Yard & Garden

Section 1 of the garden. Carrots, lettuce, beans, peas, beets, etc.

Section 2 of the garden. Tomatoes, onions, potatoes, etc.

The new grass seed growing in where the tree stump was removed. This grass seed was only put in not even 2 weeks ago and it is almost filled in already.

New baby is here!

The new Bobcat CT230 tractor. Shown here still on the trailer from its journey home. The green tiller on the back end is only a loaner as ours is still on order. Ours will be a bit wider and black in colour. A 2500 lbs trailer along with a 3500 lbs tractor made the old Dodge truck work for its food!

New baby on the way!

Introducing our newest baby...the Bobcat CT230 tractor with Front-End Loader and tiller. Purchased today for a tidy little fortune. This photo is just a stock photo. Will replace with a real photo when available. We should have it here by mid-week.

No brown crunchie grass here!

Raining since last night and total for the last 24 hours...1.5 inches of rain. This rain just started our climb towards 2 inches!

***UPDATE***

2.1 inches of rain now in the rain gauge.

Echo's summer training sled.

A big maple tree log with some wheels and a pulling ring attached to it. Summer sled dog training at its finest.

Echo...The Cool Dog!

Eating a delicious Creamsicle!

Echo...The Hot Dog!

Hot and tired from our busy weekend. Just chilling in the bathroom!

Pool Table

The pool table is getting its new felt cloth. Almost all done, just two more rails to recover and then final assembly. The new 'Camel' colour is much more coordinated with our room than the old standard green cloth.

Tree Stump GONE!

DONE! Not feasible without our little tractor that we had on demo this weekend. I pulled the stump out of the ground, brought in 3 buckets of dirt from the back field and levelled the soil. Total time with the tractor...about 1.5 hours. This is after about 4 days of trying to dig the stump out by hand and attempting to pull it with my truck.

Tractor Demo Days

This is a Case Farmall 31 tractor. We had it this weekend to try out. We are looking at purchasing a tractor identical to this but used. This is on demo from the dealer. Proved very useful in removing the tree stump. Four days of digging, chopping and sawing got us no where but the tractor pulled the stump up and out in an hour. I did many other jobs with ease and saved myself alot of labour and time. Life here without a tractor like this is getting to be very difficult. Especially now with our tree farm.

Front Stair Railing

This was a project for my day off work. About $60 of steel and a borrowed welder and Voila...a wrought iron stair railing. Not bad for out of my head while welding on the fly!

Tree Farm - The Beginning

The start of our tree farm. Five rows of 108 trees. 540 trees in total. Total planting time about 5 hours.

Tree Downed

One of the big old Maples fell over. The cause was the extremely water saturated soil along with a wind storm. Lots of work to remove the stump.

Ceiling Fan

Here is the new ceiling fan installed. A much sleeker and more modern fan.

Boss, Boss...the plane, the plane!

Texture done!

Here is a close-up of the California knock down texture. Everyone asks what it is and it is very hard to explain. It is a very flat texture unlike the old popcorn stipple (maybe only 3/16" thick).

Ceiling work to begin!

All walls masked and covered with plastic in preparation for ceiling texture.

Levelled Concrete

Concrete has been levelled. There was about a 3/4" drop at the far end tapering back to 1/4" at the close end.

After about 2 hours of mixing, pouring, levelling and smoothig concrete; Echo had to apply her stamp of approval to my work. Conveniently right after I cleaned all of tools!

Water Finally Draining Away

Lake Echo!

The culvert finally thawed and is draining Lake Echo.

More colour!

All walls are now painted. Ceiling next and then flooring.

Walls get some colour and buying the flooring.

Here is some colour on the walls. Today's project was to paint two coats of the lighter coloured paint on the walls. Tomorrow is the second colour. Also today we picked up some levelling cement to level the floor and the laminate flooring. The picture below is a sample of our flooring called Saskatchewan Oak.

Primer!

Primer went on today! Finally a different look to the room. These are the before and after pictures. Two coats of primer/sealer sure made the drywall repairs disappear.

I hate drywall dust!

What more can I say. I hate sanding drywall mud. It is a terrible job! This was last weekends project. Two days of sanding resulted in being ready for paint!

The Great Ice Sheet

The great ice sheet has collapsed. The culvert finally opened and started draining the water from our land. The colder temperatures after the first initial meltdown froze the lake of water with about 6 inches of ice. The water drained from underneath and collapsed the other day.

Spring? What Spring!

Spring? What Spring! Sure looks like the 5th day of Spring to me!

Flood Watch 2009!

Here is a series of panoramic photos of our back 7 acres. The water is estimated at about a foot deep. The water is about 6 inches away from cresting over the road.

Pretzels?

Pretzels? We watched 'Good Eats' on the Food Network on Saturday and he made Pretzels. They looked so good that we had to make and eat them for dinner!

Reno Update

Here is an update. The room is making some progress. The second coat of drywall mud has been applied to all walls. Only the ceiling remains. After that the ceiling will be ready for texturing. The walls need to be sanded and maybe a few touch ups. Hopefully soon the paint will follow and then finally the flooring.