thinking and planning . . .

This year is our first attempt at making our own hay.  The open pasture, about 8 or so acres, is full of timothy grass, red clover, and of course some big WEEDS.  My thinking, cut it, store it, feed it to the animals and they will sort out what they don't want.  I asked a neighbor farmer to cut it for me and today we are going to put it up in the barn.  Hopefully he'll get to cutting the rest of it fairly soon.

 Another bulding project I am working on are the garden pergolas.  The pergola is going to be used for grapes to grow on, and provide some shade when we are out in the garden area.  This is the first of two that will be covering the junction of the Gator path.

 Since I have built many things using traditional nails and screws, I wanted to challenge myself with joinery on this project.  I decided that I wanted to try the old method of fastening wood together with dowels like the barns were built years ago.  It took a little bit of thinking and planning and I had to take the whole structure apart once to redo the posts, but there is not ONE piece of hardware holding it together.  It is esssentially a large jigsaw puzzle that can be dismantled and moved if needed.  Since it is free standing, it is a little wobbly so I am going to come up with a plan to make it a little more stable.

And then our garden grows.  The mounds I am using for the potatoes seem to be working so far.  That is the green leaf ABOVE the ground looks good.  In the fall we'll see if the food that is UNDER the mound turns out.  I sure hope so.  :)