Making more clones of the two condemned trees damaging our foundation. I think it's a blue spruce.
Last winter I did two pots of these, in an experiment. The ones with torn off twigs didn't seem to root so well, the cut ones did.
This time I got some rooting hormone to try and see if that accelerates things a little. Of course it's now also spring.
That way the trees can live on, planted anew, further out in the garden.
Dragged this tub that goes on top of the feed cart out of the forest yesterday*.
The first one of these I found was rusted to pieces, but I found another in the forest during winter. Frozen to the ground so couldn't inspect it.
Did that now. Seems in better shape, the fold on the bottom needs repair, but it holds together.
Fits the cart perfectly!
#Farm #Cart #Treasure #Homestead
* I seem to have done a lot yesterday. No wonder I'm absolutely knackered today! 
I have such a long post to make about the quantity of plastic used in farming and home gardening. It's so much, and breaking down in the worst possible places. From poly tunnels, tarping to kill cover crops, and large round bales of hay to little starter pots, baling twine, and electronet it's so hard to avoid.
Our hay guy tried sisal twine for baling last year but it broke too often for him to use long term. We're replacing the reused plastic baling twine that ties our metal chicken stops together with the leftover sisal. We use biodegradable pots for starters until we can get a good soil blocker.
Looking at setting up a greenhouse the costs of using anything but poly sheeting or poly siding are astronomical. We have a lot of random glass around from various renovation projects, but not nearly enough to do a sizable greenhouse. I don't think it's going to far to say that the "start a home garden, it will save money" movement is predicated on using cheap plastics right now.
I'm curious how other folks are thinking / feeling about this and novel solutions to reducing plastics in gardening.
Removed all the fence and rocks and bricks from around the house, apart from the two large concrete beams on the half-assedly renovated part. Need to pull those out very carefully.
All filled back in and raked to slope away from the house for now.
Need to fetch the German lottery machine and buy a bunch of stuff, like a dumptruck full of sand/aggregate to continue on the foundation repair.
Very typical event here: Oh, a piece of rubber in the grass! Let's pick it up!
What the fuck. How long is this. Jeesus, I regret touching it now but I also want to keep going to see where it leads.
It went under the 1100 kg concrete beam, so I stopped there. Pulled out a few shorter lengths that were under this one.
It's old conveyor belt. There's lots of that here. Very tough and used as walkway on top of mud, which it sank into.
Removing the fence around the house in preparation for the foundation work.
The new farm jack did a great job. Especially on this corner post, which was pounded a meter deep into the ground.
More concrete beams to remove here, too 
And some tulips to rescue first.
Stork still improving the nest. Perhaps the last week of crappy weather has necessitated some repairs. He's nicely cleaning up the birch twigs in front of the house. Get them all!
I'm not sure if there are eggs yet. There should be, but according to the previous folks, last year they did not succeed either.
Vegetable Gardening Live Monthly Questions & Answers E-56 (Cool Crop Tips) https://www.diningandcooking.com/2009442/vegetable-gardening-live-monthly-questions-answers-e-56-cool-crop-tips/ #composting #Gardening #GrowFood #GrowingFood #homestead #homesteading #organic #SelfSufficient #SelfSufficiency #sustainable #VegetableGarden #VegetableGardenVideos #VegetableGardening #VegetableGardeningVideos
I’ve recently been investing in my analog life and built this chicken coop. The only fancy thing about it is an automatic watering system so we can effectively go on trips without asking a neighbor to tend to the flock.
Totally enclosed and rodent proof - I think these ladies are happy.
Bunch of pulling/lifting stuff arrived. Should help with getting logs out of the forest.
Ultimately I'm dreaming about adding one of those 12V six ton winches to one of the trailers. Perhaps add a lifting arch, or convert to a logging arch, not sure yet.
Ahh, a nice pile of pre-mulch (category: pallet). This pile isn't the final pile. It's the holding pile. Next step is distributing the pieces based on where i'd like them to decompose.
Stuff like managed decomposition really makes me feel like I've got my arm up to the elbow in the circle of life, swishing things around and trying to make something happen lol.
And yes, all my most profound ecological insights come only when I'm *at least* elbow deep in the circle of life.
Which reminds me, I have some goat poop (from @saltphoenix 
) compost tea brewing in a bucket and I gotta stir it and distribute it. Swish swishing the circle of life quite literally, in this case 
Gary Pilarchik: Vegetable Gardening Live Monthly Questions & Answers E-57 (Tomato Tips) https://www.allforgardening.com/1251081/gary-pilarchik-vegetable-gardening-live-monthly-questions-answers-e-57-tomato-tips/ #composting #gardening #GaryPilarchik #GrowFood #GrowingFood #homestead #homesteading #organic #SelfSufficiency #SelfSufficient #sustainable #TheRustedGarden #VegetableGardening #VLog
Today's work. Sorry, murky low light photo, finished at sunset as usual.
Still space for more!
Can see the difference between birch and alder nicely there. The orangey stuff on the right is alder. Slightly less energy than birch but easier to light. Good firewood and what mostly grows in our forest as it thrives in the swampy parts near the river.
Those last two stacks are from a few fallen trees that were blocking the forest road.
This precious creature got a new pasture tractor over the weekend. He was attempting to dig out of the other tractor and while I appreciate his self expression and try to accommodate some level of autonomy, the coyotes are too close for total bunny freedom.
We built this out of scrap materials in a few hours. He was running laps and doing his happy bunny kicks so I think he approves of this one.
Concrete beams deployed, now onto the boring task of stacking more firewood.
The not that big looking pile in the yard turned out to be 3.5 trailer loads.
Yes, poor Iseki still hasn't been washed because frost came back just as I was about to plumb together some kind of pressure washing setup. Soon 25°C though! 
The weather looks really nice and sunny when peering out of the windows. But outside it's blowing a strong, chilly wind. I'm back in my winter working jacket, knitted hat and padded gloves.
The rainwater trough was frozen solid this morning, now it's ice floating in a puddle.
Had to make a big fire in the bedroom heater last night, as the wind is from the opposite direction of the usual and it was really cooling out that side of the house.
Was just raking the firewood storage level while dragging more concrete logs in place when the rake said clank.
A piece of angle iron, stuck under something heavy. Some digging and a 10cm wide I-Beam came up along with some other pieces.
We really should plant spinach. Ought to do well in this iron rich soil.
Him yeah, this one's lookin to turn out spicy. Although everyone is giving me side eye today. I think they don't like the smell of my new work gloves.
Oh yeah, and number go up. 8.4 gallons (31.8 liters) of syrup jarred. We should make the "barely worth it" 9 gallons, and if the weather goes as forecast maybe another gallon to spare. Hoping for a strong finish.
