Let me find peach of mind on my own piece of land

Let me find peace of mind on my own piece of land

I've been pretty busy working on a number of projects intended to make the farm look a little better and become more useable.  The look better activities involve clearing brush around fence rows and under trees.  In addition to the two wooded creeks crossing the farm, we have about fifty oak trees scattered throughout.  Each has its own group of cedars and yaupons (a type of Holly shrub) living underneath.  In addition to being a good place for snakes to hang out, they obscure the trunk of the trees making it look more like a huge blob and less like a tree.  Here are some before and after pictures. 

 






















The payoff for the hard work of clearing brush is the brush fire.  So far, I've burned five and have nine more ready to go (as soon as they dry out a bit).  When I was a teenager, I worked several summers for a man that had a couple hundred acres of orchards.  There are a lot of stories I could tell about this man (he was quite a character) but I'll stay focused on "brush burning 101".  They were mostly apple and peach and for the most part I picked fruit for him.  One of the annual tasks was to trim the fruit trees to stimulate production, etc.  The by-product of this effort was the collection, piling and burning of the cut off limbs (brush).  A wagon was pulled around the orchard and all of us laborers piled limbs on the wagon.  It was then halled to a central point where it was piled and readied to burn.  One of the lessons, the man taught me that came back was the proper way to burn brush.  The two requirements are to compact the brush pile as much as possible and to get it hot (some of what you are burning is still somewhat "green".  Compacting generally requires someone to climb on top of the pile and walk on it.  This is a little hazardous, offering the opportunity to lose your balance and fall.  This is more of an issue at 58 than it was at 16.  Getting it hot is generally satisfied by a little carbon based fuel.  I remember one time, we were having some trouble getting a large pile burning.  The man became impatient and decided he would show us how to start a fire.  He climbed on the pile (I recall it being at least 15 feet high and 50 feet wide) with a metal can of gasoline in his hand.  Now, we had been trying to start the fire for several minutes.  As he stood on top of the pile, pouring gas all around him, he exclaimed, "If you get it hot, it will burn."  About the time, the gas found its way down to the small undetected flame that was hiding in the pile.  The gas fulfilled  his prediction and a wall of fire shot up all around him.  He managed to get off that pile without any major damage (unless you count losing his eyebrows, sideburns (it was the 70's) and a cap.  His sons and I had a running joke for years about getting something hot enough.  So, some fifty years later, I applied the lessons from years ago to compact the brush and pour a little diesel (not gasoline) on before lighting the fire (and then trust it to burn without any further up close involvement. 

Find someway to feel like a man on a tractor with a dog in a field

I need a tractor and several attachments.  I've been looking but to date haven't found what I need.  I have been building fence and have had a contractor working on the barn and the RV Port (carport big enough for the 5th wheel).  Here are pictures documenting the progress to date:

Barn-

Ground cleared and leveled

Framing up for the concrete

Ready to pour the concrete

Smoothing out the concrete (these guys did a great job)

Floor finished and ready for the beams

Pam about to commandeer my barn floor for her yoga practice.

I saw someone in a pose like this but he had been thrown from a car that struck a telephone pole.

  

Up go the steel beams

Where we are as of 5-5-13

 RV Port-

Beams were placed 4 ft down with 160 lbs of concrete

 

Up go the roof supports

 

Adding the roof was a challenge in the 15-20 mph winds

Finished product, ready for the RV

 

I'd better hurry and get the RV in it.

Fence-

First post in, 1200 feet to go

Last post in.  Next step is to run the wire

Finally, there are lots of animals on our farm.  Some are desirable (deer and dove once hunting season starts) and some are not (wild hogs, coyotes, racoons, armadillos, snakes and gophers to name a few).  Growing up on a farm, we always had dogs and cats.  While I viewed them mostly as pets (at least the once tame enough to touch), they also had working responsibility.  The dog was some combination of early warning of anyone or thing that shouldn't be there and some level of protection if he/she was big enough.  The cats were assigned to keep the barn free of mice and rats.  In our area the job assignments for dogs and cats are a little broader, breaking down as follows:

Dog-warn you of anyone or anything approaching the house; keep hogs, armadillos and racoons away from the garden, keep coyotes, other dogs and racoons away from the chickens (once we get them);

Cats-keep the barn free of mice and rats; keep snakes away from the house (they either kill the small ones or pester the larger ones to the point they stay away) and kill gophers.

We haven't gotten the cats yet but have an outside dog to go along with our inside dog. 

Lucy, our Jack Rascal Terrorist, is more of a thinking dog with a low work ethic

The harder work will fall to Shane
(I named him so because I see myself
standing in the field yelling,
"Shane, come back Shane"). 
Based on his heritage (Lab & Pit Bull) and the
size of his paws, he will be in the 80-90 lb range. 

 I'm presssed for time so going to publish this without checking for spelling errors.  Best wishes.