Rivers Of Ice

As you probably have guessed, we've been to Alaska.  We flew into Seattle over a week ago and boarded a cruise ship traveling the inside passage.  We traveled up to Juneau and Skagway, then back to Victoria, BC and back to Seattle.  We were gone for 8 days, including the flight to and from Seattle.

Seattle, Juneau, Skagway and Victoria were all neat - but nature trumped them all.  We saw  tons of bald eagles, whales, more snow-capped mountains than you can imagine, deep fjords - and glaciers!

Pictures cannot do the scenery justice.  I was really excited about seeing the glaciers.  I booked a glacier trek from Juneau.  I took a helicopter ride the Mendenhall Glacier and went trekking and ice climbing.  What an adventure.  The shapes and colors of the glacial ice were extraordinary.

On the way to Skagway, I got up at sunrise one morning (around 3:00 AM) and saw ice fields off in the distance.

We sailed up the Tracy Arm Fjord to the toe of the Sawyer Glacier.  The scenery was breathtaking.  We saw more bald eagles, seals, ice flows, and Sawyer Glacier.  Our ship got to within 1 mile of the glacier, and you could see that the glacier was huge.  The blue ice was luminescent.

After visiting the glaciers, the cities were anti-climatic.  Not a warm-weather vacation, but definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  I'd do it all over again!

Computer Message

This is Uncle Tractor's computer.  My scans shows he will be away from the blogosphere for 1 week.  The server tells me he may occasionally check email.  I am not sure where he will be, but I notice this page is bookmarked in his browser favorites.

Poor Man's Roses

We put a few white peonies in the 'white garden' when we first moved in 4 years ago.  We had a lot of trouble getting them to do much, until I installed wire cages around them.  The rabbits have not been able to chew them down, and now they are finally blooming.  We also put peonies in by the arbor 2 years ago (with wire cages) and they are also blooming!

I always called peonies poor man's roses.  When the are blooming, they have such beautiful, abundant flower.  Their scent is fantastic.  They don't last long, and the summer rains tend to knock the heavy flowers down.  We really appreciate them when they bloom.

Summer is really coming on strong.  The bleeding hearts have recovered from the late frost back in May.  The irises are blooming (also another of my favorite plants) (do you see a theme here - I like low maintenance plants)!

July will be here soon.  Then the stella d'oro lillies, tiger lillies, daisies, and black eyed susans will be blooming.  Such a beautiful time of year.  It doesn't last long.  Enjoy.

War of the Knotweed

In the perpetual battle of man versus knotweed, I launched a major offensive today.

Before the Battle

It has been warm.  The knotweed by the creek has been growing like crazy.  It was over 4 feet tall in places.

After the Battle

It was very warm and muggy this morning.  It seems like it is always warm and muggy when I have to knock back the knotweed.   I grabbed the scythe and attacked it hard.  The scythe is the best tool for the job.  It takes a little effort, but it cuts a large swathe moves pretty fast.  I was able to clear the knotweed in about 30 minutes.  I was drenched in sweat, but I can now see our creek.

The knotweed will be back.  I'll have to hit it hard 3 or 4 more times this year.  Only when we get the next hard frost will the knotweed retreat until next year.

'City' Farmer

Last summer we visited Old Sturbridge Village with my brother, his wife, and their 2 kids (the ones that gave me the name Uncle Tractor).  If you haven't been there, it is a re-creation of an early 19th century New England village.  We listened to the workers (in period clothing) discussing their garden, when one visitor asked "Where are your tomato plants?".  The workers responded "You must be a city dweller.  Only they would grow tomatoes!"

Well, I must be a city farmer.  We don't grow a large garden.  My real job keeps me busy enough.  So, I grow what I like - and I like tomatoes.

We buy our plants from a local nursery. As usual, we grow mainly roma tomatoes, though we always grow a few slicing tomatoes.  This year I'd thought I'd try an heirloom variety - Old German.

I am, a lazy gardener.  I till the garden bed, and then spread weed fabric over the entire bed.  I place old boards on the fabric to hold it down and to give a place to stand when working in the garden.  I then slit X's in the fabric, and plant the tomatoes in the openings.  The black fabric keeps the weeds down, holds in moisture, and absorbs the sun to keep the beds warm.  This year, we put in 10 roma plants and 3 Old Germans.  I also put 3 other Old Germans in pots along with some more roma tomatoes.  This should give us enough tomatoes to have fresh tomatoes during the late summer and store away many quarts to tomatoes to have during the coming year.

I hope the tomato crop is better than last year.  It was cold and wet last year, and the tomato plants just  stayed dormant.  The hotter the better when it comes to tomatoes.

I'm not sure what other plants we will grow.  We always do some herbs (though we grow quite a few indoors already) and beans.  One of these years this 'city' farmer will get serious and expand the garden to include enough corn and beans to freeze.  The wife would also like to grow garlic and a lot of peppers.  Only time will tell...

Fear and Trepidation

If you are the owner of an old home, you will then relate to this story -

I noticed some rot on the fascia on the roof over the front porch.  Okay, no big deal.  Just rip down the old board and throw up a new one, right?

Well, if you are an old home owner, you know that things are usually not that simple.  

Almost every time I rip out some old wood, there is usually a lot more damage hidden away.  A 1 hour job ends up taking 4!  Water is the enemy of all structures.  When you find some damage, you have to figure out where it is coming from, or you will have the same problem again.  So it was with some fear and trepidation that I tackled this job.

I got some 1 x 6 boards from 'Home Desperate' and primed them.  I pulled out the ladder, hammer and pry bar and tackled the fascia.  I struggled with it at first, but once I got it partially separated from the framing, it came off fast.  I was relieved that only the fascia was damaged.  It appears that water was finding its way down the overlap between 2 sections of drip-edge. No problem.  I put up the new fascia, painted the front of the fascia, and wrapped the corners in sheet metal flashing for a clean edge.  Whew - just a 1 hour job.  Dodged that bullet!

Being Memorial Day weekend, I hung a red, white and blue bunting over the porch.

Happy Memorial Day!

Thanks!

I threw on one of my favorite cycling jerseys and went for a ride after work.  It was a warm afternoon with light winds.  About 7 miles from home I had a flat (darn it).  As I was standing on the side of the road pumping up my tire, I noticed a fellow approaching.  He asked if I had everything I needed and offered me a ride.  He had the look of a cyclist (the thin build and shaved legs are a give-away)!  He left and I went on to get 22 miles in (at a 20 mph pace - pretty good).

Anyway, thank you for the offer, whoever you were.  Though it was not needed, it was appreciated.

Letters From Home

We went to an ephemera auction today.  Ephemera auctions offer paper items for sale, including books, magazines, legal documents, advertisement, trade cards, postcards, stamps, letters, posters, photographs, etc.  There were a lot of interesting items for sale, though nothing we had to have.  Frankly, when I pick up items at auctions, they either have to be utilitarian (like tools) or have obvious decorative use (like pottery, etc.).  Many of the objects could be used as decorative items, but the most interesting were more personal, such as the photographs and letters.

Many of the photos were from family albums. Generation after generation of people were in the albums and boxes.  There were score of letters, some appeared to be years worth of correspondence between husbands and wives from World War II and other times.  I remember when my father was overseas in the 60's.  He wrote to mom every night.  She would write back.  Those were the days when you couldn't email, whip out your cell phone, or Skype back home. We would get a phone call once in a while, but it was costly.

It was sad that these items seemed to find there way from someone's estate into the hands of strangers.  I was glad that there are people who find such ephemera of interest, but I couldn't help to think that such items should be in the hands of a family member.

In time, my mom and dad disposed of their letters (probably as a common house cleaning chore).  They both passed over 7 years ago.

I would love to have a few of those letters now...


Auction Update:

As I mentioned in a previous post, we had picked up a Coca Cola sign.  I fitted it to a wooden frame and hung it on the side of our barn.  It looks great.  We'll continue to look for more signs.

 

Little Suzie Homemaker . . .

We finished cleaning up the ironing board and painted the new toy iron we got / made for our granddaughter.  We put new rubber caps on the ironing board legs, painted the top, and painted the iron grey and white.  My wife will be bringing this out to our granddaughter in a few weeks (along with the antique doll carriage).

This was a fun little project.

So Sad, Too Bad . . .

We had a hard frost the last 2 mornings.  Unfortunately, the bleeding hearts did not fare too well.  I know they will bounce back (they always do). My wife really likes them (she has good memories of her maternal grandmother's bleeding hearts).  So sad.

However, as I walked down to the creek (passing by a rabbit which ignored me), I noticed the knotweed took a big hit.  Not bad, so glad!

Auction Update:

Last weekend, I had put in an absentee bid for a Horrocks and Ibbotson 'Ike Walton' fly rod. Usually, they retail for $100.  They were never very fishable, but look nice on a wall.  I went as high as $75, but lost to an $80 bid.  Not mad, just sad.

The wife put in a lot of bids for crocks of various sizes.  Needless to say, she got a bunch of them.  We also picked up 2 green stoneware bowls.  Very glad!

Tools and Toys

We  did some antiquing the last few days, and I found a few items of note.  I picked up a couple of wooden clamps (16" opening).  They weren't antiques, but the price was right ($35 for 2, retail is usually over $25 each).  We picked up a Coca Cola sign (~ 48" x 18").  It was probably made in the last 20 years or so.  It wasn't enameled, but the read and white paint scheme will look great on the barn (only $20).  I'll post a picture later after we get it on the barn.

The most interesting find was a wooden bar clamp.  There were 4 for sale.  I just picked up 1.  It is about 5 feet long.  It would have been used for clamping larger furniture pieces and tabletops.  I really liked the wooden screw.

We had small 'bird house' we got an an auction (actually, it was shoved in a crock we bought - it came free).  I had a spare stair spindle from another project, so I made another decorative bird house to put over in the side garden (I sometime call it the white garden as we have other white items there mixed in with the wildflowers).  I gave it a couple of coats of paint.

We picked up a child's ironing board.  We will touch up the paint.  It didn't have an iron, so I whipped up one.  It too will need to get painted.  I hope our granddaughter will like it.  I am pretty sure she will!

Happy Mother's Day

We have a pair of robins that nest in the holly bushes by our deck.  I was lucky enough to see one of them all puffed up and sitting there.  It was cold and snowing here, but the parents were on duty!

I wish Happy Mother's Day to all moms, moms-to-be, and moms who aren't here to share these wishes.

A Fine Afternoon

I was caught up and work  Since it was a nice day, I left work early.

The Better Half with the 2-Man Saw

Last night my wife and I went to a preview at the local auction house.  I was interested in a 2-man saw and a bamboo flyrod.  Today, the wife went to the local auction house and got a bunch of large crocks (12 gal, 6 gal, 5 gal, 3 gal and 2 gal) and the saw.  She put in absentee bids for a few other items and the flyrod.  We'll find out on Monday if we got anything else.  I was excited to get the saw (and only $25).  The handles are tight, the blade is straight, and the teeth are well set.  It needs some cleaning up and sharpening.  I hope to get to it this weekend.

I took a bike ride when I got home.  I came across a neat barn with a cupola on it.  It was a little rundown, but it was still quite interesting.  We always fancied a cupola on our barn.

I found a large bunch of trilliums along a wooded hillside.  They are some of my favorite wildflowers.

I came home and worked in the yard.  I have kept up with the mowing, but I needed to trim the edges.  I got out the string trimmer and broke bad on the edges.  I then mowed the yard.

I noticed that the bleeding hearts are blooming, as are the lilacs.  New growth is leafing out on the larches.

Even the knotweed is reaching for the sky.  I took a picture 1 week ago.  The knotweed has gone from 6 inches to over 18 inches in 1 week.  I'll be getting the scythe out in a few weeks to knock it back.

Young Knotweed

1 Week Later . . .

We grilled steak and served it with fries and a salad for dinner.  Quite a nice afternoon indeed!

We're off to a big used book sale in Ithaca tomorrow.  Wish us luck.

Gettysburg Barns

Road trippin' with my two favorite allies

Fully loaded we got snacks and supplies

It's time to leave this town

It's time to steal away

Let's go get lost

Anywhere in the USA

Let's go get lost

Let's go get lost

- Red Hot Chili Peppers

The wife and I went to Gettysburg, PA last weekend.  It is something we have been wanting to do for years.  We love history and historical sites.


We left on Friday and drove down to Gettysburg.  There was a lot of construction and delays on the highway.  We decided to just get off the highways and see where the local roads would lead us.   We programmed the GPS to get us there and just enjoyed the small towns and the country.  I wish we had more tme to stay a while in some of these towns (we especially liked Bloomsburg, PA).


We stayed at a historic inn in town that was known to be haunted.  The only spirits we saw came in bottles!

We did a tour of the battlefields.  You go to the visitor's center and buy a CD which guides you through the various sites in order of their occurrence over the three days of the battle.  It was great!  We had awesome weather and got a great sense of the terrain the battles were fought over.


Being a 'barn' guy,  I was able to enjoy some of the barns in the area.  Three in particular were interesting.


The first was a 3-story bank barn.  The top story (like mine) would be the hay mow.  The second level would hold the livestock, while the basement would be the collection area for the manure.  The overhang of the second story allowed the farmer to shovel the manure.  This barn was located east of Oak Ridge in the battlefields.  What a beauty.

The second barn was the most interesting.  It is a privately owned barn which adjoins the battlefields.  It is known as the Trostle barn.  The Trostle's owned this barn during the Civil War.  I found this interesting because it is primarily made of brick, and there is a cannon ball hole in one gable!

The last barn is known as the Codori barn.  The Codori farm was located in the fields west of Cemetery Ridge. For those of you who know about Gettysburg, this is the area where doomed Pickett's Charge occurred.  From what I have read, the southern soldiers were clustered about the barn and using it as protection as they moved up the ridge.  What history!

There were other barns about the grounds which were prominent in the battle.  I cannot believe the history these buildings have seen.  It is great they are still preserved.  I would really like to go inside these barns and see how they are built. 

Unbelievable!

As I was walking to my car after work today it started to snow!  It was cold, windy, and blustery.  Who would have thought it was late April, particularly after the early spring we have had.

Luckily, we know better than to work in our gardens this time of year.  We can expect frost as late as Memorial Day.  I'm not too worried about the bleeding hearts, peonies, silverlace clematis, sweet woodruff, hostas, tiger lillies, sedums, and any of the other low maintenance plants in the yard.  They seem to take care of themselves.

One benefit of cold weather - the Japanese knotweed doesn't like the cold.  Maybe this cold snap will knock the knotweed back (even only for a week or two).

The garden won'y be planted until Memorial Day weekend.  I'll turn the beds over one more time in the next few weeks to get ready.

Trilliums

I saw my first trillium today.  I had went for a ride and saw it sitting by itself in the sun by the side of the road. I always liked trilliums.  They seem to appear unexpectedly.  I need to grow some in the yard.  They are quite ephemeral, but beautiful.

Spring Colors

My wife and I were talking yesterday about the onset of Spring.  I noted that the trees were starting to leaf out.  My wife was looking out the window towards Spook Hill.  She noted how the leaves of the trees looked like fall leaves - as they were leafing out they were multi-colored.

How was it that I missed this?

When I drove home from work today I made sure I saw the colors of the trees.  Of course there were whites and pinks and plums associated with flowering fruit trees, but the leaves took on many colors. pale reds and brown, light yellow-greens, all shades of soft green.  They were like the fall colors - just muted.

Sometimes you don't see things until someone helps you to see them.

Thanks Nana!

Near Miss

I went for a quick ride after work.  Usually, I worry about traffic and debris in the roads.  I was just 1.5 miles from home, when out of the corner of my eye I see two brown shapes running towards me.

"Dogs!", I thought.

One of the shapes ran out in the road right in front of me, the other veered away.  The one in the road was just about 8 feet away.

It was a deer!

It continued across the road and bounded over a fence into a trailer park.

Jeez, you never know!

By the way, the deer statue above was made in commemoration for John Deere.  Before they made tractors, John Deere made bicycles.

Why Didn't I Do This Before?

When we were at the auction yesterday, they were auctioning off some older mountain bikes (actually, the most interesting bikes were the vintage 1960s English Triumphs (Raleigh) - but that is another story).  There were also some mid-90s frames on a wooden bike rack.  I did not bid on the bikes or frames and components.

I awoke last night and realized - I can make a wooden rack to use when I work on my bikes!  Why did I not think of this before?!

After working out,  I went to the workshop and slapped out a stand.  I took me about 2 hours.  No, I didn't have a plan - just started to collect some 2 x 4s and 1 x 6s for the stand.  I just slapped it together with woodscrews.  Voila (not a masterpiece - but very satisfying none-the-less).

I used to use my turbo trainers as a repair stand, but an upright stand is so much easier and useful.  I had to clean my chain and adjust my front derailleur on my road bike.  The stand worked great.

Noisy, Dirty, Scary Things

Rotary Engine

I am reminded of a scene from the classic movie "The Quiet Man". John Wayne's character discusses buying a tractor with his wife, played by Maureen O'Hara. Her response was something to the effect that such machines were noisy and smelly.

There were a lot of' 'serious' machines at the auction today. This included rototillers, edgers, lathes, table saws, a few tractors, outboard engines, lawn mowers, and assorted rotary engines.

There were over 1 dozen engines. These would have been affixed to wheels and used to drive belt-driven equipment. They were being sold by an estate of a gentleman who was a collector. The seller told me her ex-husband got hurt by one of the machines (the one pictured) when it sped-up while he was turning the starter handle. It took out a few of his front teeth and cut his face open.

There were also Gravely walk behind tractors. These were gasoline-powered rotary machines that you could hook to snow blowers, mowers, etc. attachments. The snow blower pictured below looks down-right lethal. Not much of a shield around the blade. From the label, this was most likely a 1960s vintage machine. Gravely started to build equipment in the 1920s and the 2-wheeled walk behinds were made into the 1970s.

Gravely Tractor with Snow Blower

I did put an absentee bid in for an anvil. The wife and I saw some large crocks and decorative items we also bid on. Needless to say, I didn't bid on any of these impressive / aggressive machines (though there are serious collectors and enthusiasts for such equipment).

Hand tools look a lot safer . . .

They're Back

Actually, they never left. We have quite a few rabbits hanging around our property. We see them every morning over by the gazebo or near the house munching on clover. They are pretty used to us. We can usually walk right by them (within 10 feet) without them hopping away. During the day, you can usually find one under a boxwood by the gazebo.

We love to see the critters, but they do cause damage. We have had put small wire cages around the silver lace clematis and the peonies. As the summer comes on, we notice that that flowers on the Asiatic lillies seem to get eaten.

You can't fight nature. A little bit of wire is a lot better than not having the critters.

Get'n Ready

Auction Grounds

I went for a good ride this morning. It was supposed to rain today, but the weather looked like it would hold out. It was a nice morning. Light winds from the south. I had a good ride.

I passed by our favorite auction house. There is a big '3-ring'auction there tomorrow. They were lining all the stuff up outside. We are excited. I'll have to go to their website and see what they have.

On this route, I pass by an old silo that is in a field by itself. It is a small silo. The sumac and Virginia creeper are taking it over. The silo looks like the leaning tower of Pisa - it is leaning a lot!

Leaning Silo

I got done with my ride (35 miles, 19.6 mph) and then went to the Husqvarna delear for a bracket they had ordered for me. I had a cracked sway bar bracket which is used to help support the mower deck. I put the new bracket on, sharpened the mower blades, removed the snow plow, changed the oil, and installed the mower deck and the front bumper. Wouldn't you know it, as soon as I started to give the yard its first mowing that it would rain.

I was thinking that if I didn't go for a bike ride, I could have got the mowing done. However, I'd rather ride (and besides, I wasn't planning on mowing until Sunday)!

I put the second coat of finish on the gate leg table. I will let it dry today. I'll put the table upstairs in the sitting area as a stand for the TV and VCR / DVD player.

Tomorrow we have 2 auctions to got to. The big one in the morning, and a small fund raiser for the local historical center in the early evening. Wish us luck and "good buys"!