Rodent wars have been heating up, and we had to get a move on and finish the wire cages for the main raised beds.
The pack rats got into one of the potato beds before we had completed the wire cages, and they cut out at least half of the plant stems and leaves.
Swiss chard.
The plants which are protected are doing great! The swiss chard is already big enough that I can start preserving leaves for the winter. Plus the plants in the greenhouse have been giving up fresh leaves for breakfasts for several weeks already.
Walla Walla onions, and Copra onions, growing pretty well.
Onions are growing well, and we pulled out the spinach and some lettuce. The peas behind the romaine lettuce were a total mass of greenery and we pulled them out and harvested the peas over the weekend. The pea plants actually did better in the greenhouse and that’s where we’ll plant them next year instead of in the garden.
Red currants are starting to show ripening berries and I need to start going down every morning and picking the ripe ones. They will all get ripe pretty fast and I don’t want to lose many to the chipmunks who adore these berries. Then I can make jam.
The chocolate mint plants are looking good and getting big enough that I can start drying leaves for tea.
One of our two apple trees, both of which have a lot of apples on them. This is the first year they’ve produced much on this tree, and the first year the other tree has produced anything. We’ll see how many of them stay on the plant, but so far, so good.
The gooseberry plants are both pretty loaded with fruits, even though we really axe murdered this plant by cutting out the older branches. It didn’t seem to have slowed it down at all.
The pie cherry trees are both loaded with fruit. Good thing, too, because we’re out of frozen cherries now. Can’t really see the cherries as they are still pretty green. There are way more cherries than there are leaves.
So the garden is doing pretty well. All the wire cages are built except for two which will cover the strawberry beds. We’ll have those in place by the end of the weekend. Cucumbers are up and starting to grow, and so are the beans, carrots, and beets. Now it’s just a matter of weeding, and watering and watching things grow. The raspberries are starting to get ripe, too.
Roofing project
Finally we’re getting rid of the metal roofing. This is the before picture.
This huge truck parked next to the greenhouse has a crane that can lift a pallet of roofing on to the roof from quite a distance. At least that was the plan.
It was a very tight squeeze getting this huge truck into the driveway. It’s a much bigger truck than we thought it would be. Amazingly enough the hummingbirds didn’t seem to mind all this hullaballoo at all. They carried on using their feeders.
The guys were walking around all over the metal roofing like it was just no big deal. It’s really slick and intimidating to those of us who hate heights. Even low heights.
Here they are busy tearing off the old metal roofing. The stuff around the chimney was particularly difficult to get rid of, and detached. While they were removing the old metal roofing, they discovered places on the underlying plywood that needed to be replaced, plus it needed some proper venting. And that meant the truck couldn’t put the roofing up on the roof where it is convenient to the job at hand.
So instead of going from the truck to the roof.
It went to the yard and the guys get to carry it up on the roof on their shoulders, the old fashioned way. This is also known as “Plan 2.”
End of day 1, plywood all patched, and the tar paper and ice dam prevention paper and drip edges were all installed and the roof was water-resistant, plus some roofing had been hauled up and placed where it would be convenient for installation. After they left, we watched a large thunderstorm which developed to the west of us with trepidation, but it slid north, and stayed in Canada instead of visiting us. Whew.
So today on Day 2 of the roofing project, all they had to do is haul all the roofing up and go to work laying it down. They showed up at 7am, to beat the heat.
It went really fast, all things considered.
And all of a sudden they had picked everything up and we have new roofing, properly installed and vented.
And all of a sudden they had picked everything up and we have new roofing, properly installed and vented.
Yay! No more snow sliding off the roofs and landing with a crash and a bang, and it will be quieter when it rains. Which is good and bad. When it’s a light rain, it sounds kind of neat, but when it’s a heavy downpour or hail, it is awfully loud.
The pink wall on the upper story is all the farther the painting has progressed so far, having been interrupted by weather and then roofing. Hopefully soon that will be finished and then there’s just some masonry work to do on the chimney and foundation to fix old concrete, and the house will be in the best shape it’s ever been.
Progress 🙂