starting the fun- my 1st few weeks of observations of living in a "new" rural area.

[protus]

our lil slab at the start and finish. it holds a cast iron 4ft tall fire pit. im gonna build a brick /out door oven set up and this will be the pad it connects to, but that wont be for a bit.
slab size is 4ftx4ft, 2x4 form with footers that went down 4-6 more inches, re-enforced woth 3/8 re bar, plastic mesh and metal h bars (bandit sign racks). we had 800 lbs of crete to use, i had 160 left over which went to shore up our culvert.

[protus]

I have come to the conclusion that you can catch anything on earth with peanut butter. If dinosaurs still roamed, peanut butter would bring em to the grill

i was gonna make a bucket trap and use p-butter as bait...but we'll see,

[protus]

winter side of the garden.
6x8ft, lettuce we thinned out for turkey day salad.back row is carrots, middle is radishes. outter row by my knee id ginger root, more carrots, the a clear space then garlic. we had some turnips but they failed, you can see one hanging on by the garlic.
the other one is beans - you can see them in the left side, and our pepper plants and one cucumber plant. i just cleared all of the sqaush out a re planted with more lettuce ,cabbage. this way our greens keep going. beets are doing ok but they are an experiment,.
in the next weeks, ill expand these out to have two beds totalling 6ft wide by 16-18ft long with a 24 inch walk path between them.

herb garden. this area we grow our herbs/spices and some starter stuff in planters. sides the herbs we have some onions growing, broccoli and tomatoe plants(3). we lost some herbs/plants during a rain storm few weeks or more back, every inch had a planter on it then. size is roughly 8x4 total.

[protus]

got a new issue, some sort of mushy slime like fungus attacking some of the plants. mostly the beans, i may till them under as they arent producing much anyway.
i hate raking leaves as well what a pointless waste of effort....16 45gallon full loads dumped and 4 hours later..it looks like when i started thanks to the wind lol

[MustangGal]

My goats think leaves, even dry ones, are delicious. :D

[jimmycthemd]

i hate raking leaves as well what a pointless waste of effort....16 45gallon full loads dumped and 4 hours later..it looks like when i started thanks to the wind lol

I feel your pain :-) Growing up we had 3 acres of lawn and 5 acres of garden. Dad was a firm believer in child labor (didn't hurt me a bit....). We raked them up and put them on the garden to be plowed under. Good for the soil.

Just think, you could be standing guard on your front porch in the city LOL

[Matt In Oklahoma]

raking leaves!?! thought you moved out where you didnt have to impress no one?

[protus]

raking leaves!?! thought you moved out where you didnt have to impress no one?

I did but still want my "yard " to look good...dunno why call it ocd or such lol

[Boyd]

610- why i mow.
my yard is small, and we are semi rural. Trust me i wanted to be in the boonies but we couldnt swing it.We have a few neighbors on our sides, few small tracts and a few larger ones, most being in the 1/4 to 5 acre in size. Our "yard" is roughly like i said just under 1/2 acre with the rest being woods before it hits the neighbors land.
Its not a ton of land under 2 acres.
But price and location was right. Our payments are what most pay for a car ( heck the whole place cost as much as some 4x4 crew cabs these days ..its a 2x2 with sunroom, ultility room and iirc is just under 2400 sq ft)and we pay extra each month. If my math is right i'll have it paid for just after 20 yrs with what little extra we dump into it. just wanted to clear up that i dont have a ton of land LOL... just live on a good sized lot in a very small town. LOL

The city we are in is small, 2-3 mins to drive through it from end to end( census shows 1800-2k in population). then nothing major for 30+ miles in most directions.

one thing.

we started storing seeds back around 07ish. We started our garden in planters till we could de grass/clear the area. Almsot 50% of what we planted never took . It could be the weather at the time etc but nothing took. Keep that in mind with older seeds. We stored them indoors, in their paper bags in a closet.


people who let their dogs run wild...another sore spot for me right now LOL

Dogs that run wild get the SSS treatment around here... shoot shovel and shuddup :) Where I live nobody controls their dogs. They run deer, harass livestock and have had them come across the property to try to attack me, my lil jack russel etc. Luckily i had the wonder mutt with me also, because it was one of those stupid odd moments that I didn't have my sidearm on me.

[Boyd]

Protus, please excersize due care with your chickens. They are dependant on you for protection from 4 legged (and winged) predators.
To those who want chickens but don't have any experience, there are two forums I highly recommend:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/ and http://www.chickenforum.com/forum.php
Backyard chickens is more than just a forum, there's lots and lots of info there. I highly recommend it.

I once was a city boy, but now I'm a certified chicken wrangler!:)
"Head 'em up, move 'em out, Rawhide!"

Rpd, do I know you over on byc? :)

[Grand58742]

Protus, please excersize due care with your chickens. They are dependant on you for protection from 4 legged (and winged) predators.
To those who want chickens but don't have any experience, there are two forums I highly recommend:
http://www.backyardchickens.com/ and http://www.chickenforum.com/forum.php
Backyard chickens is more than just a forum, there's lots and lots of info there. I highly recommend it.

I once was a city boy, but now I'm a certified chicken wrangler!:)
"Head 'em up, move 'em out, Rawhide!"

Backyard chickens was where I got most of the material when I wrote "Second Chance." Never had chickens myself so I needed a good reference. And that site is LOADED with info.

[paduraru]

I feel with you and appreciate your steps! After 30 years of big city, it's been almost 2 years in countryside. See some of my thoughts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITKFFYQQizQ

[Rmplstlskn]

Good video paduraru, with much wisdom...

[protus]

Good video paduraru, with much wisdom...

whats funny..i actually got back into photography and doing small crafts when bored vs what i used to do back before we moved....
see im all artys fartsy now.


heck ive fished 4 days in a row this week so far...




update-


owning an older home is fun,,LOL.
we have a wood box that protrudes from the side of our house. It used to be able to be loaded from the outside and then has two doors inside. However it looks like the door(outside) was secured for good ( hinges removed etc). I think from what i can see and have heard from the clampets down the road that our place was "used" by the local trash since it sat vacant for a few years and it seems some out here have that mentality of " it aint being used,,its ours.."
Think the sterotypical 4 wheeler crowd on vacant land " no ones there so lets ride..".

So anyway..back to my wood box..LOL.
its been nice so the other day i opened up all of the windows and looked out and saw that the old shingles were almost rotted off..well..so was the wood. The project was to remove,,and repair the box. Luckily i did. Its rained all night and still is this AM..i would have a had a mess. I re roofed it, and wet dried the top( i had no felt or shingles here but needed to dry it in at least) i sealed all joints, and nail holes,,etc. water tight now for sure! ......

tore up all my bean pnats that were not doing anything, tilled up the drit in 3/4s of one garden,,covered the addition to it with hay and atarp. the tilled in hay and 5 gallons of our compost into the old bed. In a few weeks im going to borrow a tiller( i do all this by hand now)..and then let the new additions compost till early spring.
carrots are doing well. radishes still going but did good..lettuce we cant keep up with.



was going to do a land survey/elevation with my FIL ( he's got all the junk and cpu programs to map it out on paper etc) so in t he spring or next big project we can figure some sort of fencing option for the actual property line.but with the rain id be knee deep in muck and bugs as once it hops over 65 here the squiiters come out in full effect.

[littleant]

Congrats Protus on making the move. I am happy for you and your family that you were able to leave the city behind. As soon as I sell my house I will be making my move. Some houses are actually starting to sell now in my area after a long drought so I am praying mine will sell as well. I grew up in the sticks so I am well aware of what is involved with rural living but it has been a few years so I'm prepared for a bit of adjustment. Nice post and a good reminder of what a lot of work and joy rural living offers.