Weekend Warrior



Yet again, I'm please to say another productive weekend occurred on the farm. Although my paint brushes unfortunately never left the jar, I did in fact do some painting. Since I've moved into a tiny, second floor apartment, the only contact I get with green grass is when I jump out of the way of a wayward skateboarder on campus. So when I go home, I'm usually outside either working in the yard, garden, or barn. In fact, I sometimes even wonder why I bother to take my backpack home with me because most times I don’t even open it. I guess you can blame my sister for my 'weekend warrior' status. A year ago right now, my family and I were scrambling around to prepare the farm for a wedding, that of which we learned about in January and took place that June and so Extreme Make-Over: Farm Edition happened. While some maids of honor plan bridal showers and go dress shopping, I was pouring concrete and building retaining walls. My sister's wedding is another good story, but I'll post about that around their first anniversary. Anyway, I guess never really recovered from all those projects. You'd think I'd never want to see a weed whacker or paint brush ever again, yet every weekend that I make it home, I'm itching to do something constructive. This weekend was no different, except for the fact that we actually got more done than we even planned on.

It all started with a stop at a local thrift shop and some cheap ugly shelves. I've become somewhat of a DIY and repurposing junkie since my aunt gave me a stack of Country Living magazines. I've also been on a mission to make my late 80's apartment a bit more home-y, while keeping on a meager budget. Anyway, I liked the brackets, but they had a horrible stain job. I picked up some cans of primer and spray paint on my way home and started working on them that night.  However, I couldn't find a single scrap of sand paper on the entire farm and so the project was put on hold.


In the mean time, and after a trip to the Jung's store, my mom and I got to work on the garden. Because of the wedding, our garden wasn't exactly up there on the priority list. In fact, it was left off completely and the only work it saw was an occasional mow to keep the weeds down. That year off was a bit like hitting a reset button for my mom and I. For years, we've not only battled the weeds in the hard clay-soil that turns into sticky muck when wet, but we've all battled each other with different gardening styles. My mom has a tendency to go a little overboard when buying bedding plants. We try not to let her to go into a garden center unsupervised anymore. She also makes sure that every square foot of garden space is used up. Therefore we end up with a garden packed with multiples of eight different varieties of tomatoes, fifty plus potato mounds and way more zucchini than anybody should be allowed to grow. I, on the other hand, am a quality verses quantity gardener. I'd rather have a small area that I can easily get around in and keep a head of weeds. Since the garden got a bit taken over by quack grass during last summer's neglect, and because our trusty rotor tiller may have finally bit the dust, mom and I worked out a compromise that will not only be more manageable, but pleasing to look at. We decided on making several raised garden beds.

We've talked about making them for years, but we just never got around to it. But we finally found some time to do a lot more working and a little less talking. Our neighbor gave us several loads of oak beams a few years ago because my dad, being the way he is, couldn't turn down the potential usefulness. After about eight years of stumbling over them, we realized they were prefect for our project.

First, we built a narrow bed for the peas. We put down a sheet of weed block paper and a few layers of newspapers to prevent the existing weeds from sprouting up. Then we put down some composted manure and topped it with a mixture of peat moss and soil. The other two beds we completed will be the home of our new raspberry plants and strawberries. We used to have a beautiful patch of raspberries, but for some reason they didn't make it through the winter before last. For those we put a thicker layer of compost down and will cover the plants with straw mulch.

 Something I didn't plan on getting done was the new compost bin. I believe mom found the idea in a gardening magazine and it literally only took ten minutes to build. All it consist of are five wooden pallets held together with fencing wire. There’s one pallet set on the ground for air flow and covered in old hay. Simple as that...

We also did some work around the yard. We built a new house about ten years ago and we've slowly, but surely, been completing the landscaping ourselves. There are some things that I wish we could have afforded to have done professionally, but nonetheless, I think it looks pretty good, despite the few bumps here and there. On the east side of the house, my mom created a raised bed with a two ponds and a waterfall. She would like to extend the water feature into a small stream and a third pond in the small yard next to the garage, but we are still working out the logistics of that. Nonetheless, we did a little contour work on that part of the yard. It certainly doesn't look pretty, but it looks a hundred times better than before.

After a quick run to Farm and Fleet on Sunday morning, I finally got my sandpaper and returned to original project. I sanded off the globby stain and smoothed out a few rough edges. After seeing what the stripped wood looked like, I almost called it done there, but I decided to stick with my original plan and paint them a creamy beige color. I took them to the shop and painted them with primer, and started over after the wind knocked them into some mud a tractor had dragged in (grrrr!). I had originally picked a khaki color since all the walls in my apartment are white and I wanted them to stand out, but I began to think the color was too dark. Because of that, I found something lighter on my sandpaper run and sprayed it on.

Meanwhile, I also took the floor vents from the bathroom and kitchen out with me and gave them a little make-over. The flat, white, vents weren't installed in the wisest places because everyone always steps on them and the powder coat paint job hasn't held up. I painted them that khaki color because a.) I wanted to use the paint for something and b.) I thought maybe the dirt wouldn't show up as bad. After priming them, I went to spray on the top coat and I got an idea for my shelves after the first pass of paint. It made a speckled pattern over the white primer and so I did the same thing to the shelves and...whola! Take that Nate Berkus! Now I just need to decide on a place to put them and what the heck to put 'em...

All in all, it was probably the most productive weekend I've had all spring. On Sunday night while I'll was feeding the calves, I started making a list of everything we accomplished.

Let's see, I repainted my shelves, went to Madison and picked up the art supplies I've been meaning to get for a month, picked up mineral and starter from the feed mill, make the beds, bought seeds and plants at Jungs, mowed the lawn, weeded flower beds, made a compost bin, repotted my house plants, burned the brush pile, smoothed out the yard, started work on the patio, and I even found time to color my hair during all that! We weren’t just weekend warriors…we were weekend conquers.
However, starting a farmer's tan was not one of the things I'd hope to accomplish this weekend...lovely.