Monday, May 04, 2015

Harvesting Rocks...

We've been busy with household chores the last couple of weeks. Nancy's been tending to her flower beds and I've been working on our garden. I've had vegetable gardens in the past and they've been very productive. But since retiring and moving north in 2010, this will be my first year with a garden in 16 or 17 years. Funny, but I don't remember it being so much work!

In the 1990's, when I put in my last garden, the soil in my backyard was heavy, with more clay, but there were a lot fewer rocks. I guess the soil of northern Wisconsin is a lot different than it is 150 miles away in the Minneapolis suburbs. I would have liked to buy a new 48" tiller for the back of my tractor, but it made more since to just find an older, walk behind tiller like I had before. I watched Craigslist for a while and found a Simplicity 1005 tiller that was not too far away and at a reasonable price. It's 40 years old but the 5 HP Briggs and Stratton still runs great!.


Tilling the garden has been a lot of hard work. Getting the big rocks out has been the hard part! I till a few feet and dig up a rock, till a few feet, another rock...
I filled the tractor bucket quite a few times and broke a shovel handle trying to get out a really big one. I think I'm just about done harvesting rocks.


Just about ready... 24' x 24' with room to expand. I'll get 3 or 4 yards of compost and get it tilled in by the weekend.


I thought that I was done with my trailer the last time I posted, but I found a few more things to fix. I remember seeing pictures of trailer suspensions that people had forgotten to service. Well, my trailer is 40+ years old, so I thought I should take a closer look at the spring shackles. I'm glad I did. I found a lot of wear in the shackle holes and the bolts that attach them. The holes should be 1/2", they've grown over the years. My riding buddy, John, made me a new set, one inch longer for a bit higher ride. Thanks John!!

Old shackles and bolts...


New...


I added a retaining pin to keep the tail gate from popping out.


I hasn't been all work though. On Sunday, we went for our first kayak ride of the season. We checked the conditions of the Namekagon River on the National Parks Service web site, and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) web site. Both showed low water levels, so we decided to put in further down stream than normal, with hopes of finding deeper water. We started at the Spring brook Landing...


...and got out 4.9 miles down steam at the Big Bend Landing...


It was a fun trip, even with a strong head wind. We saw lots of wildlife and heard Chickadees and Pileated Woodpeckers. There were many spots where Turtles were sunning themselves. Often singly, or groups of 2 or 3. We saw one group of about 9 to 12 very large Turtles at one point. But they ducked into the water before either of us could get their picture.


There were several trees that had been chewed on Beavers...


More pictures...

Some of Nancy's...

Spring is here. The grass is green, the trees have buds but only a few have any leaves yet and there are dandelions in the yard.

It's hard to believe but two years ago, on this same weekend, the Fishing Opener, all the lakes in northern Wisconsin were still frozen over...