hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[frustratedearthmother]

Its exciting getting a new house, it's exciting making plans to change things to make it "yours", it's not so exciting to pay for it... Have fun with it. The right landscaping can help a LOT!

 

[Lazy Gardener]

My unsolicited suggestion when choosing plants and trees: For plants, choose small. You pay a lot more for a plant in a 1 gallon pot than you do for the same plant in a 1 qt pot. With proper care, the smaller plant will often outperform the larger plant in a very short time. If you are concerned that those small plants don't provide the "filled" look that you are looking for, you can always "fill in" with annuals for the first year. When choosing trees: Bare root from a reputable company will outperform a potted specimen. Those trees with big trunks in big pots: They've been forced (lots of fertilizer) at the nursery to get them to grow super fast. The potting process cuts more than 1/2 of their roots off. So, you're left with a big tree that has too much top growth for it's tiny root system to support. And spending time in a pot that is not big enough to support the tree results in the existing root system becoming pot bound, and the tree is further stressed b/c it's not possible to provide enough water to support all of that top growth.

Here's a paragraph lifted from one of my favorite nurseries (Saint Lawrence in NY). They ship young, bare root specimens which I've found to do very well.

What Our Trees are Not
Our trees are not like the trees that you often see lined up at your local garden center in springtime: tall, beefy specimens grown in a favorable climate (Zones 5 to 7) and pushed with nitrogen fertilizers. Heavy reliance on chemical fertilizers produces a “top-heavy” tree with a disproportionately small root, which is then machine-dug (often cutting or damaging roots in the process) and shipped, first from grower to wholesaler, then from wholesaler to retailer—a journey which often leaves the tree water-stressed. The root is encased in fertilizer-enhanced media and potted or wrapped in burlap, which the customer is instructed not to remove, making it impossible to deter- mine the condition of the tree's root system. Although trees should be planted when they are dormant, garden centers often sell them in full leaf. Trees sold in this way are almost never covered by a guarantee. We do not “push” our trees with artificial fertilizers, but use natural methods to encourage an optimum growth rate. The result is a smaller, but “tougher” tree with a more balanced proportion of root to top, which will establish itself well and harden off properly before winter.

While you might appreciate the advice from the person from the nursery, be aware that they are going to recommend ONLY the plants that they have in stock, or can order for you. And, they will in all most all instances look to up sell you, as well as sell lots of extra products to "finish" your landscaping. It's very doubtful that they will provide advice regarding soil management, drainage and other "infrastructure" issues. Free advice is almost always NOT free, and often comes with an unseen price tag.

Let me know if you get more advice and assistance from this company than my dismal prediction!

 

[hqueen13]

THanks for the tips, @Lazy Gardener I really appreciate it! I am prepared to get some of that information from the garden center, and I don't know that we'll be getting any major trees yet. What I mostly want at this point is a plan so we know what direction to go in. I also want to bounce ideas off of them and see what suggestions they have. We didn't get there this weekend, so we'll have to go later. I REALLY need to get out there and prune things though before it gets too warm!!

We ended up going to watch the BF's brother's weight lifting competition on Saturday. That was rather boring for the most part, but cool to see. The only downer was a girl breaking her arm in the middle of the competition. Thankfully I wasn't in the room when it happened, but it really put a damper on things for a while while they took care of her and waited for the ambulance to arrive. Since the competition was an hour away we spent most of the day there and driving back. We grabbed dinner on the way home and took care of the farm that I had to take care of and then headed home and crashed. Sunday I got up and headed back to the barns, and then got home about 11, which was a pretty good time for me. We ate lunch, and then I took a nap for a bit. After I got up the BF and I started working on organizing the shed. I was mostly there for moral support while he cleaned and organized. He didn't get very far, but hopefully he can get more done this week. We have a window of decent weather (although now there's rain in the forecast on Thursday...) and the weekend is clear, so I HOPE we can get some stuff DONE so that these projects can move forward!!!!

I get a bit of a break this week, Cowboy and Coyote's owners are home for most of the week. They leave again on Saturday, but I get a few days of not as much rushing around. Of course, not having the money coming in isn't as nice, but I'll get by.

Not much else to report, at this point. I guess that's good, LOL

 

[hqueen13]

This weekend was pretty good. Saturday was mostly a wash, but Sunday we were able to be really productive.
Saturday we decided to go get hay and then come back and go to Lowes to pick up the stuff for the shed floor. We set out, and stopped by Cowboy and Coyote first, and then the truck battery was dead when we went to leave. KD wasn't at the farm (which is next door) and had left the hay for us to load ourselves, so I couldn't call him. I called the neighbor and she didn't answer, so I called our friends, who live on an adjacent property. I caught VO, but he was out running errands, but he told me where the battery backup charger was in his garage, which was thankfully unlocked. We walked over and realized that TW had just gotten home, so I checked in with her. We found the charger, but it was dead, too, but thankfully I noticed a set of jumper cables on the shelf. So she sent out back over to Cowboy and Coyote's with her truck and the jumper cables. We got the truck running again, and then returned her truck. We finally got the hay and headed up to the farm to unload it for Storm. We left there, and it was almost noon, so we decided to place an order with the Chickfila app so we could grab it after we picked up our order at Lowes for the shed floor. The BF had placed it online before we left the house. We get to Lowes, and the order isn't ready yet, 4 hours later. The girl at the desk is like "oh, we only have 1 person doing that today." I'm like but your store is EMPTY and there are employees standing around, and you have ONE person doing something and they are now 4 hours behind??? Not the right answer to tell someone who is hangry and has already had a bumpy morning with things taking a LOT longer than they should. So we cancelled the order, and grabbed lunch and went home. I felt better after we ate, and I ended up getting the upstairs vacuumed. The BF puttered in the basement for a while, and then we finally headed back out to take care of Cowboy and Coyote again. We ended up grabbing dinner out, too, since I hadn't planned anything.
Sunday was much more productive. I got the chores done pretty quickly, and the BF went to Lowes while I was at the barn. I got home right as he got back, and he needed to eat breakfast since he hadn't eaten anything, and we went out to get started on the shed floor. I remembered a few things we had and that ended up making life much easier. We were able to get the footers set without nearly the trouble we had when we were building the wood holder! The BF had tweaked something in his back, so we decided to stop there, and then we got the shrubs pruned, as well as the Crepe Myrtle and the Dogwood. They look much happier now.
Today they are calling for rain again this afternoon (again, after the 3 3/8" on Thursday last week!), but the rest of the week looks nice. I hope we can continue to work on the shed in the evenings since it's staying light longer now. I hope that by the weekend we'll be ready to strip the frame and get started moving it. I think the rain isn't supposed to return until late Sunday. I have my first riding lesson with KN on Saturday, so that will be good to get back to that, too. It's nice to finally be getting back outside again!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

As usual you are busy, busy, busy! Hope the weather holds for you so you can keep working on the shed! Good luck with your lesson. Absolutely agree that being outside is nice these days. Of course, we'll probably be too hot in about a week or so and I'll be complaining about the heat, lol!

 

[hqueen13]

I hope that doesn't happen for a long time, FEM! LOL We have a few months, hopefully, of reasonable weather before it will get really bad. Or at least I hope that we do. We'll see what happens.
We didn't get much last night, which I was so relieved about! So that should leave things nice and dry this weekend. I kind of added one more thing to our plate, but we'll see how this comes together. I made an offer to Cowboy and Coyote's owners to help manage their property. Unfortunately, he just contracted with the lawn guys to mow the pastures, so he didn't need help with that, but he said he'd be really happy to have help with the manure clean up that needs to happen on a regular basis now. So now the BF and I have to figure out how to make that happen. My thought process was if they can pay us enough then it will be the payment needed for the tractor, which means that we'll be able to get what WE need to manage our place, and THAT will be a huge help. It'll mean getting creative to figure out how to get it to their place, plus pick up the manure and all that, but we'll see how that comes together. First step is to get a quote for a tractor. We also have to come up with a price that is fair to them and for us to take care of it. My thought process was that we could manage it when the weather is good, and they won't need to be home. That's been part of the issue is that they're not home often enough and with as much rain as we've gotten the past few months he hasn't been able to harrow the paddocks like he used to, which means the manure is just sitting, and that's gross, especially with bug season right around the corner again. I'm hoping that the BF can get ahold of a bobcat this weekend from his work, and get it to their place so that we can get it cleared and cleaned up so that we can start fresh again. My thought is to charge them a bit more for that work, since it's pretty dang bad, the manure is about 8"+ deep in some places, and then charge a monthly rate that will be reasonable and we'll just take care of it when the weather cooperates and we have the time. I'd rather be working on our shed this weekend, but I also want to make money, so you gotta do what you gotta do... So we'll see where this goes.
Other than that, nothing new, LOL.

 

[sumi]

That sounds like a crappy job, but I do hope it will work out for you guys!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

 

[hqueen13]

Yall are funny. I hope it works out too. I was hoping to get it cleaned up this weekend, but it doesn't look like we can get a bobcat over there or anything. Plus I'm still not sure where we will take the manure yet. I know we can use some of it, but we don't have a spreader yet, still, so I don't know what we'll do at this point.

I tried asking for some quotes in a group I'm in on Facebook, and everybody kept giving me answers that weren't helpful. I think I need to rephrase my question and see if I can get some better answers.

KN comes in tomorrow. I start chickens tonight, and Cowboy and Coyote finish tomorrow evening. Tomorrow is going to be CRAZY busy. I forgot about the chickens until this morning, so I think I'm going to go home first, cook dinner, and then head down to do chores since it's daylight so long right now. They won't need to be locked up until about 7:30 or so. He did tell me I'll need to wash eggs every day, and I'm really not sure how I'm going to get Friday's eggs washed. I guess we'll see what happens, I will probably go back over there after my lesson on Saturday morning. Hopefully there aren't too many people that want eggs really early in the morning. He did get a new batch of chickens but they won't really start laying good for a little while.

So it goes...

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Ugh on washing eggs.... For some stupid reason I hate washing eggs! When we were so muddy I would toss the dirtiest ones to the pigs and wouldn't even take them inside.
"Sorry honey....stupid chickens didn't lay any eggs today"...