(DF) TRUCK REPAIR ON THE FARM ......... a necessary evil

Recently, I may have mentioned that the truck had developed a problem (blown head gaskets, hopefully nothing worse) I believe was the statement. As you can imaging, with fence to build, orchards to plant, gardens to prepare and at least a dozen other projects to be done on any given day, this was not the best time for major truck repairs. Of course, you probably already figured out that most of the projects in question need a truck, making it even more inconvenient.

Before I continue, a little background might be in order. As a teenager, lack of money and the almost complete absence of trustworthy mechanics in the area, led me to buy a few tools and learn how to fix my own vehicle. It was either that, or not drive near so much. Even then, most of my money was earned from the use of my truck, so not driving was not an option. Notice I said I LEARNED to fix my own, I did not say I enjoyed it. In fact, mechanical ability does not come naturally to me and there are few occupations I enjoy less than working on vehicles, thus the consideration of 'a necessary evil'. With that said, I can continue to recount the associated events and maybe get to the bright side of all of this.

Thursday of last week found me standing on concrete blocks and stretching my upper body into the engine compartment of the old truck. Several hours passed, filled with the nasty smell of used motor oil and antifreeze, and the sounds of tools clanging against engine parts, groans, low level cursing and the occasional exclamation as wrenches slipped. FINALLY, with seemingly more parts in the driveway than under the hood, the heads were off. Sure enough, the gaskets were obviously leaking, and had been for awhile. With the heads off, it would only be a matter of putting them back on with new gaskets, right? Not so fast! I made that mistake once, and had to do it all again.

While the heads are already off is the time to make sure they aren't cracked or warped. There are few things I dislike more than paying someone to do what I can do myself, especially if they charge more than I get paid in the first place, but there are some things that, though I could do myself, the tools for doing it make it more effective to let someone else do it. Checking heads is just such a thing. I loaded the heads in the jeep, then realized that the automotive machine shop had just closed for the day. It would have to wait until morning (more muttered curses here). Still time to get it back together next afternoon if the heads check out in the morning, right? Think again!! At this time of year, people are building race car engines in preparation for racing season, making the machine shop a really busy place. I was informed that it would be early next week before they could look at mine.

Late Monday afternoon the call came that my heads were ready. Good news is that they weren't cracked and didn't have to be replaced, bad news is that they were warped, pitted and had to be milled. In short, this added an extra $50 or so to the bill. Bad, though still much better than having to do the job all over again. By the time I got back with the heads, it was too late in the day to start putting it all back together.

Working around other projects, Tuesday evening found everything ready to go back together, and by noon Thursday it was running and ready for work. The whole process would not have taken more than a day, even as slow as I am, but working around other projects and delays made it take a week (yet another thing I dislike about such projects).

For the record, I don't recommend that anyone go spend a bunch of money on tools and start doing their own engine work and such. Tools are expensive and it takes a level of knowledge and experience to make these kind of repairs. What I DO recommend is that anyone with a vehicle learn how to do at least minor maintenance, and enough knowledge of how it all works is helpful in knowing if your mechanic is charging you for unnecessary work. If you are planning to work on your own, get a good repair manual and spend some time with someone who has experience to learn how to read your manual (that someone with experience is helpful when you hit a snag too). This form of literature, though filled with good information, is also written in a strange and confusing dialect that requires some translation. And I absolutely recommend starting on simple repairs and working up to the more complex.

Did I say I would get to the bright side of this story? Alright then, here it is. Though the parts and machine work set me back around $150, this is very reasonable compared to taking it to the local mechanic. Labor alone would have cost in the $300-$500 range, making it a serious financial drain. As much as I dislike working on vehicles, nothing I can do on the farm will pay as much as it would have cost to have someone work on the truck. And the real bright side? The truck works and I know the work was done right.

(D♥A) FRUIT TREES FOR THE ORCHARD

Recently, Anna and I decided to order some fruit trees for our orchard. Some of the more recent additions to the orchard here at my place failed to survive the record summer heat, and there were a couple of varieties Anna was particularly interested in, so after checking the catalogs for ideas, we turned to the internet.

First off, we went to the site of a nursery I had gotten good service from in the past on older apple varieties. To my dismay, we found that the company is in litigation and is no longer allowed to sell trees. Looking further, we found a nursery that could provide the varieties we wanted, and their site looked good. Can't be too careful though, so we looked up the reviews.

About those reviews, wow!! The numbers were pretty scary with almost half being negative or neutral, it didn't sound good. However, in some ways, I am still a curious little kid and the all inspiring question 'WHY' is often my first response. In this case I just had to know what any company that was still in business could be doing that consistently wrong to have that much negative input. Reading the reviews, I soon found that most of the negative was from people who apparently hadn't read the buyer's agreement. Really negative stuff like, orders not arriving on the shipping date, tropical plants not growing in the north, fees deducted from refunds for late order cancellation, and many such issues.

With this in mind, we decided to go ahead and place an order, if for no other reason but to know for sure. With the added bonus of the varieties we were looking for at very reasonable prices, we decided it would be worth the gamble.


Now for our own review of Willis Orchard Co. On February second, I submitted our order for four apple trees, one peach tree and three blackberry plants. I immediately received an email confirming my order and that my debit card had been charged for the amount. On February 17, I received an email from FedEx showing that they had picked up my order from Willis Orchard Co., along with a tracking number and estimated arrival date of February 21. On February 21, the order arrived. Prompt shipping makes me smile since it so rarely happens, but what about quality. Opening the box, I expected reasonable quality trees with decent roots packed in damp sawdust or peat. For the price, I expected un-pruned tops which barely reached the specified height, thus being much younger trees. What I found was really good quality trees, top-pruned to specified height, with some of the best roots I have seen at any price, packed in gel, not sawdust. The berry plants also have excellent roots and green stems, looking like they are just waiting for a few warm nights and sunny days to start growing. The photo above shows the order we received.

Now, I suppose nothing is perfect, so I will say some negative stuff for good measure. Willis Orchard Co. does have a minimum order of $50, which makes it hard if you only need one or two trees. Also, though they have a large variety of tree and plant types, the number of varieties within those categories are somewhat limited. Beyond that, I can't think of anything that could be considered the slightest bit negative, and even these things are quite understandable. Of course, there is no way to be absolutely sure of the fruit at this time, and I can't comment on how well they honor their guarantee since I have no reason to test it.

I will keep you posted on any future developments, but for now at least, I feel comfortable recommending Willis Orchard Co. ( www.willisorchards.com ), based on our experience with this order. Of course you will need to do your own research and make the best informed decision for your situation. Please let us know if you have had experience with this company and what those experiences were.

(AF) REDNECK BATHROOM HEATER

As you know from reading our posts, it has been unusually warm this winter and we are just itching to get to planting. Actually, we have jumped the gun a little and both of us have already planted some potatoes. As a quick update on mine, they still aren't up yet. I won't forget to post updates on them.

Okay, so I am sidetracking. It is one of the things I am best at, ha, ha. As February got well under way, Winter finally put in it's appearance. It had been really warm .... then we had a couple of nights that went down extra cold (13° and 11°F), with the daytime temp barely making it up to freezing. I scrambled around all day before it dropped, to bed down the critters with extra hay, and to cover up everything I could that appeared to be sprouting or I considered too tender for that big of a temperature drop. Dave and I had hayed down a bunch of my potted plants awhile back (before an earlier cold blast), so I was really glad that they were still covered and I didn't have all that to do, too. :)

Then there was the problem of keeping my bathrooms warm. With the temperatures going down that cold, some of the outdoor pets had to come inside. My heat already doesn't reach into the back of the house very well, then, with pets inside, I needed to shut off my bathrooms to keep them out of things, especially the bathroom filled with my baby pear trees. So, how to keep my bathrooms just warm enough that they didn't freeze up without really running up the electric bill with a space heater.

This problem had, of course, also come up on the first cold snap we had earlier this year. My redneck solution that I had come up with had worked so well that time, I decided to try it again, and ... it worked like a charm!  And, not only did my cheap and simple solution keep my pipes from freezing, but when I went down to the bathroom the next morning, it was toasty warm.

Okay, enough of the suspense ..... so, what did I use? My CROCK POT! I set my small crock pot on the bathroom counter, filled it three-fourths of the way up with water, put the lid on it and turned it on low. Slowly, but surely it warmed the room up beautifully! Crock Pots were made to run for as much as 12 hours or so at a time, so leaving it on all night shouldn't be a problem. But I certainly don't recommend leaving it on for 24-hours at a time, either, nor using it as a daily heater.

Filling it with water is because Crock Pots weren't made to be run empty. And the slight humidity it puts out seems to make the room feel even warmer. As an added bonus, one, frosty, cold night I decided to add a few drops of essential oil to the water in my crock pot. The bathroom smelled fabulous all day, even hours after I had turned the crock pot off!

So, if you find yourself needing a temporary small heater and don't want to go and buy one (or simply just don't want to go in to the store), try your crock pot filled part way up with water. What temp? I start it out on high for about an hour to get it warmed up, then turn it down to low. And to make it do double duty as a room air freshener, add to the water either a few drops of essential oil, a spoon or two of vanilla extract (or your favorite extract), citrus peels, or a sprinkle of spices (ground or whole) such as cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger or any of your favorites. Just be careful, keep an eye on it, and don't leave your crock pot on longer than safely suggested by the manufacturer.

And this summer, when you think you want to use your crock pot to cook dinner, to keep from heating up your kitchen, remember how well it worked as a heater during the winter!

(DF) NOT the biggest turnips I've ever seen

As you can see from the photo, these turnips are not nearly so large as the ones Anna was talking about. They are the same variety, just smaller. As you may imagine, there is a reason for the difference in size.

While I have no idea how the larger ones were grown, I can point out a few reasons why these, which grew in my garden, are so small. First of all, I must say that the soil needs amended with compost and/or manure to offset the heavy clay in this part of my garden. Add to this, the fact that they were planted much later than I would ordinarily recommend (late September instead of mid August), and you start to see the picture. They were also planted very thick in the row, and never thinned. By very thick, I mean there may have been 1/4 inch or less between them, with the intention of thinning them to 4 - 6 inches apart when they were up and growing. I didn't get around to pulling dirt up around them either.

Had they been planted a bit earlier, in richer soil, thinned properly and dirt pulled up around them, this picture may have been a bit different. Honestly, when the first hard freeze hit and killed everything else in the garden, I wrote the whole thing off as a lost cause and went about other business. My mistake! As you can see, they made turnips in spite of the extreme lack of attention. I can also point out that even through the recent cold weather, the tops are still great for greens and the turnip below is as solid and tasty as I have seen.

Now to my real point for writing this post. I truly believe turnips are getting a bad rap. In reality, they are not only nutritious and delicious but quite easy to grow. As an example, if they will make even such small turnips in such poor soil, and with no care whatsoever, think what they will do with even a little work. And to top it off, they are a great food source for farm animals. Not many things in the garden can boast such qualities and still stay in the garden until we are ready to use them.

Next time you are thinking of planting a versatile, easy care fall crop in the garden, keep the lowly turnip in mind. You won't regret it.

(DF) OF FRUITS, HERBS AND FLOWERS

Falling asleep last night with thoughts of ordering fruit trees, planting herbs and the concept of Valentine's Day flowers, all swirling in my head, as often happens with such things, the chaos gelled and the somewhat coherently combined thoughts woke me in the early morning hours, long before time to get up. Though I am not quite sure why all of these things were running in my thoughts at the same time, the coherent thoughts it produced were of reasons for planting flowers vs fruit and herbs.

First off, I would like to say that I have absolutely nothing against planting flowers and shrubs purely for their beauty. With that said, at the risk of sounding entirely too practical (though I most certainly am not), I tend to plant fruit and herbs instead of flowers strictly for their beauty. This seems a little strange to me as I do dearly love daffodils, lilacs, irises, roses and various other flowers that are primarily (if not totally) for the beauty.

My obvious argument for fruit instead of flowers is that fruit trees and herbs produce lots of beautiful flowers AND delicious food. In truth, the blossoms of fruit trees are, in my opinion, among the most beautiful and sweet smelling flowers. If the numerous shades of light pink do not provide enough variety, the herb garden can provide the full spectrum of colors including red, yellow, blue and everything between, from the brightest to the most subtle. There is also the consideration of contrast between colors of flowers and fruit, as with bush cherries, which are covered in springtime with lovely light pink blossoms, followed by loads of small, red cherries.

Though it sounds like I am defending my tendency to plant fruit instead of flowers, and in fact I am, there is really no substitute for the beauty of daffodils in early spring or the lush, fragrant lilacs. Roses are also almost a necessity. Flowers provide a beauty that the world would be a much duller and less joyous place without. Just keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with a combination of fruit, herbs and flowers, whichever you tend to prefer.