Yard Improvements

Archery

Zach won a bow at a Cargo Largo Bid sale. There was good weather in February, so Martin and Zach set up an "Archery Range."

Unfortunately, they have only used it that first day they set it up. Hopefully they will go out and get more practice soon.

It looks like if we leave the bales of hay in place long enough, that they will soon be "camouflaged."

Roofing the Other Half of the Chicken Run

The mud in the chicken run was so bad from the winter storms, we decided that we needed to get the other half of it roofed.

We got to work on this in March with Martin and Zach doing most of the work.

It has well been worth the effort as the chickens have a larger area to stay dry in and we don't slip, slide, and slosh in the mud when we go out to care for the chickens.

Garden, Lawn, and Shop

We needed to make room in the shop for the metal shelve that we purchased to hold all the metal we won at a Cargo Largo Bid Sale. So, Martin and Zach made a table for the saws so that we could "stack them" one on top of the other. We moved other things around the shop as well, and were quite satisfied when we where able to make everything fit.

Our lawn mover died before we made it through our first mowing of the year. It took Martin a lot of work, including buying a new carburetor, to finally get it to function well.

We also started getting our garden ready for planting in March and were grateful for Breanna's help.

Worm Farm, Fly Farm, and Welding

In April, Zach encouraged us to start a worm farm and a fly farm. So far the worms seem to be doing well, but the flies we are wanting have not appeared to lay any eggs yet.

Zach also did his first welding project with our Cargo Largo metal to brush up on his welding skills.

Grape Arbor, Tomato Cages, Anvil Stand, and Green Egg Cover

The grapes had started growing by April, so we needed to get going on our new grape harbor. We changed our minds several times along the way, and ended up with something very different than our original plan to include a place to train our fig tree as well.

Martin and Zach also built 2 tomato cages. Each cage is covering two tomato plants.

We hope this means that we will get more of our tomatoes this year than the squirrels.

Martin also made an Anvil Stand and Peggy sewed a cover for our Green Egg to protect it from our rainy weather. (Sunny weather too.)

Wood Splitting

We put the log splitter to good use to prepare for next winter. First we had to move wood we got for free two seasons ago, so that we could split it and stack it in the wood shed. Martin used a couple of the pallets we got with our Cargo Largo Pallet Bid wins to make a stand to help him hold the logs that needed to be cut to length.

We were able to get free wood from a neighbor due to their tree breaking in the storm. They then had someone come and cut a few more big branches off the tree and those tree trimmers were able to bring the load of wood to our house and dump it for us. Between all this wood, we are set for this coming winter and have our drying racks full of wood for the next winter. It feels good to be done with this project in May.

Garden Pictures

Garden Cupboard from Pallets

Side Shed for the Worm Farm