Chickens free-ranging, oh my!

When we first moved in here, we thought the parade of rooster, chickens, and turkeys coming through the side yard on the south side were just adorable.  But soon they showed their destructive side, scratching at the landscaped areas, throwing mulch out into the yard and uprooting small flowering plants.  One of our goals was to cut down on the area to be mowed, so Farmer Lynn and Elder Son Chris had spent quite a while, and quite a few truckloads, building a mulched island around several of the trees and an old TV dish.  They put the wrought iron settee and two chairs out there and it was a nice place to sit a spell.  Plus it accomplished the intended purpose of cutting down on mower turns and passes in that area.  Then the rooster led the chickens over there and they threw all of that out also.  We'd really hoped to extend the mulched area over time to really cut back on the area to be mowed, but that was not looking possible with the free-ranging chickens scratching all into everything.  

However, after only a couple of conversations with the neighbors, they put up a fence along the property line to contain the chickens.  Voila!  Problem solved.  Much relief.  And now Farmer Lynn and Elder Son Chris can work on the next phase of the landscaping of the south yard.  Hoorah for fences!!  And hoorah for nice Yadkin Yard neighbors!!

The Yadkin Yard is a Good Garden Yard -- Part 1

Awww, Farmer Lynn came in today with a basket of ripe fruits and vegetables.  Yellow squash, a watermelon, corn, and cooking tomatoes. The watermelon will need to ripen a while longer inside.

But I'm going to break into the corn tonight or tomorrow morning.  A lot of what he planted this year were heirloom seeds, from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

Although the soil was broken up by about 7 passes with the tiller, it was & is still really hard red clay.  That was all we could manage for this year and we were late getting that much done.  Next year, we hope to have some compost mixed in, and then even more the following year.  Gotta be patient there, little garden.  But I think it's doing really well, especially
for being the first year!

Farmer Lynn has been bringing in a few sunflowers also.  The birds will eat most of the seeds outside, and that's as it should be, but we need to save some too for next year.  The sunflowers are so cheerful-looking.

The heirloom seeds this year are Country Gentleman sweet corn, Early Golden Summer Crookneck squash, Banana Melon, Black Diamond watermelon (yellow belly strain), Cucumber Delikatesse, Speckled Swan gourd, and Tiger Eye sunflower mix, all from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.

This year, because the garden didn't get the water it needed and deserved, and because the red clay didn't have many nutrients despite the Miracle Gro applications, the garden struggled.  Farmer Lynn struggled to keep enough water out there to at least keep it all from dying.  Squirrels took over the tomatoes as soon as they got remotely ripe.  But we still had a good crop -- yay!!

The Man Cave

We've been working on the "Man Cave" area of the basement recently.  First Farmer Lynn and his older son went through the whole basement plugging up holes.  This was to keep out as many bugs as possible but also because this guy  

  

was roaming around in the basement ceiling one day.  If he'd stayed outside, then fine, but inside the house, nope!  So patching up holes from the inside and from the outside, and spraying several rounds of bug spray in the basement.  This has been very successful.  Although it has meant no more lizards upstairs either which disappoints the kitty cats!  They loooove to chase lizards.

Then both of Farmer Lynn's sons came and painted the stairwell, stairs, concrete floor, and walls of the Man Cave.  At first they used the extra paint we had, creating a very colorful and creative area!  The floor got treated to Rust-Oleum Epoxy Shield Basement Floor Coating.  They used the gray color (it also comes in tan) and didn't use the included sprinkles. (No sprinkles for a Man Cave, for goodness' sake!)

It looks great.  One box took care of the Man Cave area.  No plans to paint the rest of the basement, either floors or walls.  Then recently it became obvious that one area of the concrete walls needed a second coat.  That's when we discovered Yadkin Lumber Company!  Wow, they have EVERYthing there.                    

                                             
And if they don't have it, they'll order it.  A wonderful place.  They carry the Valspar paint that first went up on the basement walls, but the two yellows (Sunny Daze and Hazy Dawn) had gotten "retired" so after taking paint chips home, we settled on Pineapple Delight 200-2 as the closest match.

Isn't that a cheery color?  Two additional coats of that onto the concrete walls and it's all good now!  So then back to good ole Yadkin Lumber Company for stair railings.  There are NO railings on either side of the basement stairs.  Now granted this is a one-story house so I suppose the trips down into the basement were few and far between, but STILL.  So after getting advice from Yadkin Lumber's Ann & Charles, I got the railings and supplies which they loaded into my car for me, tied the trunk down, and gave me directions on back roads to take to get home with my flashers on and a red flag on the end of the railings.  I had to wave about two cars around me, but it was nothing like the traffic I would have run into otherwise.  Besides, I learned some new roads that way, and that's always good.  Farmer Lynn sanded the railings yesterday and the day before.  After much debate about painting versus staining the rails, we ended up getting tung oil so the wood will show more than it would have with the other methods.  The railings will probably go up on the stairs tomorrow.  Then I'll feel much better about Farmer Lynn's trips down to The Man Cave!  And the stairs will still be enough to deter me (I have metal in one leg&ankle&foot from an injury four years ago) from visiting down there much (hahaha, maybe the whole point of the placement of The Cave!!!) but when I do, I can go slow and hold on to the new railings.  Excellent.  Thank you to Farmer Lynn's boys and to Yadkin Lumber for helping us get The Man Cave safer.  Eventually I'd like a small light fixture at the top of the stairs to complete the safety picture, but there are other priorities right now and the light at the bottom of the stairs is FINE, he says :-)   Also some non-stick treads (http://www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?itemID=3406&itemType=PRODUCT) or tape (http://www.walmart.com/ip/Incom-Manufacturing-RE629BL-2-in-X-12-in-Black-Gator-Grip-Anti-Slip-Safety-Grit-Tape-Step-Strip/21061789 or http://www.allstairtreads.com/gritstrips.html -- suggestions?)  for those stairs would be nice down the road.  Any suggestions?