Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

Where did the weekend go?

Plenty was accomplished, but it felt like a whirlwind that finished as I sat down for work this morning.

A 'big' job that got accomplished was clearing out the deep bedding from the chicken coop. With a rake and barrow, it took around four trips to rid the structure of built up material. While it is a dusty nasty job, it is a job that has to be infrequently done. I spread the spent litter as mulch over a patch of pollinator garden where I'm working to restore fertility to. The April showers will do a good job in smoothing and leveling the material while spreading the fertility through the soil. The vast majority of the spent litter is already a crumbly compost consistency with some flake still persisting. I'm not worried about nitrogen burn where I placed the material so we will see how the space fares as we progress.

On the flip side, there is new flake/sawdust in the coop and the coop was inspected for grossness. The good news is that nothing wrong was found! I've been hyper-vigilant about mites and so far have not had any issues in that space.

So far, the hens seemed pleased with the renewal rewarding me with eight eggs out of fifteen hens after a long winter with barely an egg a day.

With the accomplishment of cleaning out the chicken coop, the next stage is tackling the run.

I have been adding organic material throughout the year over several years. Wood chips, sawdust, wood shavings, twigs and much more have been added to help mitigate issues with spilt feed and manure. It is now to the point that there is a visible hump in the middle of the run that lowers as it gets towards the sides of the run. You cannot see the bottom supports of the run that were installed horizontally across the native soil as there is an overflow of material on top of them. The smallest of the material actually is spilling out from the hardware cloth walls!

The game plan is to shovel out the run, scrape it down to the original soil, and restart laying new carbon rich materials to build up over time. I've started the other day, removing about a quarter of the run, and have a large pile of beautiful material forming. There are still bits of straw and woodchip here and there but I don't mind it much. It will break down over time.

The plan, at the moment, is to use this compost-like materials to prep some new garden beds for next year. I figure letting it sit for a year will have it pretty well mellowed out for the next gardening season. I'll amend it with soil but this material looks really promising.

Glad spring has arrived now for you Tim, and good on you for fixing your own appliances now!  It will allow you and your wife less financial strain, particularly when it comes to large appliances.
We already had daffadils around here, my plum tree also already blossomed, hoping for a few plums this year, the tree blossomed for the first time last year, planted from pit, its on year 5 so maybe plums! I've rented mason bees for spring and leaf cutter bees for summer which will increase pollination in everything for myself as well as my neighbours.

Grumble grumble grumble....

I did not in fact fix the washing machine with my previous repair, but it did lead me to what ACTUALLY needs to be done so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Instead of worn dogs being the reason that the agitator would not spin properly, it was in fact the agitator itself was stripped. Luckily, the metal driveshaft is in good condition and the plastic of the agitator was what was worn. After purchasing a new agitator assembly and sliding it on the driveshaft, it became obvious that the old agitator was worn out. The dogs repair was only about ten dollars, the new agitator assembly was around a hundred. Still cheaper to try two repairs than purchase a whole new washer.

I had to laugh, when I dissembled the old agitator to get to the central bolt, I found that I had accidently left the socket on the bolt after I reassembled everything. It sure made it convenient that I didn't have to dig through all of my sockets to find the right one.

Lets see if this repair sticks (which it should!) and how much longer the washer lasts.