfully, though it did rain in the night immediately after I finished. Too small to bother with a swather, and I needed to walk it to look for stones and places to avoid with my mower. I'm going to keep it cut this year, so I needed to make sure it was safe. Good thing I checked too, I found a bunch of hidden ones the size of grapefruits that would have killed my blade/deck.
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Apr 2, 2012 19:07
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I spent yesterday and this morning reading your thread, Blade. Wonderful house. You would be a fool to not want to live there. As it turns out, I like to cook, garden, and DIY. But after reading your thread I have decided I've been slacking. We are in the process of remodeling the inside of our house. So far we have 3 of 4 rooms done. I'd like to hustle and get it done so I can start on my yard. Deck, landscaping, practice golf set up, and smoker. I really like your brick smoker, although I would like mine to be shot one with no electronics or mechanics. I figure I can mortar the bricks in to seal in the smoke, any suggestions? Oh, and a koi pond for my wife. Point of this post is, your wonderful projects have inspired me and many other readers. Thank you for sharing.
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Apr 4, 2012 17:17
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antronics posted:I spent yesterday and this morning reading your thread, Blade. Wonderful house. You would be a fool to not want to live there. Hey thank you. What kind of smoker? Cold, hot, or both? If you mortar it, which would totally work fine, just make sure you make it so that you can get into it to clean the thing. Removable racks or whatever you need to do. You could set some angle iron into the bricks to act as rails for the racks. A little steel door and a felt gasket would be easy enough to fab up at home if you have any metal working tools. You don't want it totally sealed though, if you're going with no air pumps or anything you'll need to promote a draft somehow.
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Apr 4, 2012 19:00
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I would say a hot smoker. What I have in mind is brick like your friend gave you, but mortared in, and top it off with a metal lid. A metal grate on the bottom to hold coals and wood chips, and metal spikes like you said to hold racks. I'm thinking three racks, one for a water pan and two for food. Would that work? Would it need a small area at the bottom left open for air flow?
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Apr 4, 2012 19:53
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You want to have grates to adjust the airflow everywhere, yeah. At minimum, you need one on the intake at the bottom, and one on the exhaust/chimney. Water pans are there for two reasons, to provide moisture, and to regulate the heat energy. My hot smoker is thin sheet metal, so it can vary a lot throughout a smoke because of local weather. With a huge brick smoker, you have the advantage of a massive thermal mass in the brick, so it's really not necessary. You don't need extra moisture either, if your meat's too dry, you're cooking too long/hot/didn't use enough mop. You'll want a baffle so that you can prevent the meat from ever being within line of sight of the fire, otherwise it's just a bbq. (Make the baffle movable/removable so you can use it for BBQing and adjust it as necessary anyway.) Make sure it's big enough to stick a large turkey in, at the very least.
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Apr 4, 2012 21:43
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Great, thanks for the info. I'm going to research fixed smokers. Having a solid fixed smoker in the landscape, like yours, would really set my property off. And to think I was going to buy a cheap electric one from Walmart. Also, what do you think about bricked in BBQs? I would really like a red brick and mortar fixed BBQ, like the old school ones. Probably propane. Red brick to house the burners and grill, and a build up on the side with a stainless countertop. I think that would look awesome, at your place and mine, but I also think just getting a $300 propane grill might be the best bet.
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Apr 5, 2012 04:41
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I use charcoal for grilling, so I just have a cheap sheet metal kettle. 40 bucks at any department store and it will last for years and years. I used to be a caterer, and we only used charcoal, so I kind of stuck with that, I like the flavour better. There are lots of good resources for brick bbqs though. Not my cup of tea, sorry man.
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Apr 5, 2012 05:05
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Two years in my house as of today! Did a little rearranging on the weekend.    So yeah, buddy of mine bought a projector, didn't need this "old" 68" plasma, so he gave it to me for practically nothing. Something every bachelor house needs, a retardedly oversize television  Moving the couch really opened the living room / kitchen up a lot. Not totally sure about the recliner there though. Oh also I bought some seeds for the garden. Hot drat. 
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Apr 17, 2012 03:05
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I see light red kidney beans. Red beans are good too. Also for beets, detroit red beets are also good. They are good for pickling.
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Apr 17, 2012 03:56
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It's burgin' time! 
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Gonna need proof that that is in fact a 68" television.
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Apr 17, 2012 04:27
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I heard this bizarre rumor that kidney beans have some kinda toxin you gotta boil out first? Insanity? Also it feels weird that I've been following this thread for about 2 years...
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Apr 17, 2012 05:18
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thecobra posted:Gonna need proof that that is in fact a 68" television. Must be 68 canadian inches, it looks the same size as my 55" tv 
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Apr 17, 2012 05:22
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Whoops! Sorry, 58" not 68". Silly american units.
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Apr 17, 2012 05:35
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landis posted:I heard this bizarre rumor that kidney beans have some kinda toxin you gotta boil out first? Insanity? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bean#Toxins Appears correct. I was thinking about ricin and castor beans. Also, nice update, Slung.
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Apr 17, 2012 05:35
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Oh yeah I meant to post a thing in here for you Slung Blade, about gardening, my wife forwarded it to me last week. Hugelkultur! I've got some wood cut from pruning my trees over the last couple of years so I'm going to give it a shot, make a raised bed and see how it goes.
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Apr 17, 2012 06:13
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Lookin' good. I wish I had a big TV -- I'm trying to run an xbox 360 on a 27" CRT. The button prompts are nigh-impossible to read. Speaking of game consoles, is that a SNES by the couch? How's it look on the 2000" TV? How's the tractor holding up? Or is the ground still too frozen to use it?
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Apr 17, 2012 12:57
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Bad Angus! Bad!
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Leper: Man that's a neat idea. I always thought wood+soil = bad because fungus is what breaks down wood, and fungus and soil isn't a good thing. Still, that's really cool and seems to work great. I don't have any timber around me though, at least not cheap enough to use for raise beds. Delivery: Have not tried the snes on the giant TV yet, maybe soon, though it worked great on the LCD tv I had it on earlier. Tractor's been sleeping all winter. Didn't have to use it once to clear snow or anything, it was a really mild winter. I was going to do some cultivation last weekend, but it rained/snowed on us, and I don't want to touch the soil while it's wet. Maybe this weekend if the ground dries up a bit, we'll see. The topsoil isn't frozen, but I'm not sure how deep it is.
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Apr 17, 2012 18:12
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Great setup Slung. On your electronics, is that an HTPC set up? If so, what sites, programs, and hardware do you use? Also, how good is your local tv and Internet providers? What games are you playing lately Slung?
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Apr 18, 2012 01:07
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antronics posted:Great setup Slung. On your electronics, is that an HTPC set up? If so, what sites, programs, and hardware do you use? Also, how good is your local tv and Internet providers? Yes, none, lovely windows xp, VLC player, stuff I don't remember because I built it three years ago but it works ok for HD movies and such. Local TV is broadcast or satellite only. I get CTV, CBC, Global, Omni, and some godawful christian channel in OTA HD. For all I watch TV, that's enough for me. Internet is 'high speed' wireless by these guys: http://efirehose.net/ Been with them for years. Not super high speed but good enough for me, reasonably priced. City of Heroes, castle crashers, anno 2070, skyrim, and ninja town on the DS because my sister bought it for me 
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Apr 18, 2012 06:50
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Ninja town is one of my favorites. I wish they would make a sequel or port for the PC or iOS. Never the less, awesome setup. I just hope you get a girl to monopolize your tv and living room with the lifetime channel!
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Apr 18, 2012 07:55
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Someone linked me this thread a few hours ago and I'm super impressed with everything you've done Slung Blade! Questions: -Have you taken the canoe out? -Have you added any benches/accouterments to your fire pit area? -What's going on in the greenhouse department? -How's your dad doing? -Met any nice girls?
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May 6, 2012 06:46
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Slung Blade posted:Internet is 'high speed' wireless by these guys: http://efirehose.net/ Been with them for years. Not super high speed but good enough for me, reasonably priced.
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May 6, 2012 07:56
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fork bomb posted:Someone linked me this thread a few hours ago and I'm super impressed with everything you've done Slung Blade! Thanks -Yes, several times. There's a lake north of here near Kathryn loaded with pike, nice little prairie water hole. -I have some outdoor chairs, and a second hand picnic table that needs a lot of work, so, sort of, I guess. -On hold for the time being. -Really well, he's undergoing this radioactive isotope injection therapy, and they surgically removed the tail of his pancreas. Still looks healthy as anything. The surgery was a little rough, but he recovered, and the injections take a lot out of him, but we're all going camping soon, so it's not stopping him. -Met a few, none seem interested though, I guess I'm too nerdy/boring/unpleasant looking :/ lonelywurm posted:That's the same provider my buddy down by Langdon had. Do they still have connection problems every time it rains? Rain doesn't seem to hurt it, but the sleet we had yesterday knocked em out for a couple hours. Honestly they're pretty good, but it seems to drop out at random times in the evenings about 40% of the days I'm using it, just long enough to be annoying. (2-3 minutes generally) There's a rumor that shaw cable is coming to the hamlet, so that might be interesting. I used to work for shaw though, and I loving hate them, so I'm not sure what I'll do.
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May 7, 2012 07:16
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Getting back into the swing of working outside yesterday. Mowed the lawn. (all of it) Cultivated the entire garden with the tractor, and again with the tiller. The combination works as well as I had hoped it would. Tractor rips up roots and chunks of stuff, the tiller breaks it down into a nice seedbed. I managed to break the collar that holds the hook of the winch to the cable, so I need to fix that. No three point hitch stuff until that gets fixed. Fortunately, it broke at the edge of the garden so I didn't have to carry the loving cultivator very far. The axle leak on the tractor is getting worse. I'm not sure if I want to fix it (it's a very involved process and parts may be hard to get) or just keep putting old rags under the joint to catch the gear oil that's seeping out. I might do more harm than good trying to fix this, is what I'm getting at. Also I forged up 12 more tree supports for my 6 newest trees. My folks are coming over with their tractor next weekend with the excavator to help me plant them. Frogs have been singing me to sleep for the last 2 weeks, it's pretty awesome.
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May 14, 2012 16:45
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We've finally got some nice weather in the Seattle area so the birds and frogs have been plenty. Being able to finally go to bed with windows open has been nice to hear them. Those first few mows of the season are always great, too.  What are your tree supports like? I need a solution to help a few at my place.
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May 14, 2012 21:22
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ack! posted:What are your tree supports like? I need a solution to help a few at my place. You can see them in this picture from last year:  They're pretty simple, so I guess I didn't bother taking a picture last year. It's just two ~5' iron rods, 3/8th diameter. I put a point on one end, and a hoop on the other to hold some old nylons for support material. You want to cross the nylon in such a way that it will prevent the tree from impacting the hoop, if that makes sense. You could do these with a hacksaw, a boulder, a blowtorch, and a hammer. Takes literally 2-3 minutes to do each one. They're pretty strong too. Half of my roof lifted in the winds we got last year, but all of my trees were totally fine.
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May 14, 2012 21:42
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If you remember next time, I'm sure I'm not the only one that would like to watch more tractor work videos. Also, pics of any more progress or even more pics of the same stuff.
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May 24, 2012 22:00
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I agree, thread needs more pictures. Ok, so this is back in April after my neighbour dropped off a trailerload of horse manure. Watch the rhubarb plant on the right side, just in front of the composter, you can see it in all of these shots.  This is a couple weeks ago after I cultivated it all in.  This is today after mowing. Also after last week's seed planting. Nothing popped up yet, as far as I can see. I know the potatoes are growing though.  This is a pear tree from last year. Doing well.  Its partners on the north side. The farthest one is new this year.   Apple tree from last year. The two close ones are from last year, the others are new as of last week.  A blackbird nest I found while mowing. What the gently caress is going on here, there are like three kinds of eggs. Kept scaring the poor parent as I was making passes with the mower  
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May 27, 2012 05:15
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Yay new pic post!  The plants look great! That blackbird nest may have been invaded by a cuckoo (or other species that practices brood parasitism). They find existing nests and lay their eggs in there so that they don't have to extend the energy to hatch and raise their young. The parasitic nestlings are usually larger than their indigenous nestmates and oftentimes hatch earlier and push the other eggs out of the nest (causing them to break/be neglected). If all the eggs hatch, the parasitic nestling will get most off the food brought by the parents because it is larger and more demanding. There has been incidents of parent birds dying trying to keep up with the demands of parasitic chicks. Sorry to sperg, but I recently took a class that included a whole unit on birds. If you're interested, you should check out The Life of Birds (it covers brood parasitism at some point). I'm glad you didn't mow over the nest. Whatever happens, it'll be cool to see some chicks!
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May 27, 2012 05:31
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fork bomb posted:Yay new pic post! I love that nest picture.
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May 27, 2012 05:38
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I knew about parasite birds, but I didn't think we had any species that did it here in Alberta. If you can tell me which are which, I would be willing to "take care" of the issue...
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May 27, 2012 07:53
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Haha, don't play eugenics, man. Nature is what it is. Speaking of animals though, why don't you have any??
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May 27, 2012 07:58
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Slung Blade posted:I knew about parasite birds, but I didn't think we had any species that did it here in Alberta.
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May 27, 2012 08:23
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lonelywurm posted:The brown-headed cowbird and black-billed cuckoo are both brood parasites found in Alberta. I'm not sure about the cowbird, but I know I heard the cuckoo around your area back in the day. They have a pretty distinctive call. I think it's a neat name for the bird. Descriptive.
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May 27, 2012 16:44
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fork bomb posted:Haha, don't play eugenics, man. Nature is what it is. Speaking of animals though, why don't you have any?? I agree. Sling, you need some sheep or goats or llamas. 
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May 27, 2012 23:20
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https://secure.flickr.com/photos/fugl/4425944874/ You have 5 blackbird eggs and one cowbird egg there. 4 of those blackbird eggs could use a bit of a spitshine.
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May 28, 2012 03:39
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Alpacas! Besides being cute as poo poo you can use their fur (hair?) for some awesome things, mostly textiles.
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May 28, 2012 03:40
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