Well, I spent this last weekend working on a bunch of projects all over the farm, so here is the list...
1. Cleaned out both gardens, picked up the tomato stands, put all my pvc rings away, and cut off the cornstalks and sunflower stocks, piled them outside of the fence for deer to pick at. Then I mowed the trash left in the garden...more of a mulching process. Then I worked up both plots with the tiller and cultivator section that I pull behind the garden tractor. That concluded all the garden chores.
2. Tarped the corn crib gazebo, every year I put 4 small tarps around the outside of the gazebo, I fasten them with zip ties, and a few tarp straps across the doorway part. But not before I fill it up with all the yard furniture, and anything else I can squeeze in to protect from the snow and ice...the back deck looks really bare right now.
3. Finished the insulated water tank project and filled it. Their is a previous post on the construction of this.
4. Finished stacking and cleaning up the 10 yard pile of post scraps, brother-in-law Mitch brought over for the Backbarn Studio firewood supply. This involved a number of other nights of sorting and stacking and filling the little leanto full to the rafters. I then pushed the sawdust and dirt all into the horse lot for some fill by the feed bunk.
5. I then proceeded to move all the items outside around the shop. To more permanent storage for the winter, this includes all the old shovels and items that were leaning against the wall, and old step ladders, all Wooden Nichols items and put them out of the way of the snowplowing process.
6. I pulled in the swimming raft and put the boats in their place for the winter.
7. I also cut about a cord of firewood, and will be doing much more of that now that all the things above are done.
Needless to say I was busy and pretty tired out by Sunday night, I did get to enjoy some of the Vikings Football game, and also I listened to most of the Gophers big win on Saturday. Plus of course entertaining Smarkle and Tootsie all weekend!
The other project
I mentioned the other day I was working on a couple of projects, and this was the other one.
I insulated my water tank the animals use in their lot, it is starting to cold again, and I will soon
have to plug in the tanks heater, which uses a lot of electricity.
So I used a bunch of the extra lumber scraps I hauled home from the pool deck project I completed earlier this year. I made a large wood box frame, about 6 inches bigger than the tank...
about 52 by 33 inches and 24 inches deep.
After that I lined it with 2 inch thick I density foam board all the sides and the bottom,
its pretty tough stuff and it isn't hurt by water.
After I set the tank in I used smaller pieces and filled in the corners and then
I used foam spray in a can, to fill in the gaps.
I cut the top pieces to conform to the shape of the tank and screwed them in place and
filled in the caps with more spray foam. It definitely added more weight to the tank, but it should
hopefully make it much easier to heat the water and keep it from freezing.
After this I moved it back to its spot, and filled it up, and I will not plug the heater
in till we get some much colder weather. I may add a partial sheet of the foam board later in the winter that will float on top of the water to help hold some heat in the tank.
I had about $50.00 in expense to do the project, which was the spray foam and the foam board.
But I am sure it will pay for itself in a year or so.
Technology that saves firewood!
Well below you see a new feature in our home, I finally found a line voltage thermostat
that is programmable and hopefully will save us some firewood and still keep us
very nice and warm!
I installed this little box where my old dial thermostat was, which involved hooking up
some wires and then setting it. It has 4 periods a day that you can set your temps.
So at 6:15 am it will take our temperature up to 73 degrees till around 8:30 am.
At 8:30 am it will let the house cool down to 65 degrees and then at 5:15 pm or so it will bring the
temp up to 73 degrees and keep it there till 11:15 pm. Which is about the time I turn in and it will then maintain the heat till 6:15am at about 65 degrees. That is how the weekday settings are set, I also changed the weekend settings to something similar, just a little longer morning settings.
I am hoping with the cooler temp at night and the day temp being controlled at a lower temp it will help save some of my wood pile, plus reduce my electric bill some with the fan running less. If you don't have one, get one! Mine is a more expensive model because it is the type for a baseboard heat system, which is similar to how our woodstove system works.
This was a $45.00 investment and which I am sure will pay for itself within a month or so.
New Dog Beds!
Well, I took some time tonight after work, to work on a couple of projects and
here is one of them. Remember when I replaced the carpet in our guest bedroom?
If so I saved some of the carpet and also some of the pad, and I cut my pieces to size and
placed 5 layers of the carpet pad in between the folded over carpet piece.
I then tried pop riveting the open edges but it didn't work well so I changed the plan
and I had some wood scraps and used some screws and vised the ends between the two boards.
Tootsie took to hers right away but Smarkle is not to sure yet, but I am sure later they will be all
curled up on their new dog beds!
Grandma's Cookies!
Above you see lots of delicious work, by Mom (Grandma Joyce) and my Dad, mom's assistant.
These are the famous Christmas Cookies that since we were children, my mom
has made during the Christmas Holiday!
These now are gaining some new found fame because they are the featured treat
at the Wooden Nichol's Christmas Open House the last 3 years!
There are still some left, from the Open House, so please feel free to show up next
Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday...they will probably be gone by then!
Until the Coit Family Christmas Party!
Busy Fall Weekend!
Yes, it is a busy weekend!
We have the Wooden Nichols Christmas Open House going on, which started Thursday and goes through Sunday.
Crystalie and her consignors have tons of great holiday items for people to see and buy hopefully...so far it has gone really well! Plus she has extra help with family and friends helping her take care of all of her great customers!
I am busy at Ruttger's tonight and tomorrow, where they have their huge Octoberfest going on! About 160 craft and artisans displaying their wares all over the resort grounds! I will be selling food and drink tickets, at one of a few different spots to pick them up!
What makes it great is we are going to have nice weather pretty much all weekend! So if you aren't doing anything, come and visit Wooden Nichols and Ruttgers!
Visitors over the weekend!
We had some more company this last weekend, and I had a request for a horse ride!
So Sunday morning, we saddled Bucky up again and took some trips up and down the yard, these two pictures of Addy and I on Bucky.
Then it was Livia's turn and we did the same up and back in the bigger part of the yard, Bucky was even a little feisty. And lived up to her namesake a little bid. The nice thing about having an older horse, is there is not as much spring in her legs. Especially with us on her back!
Led lights are up!
Yes, I concluded my light replacement on the front of Wooden Nichols, late Monday afternoon.
So I took this shot to see how they looked, all lit up.
It would look really cool on a darker early evening, which there will be a few of before
Crystalie closes up for the winter, the end of November.
While I was there I had two sets of shoppers and sold $60.00 worth of merchandise!
Cleaning the garden!
It seems like it was just a few weeks ago and I was posting pictures of the garden I had just planted. Now I spent a little time after getting home from my slow shift at R cleaning things up.
I pulled some carrots that were still in the ground and pulled the pvc rings I had around my pepper plants to keep the cutworms from damaging them, when they were first planted. Crystalie picked a shirt full of fresh tomatoes and I picked some carrots that were still in the ground. I also put a few garden tools away and curled up the garden hose that I used maybe twice also season!
When things dry down some more, I will open the back gate area I have, and drive my lawn tractor with the mower deck on it and chop everything up nice and fine. I will leave the back gate open and the deer will love picking through whatever is left.
Seems sad to be almost done with it all, but we have harvested a lot of fresh vegetables and Crystalie has canned lots and we also have bags of produce in the freezer and of course shared lots with family and friends and also lucky shoppers at Wooden Nichols. It actually turned out to be a pretty good year for garden produce, and the pumpkin and gourd crops did pretty well!
A Slow day...
Well, I had a day shift at R today, and it was very slow there. It sometimes can be quiet but today it was extremely so.
Usually I get a few calls each day, but today was the exception in a 6 and 1/2 hour shift, I gave two little tours of the grounds and buildings for potential guests next year, and I answered a few questions for the front desk staff and that was it! no phone calls for reservations....
On Oct 22nd is their huge Octoberfest event and it is the last day I work for this season. Which means I will be devoting my weekends to cutting firewood for the long winter here in Northern Minnesota!
More Like Fall!
We enjoyed about 2 weeks of nice dry warm temperatures were even in the low 80's some days, not your typical Fall weather, until Thursday night.
The wind decided to blow, up to 40 mph at times and that was accompanied by about 4/10 of rain on Friday night with a lot of wind till early morning. Needless to say it looked like it was raining leaves at times. The trees still have quite a few leaves on them but the ash trees and some basswood trees are pretty bare now a look we will see for the next 6 months or so.
Yes, the heating season is just beginning, the temperatures falling into the 40's and colder at night and days in the mid 50's to 70's for the next couple of weeks. After that who knows....we could see Snow!
I hope not, I have to start the process of cutting firewood for the winter!
Lights...
I spent, part of Thursday evening after work, at Wooden Nichols taking care of a project, that needed to be done!
I was busy taking down mini-white Christmas lights, and putting up new led mini-lights, on the ceiling of the porch at Wooden Nichols.
So it was like almost 80 degrees, and I am climbing up and down a ladder and stringing 3 strings 70 feet long of mini-lights. I was still short about 35 feet and will have to pick up one more half string, to complete the job!
The Led lights look like they will shine brighter and of course being nice and new...hopefully they will be less troublesome!
Lots of projects, and our company left...
Well, Tuesday morning bright and early Rebekah and her mom and dad, left Coffee Lake Farm
for a long drive out to Ocean Shores, WA. It was a teary event for some, but we had a lot of fun with Ricki, Grant and Rebekah.
Below was a happier moment on Sunday evening while we were eating out on the back deck with
Mitch, Kay Jacob and Joshua.
Rebekah tried to tire out Smarkle on a daily basis but I think she was more exhausted. Each night it took her just 10 minutes or so to fall asleep. But Smarkle did sleep pretty sound also! We miss you all already, and it was great to see you all!
I mentioned projects in my title, and we are up to our eyeballs working on Christmas Open House items, for Wooden Nichols. The dates for her big weekend our Oct 20-23rd and after that she will still have a lot of Christmas stuff on display till the last weekend of November.
It amazes me how efficient and prolific, Crystalie is with making stuff and always coming up with
new fun ideas that will surely be prized by some lucky shopper.
I have spent the last two nights working on a wide variety of items, fastening signs and grapevine to various items along with repairing an old sled, and a few other things. I won't tell you everything, as you will have to visit Wooden Nichols later this month!
The Toy Hall of Fame!
I was listening to one of my radio shows that I listen to often and they had a discussion
about the new list of toys going up for consideration for entering the Toy Hall of Fame.
They reviewed a few of the toys that were already in, Barbie, GI Joe, the ball, and on an on...
and the "Cardboard Box" !!!
I think we all have a memory of playing with a large cardboard box, in our childhood years. Well we so happen to have a large washer box and today when Jacob and Joshua came to visit Rebekah ours got a workout today! Above you see Rebekah and Joshua inside of it!
This is them taking it down the hill, by rolling in it, causing it to roll with them.
Jacob decided to bail out, and watch them head down the hill!
Oops, now Joshua is also out upon reaching the bottom of the hill, needless to say they enjoyed this for about 30 minutes or so, dragging it back up the hill and starting back down it!
I remember as a kid using a box on a grass hillside as a sled, and having a blast doing some summer sledding and I think all of us enjoyed a cardboard fort!
Fall Colors!
Yes it is fall, as most of you have seen your trees turning colors, or even loosing the leaves.
This first shot is of a tree close to our place, right along Cty 10, the cool thing here was the contrast against the evergreens behind it and this morning it almost glowed with the bright sunshine on it!
This one is down our driveway and we have a bunch of Sumac trees, that have turned bright red already. Plus you see some of the maple leaves turning to the right of it.
Crystalie, took this photo along her way to Wooden Nichols this morning, and it shows all the
different colors along the creek.
This is looking across our yard towards the creek and the hillside south of the house...looking pretty colorful now also. This week will be the peak of our color the way it sounds and the weather is going to be pretty nice!
Horse Ride!
Since Rebekah was here I decided it was time Bucky got some exercise and
earn her keep if anything for about an hour. So I got a small pail of grain and it took her a while
to let me get a hold of her, so I could begin the process of saddling her.
But after about 15 minutes we were good to go!
I took her for a short ride first since it had been over a year since I think she was saddled last. Too long for sure, but she was as usual well behaved and then Rebekah joined me.
Needless to say it was just a gentle stroll up and down the fence line of the yard, about 125 yards, then turn around and go back, which we did about 6 times. We did trot a little bit, just so Rebekah got to feel some bouncing around! Thanks Grandma Crystalie for taking the pics!