Life goes on - Winter 2017

Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving; Col 4:2

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      Motosabaka.         Snow Dog

Interesting machine. A lot of them are homemade. They just need a gas producer mounted on them. They are mostly used on snow.

www.http://snowdog.com

https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=335401.0

On YouTube search for Motosabaka

The Russians seem to build them a lot.

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Hey Jeff, that looks like a real cool machine for frozen people to use. Hopefully Iā€™ll never get to try one out. haha

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Apparently they work as well on soft ground, could be the ultimate mini skidder if used with a log archā€¦

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Oh you donā€™t know what your missingā€¦ you should come north for Christmas I am sure someone north of the border could find a nice snow bank for you to pitch a tent inā€¦ lol. I am hoping I donā€™t have one here for Christmas but the way this winter is going I expect snow any day. They are predicting an inch i think on Sunday.
I just got some cement blocks set in the barn today to fix the back wall. The wind came in the wrong way last winter and the 12 foot door in the back of the barn just let too much wind in. So now the cows will be downsized to a 3 foot door.

Uploadingā€¦
I built the wall 2 bricks wide and patch the old broken section of the wall back together cementing it to the new wall. I wanted to replace the entire wall but I couldnā€™t figure out how to remove what was left of the broken wall which had been filled with cement when it was built back in the 50s. The tricky part is that 4x4 post holds the barn and was good and tied into the broken wall by the door. So in the end I just did the best I could putting it back and built a new wall behind it. The new 8 foot section I built 2 bricks deep so it will stand up to the tractor bucket better. They are rough on a wall when you clean out a barn.

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We had a pretty productive day around here.

Poured 6 yards of concrete including the floors for the dome bath houses.

Also mixed and poured 5 yards of ā€œdirtcreteā€ for Naomiā€™s garden project. Not the traditional way of doing it with a rototiller. We mixed it 10:1 with portland in a small electric mixer and worked it like concrete. Itā€™s actually a lot harder than concrete to work. Sticky. But it turned out really nice. The ditches are where we harvested our dirt/clay. When we used that trencher that Jakob got running to put in a pipe, we realized that it chewed up the clay into the perfect size material, so we decided to just harvest the dirt from under the garden. So we moved the topsoil and dug a ditch next to each dirtcrete project and used the dirt from there. Later we will fill the 4ā€™ deep ditches with composted wood chips when we bring in mulch / top soil to cover everything. Jesse says he wants to plant some carrots over them and see if he canā€™t grow some really long carrots.

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Looking good Billy, walkways too. I like it.
Bob

Use Yellowstone carrots I have had them grow 15 inches long and about 4 inches across. There is a white radish which will grow insanely long to but I canā€™t remember right now what those are.

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Goodnite the day after ;~) Blessings TNC - Too Numerous to Count.

All the best, and GO Auburn!

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I believe that is called daikon radish. But they need cool wet conditions to grow like that, as they would experience in coastal Japan. Here they tend to bolt to seed. They might do ok in the south during the cooler months. Should be possible to produce seed from a supermarket daikon, though itā€™s available from many seed sellers.

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We grow daikons in our cover crop mix. they serve as subsoilers. then when they die and rot out they leve a tunnel into the subsoil. they are also one of my favorite vegetables although virtually noone here would eat one. They are considered cattle fodder, not food. Garry is right, they do well about this time of year down here. weā€™ve grown some in the better compost soil over 40" long and over 6" d.

As for long carrots:

According to the Guinness Book of Records Joe Atherton created the World Record longest carrot record, a gigantic 20 feet 5.9 inches (6.245 metres) in 2016. Grown for the UK Giant Veg show Malvern.

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:disappointed_relieved::open_mouth::hushed::grin:

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I have experienced the snow up there. In fact, It snows here occasionally. My wife spent a year at college in Vermont, way up toward Canada. They went winter camping and all that. But I guess I always did have a thing for slightly crazy redheads. I never saw snow on the ground until I was 14. Never saw it in the air until I was 16. After digging my car out of a few drifts and fixing a few frozen pipes, I decided that I really hadnā€™t been missing much haha :blush:

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The fun part comes once you learn to keep the car out of the snowbanks sliding is fun as long as you donā€™t hit anything. Lol
I will take the cold over the heat. The winter reminds how wonderful the summer isā€¦ lol. I think we all adapt to the climate we grow up in and like it there the best.

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You have no idea what fun youā€™re missing. Nothing focuses the mind like minus 30, makes you aware youā€™re alive. :smile: And if the pipes are freezing something was very poorly built, according to our standards.

Great to hear about the daikon. Ever try growing fodder beets? Should similarly break soil, and are good food, though normally considered animal feed.

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You where right I just checked. Here is where I got my seeds they will grow right up out if the ground and are really good in a stew they stay crunchy even after freezing.
https://www.jungseed.com/P/03330/April+Cross+Hybrid+Daikon+Radish

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Iā€™m not talking about not being able to drive in snow, I mean when you wake up and your car is buried in a drift. Yeah, itā€™s hard to beat sunny, breezy Florida beaches. even with the mosquitoes and 100 degree summers

Thatā€™s why we build ourselves a garage or barn to park in. Besides you donā€™t want to fix things out there in the elements. Lol. At least with a little work and a shovel I can move that snow out of the way and the work warms me up. Working out there in the heat only makes me pass outā€¦

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Yeah. Hard to swat Zika or malaria carrying mosquitoes with a shovelā€¦ :smile: I guess it could work on the venemous snakesā€¦

Freezing temperatures does clean up on all the nasties, you could call it free air conditioning. :smile:

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Me too. The older I get the more I like winter. Maybe this is my second childhood phase. I agree about dislike going to work (corporate job) in the winter time but I really like working outside in the winter time. Wrench turning isnā€™t that bad as long as I can take my time. Any temp bellow 55Ā°F works for me.

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Got a little more done on the barn repair today.


It was dark when I stopped. I decided I needed some windows in the new wall so the barn isnā€™t totally dark. So I found an old door with Windows it was actually the front door of the house back when in was a kid. It got replaced with new modern door when the house was redone a few years ago. Well that door fit so good I found a second old door and made most of the wall with them. I need to add a 2x4 behind it at the top and finish hanging it right now the bottom door is in there good the top one is not so good hanging on a ratchet strap to the doorknob glad I left that it came in handyā€¦ and screws down one side and across the bottom got too dark to do anything else. I have a small gap to fill between the doors and the post and I will make a header over the 3 foot opening the cows use that will close up the 12x12 foot door to 3x6 and cut down on the wind this winter.

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