Uncategorized – Peacock Orchard

Obstacle Course- Step 3- Zip line

The kids and I have been working for several years to get Husband to agree to let us build a zip line. He just keeps pointing out the risk for injury and death.

So, all these telephone poles were an opportunity to try again. The poles that are 50′ apart were ideal for talking Husband into a zip line. He relented. I jumped on it and immediately bought everything we needed. I bought a 250′ spool of 1/4″ airline wire. I settled on 1/4″ wire because I wanted to appease Husband’s fears of wire breaking by getting the thickest possible and the carabiner I purchased could handle a maximum of 1/4″.

I did consider buying a zip line kit but I figured out it was cheaper to buy everything separately so that’s what I did. I had a nice spool and pallet I’d used previously for the bees so I rolled that on over to the poles as our platform. The wire is simply as far up as I can possibly reach on my tippy toes. It does enable the tractor to go underneath it to maintain the path.

Needless to say, we all love it, even husband. The kids spend endless amounts of time on it. We had to purchase walkie talkies so they could go out and zip line and we could call them in for meals and bed.

As you can see it’s the perfect height for the kids to ride down, hop off and take the seat back to the next person.

Obstacle Course step 2- Trees!

We decided the path could really benefit from the addition of some trees for shade while we are sitting and watching the kids play. So, we ordered 25 American Plum trees, 5 chokecherry trees and a single Eastern Red Cedar (because that’s all they had for sale).

Planting was a family affair. Daughter drove her car with the trees in the back and shovels. Husband and I would dig the holes and the kids would work together to plant the trees.

The problem with getting out there was that Daughter had ice cream and Carnitas the pig really, really wanted it.

It’s been a few months since we planted the trees and it’s been not great. They were eaten. We put tree collars on them. They were smacked and broken by hail. They were potentially eaten again, in spite of the collars. We have maybe 8 left. /sigh

Obstacle course part 1- swings

I wanted to immediately put up some swings for the kids. Give them something to keep them occupied on the property.

I bought a 4x6x12 board and 1/2 inch x 2 feet threaded rods.

I also bought the swings and the swing brackets off Amazon.

I put the board up at 10 feet because that is where we intend to have the platform for this section start.

This is where things get tricky. I left the kids with Husband and went out with the hammer drill to drill holes in the pole and put it up. Turns out I neither had the right drill nor the right drill bit. I thought using a paddle drill bit would be the best idea but boy, it’s not. I had to pull it out every few seconds to get rid of the wood chips so it wouldn’t get stuck. It took FOREVER to drill a single hole. Then it killed the drill. It got so hot drilling that hole that I had to stop and let it cool down before doing the other hole.

The next problem is hoisting the board up there alone. It’s really heavy. So I propped it up and bolted it loosely to one side. Then I put a rope around the other side and started hoisting it up for the second bolt. Now yes, it should have two bolts on each side. Drill couldn’t handle it though so I settled with one and the intent to put another in later.

I got it done though and they love the swings!

Obstacle Course/ Home Leisure Project

Covid-19 has changed a lot of things in the world. Our property can now be added to the list. Being stuck home with the kids we decided we really needed more to do. It had to be on our property because the oil drilling has made it uncomfortable to walk the road like we used to.

So Husband took the tractor out and made a path. We made some plans. Planted some flags and had the electric company out to put up 24 telephone poles along the way. We had this large pile of telephone poles we got for free from the railroad.

They got them all up quick and then we wandered the path admiring their work and dreaming.

This is a large structure that is going to have four platforms on it just for hanging out.

We have two separate structures going up near each other. This pic shows husband evaluating the distance between poles for accuracy. Our measuring is on point, obviously. This set of poles will be a rope swing. The one near it is going to be a ladder climber.

Next on the path are the two poles I was most excited about- the zipline!

50 feet apart these poles will have the zipline going over the path. You can see the corner tower poles in the back there. Husband envisions a rustic lookout being built here.

On to the teepee climber. These poles will host a triangle climber structure with the middle left open for the tractor to go through.

This is the exact center of our property and will have a clubhouse tower on it that I intend to put a larger zipline up on when we put the rest of the poles up on the other half of the property.

As you can see we have a lot of plans. Expensive plans. We believe it will take years to finish all of these. This is the back part of our property. We have more poles and more acres to add on to when this half is finished.

Stay tuned because I’ve started building already.

Where have I been?

Well, I was pregnant ya’ll. It was a tougher pregnancy. I had a lot of pain. While we were both perfectly healthy I did not feel well at all. It made accomplishing anything very difficult.

Thanksgiving morning, at 4a.m. I went into labor. It was a scary time for us. We had some monstrous snow storms and we’d been very afraid that we would not be able to get into town and I’d have an unwanted home delivery.

Thanksgiving Day labor was God given. It was essentially the only two days the weather cooperated for us to get in and out of our house. If I’d gone into labor before or after I would have been stuck home.

Baby girl is perfect and not a good sleeper. That on top of this crazy weather has meant we still aren’t up to much.

I did accomplish some things though and I will share some pictures as soon as I can.

Newspaper as weed blocker- it sucks

I am starting a new garden, a bigger garden. Fully fenced and with drip irrigation I have great hopes for this garden. I did have a little issue with grasses and other plants in this area. I set the pigs and chickens to work clearing the area up. They did a somewhat ok job of it. At least when I threw their food out on the spots I wanted taken care of.

So obviously I still needed to do something about all the remaining vegitation. I started saving newspaper. So, let me tell you about how much that sucks. I tried two different ways of laying the paper down. The second one was much better than the first but still a pain in the butt.

Now, let me remind ya’ll that I’m in Wyoming. It is pretty much never at least a little breezy here. There was a bit of a breeze while I was laying this paper down and trying to get it wet before it would blow away was driving me a bit nuts. Plus while I’m spraying it down and trying to flatten it it’s ripping and basically making me regret my life decisions.

Then comes the issue of planting through the paper. That was a pain in the butt as well. Some of the planting turned out ok. The paper remained in tact enough to still be a sufficient weed barrier. With others it just crumbled and became useless. Frustrating!

I carried on and planted all of the cabbage and celery. Then mulched over the top with wood chip bedding.

Will let you know how this works out for me. I’ll do a separate post on my other newspaper method.