First 2012 fall frost

Yesterday I checked the weather forecast and it showed a low of 41 degrees for us this morning.  We have been enjoying the wonderful weather lately and have not used any heat or air conditioning for the last week or two, just opened the windows as desired.  Last night we closed up the house and set the heat to come on if necessary. 

It was necessary.  I woke up this morning and it was 36 degrees outside.  There was frost on the grass and a thin layer of ice on the trampoline.   I used the hose to start filling a pigeon drinker and the water flow slowed because of ice buildup behind the valve.   There was an ice slush mixture in the drinker bowl. 

The weather has been absolutely beautiful lately, however I would not mind if we got a little bit of rain.

Cows in upper pasture

Yesterday my neighbor put seven cows in our upper pasture; 5 cows, one steer, and one calf I think.  His son came out and patched the boundary fence where needed, I also did a little work on the fence line and mowed some of the pasture. 

The pasture is in great shape; lot's of clover, orchardgrass, timothy, fescue, bluegrass, etc.  Great place to be if you are a cow.   The pond is looking really good, we have some nesting geese and ducks.   Yesterday Mary and I saw six deer in the pasture.  When I mowed I saw rabbits and wild turkeys. 

Next jobs for me are to remove two downed trees and then I want to install a gravity fed water stock tank using the pond as the source so I can fence out the pond.

half dovetail timber joint layout

I recently looked at some pictures of horizontal log timber structures with half dovetail joints.  This joint is very nice because the surfaces are angled to lock the timbers together and also direct water down and out which will prevent rot. 

When making these joints one needs to know the following:
1) timber dimensions, width and height
2) desired spacing between the timbers, this gap will normally be chinked
3) timber extension at joint (the distance that the end of a timber will extend beyond the joint)

I did not find any nice description of the layout online so I came up with the following which will hopefully prove helpful.

Example:  timber size is 8" high and 6" wide.  Desired gap spacing between timbers in a wall is 2".  Timber ends will extend 1-1/2" beyond the joint.

I started with a picture which will be used to solve this example and explain the process.  Two 6" x 8" timbers are stacked vertically in a South wall with a 2" space in between these two timbers.  One 6" x 8" timber is placed in a West wall, perpendicular to the South wall timbers.  The horizontal center line of the West wall timber is in the center of the 2" gap in the South wall. 

Look at the end of the West wall timber where it intersects the upper timber in the South wall, it makes a rectangle that is 6" wide and 3" high.  In this rectangle the center is found by drawing diagonal lines, the center point is labeled point "A" in the picture. 

The layout line for the joint will be found by drawing a line through point A.  Since we want an extension of 1-1/2" we will draw a line through point A that intersects the bottom of the South wall timber 1-1/2" past the West wall timber.  The picture actually shows several lines through point A, one with no extension, one with a 1-1/2" extension, and one with a 4" extension. 

We want a 1-1/2" extension so we see that this line goes through point A and intersects the 3" x 6" rectangle 1/2" below the top on the East side of the rectangle and also necessarily 1/2" from the bottom on the West side of the rectangle. 

This is the solution, the angled dovetail cut will be across the end of the 6" wide timber as follows, 1/2" down on one side and 2-1/2" down on the other side.  The angle of this cut works out to be the ArcTangent of (2.5 / (1.5 + 6)) =  18.4 degrees. 

The other cut will be on the bottom of the timber, it will be 2.5" high and 7.5" long.

The second picture shows a small section of half dovetail timbers created for this example.  Drawings were created using google sketchup.

Oil Moat for bee hives

I noticed that small black ants were getting into my bee hives so I checked my bee book and it said to sprinkle cinnamon on the top of the inner cover and around the hive or to install an oil moat on the hive stand. 

Yesterday I tried the cinnamon and it did help, today I installed the oil moat.   The oil moat I made consists of four round plastic pans about 6" in diameter and about 2" deep.  In the middle of each pan I put a small piece of wood that is about 3" in diameter and about 3" tall.   I set the moats on top of my cinder block supports and the wooden hive base sits on top of the wooden blocks.  My helper John then poured oil into the plastic pans.  We finished the install by putting boards over the top of the base to help keep rain from getting into the oil moats. 

Wind, Cold, Frost?

We had a lot of wind at the farm over the last couple of days, and it has been cool.  I've had to go from my Tilley hat to my Mamaw knitted hats while working outside.   The wind dries things out and we've not had any rain recently so I have had to water some trees in the orchard and Debby's new weeping willow.  I am going to have to install posts in the mini orchard to brace some of the trees, one of the apple trees I planted this year did not fare well with all of the wind and was bent over.

Last night I created a simple watering system for the willow tree, but I need to create a watering system for the orchard which will be a bigger job.

This morning the thermometer said 33 degreees F, there was frost on the ground and I had to scrape the ice off my windshield.  I like the cool weather but I hope this is the last frost.  Recent cold snaps have killed several plants, the leaves on the grape vines all turned brown as did the leaves on all the black walnut saplings. 

Dogwoods, spring

Spring is upon us here on the farm.  The weather has been beautiful lately, the grass is growing, flowers are flowering, trees are budding with baby leaves, and in just the last day or two we have white flowers starting to appear on the dogwoods.  I think that the bees must be very happy right now. 

We are not using any heat or air conditioning in the house, just opening and closing windows as needed. 

We have a bunch of flowering bushes around here that just smell wonderful, like perfume, one of these days we will have to find out what they are. 

Eagle sighting, wildlife

Debby called me a couple days ago to tell me that she saw a beautiful bald eagle in a tree next to the Emory river a couple of miles from our farm.  She said that some crows were attempting to harass the eagle but that the eagle ignored them.  Last year I saw a bald eagle fly right over our house, it was quite impressive.

Debby also saw a flock of wild turkeys in the horse pasture and for some reason the horses did not enjoy their presence and chased them into the woods.  The horses never chase the chickens so that is kind of interesting.  Debby also saw a herd of deer, which the horses ignore.  She said there were several young deer that were having fun and chasing each other around.

Renegade Mountain

I just read an article about a ski and golf resort in TN called Renegade Mountain which is now closed.  The interesting part is that this property is located in Crab Orchard, TN, just 17 miles from our home.  This is the first time I have heard about this place.  It sounds a little bit like Bryce resort. 

http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2012/Feb/19/the-rise-and-fall-of-renegade-resort/

Article about catholic church situation

Here is a link to an excellent article that I heard about today, regarding the Catholic church and their long march to a social justice agenda. 

Catholic Church conundrum

The US catholic church appears unhappy with a provision of Obamacare that requires health insurance plans offered to employees of catholic institutions (churches, catholic hospitals, catholic schools, catholic charities, etc) to include abortions, abortion inducing drugs, and birth control.

The Obama administration initially responded by saying that the catholic church would be given a one year waiver to comply. The church decided that was not acceptable.

The Obama administration has now said that although they will still require all health insurance plans to include abortions, abortion inducing drugs, and birth control that the church won't have to directly pay for these provisions that they find objectionable, instead the insurance companies will be required to offer these provisions as "free" benefits to employees of catholic institutions.

Yeah right, "free" benefits is right up there with free lunches and the tooth fairy. Although I guess when one looks at the Obama deficit perhaps democrats have convinced enough people to believe in free stuff, and a right to free stuff like cell phones, free health insurance (that includes abortions), free flat screen TV's, free housing, free food, free internet, free unemployment benefits, free bailouts for unions, free mortgage bailouts, free retirement benefits, free education, etc. But I digress.

The catholic church has no one to blame but themselves on this issue, Obamacare would not have passed if not for the support of catholic hospitals, nuns, and other "progressive" catholics. I think it's quite fitting that the Obama administration will force the catholic church and it's institutions to pay for and to offer health plans that include abortions, abortion inducing drugs, and birth control.

I've watched what the the US bishops conference has done, and more importantly what they have not done, over the years as many core catholic beliefs have come under attack from the left and have decided that the US catholic church is headed by a bunch of liberal socialist wimps. How many Bishops and priests lost their jobs, houses, insurance, retirement, or vacations during the Obama recession? Well, at least the US catholic church is funded by voluntary contributions at this time and not by mandatory confiscation of wealth from taxpayers.

I feel that since the church is not part of the solution then they are part of the problem. The action I recommend is to stop contributing financially to the catholic church and instead redirect those funds to support conservative pro-life pro-family candidates and members of congress.

It's time for the Catholic church to figure out what it believes in and to stand up for what it believes in. A call for prayer, a public wringing of hands, and issuance of a strongly worded letter are not an adequate response to the continual assault on core catholic beliefs by the democrat party. A good start would be for the church to excommunicate all abortion rights supporting "catholic" members of congress, including the current vice president and house minority leader.

Bee update; overall pretty good

Yesterday morning it was 25 degrees here, but it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day and the temp hit 60 in the afternoon. I was outside near the barn when I saw a honeybee flying around which surprised me, I've not seen one out in a while. So I decided it would be a good afternoon to suit up and check on the bees. When I arrived at the hives with my equipment both hives were buzzing with activity, a good sign. I lit the smoker, and proceeded to open the hives. Each hive had two deep bodies and one honey super on top. The honey supers had comb drawn out but were otherwise empty, so I removed the honey supers. The deep bodies looked good, there were some dead bees at the bottom of the hive, on the screened bottom board. I did not see any problems so I reassembled the hives. I installed entrance reducers on both hives and I brought a treat, some honey which I put in some shallow lids which I placed on the landing boards. I put some twigs in the lids to help the bees reach the honey however I checked again today and found that a few bees had gotten stuck in the honey. The goal for this first year is for both hives to successfully make it through the winter, so far so good. Next step would be to add a couple more hives in a different location, empty, hopefully to catch any swarms, or I could transfer a few frames if my hives are really strong. We'll see.

Snow Day

It snowed overnight here on the farm, just an inch or two, but everything is covered and looks beautiful. Temperature was 17 degrees F this morning. Mary has already been out making snow angels and started to build a snow man. Schools are closed here today. The chickens are afraid of the snow and don't want to leave their house.