This N That

Well I'm nearly fresh out of projects. The shop is completely done. The paneling is up on the inside. It's wired with four shop lights up the peak, a light outside, and six sockets. I just need a band saw and a small welder at this point. We will finish the fire pit Thursday but that's just one row of concrete. We do still have two walks to make but I'm in no hurry to get that done. That's some mighty hard work there.
The garden is flourishing far beyond our expectations. Everything is either blooming or producing fruit. The great Japanese Beetle War of 2014 has begun. Speaking of war and cultivation, we have kind of let our personal relationships fall the the way side with all of this work at home. We have been going out of our way to make sure friends get invited over. I am now at a point where I can start getting more involved with my Dagorhir fighting company. I have missed that a great deal. I do like to have those people around.
On a side note we have decided to start dating again. I realize this is a strange confession but its just part of who we are and has been from day one of our relationship.

Symphony of Shiva

Last Sunday we organized some friends and went to work on the neighbor lady's newly purchased property. This is the area that is overgrown and has an old structure on it. Working together we managed to get the rest of the roof torn off and about 1/3rd of the house completely torn down. I'd say we probably tore down around one hundred square feet of structure. The look on the Mary's face (neighbor lady) was thanks enough but we ended up with some free pizza out of the deal. I also got around eleven full sheets of cedar siding, maybe fifteen two by fours, a crank out double pane window, a piece of railroad track, and other little bits and baubles. Oh I also dug up two raspberry runners and got them planted. One is doing very well and the other is looking a little pekid. I plan to return the next time they are out working on it to help again. I'll be getting some more of that siding. Just as a note, if you ever come across used cedar siding such as this, make sure you spray it down with a bleach and water solution to kill the mold. If you get mold in your lungs you're going to have a bad day. Mmkay?
The garden has really taken off. We ended up with around twenty-five out of twenty-seven tomato plants. The German Pink are doing very well. The Amish paste are still very small. Depending upon how they produce we might be trying a different heirloom paste tomato next year. We have some corn that is waist high, pole beans that are starting to run up the poles, many varieties of squash that are blooming and cotton plants that are a foot tall. We broke down and bought cayenne, green pepper, basil, cantaloupe, and watermelon. We simply ran out of time to start all of them and some of them just aren't growing as well as I'd prefer. So rather than taking the chance of not having some of them at all we decided to buy them. This is still a learning year for us. We also had to dig up a cherry tree we planted last year. It finally died but it was less than a year old so we're taking it back.
In the coming month we will be putting the siding up inside the workshop, installing the window, and running electricity. I started caging and staking the tomatoes today before I ran out of stakes and cages. I will probably finish that up some time this week.
Anyone know of a good hearty heirloom paste tomato?

Deeds

The neighbor lady bought the property across the street from us. This is a good thing because it was overgrown and the home on it is dilapidated. The roof has fallen in and the floors are like a trampoline with weak springs. Anyway this neighbor lady is probably in her sixties and her brother, who is helping her clean it up, is in his late fifties. I was actually caught up on the things I needed to do so I grabbed my gloves and walked across the street.
I don't want to come off as a saint because I'm not. I was only partly motivated by the thought of doing a good deed, but truth be told I went over there because they were burning things and I wanted to feed the fire. Not to mention the fact that this lady has done the entire neighborhood a service. With this eyesore gone all of our property values will increase. I will admit though, when we were done for the day I felt as though I had done a good thing and had no inclination to rewards beyond setting things on fire.
Through the course of our work we got to talking about the building I just built and all the things that went into it. They asked me what still needed to be done and I explained that I still had to finish the inside and wire it for electricity. Then the lady started asking me if I wanted things. Free things. (Free... that word rings like a hammer on a steel anvil.) Before the day was finished her brother had fed some free beers and we accomplished three times more than they could have on their own. The lady gave me all the free cedar sheeting I could want to put on the inside of the shop. They also encouraged me to walk through the place and take anything I wanted. I got some outlet covers, some hinges, and some nice quarter inch steel plating for future projects. There is also an old growth raspberry bush she told me to dig up. Another neighbor lady walked over and asked me if I wanted some tomato cages. I was about to pull out one of the old windows to put into my shop when her brother said, "Oh you don't want that. I have a good window with a screen I will give you." Uh OK! There are a myriad of things he is going to give me and all of them I can use. The best thing I got out of it was a sense of community. It was really nice feeling part of that. They got what they needed and I got some things that I needed. Nobody felt taken advantage of or cheated. Nobody came into the situation with expectations and nobody left disappointed. We drank a few beers and sweated our asses off. We're all covered in scratches and bug bites. There was a camaraderie in this. When I see them out I will be putting my projects on hold, grabbing my gloves, and walking across the street again.  Maybe I'll bring some beers next time.

The Coming Fae Infestation- Helens Day

Here's a couple of before and after pics of the land we have set aside for the Fae garden. I suppose I should really say ONE of the Fae gardens as I'm sure there will be more. The care and feeding of Fae creatures is apparently not to be taken lightly. Helen has books on this subject. She will be making little houses, ornaments, and this-n-thats for our new neighbors. As with most things this is a work in progress.

 

I'm not sure what this little bit of land will be when all of the work that goes into it come to fruition. I'm pretty sure it's going to be devoted in all or in part to birds.

The line of mulch along the side of the trailer is filled little baby sunflowers that Helen planted.

Here's a photo of one of the blackberries. They seem to be doing quite well. I for one cannot wait for blackberries and cream.

This unfortunate neglected thing is our garden. This should get some much needed attention later in the week. I assure you there are plants growing in there that we planted. It's definitely time to trim the fat. I'm supposed to get a bunch of free mulch tomorrow. This will help make this look like people actually work here. The building of "The Green Dragon" i.e. Man Cave 2.0 took away from much needed vegetable garden time.

Hopefully soon we will have photos of all the things Helen planted today in pots. Most of them are herbs of one sort or another. Some are flowers as well. On a side note we have fruit growing on our trees. I know I'm supposed to pull it off and I will, but right now I think I'm going to let it grow a bit.

Bill-n-Helen

p.s. Mind yer loose Fae!

We finished painting the shop and put the trim on it today. I also got an eleven foot workbench built for the inside. Helen marked off the area for the fire pit and did the math for how much it will cost.

Our future projects/ endeavors will include a fire pit with pavers surrounding it, some gravel pathways, wiring the shop for electricity, and building a forge. I'm sure I'm forgetting about half a million things but these are the ones that immediately come to mind. We also have a craft room in the works for Helen but that's a winter project.

After putting some thought into it I've decided to change the title of my blog from Gigundogarden 1.0 to Just This Side of Rural. When I sit back and think of the things I'm interested in as well the things I've been studying I find there's a lot more to it than gardening. On a Facebook group the other day I made the statement that gardening for me is more than growing plants. It's about creating a space.
When I think about it that's really what we're trying to do here is create a space as opposed to a place or an eclectic collection of things that grow. We are trying to grow ourselves. So in a sense this is a garden but it's a personal garden of dreams and wishes and endeavors. That may or may not have a great deal to do with tomatoes and flowers. It does however have a whole lot to do with building things and crafting. It has a lot to do with cuts and scratches and smashed thumbs as well as poorly formed tan lines. It's a place where not a lot gets done but accomplishments are made nonetheless and those accomplishments are measured by the nobility of the endeavor as opposed to the finished product.
So here we sit on our second hand furniture that sits inside of a trailer that sits on city lots merely twenty feet from the city limits. Those twenty feet are everything to us. Those twenty feet make all the difference in the world. Those twenty feet give us freedoms that those on the other side of the street will never know. Those twenty feet along with our repurposed building, fruit trees, and home made atrocities create a sort of hillbilly Wabi Sabi where my tea is ice cold beer and my geisha is also the best partner in crime a guy could ever ask for.

I would like to preface this post by saying that I am in no way shape or form a carpenter. I was also very pressed for time. I had just one week to tear the carport down, load it, bring it 150 miles home, and reassemble it. We are not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination so this thing was built on a shoestring budget. In all the work shop was built from a gifted carport, repurposed posts, pallet wood, and a repurposed bunk bed.This building was accomplished by shear force of will and the help of some very good friends.

I built this to free up space in the garden shed out back. It is also going to be my man cave. It is Man Cave 2.0 to be exact. I will be using this primarily for woodworking, leather working, black smithing and general tinkering.

This is the floor and foundation as you've seen before. It is quite possibly the only level and square part of the structure. My neighbor Warren dropped by one day and told me how to accomplish getting it level. I used trusty YouTube to learn how to get it square.

Here's the skeleton of the carport. This part was surprisingly simple to erect. As a matter of fact, if you ever want to buy a carport and can save some money by putting it up yourself, I highly recommend you build it yourself. It really isn't that difficult. At first I was very worried because the whole thing seemed very wobbly. Come to find out, the sheet metal really shores the whole thing up. It ought to because a 22 feet long piece of sheet metal is quite heavy when you're hoisting it up on a roof.

This particular piece of lumber began its life as a bunk bed. This particular piece was a 2x6 that we ripped down to a 2x3.

Here we are just beginning to construct the front wall. Since the carport itself wasn't square and really had no prayer of ever being so, we trimmed around the trusses to get the shape right. I had no intention of doing this level of geometry and still not having it come out right.

Helen, my wife, primed the front wall while we were building the back wall. Then while we built the doors she primed the rear wall.

These boards, the ones in the front and the back, are the only ones we didn't trim off of the trusses. Well these and the doors.

I was very lucky to have my buddy Silas here to help with the overall design of the front and back. Until he came up with it I was kind of just winging it. I've known this guy for a long time and had no idea how good of a carpenter he actually is. He taught me quite a bit in this process.

Using the saws all to trim the cover at the peak. I'm pretty sure Jesse was telling me how I was going to fall off of my makeshift scaffolding and die. I think his actual words were, "and on this episode of Jackass..."

Silas must have taken some credence in what Jesse was saying because he felt the need to shore me up with a hand on my back. What are friends for right?

The doors are hung. The door on the right was mistakenly cut an inch shorter so I had to later improvise to get rid of that gap.

I had hot cinnamon buns by the time I got off of that roof. The sheet metal heats up quickly! To get the sheet metal on the roof we put a C-clamp on a wall support beam and tied a rope to it. We then ran the rope under the sheet metal while it was up against the wall. As Jesse and I lifted Helen pulled on the rope to help get it on the roof and to keep it from flying away. It was very windy. Once the sheet metal was on the roof Helen tied the rope to keep it in place while I tacked it down. I have to give Helen the credit for this idea.

I very rarely buy anything new or at full price. I am super frugal. *cough cheap cough*. The Dewalt drill you see in this picture is something I purchased new from Rural King for $99. I really put this drill through its paces. It has two different speeds and is variable speed. It's a 20v lithium ion and came with a bag, charger, and two batteries. This same drill is $50 more at Lowe's. It pays to shop around. Also the batteries charge at an amazing rate. By the time I ran through a battery it had the other one charged every single time.

Stayin' alive! If John Travolta had just put the last screw in the roof I'm sure he would dance a little jig too.

Other than the finishing, weatherproofing, and flashing this was the very last screw. Also, concerning this particular piece of sheet metal, we got this piece for $15 when it was priced for $36. It was the last sheet they had at Lowe's and it had some scuffs and a tear. Don't hesitate to ask for a discount on defective materials when you can still use them. They won't bat an eye. A contractor would never take it.

A well deserved beer and a smooch after a whole lot of hard work. Those two bottles are on permanent display in the peak of the roof inside the structure. By the way I didn't pay for those bricks either. My scaffolding was totally safe!

Since this picture was taken the flashing, door handle, and hasp has been put on. After the first rain the whole place leaked like crazy. Come to find out, the flashing really helps draw the water away from the wood. I have also filled in some gaps with Great Stuff and done a lot of caulking. I still have more caulking to do. If I can't get all of the leaks to completely go away I'm going to have to coat the roof with a sealant. It really only has one tiny leak left and it only leaks when it rains really hard. I'm sure I can fix this. As far as the outside of the structure goes, all I really have left to do is put up trim to cover the seams in the plywood and then paint the whole thing. I've decided to go with a grass green color. In all, without having done anything to the inside of the building, we have about $750 in a decent 18x20 work shop. A building like this, pre-manufactured, would cost at least $7,000. I think we did pretty good. We learned a lot in the process and we had fun. My wife is an absolute dream to work with. We didn't have one little quarrel the entire time.

We managed to get everything we lost replanted and learned a valuable lesson in the process. Most of it has already burst through the soil. The workshop is done! err mostly. I still have to do the finish work and and I have to waterproof it. As it is right now there are lots of puddles. If my photographer, wink wink nudge nudge, gets me the photos I will post photos of the completed structure tonight. As for today I have about four hours to get it waterproofed and get some things moved in. Off to work I go.

Everything's been going really well. We've been very busy doing lots of hard work. We had a minor setback. Some of our plants died off in the garden after a heavy rain followed by cold temperatures. Everything is replanted and we will be planting more later in the week. We start phase 2 of the work shop tomorrow, raising the carport we're using as a roof and wall supports.

Getting the foundation laid out for the floor of the workshop

Some of the wood we used is reclaimed pallet wood. We had to drill pilot holes for the deck screws. Seasoned oak is some pretty hard stuff.

This is Helen ensuring her right to make project requests after the workshop is complete.

Here we are cutting blocks out of donated 4x4 posts. These were used to get the floor joists up off the ground and to level it out.

Don't damage the help!

Look at this young buck here. They just can't keep up with the old man.

This is my beautiful wife. She is the hander and finding of things, driller of boards, and my motivation in all things.

Phase 1 complete! Its level and square. Not bad for never having done anything like this before. It is all painted up with two coats of floor paint that we got marked down to $10.50 a gallon.

I took an entire 18x20 carport down by myself today and transported it 150 miles. Thankfully Helen was there to help me load it all up. This is phase 2 of Mancave 2.0. I'm still working on phase 1 which is the foundation and the floor. I should have that finished tomorrow. Putting up this carport is going to be hell.

Here are some of the photos I was speaking of earlier. I'm sure you will notice some all together undesirable dwellings in the neighborhood. It's really hit and miss out here. We certainly can't complain though. We got a very good price with great terms and it will be ours in just over two years. Yes, no rent or mortgage in under three years. Also the location is zoned as rural so we can pretty much do whatever we want. We are seriously considering chickens next year. The place sits on two lots. The rear lot is almost entirely tillable and completely fenced in. The front lot is completely shaded by an oak, ash, and maple tree.
It's supposed to get cold tonight so I went out and covered up a large portion of the garden with the tops of 2 liter coke bottles. We used 2 liter bottles to start all of our plants. We put them in a little green house we made from a steel rack we picked up for $5.

Helen will be upset if I don't mention the 72 pots she picked up at the SIU flea market for $12.

Upcoming: I started my vacation this week. We are headed to Kentucky to pick up the car port I intend to re-purpose into a work shop. Picks to come. Also when the blackberry bushes get a little bigger I will post pictures of them as well as the strawberries if they ever come up.

Here is a bird bath I made from a re-purposed satellite dish. The post is about 2' into the ground. It is painted with appliance epoxy. If you've never used this paint it can be purchased at Wal Mart. It is great stuff.

This is main garden it is 50'x30' which is entirely too big but hey I'm an over achiever. In this picture is a wheel barrel we picked up from an estate sale for $10, a garden cart I got off of Craig's List for $50, and some tripods I made out of donated lumber to support pole beans. There were two satellite dishes against the trailer. One has been re-purposed into a bird bath and the other is now gone. The post is going to be used for a bird house.

The side of the garden shed is the old location of our compost pile. It is now the location of loofahs with the rear of the shed being used for bushel gourds. Each trellis is actually two parts and is made from pallet wood. You can just see the old satellite dish peeking around the corner,

In this picture you see your loyal narrator with a brand spanking new tiller. In the background is a 20 horse riding mower I picked up for $250 off of Craig's List last year. We spent $600 on the tiller but with the amount of tilling we do it just seemed necessary to buy a new one rather than take our chances on something used. Besides that used tillers are still very expensive.

This is a photo of an apple tree we planted last year. Along the fence row we planted a golden delicious, red delicious, two pears, two peaches and one cherry tree. All of them are of the Tyrion Lannister variety. ;)

I suppose I'm a little late in the blogging part of our endeavor. We have come a long way in such a short amount of time that I haven't actually taken the time to chronicle the things we have been doing. I am Bill and my wife is Helen. About a year ago we were fortunate enough to be able to buy this little place just outside of town. It isn't much but it's home. We don't don't have a lot of money or even a lot of space. We repurpose and recycle as much as we possibly can. This isn't merely out of an effort to be gentler to the environment but more out of necessity really. In future posts I will show some of the equipment we have procured as well as the things we are doing around the place. We have put in a 50'x30' garden with a brand new garden tiller we purchased from rural king for $600. This tiller is the most we've spent on any one item since we bought our home. Along with the tiller you'll see the riding mower we got a great deal on along with the garden cart. I'm not sure how exciting it will be to read about this stuff. Next, more posts with pics. Also next week we will be on vacation and I will be building a workshop from a donated 18'x20' carport, pallets, and purchased materials. I'm hoping I can get my next door neighbor to give me a hand in this as he actually knows what he's doing while I am nearly clueless. It will be an adventure nonetheless.
Bill