Orchard Helper

Playground Projects

Last year I did several things in the yard for the kids. I put a tractor tire up for the kids to climb on.Which quickly became the preferred method of using the slide.

I made the sandbox referenced here.

I put up a post and bucket pully (that I now have to move).

And I planted quite a few tree roots to try to get some shade cover going in there. These are cottonwood roots that were sprouting. I dug a trench around them, used the tire for wind block and mulched with paper.

I also took down some unsafe railing on our deck. That is a saga for another time as it is still a work in progress.

This year I hope to fix and add much more to the children’s playground. The broken slide has already been taken care of as seen in this post. So now to add to the fun.

I am excited to add a Tetherball court. I am going to make the tetherball pole moveable so that it can also be used as part of a future badmitton/volleyball court. This project was inspired by some Pinterest browsing that led me to this blog.

A new swing set is being constructed this year, the poles and design will be planned for the addition of a clubhouse next year. Temporarily I have simply removed the broken section of the swing set. Son is not happy about this as it included the glider portion.

This is a picture of the swing set just after install. The poles on the right side are badly damaged from a run in with the tractor.

Spools are going to be used for all sorts of projects but the first is going to be spool cars with this Steering Wheel. I found a design for these cars here. The kids are painting their own cars and I’m excited to see how it all comes out.

I am hanging a Basketball Hoop on the post that the bucket pully is on. Our son has shown a marked interest in throwing things and I hope to refine his technique so he stops knocking things over inside.

I am unsure about establishing a music station outside. The kids have a variety of musical and sound making objects indoors that they do not show a lot of enthusiasm for.

I do think I’ll be using some spools to make a mud kitchen though, as seen here.

I am also excited about building a scale near the sandbox. I believe the kids will love that!

I am also trying to figure out how to hang these Baskets for various toy storage around the yard. We have dogs who love to eat any toys left out and kids who love to cry about it. This Organizer is absolutely brilliant for next to the sand pit. I will be able to hang the digging tools from the hooks at the bottom. I love it! I am excited to get them up and in use. We are currently using a large laundry basket for toy storage and I hate carting it around. Plus, to get to the toys at the bottom the kids dump the entire basket out and the mess is massive. So, smaller, off the ground storage is going to be key going forward.

We removed some broken, hanging gutters last year. I plan to try to incorporate them into the sand/water station somehow. I’m still working on that concept.

So stay tuned as our backyard gets turned into a kid centric playground!

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New purchases and Updates on growth

We recently purchased some grape vines from a hobbyist in Colorado, 5 dormant frontenac grapes and 2 Tramenier grape vines . We also received our Gurney’s grape order of 5 Reliant grape vines. They arrived bare root and dormant and so I took the risk of putting them outdoors, heavily mulched.

Furry butt here is the reason the grapes are caged. Don’t want him getting bored and chewing them up.

The pistachio tree is doing quite well.

The apple seeds I’ve been growing are hit and miss, but mostly doing well.

The lone locust tree seedling I have is growing slowly, but growing.

My tomato seedlings look…unchanged. I’m doing something wrong, obviously, but I do not know what.

I’ve had bug issues. The bamboo brought them into the house. The grapes cuttings I’m trying to root were the worst hit. I’ve since put diatomaceous earth on all of my indoor plants. We shall see if what they say is true, and the bugs die.

Everything else is not noticeably different but doing well.

I have planted out the hill I built for the kids slide, mulched it and tried my best to keep the mulch in place. I’m hoping in a few weeks I will be able to remove the fencing.

The birds enjoyed making it into the yard, usually heavily guarded by dogs. The ducks took the most advantage, though a few chickens came in. We had to escort everyone out before dinner, so the dogs could go back out. This gave the kids an opportunity to pet a chicken.

Yesterday we also brought home a new peacock, to replace the one that was killed by the dogs. He’s an india blue black shoulder. He had some broken feathers in transit but is still looking mighty fine. The kids took the opportunity, while the pea decided whether to come out of the cage or not, to pet his long tail and peak in on him.

We hope he adjusts well and that we can open the door to the barn again soon. They’ll all be locked in there until we are sure the new pea won’t fly away.

Here are a few extra, gratuitous pictures.

First Turkey Processing Graphic Pics

I have this addiction to buying birds. If they go on sale, watch out! So one year it got a bit out of hand. I bought 5 Giant White turkeys. Unfortunately only 1 lived. We named him Lucky. One of the only birds to ever be named on our property. Shortly after that we bought 9 bourbon red turkeys from a 4Her. After that I was buying food and there were broad breasted bronze turkeys on sale. I bought them all, 10 in total. Feeding time got a bit crazy!

We suffered some deaths. The Bourbon reds kept flying into the dog run and getting eaten by the dogs. I had one broad breasted bronze die from an unknown disorder. Otherwise they did well and grew quickly!

I really loved the turkeys. I just enjoyed having them around. They were funny and slow. Our Son could pet them like puppies. Just enjoyable birds. Unfortunately they were food and it was the weekend before Thanksgiving. We gave most of them away but sold a few. We invited friends over, had my parents watch our kids and got to work killing.

First we got the scalding pot ready. Our scalding pot is an extremely large tamale pot that we got at a flea market in Denver. We heat it with this Bucket Heater. This is the actual bucket heater we bought and use. It is an affiliate link. It was extremely cold the day we did this and it took some time to get the water up to temp. We finally elevated it off of our freezing cold concrete on some blocks. After that we did not need the heat gun to help. The bucket heater heated it just fine.

In anticipation of this day we bought a plucker. Boy am I glad we did! Now I have hand plucked birds. It’s not bad if you are just doing 1. It is bad if you are doing more than that. It takes a large amount of time and can really make a persons fingers ache. So while this plucker was mondo expensive I’m glad we have it.

We caught the bourbon reds first. I thought it would be wise to do smallest to largest. The men were killing, scalding and plucking and I had a friend inside who was helping me gut and bag them.

We hung the birds up and slit their throats. Not pretty but effective and imo, humane.

Here is my beautiful husband holding our large broad breasted bronze Tom. He had a processed weight of 35lbs.

Yup, that’s him.

Doesn’t that plucker work fabulously!

“Lucky” was last. He was 60lbs live weight. Quite the bird to catch and haul.

Took 2 men to hold him for scalding.

Took our entire oven and 1/2 a day but Lucky tasted fabulous!

Playground slide transformation

Our little playground did not survive the winter well. The swing set is badly damaged and the slide supports broke completely off. My children LOVE sliding and I heard a lot of “Fix it Mommy!” from my oldest. I also had this giant pile of tires that was not going to be able to remain in the playground because of black widow problems. So I killed 2 birds with one stone and used the tires as the structural support for a new hill slide.

As my husband used the tractor to cover the tires in dirt I stripped the slide of any remaining screws and supports and hunted down some tools. Armed with a variety of shovels (my helpers always require their own shovels!) and a rake we went to work grading the hill and installing the slide.

Son was energetic in his digging but daughter was much too distracted with the chickens scratching around near the fence. I think I found the right angle for the slide.

Hmmmm. No. I think it is much too high.

Better! Though I’m sure the poor sea creatures didn’t like their trip down the slide.

Now off to hunt for rocks to be used as the steps. I loaded Daughter into the wagon and Son energetically hopped onto his tricycle.

Success. I was able to grab quite a few rocks of unknown origin, the one Daughter is sitting on was the largest I could carry.

I rocked the stairs up but I just don’t like it. That large piece of cement rip rap is not working for me. What to do….

That’s the ticket. Gravel on the top of the hill and the large cement rip rap has become a designated art piece. The kids loved painting it! While they were busy painting I was busy terracing the back side of the hill. I don’t want a rain storm to cause massive erosion. Now I have perfect planting terraces.

I spent some time thinking about what I wanted to plant here. Grass, of course. But I want plants that are going to repel bugs and rodents as well. So I believe I have settled on a few varieties of mint, lemongrass, feverfew, lavendar and safflower. We shall see how they grow!

Tire Sandbox

Tires are a material I really love. Free, versatile and fun. So when I saw this Pinterest post I knew I had found an ideal sandbox idea. So I started collecting tires from a local tire shop. The first step was cleaning them. I used simple dish washing liquid and a car scrub brush. Then I cut the ones that I needed to cut in half. I did this with a linoleum knife Like this one for the sidewall, and a metal cutting blade on a regular circular saw for the tread.

I painted all of the tires with regular spray paint. I just bought cheap stuff from Wal-Mart.

I used about 2 coats per tire. The larger tires required an entire bottle of spray paint. Now, some of the tires did not take the paint well and flake something awful. I’m just living with it.

Next I laid out my tire pattern and dug holes for the halved tires. I did cement these tires in. I then stacked the whole tires, filling each with dirt as I did so. I was ramming dirt into the interior of the tires but even so there has been some sagging where I did not fill them enough. I’d suggest using a sledgehammer. I found the tires to be a great way to keep Daughter entertained. She wasn’t able to walk at this point and wasn’t very good at standing. The tires were perfect for helping her with this!

Son was just entertained.

Once I had my tires stacked and ready I laid landscape fabric on the ground, tucked it into the tires and began adding sand. It took a lot of sand. I had bought 6 bags to start with and it barely covered the bottom of the sandbox. I think we are about 20 bags in. This would work great if the stupid dog seen in this picture didn’t keep digging in the sandbox.

Anyway, the sandbox has been working well. We have had bug issues. Black Widow mostly. I have to check everything before I let the kids out to play. I am going to fix that issue with cob this year.

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