Remember and Honor

Construction Progress:

Granny and Papa’s Home Construction

Granny and Papa are pushing for their construction to wrap up in June. There is still a lot to do but we were excited to get the septic system installed, the exterior get painted, the cabinets and trim work installed.

Rachael and Mike’s Home Remodel

We had a lot of progress on the outside of the house this month! The framers got the car port built, re-decked the balcony and are nearly complete with the siding repairs! Along with the outside work they were able to finish with the interior framing as well.

Mike’s Shop Project

We buttoned up the shop drainage this month by finishing the rock apron and the the trench drain between the old concrete and the shop.

In preparation of Granny and Papa moving onto the property, we moved my stuff out of the Papa’s green shed and into the blue shop

Farm/Homestead Progress:

On the Farm

I was out behind the shop getting the trailer ready for a friend and noticed these black things all over the trailer. To my surprise, I realized that we had a Mulberry Tree on the property!!! It was extra exciting because when we sold our last house one of the things we thought we’d miss the mulberry tree. We had a ton of fun with the kiddos picking the ripe mulberries last summer and with this find we will be able to continue the fun! Since then we found (2) more trees and a patch of black berries!!!

I understand that things are bigger in Texas but what is up with the worms? I found this guy while putting in the trench drain. I almost had to stop and go fishing with him.

With as many fences as we have I was happy that the pull behind string trimmer started right up with a quick carb clean and new gas!

We had this visitor chilling at the back door how cool!

Around the Apiary

Not much to update, we are schedule to have the Bee Hives arrive in August!

In the Garden

We are having a slow start to the garden this year, it appears that the soil we used for the planter beds was not the best. We made some adjustments such as additional compost which seems to be helping.

Behind the Coop

We finalized the layout of the backyard fence and determined that the chicken coop would be in the way. We decided to relocate the chicken run before it was in the way of progress.

We also started to have warm enough weather to start the black soldier fly compost system. The BSF’s are great at utilizing waist not suitable for the compost pile and turning it into protein treats for the chickens!

DIY Solution:

We utilize a deep beading system for the chicken run next to the garden. From time to time we need to add more wood chips to the run but the protective bird netting gets in the way. The bird netting we use is 14’x14′ and we need (2) nets to cover the majority of the run. To make the process of adding more mulch easier I wanted to be able to removed one side of the netting from the fence with out having to untie the the strings holding it in place. We came up with the solution in the picture below.

First we cut a 10′ section of 1/2″ rigid conduit in half, then connected it to another 10′ section with a coupler creating a 15′ length. Next we drilled (3) holes through the conduit and installed eye bolts. These eye bolts were used to to connect/disconnect the conduit from the fence using carabiners. We hung the conduit on the fence so we could tied one side of the netting to it tight enough so it didn’t sag onto the shade structure.

So far this is a good enough solution for the frequency we plan to add mulch. If we were adding mulch every weekend I would consider a different solution as the net does get hung up on their shade structure while removing it.

Family Updates:

Granny and Papa have great news, they are under contract to sell their house!!!

Zac ended his first year of school with an fun class performance.

Sammy is finally using more of her baby sign language and practicing talking as much as she can.

Rachael and I have been working hard on the weekends getting things set up. We were able to enjoy a nice evening driving around the golf cart dreaming of big plans over the holiday!

For those of you who courageously gave their lives and those of you who bravely fight today, Thank You, without you none of this would be possible.

Final House Keeping:

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Thank you for all the support! We hope you enjoyed this months update.

With Love from the Scalfetti Farm

-Mike