Larsen Poultry Ranch - homesteading journey

[Mini Horses]

Nice clean up.....troubling and a lot of work. But the clothesline is now close!

Hope the treatment does the trick.

 

[Baymule]

Termites will make little mud tunnels to get from one piece of wood to another on the outside of concrete blocks or masonry.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Nice clean up.....troubling and a lot of work. But the clothesline is now close!

Hope the treatment does the trick.

Lol, the clothesline was there before, but now instead of the rotted deck on the farther side there's a nice drop off... Makes you pay attention a bit more when hanging laundry for sure. I really don't like that it tilts when in use, but it might be because I'm loading it unevenly.

I think we should probably put up a railing, but we still haven't confirmed if the remaining deck is ok to stay or needs ripped out too. We can access underneath now so we can check to see how much more is rotted/chewed up. The decking looks ok to me, but the supports and joists might not be ok. I know the supports for the bench along the edge are mostly rotted away, literally being held up by where they attach to some of the joists.

I think the current plan is to play with the grade a little more, and then put down weed blocker and small gravel or pavers where the deck was previously. Then we could have a decent sitting area out front. This is the east side of the house, so it will get morning sun and afternoon shade. We have a shade sail we need to dig out of storage and set up. Hubby left the tree stump with the hammock hook instead of removing the stump; we need to find where his hammock got stashed and bring that out.

 

[Bruce]

Done!

Good riddance!

 

[Baymule]

My sister has a 1500 square foot covered deck at her house. She loves to sit outside on her deck. So do I and everybody else that goes there. Haha, the double wide I'm buying is only 1400 square feet!

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

My sister has a 1500 square foot covered deck at her house. She loves to sit outside on her deck. So do I and everybody else that goes there. Haha, the double wide I'm buying is only 1400 square feet!

That is a huge deck! Life goals lol

I want a really nice back patio deck zone, concrete with a fire pit and pizza oven. It'll probably be a decade or so before that happens. We'd have to figure out the elevation change and how to cover up the septic tank zone without making it too inaccessible, while also preventing any smells out.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

It's been a while since I've posted, sorry! It has been really hot here, and with the trees taken out of the yard the sun has been really beating on the house. The heat pump is definitely doing a better job than the swamp cooler to keep the house cool though. Hubby not happy about the electric bill but it's still better than last year.

So far no rabbit losses, we got a new-to-us swamp cooler and set that up for the rabbits. Hubby still working on the rabbit barn zone. He might finally have the pad size done, but thinks we might need to install a retaining wall because of the lower edge needed so much fill dirt. We had posted an ad for a place to dump free dirt and one person brought maybe 30 yards! Would have cost a small fortune to buy that amount. We are still discussing how I want the barn built.

Munchkin is growing like crazy and I need to buy a bigger car seat. He's about 23 pounds and over 29 inches tall. He is great at crawling now and walking holding onto couches or hands. He has also started (just this last weekend) taking steps without holding onto anything! We are working on baby proofing the entire house.

Hubby had a talented friend over who helped him install the front gate!! Still no power to it but it's there and looks level. Hubby has more grading to do to make it look better and let the water drain better. Now we go to leave and if we don't want to hop out and move the gate, we drive out the second entrance.. kinda annoying but hubby still needs to set up the front gate motor. He ran the electrical pipe to the zone a long time back but needs to pull and hook up the wire. The friend has a welding/gate/fence company, so may be able to help install the front fence line. Hubby wants nice iron fence. I saw a fence last year that I liked the look of, need to drive past it and take a picture so he will do it the way I want lol.

Orchard is doing ok, but the trees in the side yard are struggling with the deer attacks. The apple they attacked prior year is coming back from the roots, so will be rootstock that I can try grafting. I wanted to get the side yard trees moved to the orchard this last winter but will need to wait until they die back this winter and pray they haven't gotten too big to survive the transplant. Hubby dug some holes so I could plant some of the trees in containers but I've been afraid to plant them with the heat. Might just go for it since they are probably too hot in the nursery pots anyway? Need to make more hoops to keep the deer off.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

The deer got into the garden several nights in a row this past week. They chomped a ton of plants. One mango seedling looks done for, the other was bigger and still had one leaf so I'm hoping it'll come back. The apple seedling was almost completely gone, but it's still greenish and I'm hoping by watering the heck out of it, it will come back. The deer are the tops off most of the loquats. I hate deer.

 

[murphysranch]

Me too. Hate their damage even tho they have darling babies.

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

I think they are attacking the garden because they have babies now. There's at least 4 babies in the group that lives by our area, and I think two of them are twins as they followed the same momma. I just wish they would eat the brush down the hill rather than my plants.