Prep of The Day Thread

Anyone know how long you can store seeds as seen above in my post #565?
I have some of those from S&S, there's a best by date on the back. Mine were past that date. It also says Packed in Poland, 11-2018 as production date, and Best Before 05-2020. I know that doesn't answer your question, but it seems like they were given away because of the dates. Why they are from Poland is my question.
 
I have some of those from S&S, there's a best by date on the back. Mine were past that date. It also says Packed in Poland, 11-2018 as production date, and Best Before 05-2020. I know that doesn't answer your question, but it seems like they were given away because of the dates. Why they are from Poland is my question.
Yup, same as mine.
 
Spent Wed, Thurs, Fri, cutting up two 70 foot bitter nut hickory trees with about 24 inch bases, one thirty foot wild cherry and one 50 foot black walnut tree.
I saved several millable logs from the hickorys and walnut and cut up the smaller stuff for firewood. This week, they'll be split and stacked in the far side of the wood shed.

All these were blown down ( up rooted) on my neighbor's property along with his barn when supposedly a small tornado blew through last week.

I also salvaged a large pile of the barn lumber.....all of which is 100 year old oak.

Oh my aching back!!!
 
My local town 'Acushnet' every two weeks gives out boxes of Produce, Frozen food and dry goods to seniors. I've gone three times so far and generally get a frozen pork loin or some chicken. Frozen pasta meals, strawberries, blueberries or a vegetable. Produce box is 5lbs of apples, potatoes, and onions, some lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and melon. Dry box is rice, canned soup, pasta, crackers, granola bars etc.

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And so it begins......again. We just had four days of rain and everything took off.

The garden is doing well and producing turnips, beets, radishes, green beans, kale and cucumbers. We've been eating romaine lettuce and kale daily for weeks. Cabbages are starting to head, tomatoes are a couple of inches in diameter, zucchini plants all have flowers and a couple of small ones developing.
The sweet corn is hip high.

This morning I picked 30 cukes, a bin full of beets and a bin full of green beans with more to go. We cook and freeze the beet and turnip greens. This weekend looks like I'll be making a few quarts of dill spears.
 
Just before all this rain we got in MA I finally got around to setting up my rain barrels.

My MIL provided the barrels which are food grade. I scrubbed them out and painted them white so they would blend in better with the house. Surprisingly easy to set up the cheap diverter kit I got from HD. I had to touch up the rub marks from the two-wheeler and still need to fabricate some sort of connector to the second barrel. During the first 10-15 minutes of the first rain storm the first barrel was nearly full.

I mounted the pump underneath and my dad is setting up a switch and the power/wiring for me to install when I get back from VT this weekend. Debating getting those shrinking hoses you see on TV all the time... the raised bed is just visible in the top left corner. It's maybe 50 feet. Eventually I would like to drill a water well.

So far the peppers, tomatoes and green beans seem to have survived and are thriving. This is our first go around with this.

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I grounded my house today, which I feel.was a solid prep after I found out it wasn't grounded 😳😯😧.

I'm installing a new 125A sub panel in garage. I dug a trench and pulled out the old single 20A line to install 2" conduit for the new 1-1-1-3 Al wire I'm running. While doing so I uncovered the house grounding rod and the ground wires for the house main panel and service lines just buried in the ground next to it. There is no indication it was ever clamped 🤯😡

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I'm going to put a new 10ft rod in tomorrow. I cleaned up the current rod and clamped the wires on for tonight.

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My local town 'Acushnet' every two weeks gives out boxes of Produce, Frozen food and dry goods to seniors. I've gone three times so far and generally get a frozen pork loin or some chicken. Frozen pasta meals, strawberries, blueberries or a vegetable. Produce box is 5lbs of apples, potatoes, and onions, some lettuce, tomatoes, peppers and melon. Dry box is rice, canned soup, pasta, crackers, granola bars etc.

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I volunteer at one of the local food pantries in town on delivery day to help unload the trucks, I've got to say I was slightly surprised at the quality of some of the stuff they get. The folks running it keep insisting I take some for my effort, but I'd feel weird taking anything because I'm fortunate enough to not need it.
 
I grounded my house today, which I feel.was a solid prep after I found out it wasn't grounded 😳😯😧.

I'm installing a new 125A sub panel in garage. I dug a trench and pulled out the old single 20A line to install 2" conduit for the new 1-1-1-3 Al wire I'm running. While doing so I uncovered the house grounding rod and the ground wires for the house main panel and service lines just buried in the ground next to it. There is no indication it was ever clamped 🤯😡

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I'm going to put a new 10ft rod in tomorrow. I cleaned up the current rod and clamped the wires on for tonight.

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nice yard birds...and neat work.
 
Well CRAP!!!!! You win some, you lose some.

Was up tending the garden a while ago this morning, picking more cukes and seeing how things were doing after some thunder storms and heavy rains last night. I went over to my corn patch in another garden and damn it.....its all layed down from the wind.
Oh well, that's the last corn that will ever be planted here. Sure, fresh corn out of the garden is wonderful, but it truly is not worth the effort or expense. For the one or two ears of corn per stalk (if the bugs, rain or wind doesn't get it first) and the amount of work planting it then having it blown down.....I'm done.
I can buy it by the bushel or the truck load for almost as much.
Seed isn't cheap either.

On the bright side, everything else is doing great. [smile]
 
29 new chicks together outside. Did 19, then 10 because 20 is the most we can fit comfortably in the indoor coup I made. We keep them indoors for 3 weeks, thrn they get moved out.

They'll stay together here for a few weeks until they're big enough to fend for themselves in the main coup with our other 22 full grown. They are free roamers during day, we pen them at night due to predators. I lose about 10-15 a year regardless of how many preds I can kill.

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Also finished up the trench work and lines for new garage power and internet. Back to work tomorrow. Will be like a vacation after that electrical project. Hard to tell in the wide angle pic, but the trench is 24" deep and was a bear to dig and then reset patio.

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Update: the corn actually straightened up on its own! Must have been enough spring tension in the stocks for them to return to vertical.

Still not planting anymore corn though. [laugh]
 
Prepped the main coup for the younglings. Going to move them in next week. We have two courses sharing a run. We'll let the old girls out in the morning and then let the little ones use only the run for a week before letting them out. After that they'll follow the older group and return to the coup to roost at night by themselves. Inevitably I'll need to climb a tree here or there to get the village idiot on the program.

Separately, I'm making a list of things that went out of stock at grocery stores first when COVID hit. I'm sure politicians are going to go full retard here in 1-2 months. I'm gonna stack certain things like yeast and flour deeper before then.
 
JFC you guys are legit self-sustainers. Veggie garden, chicken coop, rainwater collection. I need to pay way more attention to this thread. If SHTF, I don't think market basket will be open.

Uh, ya thats the whole point! [smile]

The less dependent you are on someone else, the better off you'll be.
 
I had planned on raising rabbits starting next year but today my wife texted me from the back yard to come out quietly. I went out, she was sitting in her chair next to mine. Under my chair was this tasty little morsel, I mean cute fluffy bunny. She had been sitting there for close to 20 minutes watching my wife, two feet away from her. We have a ton of rabbits in the yard so not surprising to see one. There were three hawks circling almost directly overhead too. Anyway, I picked her up with no trouble and she's waiting for the new hutch to arrive. I'm going to see if I can put out a couple of small animal humane traps and catch a few more. Only problem is, my wife and son named this one. UGH. But, I don't care. We're going to have rabbits one way or another, and we're going to eat them. With gravy. On toast. In stew. On a spit. On the grill. Served with a delightful lemon butter sauce. Maybe even ground up into rabbit burgers.

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No sir you now have a pet. You're screwed wife and son have already named it. In three months it will be domesticated. They will be able to scratch under his chin and he will follow them around the yard.

No, see, I have a plan. It's going to get big and fat on love, and then it's going to have an "accident". And then we're going to have a delicious meal where afterwards I reveal the truth. What could go wrong?

But yeah, I know it with THIS one, but this one is the gateway to getting the hutch, and "friends" for it... It's basically like getting a first gun.
 
LOL. That's like feeding them your family cat. They may enjoy dinner. But when you tell them what it is, they will hate you for weeks. 😂
 
No, see, I have a plan. It's going to get big and fat on love, and then it's going to have an "accident". And then we're going to have a delicious meal where afterwards I reveal the truth. What could go wrong?

But yeah, I know it with THIS one, but this one is the gateway to getting the hutch, and "friends" for it... It's basically like getting a first gun.


You're doing it wrong. You have a breeding pair as pets. All the others are known to be food. No naming, cuddling or petting the food.
 
Be careful what you post, probably some kind of law against keeping wild rabbits As pets in Mass.
Personally, I don’t give a Shiite.
 
This weekend, I canned 7 half gallon jars of whole garlic dill pickles, 21 quarts of garlic dill spears, 26 quarts of Roma green beans.
Tomorrow, I'll be doing another 21 quarts of garlic dill spears and very likely another 21 quarts of Roma green beans.

Every morning I'm picking at least half a bushel of pickling cukes along with beets as they mature. Right now there's four out of a dozen stonehead cabbages ready to harvest and the last ten feet of a double row of green beans.

Carrots are slow but they're growing. I planted them heavy and didn't thin them so not expecting any great performance.

When harvesting the beans, we clip the plants off at ground level and turn them upside down to pick the beans off. That leaves the roots where the nitrogen nodules are in the ground. The rest of the plant goes in a compost pile. So far we've picked over two bushels of Romas.......datsa lotta beans!!
 
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