The Trees Are In!

I’m not eating fruit yet, not even enjoying the shade from a big pear tree but I feel like a success. The trees are in. Pears, peaches, and apple trees for my area and they look wonderful. The peach trees already have little peaches!

Here’s a few pictures.  Tiny peaches.

More peaches.

Young pear trees.

Soon we will get the ground ready for grapes. I have Muscadines starting. They do well in this area of Florida.

Building the Orchard: The Saga Continues

When I first started the orchard all I could think of is eating peaches and pears until my stomach burst. I knew I had to cut down a few trees and thought clearing tree stumps would be a quick get-er-done. Not so. I was able to get a few stumps  out but I still had about 30 more that needed clearing. I finally gave in and hired a stump grinder. He was out this morning and ground out the 30 or so stumps in one day, something that would have taken me a month of Sundays to clear with the backhoe. But at least it is done.

Each ground stump left a four foot mound of sawdust. My good buddy came over with his tractor and leveled it out. Looks pretty good now. While he was doing the leveling I thought I would take a trip to the lumber yard and get some wood for a deck I am building. I got a little down the road when I heard a vaguely familiar thump-thump-thump, the trailer tire blew. I drove back to the house with that tire flopping as I drove down the road. So much for getting a head start on the lumber. Took me 4 hours to get that **** tire off the trailer.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better. The trees are blossoming and look beautiful….and need to go in the ground as soon as possible. I still have to make wrap for the trees to protect them from the deer. They will eat those tender green leaves in a heartbeat. There is an end in sight, though. I can almost taste the peaches now.

Creating the Orchard (oops, I found the water line)

Well, I finally got a backhoe over to the house to start clearing out stunps. My wife was saying at the rate we were going we'd be harvesting fruit long before the trees were ever planted. Talk about pressure. Nothing like a doubting wife to get a job going.
I jumped on that machine and started digging at a big stump when water started coming up from the ground like a geyser. You'd have thought we were at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Worst part was when I turned off the water we had no water to the house. No water to drink, no shower, and, worst of all, no coffee!
I have to hand it to the wife. She was upset but took it in stride. No yelling, no fussing, just "How are we making coffee for morning?" About that time she remember a couple of gallons she had stashed for emergencies and no coffee in the A.M. constitutes an emergency.
Well, early this morning I got the water going again and spent the day digging up stumps. Still have a lot of work to go but at least a portion is done. I can see an end in sight now. I can plant the trees and build a carport for the wife. The rest will come in due time.

Papa’s Got Water

Living in the woods means helping your neighbors when you can. For me, it means whenever a friend has a problem I drop what I am doing to help. It also means whatever I am working on takes three times as long as it should and my honey-do list rarely gets done. Aggravates the wife a little bit so I try to do that stuff when she’s working (not that I help others but the honey-do list never seems to get shorter). When she’s off I’m all business on my own stuff. Looks good.

Papa is an old friend who lives up the road from me. Nice man but won’t ask for anything or a bit of help no matter what. His grandson got in a little bit of trouble a while back and had to move in with him. When he did he found Papa’s didn’t have indoor plumbing. He was using a thunder bucket that his girlfriend would dump every day.  I was pretty upset that he didn’t have the plumbing and told my wife I would help him. When I told my wife about it she didn’t seem too surprised. Not about Pap’s not having plumbing or me wanting to help.

Now you might think “Aw, poor old man living alone in the woods without a toilet.” Not so. Papa has his girlfriend living with him. There is an unwritten law in this world that says a man might not have looks or smarts but can win a woman if he has a few bucks. His girlfriend is 35 years younger than him, young enough to help him spend his money and give him bragging rights. Ask him about her and he just gets the biggest shit-eating grin you ever saw. Nuff said.

Well, anyway, the plumbing was for Papa. He’s got water again and still has his bragging rights.

While I am at it, here’s a couple of things I did get done from the honey-do list.

Vintage Red Metal Shelf

 

Vintage Mint Green Display Shelf

Post by Dan Patterson of MetalWoodsnWater.etsy and MetalWoodsnWater.artfire

A Little Bit of Tail

It's been a while since I posted anything here but things have been pretty busy in the garage lately. My nephew came over to work on his truck, took off the oil pan and the pick-up tube was in the pan. Not good at all. Tried to tell him not to run the truck through the mud but when his girlfriend batted those lashes at him and said "Aww, baby, I just love going through the mud," the boy was mush. Couldn't remember a think I said. Took a week to get that truck out of the garage. Then someone else had a deck that needed building, another friend's pump quit, well, you get the picture. At the same time, the wife brought home some things for me to work on. Add it to the honey-do list.
Well, I finally decided to do something for myself and that something leads me to the title, a little tail. No, not that kind of tail. Like everyone knows who knows me, I like to hunt and I save the deer tails. I like them, that's why. Each one is a little different. I found one, though, that is beautiful made a keychain for myself. I used a small antler point with a hole drilled for the key ring to fit inside the tail. The entire thing is 11 inches long. Maybe a little big for my pocket but it will look damned good in the truck.

Let me know what you think of it. You might want a little tail, too.
A man needs a little tail every now and then.

Post approved by Dan-the-Man of MetalWoodsnWater.etsy

Valentine’s Day, Country Style

This morning I watched this guy talking and showing how to find suitable gifts for Valentine’s Day. He went to a store, had some pictures made, then the candy store for chocolates, and even found a restaurant for champagne and good food. Good ideas if you live near those stores and have the money to buy all those things. Not everyone does. Now, living in the country means celebrating V-day a bit different than our city friends. I love my wife but I’m not too good with a camera, she can’t eat chocolate, and the closest restaurant is Hardees. I love their chicken sandwiches but a fast food place isn’t high on the list of romantic get-aways. Back in the woods a person has to be creative and really put meaning to the phrase “It is the thought that counts.”

When we first got together we would have a picnic lunch by the river. It’s a pretty place with picnic tables where you can watch the river go by and sometimes see an egret or two, maybe even see fish jump. Another favorite place is the beach. A walk on the beach is one of the most romantic places in the world, no matter where the beach is. Even if it is cold there is still something about it that stokes those fires. Cap the walk on the beach with a hot cup of chocolate or coffee and you have a romantic moment she will treasure.

Something I like to do is cook so I made a Valentine biscuit for the wife. Not fancy cooking but romantic and that’s what Valentine’s Day is about, romance.  It’s not hard to do so even the guy who doesn’t know his way around the kitchen can do it. I used Bisquick mix for the biscuits. Just follow the instructions. Once you make the dough, shape one into a heart and place it in the center of the pan. Use the rest of the dough for drop biscuits.

Bake the biscuits according to the directions.

This is how they come out. The heart is in the center, the other biscuits are around it. After all, she is the center of your universe, especially on V-day.

Put it on a plate with strawberry or raspberry jam and present your handmade Valentine to your sweetheart.  Kind of makes you want to say “Aww,” don’t it?

I Did Something Right!

Sometimes I feel like no matter how hard I work at something the work is under appreciated or not appreciated at all. I try to be a positive guy and get excited about what I do but not everyone shares my excitement. I tell my wife (my biggest fan) and she cheers a little then gets back to her work. Know the feeling?

I find my “pats on the back” in nature. Being a hunter carries responsibilities. I get angry and disheartened when I see a carcass on the road, a magnificent animal killed for antlers and backstrap then discarded like trash. My responsibility includes killing for food, not shooting spots, knowing and respecting the law, and providing for the deer that go through my land during the year.

Last year we tried to have a winter garden but the winter was so harsh for the deer they ate our garden to nothing as they foraged for food. My wife was upset. “We need to feed them,” she said. “Let’s buy hay and set it out in the back away from the garden.” I bought a square bale and it was devoured in one day. The next day I bought a round bale and built a lean-to to keep it dry. Luckily it lasted until the grass started coming up again.

This year I planted winter grass along the trails on my land. Long before I moved here and long before my neighbor put a fence up there was a trail that the deer would walk. They would forage then bed down up front in the woods. My neighbor has a horse and put up fence disrupting the trail and limiting the feed area. My answer to that was to provide an alternative place for the deer to feed, especially the fawns that couldn’t jump the fences yet.

Today I was rewarded with a wonderful sight when I went out for my morning walk in the garden. On the trail that leads to the garden five deer were eating the grass I planted a couple of months ago. Does and their fawn were eating the feed I planted and the Lord provided with the bountiful rain we received. I feel so blessed. I guess I did something right!