Building projects

Hello dear reader! Welcome back to the farm! Come on in and have a seat, we have more progress to tell you about.

False Fall gets us in gear

Well we finally had a break in the heat! False Fall is a glorious time which lasts about a weekend or a whole week if we’re lucky. We were blessed with much lower temps this particular weekend, so we got our butts in gear and decided to build some stuff.

Do you remember, dear reader, when we told you about the creek bed we built? Well, I said to Spider that I wish we had a pond at the end of it. It would give the dragonflies a place to lay their eggs, giving us some mosquito control, and attract frogs!

She agreed, so in the spirit of using what we have, we grabbed an old kiddie pool that we had used for our doggies (R.I.P) to cool off in the summer that we still had laying around. We placed it at the bottom of the creek bed and marked the hole to be dug.

Remember too, that we don’t currently have a wheelbarrow? Well, a very sweet neighbor lent us his for as long as we need!

Side note: this project is starting to bring us to some really nice people. For the longest time, we had kinda lost faith in humanity. We feel like Daddy is on this journey with us and showing us that there are good people out there. You just have to know where to look. 

Any-how……..We dug the hole for the pond and put all the dirt in the wheelbarrow. Tossed the pool in the hole and filled around it with the dirt. Then we dug and rolled more wood chips from the front to the back……but this time with the wheelbarrow!  We built up the area around the pond and leveled it out a little. After that we made a path around it leading to the back of the yard.

Building with pallets…..

Which leads us to our next project, building one of the compost bins!

We’ve been actively collecting pallets we find around town, and finally had enough to build one of the three compost bins. Eventually we will have a 3 bin system, but for now we can at least get started on our compost!

My brother, a carpenter on the side, sent us a link for a good drill and driver set and it was on sale! Less than $100 for 2 excellent tools, 2 batteries and a charger? Yes please!

It’s been a minute since I’ve used a power drill (or any power tool really), and the one we had was a little 7.5 volt drill. Basically a big electric screwdriver 😂. The new one is an 18 volt and an even more powerful driver. Perfect for driving deck screws into pallets, but I was not prepared for the power behind it!

Spider held everything together while I drove the screws in and voila……compost bin!

Next up, raising the garden wall!

……old fences and tree branches

This was a little tougher than I had anticipated. Apparently privacy fence wood is harder than pallet wood and the screws didn’t make a dent. So I had to go back and forth between the drill and the driver to first make a hole for the screw and then drive it in. I’ve since been told my brother that I should do this always, so now I will. It was a bit more difficult than the compost bin, and thus far we have gotten just one of the walls up.

We found a home for the fire pit over by the garden, and moved two huge iron bakers racks from along the fence line where they had been living for the past 4 years and had vines growing through them. We put them up off the side of the steps and attached them to the railing with twine so they wouldn’t topple over.  Then we spread wood chips around that area to level it out a bit.

We found a really cool metal thing on the curb up the street for bulk pick up that I have no idea what it is, but now it’s on the other side of the stairs waiting for a use (I’m sure we will find one!)

Planting trees

There is an area at the top of the yard where we get really good sun exposure, so we are going to plant the fig tree there in the spring. First, we are repotting it (it’s been in its current pot since 2020, so we need to give it more room for its roots and then plant it after its had time to establish itself. Thank you to my lovely nephew for that guidance!) Spring will give us enough time to dig the hole….which we need because the dirt at the top of the yard is waaayyyy harder than the dirt at the bottom of the yard! We are going to have to get in Daddy’s tool shed and get one of his pickaxes for this job. The hoe just isn’t doing much.

Now we need to find a place to plant the elderberry bush, which has been in a pot since before 2020. They say to plant them in the fall, but I will confer with my nephew on that. Hopefully we can find a place that won’t take a pickaxe to dig the hole!

Thanks for checking in, we are so excited to share our progress with you! If you’d like to help support our project, you can donate here, or click on the logo below.

Love, Spider & Rain

Click on the logo below to go to the fundraiser  👨‍🌾