Smartie's Bar & Grill #74

yeah .. I always intended to plow it with the tines on my backhoe... which I love operating.

 

Depending on how long those are, I would actually go deeper the first year. If there is any top soil I would set it aside and then go down at least a foot to 18 inches to force the compaction layer as far below the root zone as I could. Just putting the scoops back in the spot from whence the came would be okay enough as long as you get that top loosened up enough so some roots can make it down deep before the heat sets in on them. That is what you are going for. If you have compacted soil, the veg roots cannot break through it to get good healthy plants. You are just making it easier. At 18 inches you would be way okay for most anything you would want to put there.

 

I would wait till the ground is dry enough to work. Then I would walk out in the middle with a shovel. The take a ball of dirt and see how it crumbles. Check color and look for stuff like melted plastic and charcoal. And take a sample. Then check the four corners and take samples. Five holes in all. Also get out and see just how much sunlight the place gets. If I found a lot of earthworms I would plant as soon as possible.

 

I am going to mulch with cardboard under wood chips and avoid tilling, or even digging too much.

 

Where is it located?

 

Has anyone seen or heard from Smartie? I hope she is ok.

 

If that works for you and your situation, go for it. There is no universal right way. I personally have found that cardboard is fine for my ornamental beds but just creates a mess in my veg beds because it doesn't break down fast enough for me. I grow all year round in some way or the other and can get two to three plantings in for a single summer most years so I go with tilling the top couple inches at the very least with each planting, sometimes much deeper, adding compost as I have it, and skipping the mulch/wood chips in favor of higher density planting so the vegetables crowd back the weeds some. I plant in 8 different 60 X 40 ish plots and spot plant in ornamental beds and along property lines, and in some ways each one has its own quirks to them as to what works better. What I don't do is have 3 employees and dozens of volunteers to hand weed for me like Charlie D. so that whole No Dig thing just isn't doable for me.

 

About 10 miles west of Valentine Texas

 

don't think I'll grow this year.. but I think I will start preparing the ground.. this year I intend to add to the house. ... 2nd bathroom, big closet and utitlity room.

 

looks like she was here Tuesday... she may be lacking a service.. or two.. or three.. we've had waterline burst, cell phone out (well, it tripped to the Mexican TELCEL, internet down, BUT we've had electricity.. because of a cooperative agreement with Mexico.

 

I hope everyone stays safe and well.

 

LOL. I am really enjoying your sense of humor. PF is very short of good humor in my opinion.

I would love to see the Alps. I’m envious. We (my now wife and some of our friends) went skiing a few times near where I grew up in Colorado when we were in high school and college. I just got the hang of it enough to start enjoying it when we all kind of just stopped going. Snowboarding was just getting popular then and most snowboarders were sliding down the slopes on their rumps. It didn’t look like their knees were getting the worst of it.

We called squash “racket ball”. Our gymnasium at grade school was narrow enough to use as a front and back wall, but no sides so it was odd to finally play in a normal court a few times in high school. I enjoyed it but was never better than low average in talent.

My knees couldn’t handle skiing now. Probably squash for a while. I still do a lot of running and dodging at work, especially this time of year. I ruined my knees and back riding (crashing) dirt bikes as a kid and then jumping off things as an adult. We used to have a “pot” (semi trailer for hauling cattle)when my father in law and brother in law still farmed with us. I was the guy with the commercial drivers license so always hauled the cattle. At the sale barns I would climb the outside of the pot to shoo the cattle out of the upper deck. When they were out I would jump off the trailer onto the concrete unloading chute. The old cowboys who hang around sale barns for entertainment would shake their wise old heads and say things like “you are going to regret doing that someday”. But I was in my early 20’s and indestructible! LOL. You know how that turned out.

 

If it was groats, cattle or horses the soil will not be too “hot” with fertility. Especially if it was horses. It should be great if not too compacted. If it’s too compacted it may have gone anaerobic which kills/suppresses biological activity needed to make the fertility available to plants. If it’s compacted the easiest way to remedy it without a 250 hp tractor and 16 inch deep chisel is to plant daikon radish. It will do the deep chiseling for you.
http://dirtsecrets.com/2015/03/daikon/

 

Really. What is it used for now?

 

Apologies, that's the English for you. Everything is a joke, we never stop.

The alps are stunning, summer or winter, shame you don't travel.
We are just looking at a tobogganing holiday (As I can't snowboard now) There are loads of toboggan runs around the Alps.
Yes I fell over a lot snowboarding and smashed my face in a couple of times, but my worst injuries were only a fat lip or a black eye.
At the airport coming home there are always a dozen people in wheel chairs, so its NOT a safe sport. That's part of why I gave up, too many other adventures could be ruined by a bad fall.

Yet racket ball is the same. I worked my way up to the local league 2, next was league 1 and then county. But my knees were getting so bad I had to walk down stairs sideways, Its all the sudden stops and turns.

My job is normally quite physical. I missed the building work when my company grew, so I got more people into the office and joined the men fitting out game play. My wife tells me I haven't growed up yet.
But since we're shut and locked down I have bought an exercise bike and written my own workout program based on someone's video driving through Switzerland. So the video looks like you are cycling through the alps and the on screen instructions tell you the speed you should be doing and the gear (resistance level) you are in. I then accelerated and slowed the video to match those speeds. It works well if I say so myself.

Crazy youth. But I reckon your not much different now, you still love it all and I bet you could run me ragged.

 

@Tigger2 Thank you for looking at my attemps at watercolor. I promise you I will get the hang of it yet. My only other attempt which I guess could be called water color was painting game boards for learning lessons for my children. It helps when you making learning fun and they have to get involved. I think tactile learning is good for children. Worked with my youngest.
I appreciate the time you spent...Thank you again.

 

No word from Smartie I am getting a bit concerned and have no way of finding out how she is making out. I pray everything is ok.

 

This is one of our sunrises. One of those that you wouldn't go fishing days. A sailor taking warning sunrise. I have been taking sunrise and sunset pictures for a couple of years and I guess it is a hobby now. It is neat to see other people post their sunrises and sunsets.

 

This is my favorite sunset.

 

I’m a fan. My family was like that.

What humans will do for an adrenaline rush. LOL. I didn’t know tobogganing was popular. Sounds fun. We used tire inner tubes as kids. All fun and games until you hit a sharp tree branch etc. then you are sliding on your rump like the new snowboarders.

In my experience this sport is one of the most demanding of agility, endurance, speed, and hand eye coordination of all sports. You must be pretty athletic to compete at that level.

Just my opinion, but in a business like yours you belong at the sharp end. It’s your creativity and imagination that are the foundation of the business. You should be hands on where it matters most—where the product meets the consumer. Plus, office and paperwork stink!

Wish I had abilities to put technology together like that. You’ve created something Americans are spending thousands of dollars on—Peloton’s and such. I’ll bet when the pandemic is over you will be able to buy Pelotons off Facebook marketplace and at garage sales for $50. Everyone will want rid of them so they can put in a new couch or wet bar for entertaining guests after a year of social distancing sitting in the easy chair looking at that shiny technologically advanced exercise bike collecting dust in the corner.

I’ve been thinking it’s time to learn drone technology for checking cattle during calving etc. I’m afraid exactly what I need won’t be available and I don’t have the knowledge or patience to merge technologies. We’ve been talking on the forum about environmentally sound practices. A drone would consume a lot less resources than an ATV. Save time as well.

I always say I take an annual fitness test. It’s the spring day we brand, castrate, and vaccinate the calves of the main beef herd. A full day of MMA style Brazilian jujitsu with four legged beasts about half of which are a weight class or two above mine. And they get to tag team me like WWF except they aren’t acting! I figure if I can get out of bed the next morning to feed their mothers I’ve passed the fitness test. Yes, my knees hurt after that.

 

I first went there for a gathering of people who had machine gun licenses.. (and machine guns),

from things left behind I'd day some
Boy Scouts used it too, more than likely used for a hunter's camp too...
The Miller's, whose ranch has been there long before the fort will rent it out for all sorts of things...
It was good for the machine gunning because it plenty remote to NOT draw curious law enforcement or generally cause alarm to any neighbors.

 

i'll be fixing broken plumbing today.. gotta run to Mexico for some dental work and grab some propane while I'm there.. just hope there is not much of a line on the bridge.. in the thirty years I've been here, crossing the border has increasingly become a bigger hassle.

 

Hey, your attempts are very good indeed, I will dig out some of my early work so you can see how I started. And I've been painting on and off for 20 years.
I'll also try and think of any good tips I can pass on, there's so much which is just learned and not talent. Washes, glazes, wet in wet, perspective, layout, composition are all just learnt.
Its such a pleasure to share.

 

That is a beautiful herringbone sky, just wonderful. Do you have a camera or just your mobile?

 

One camera is a Nikon D5200 and a smaller camera Fuji S700 fine pix. I use the Nikon most of the time.