I bought a year of insurance for my P4P.  I'm thinking of sending it in as the year is almost  up.  The drone acts a bit off since the crash.  A re-calibration might fix it but the gimbal was acting odd previously and the collision sensors will occasionally detect objects near by when I'm 200 feet up.  The video display on my tablet will get flipped upside down at times as well.  Not the entire display and app, just the video being transmitted.

OP, I am very impressed with all of your work. The place looks amazing. I know you have a lot more to do, but what you've done so far is awesome. Sadly the only time I am ever in Kentucky is along I-24 going to and from Kansas City and Jacksonville (FL). But it looks like a great place to live.

@SWIRE
Couple fotos of hooks on my buckets.
If you go with a single in the middle of the FEL
Reinforce the top on the bucket or it will bend.

OST, very cool thread.

@Kitties-with-Sigs

Now this is a rock pile.  Actually what is visible is about 25% of the pile.



Some better shaped rocks may have followed me home.  It is hard to tell size but that is 3 truck loads of rock.

I do have one hook on the bucket.  I could use more though.  I definitely need a hook on the backhoe.

Wife and daughter wanted me to pass on that the flowers looked fantastic out front yesterday when they drove by.

Thank you.  They came up exactly like I was hoping for.  I will have pictures to post here soon.  I had to send my drone in for repairs, so I'm not sure if I will be able to get an aerial shot of them or not.

I have updates.  I just need to get all the images processed and coordinated.  The tulip blooms have come and gone but I have them well documented.  I just finished deadheading all the stems.  I forgot to take pictures of that though.  Pruning 1500 stems went a lot faster than I thought it would.  Although I would guess about 250 of the tulip blooms were stolen by people walking by, so I didn't have to prune everything.

These were my weekend plans back on March 2nd.  Item number 1 is done.  Numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5 have been started.  Cold weather and rain put me behind.  Then I ran into additional work, such as cutting down trees before I could put up the trellis.  Then having to dig out rocks before the trellis could be completed.  My job has been been the biggest obstacle, every time I think it will let up I get thrown another curve ball.  But progress is slowly being made.  I have a lot of updates to catch up on and there will be lots of pictures coming when that starts.

I have a few pictures I can post quickly.  Lots of things going on and little time to post about them.

I have some black raspberries that were growing wild.  I'm trying to train them to a trellis system.



Just finished this next part up.  Who needs a rototiller when you have a backhoe?  It worked but was time consuming.







I did buy a chain for tractor.  It has a 4,700 pound working load.



Strawberries are coming on and looking decent.  They are in a lot of shade so I'm not expecting huge berries.





There are all the plants I need to get in the ground.  Not sure where I will be putting them.



May flowers and a freshly mowed yard.

Walnut trees can make an impressive tree with strong beautiful wood and can produce a large number of walnut nuts for people and animals; however, it is my personal opinion that they have absolutely no business near a house, flower bed, garden, or orchard!!!!

So far I've documented some of the problems with juglone from Walnut trees with my garden.  The tomato plants leaves curling and little to no production.  Now that we have come full cycle on a year I'm encountering addition problems.  The biggest is dead fruit trees.  The trees aren't even in the ground, they are in containers with clean dirt but last fall walnuts found their way into the tops of the containers, either from bouncing when they fell out of the trees or carried their by squirrels.  Kitty has already mentioned squirrels will do that.  The trees were fine last year and started leafing out this spring, then they shriveled up and DIED!  I lost 2 Honeycrisp apples, a golden delicious apple, and a peach tree (which is supposed to be immune).

At first I wasn't 100% sure it was the juglone from the walnut tree that caused it but now I am 100% sure.  What convinced me was when I checked on my blackberry patch.  This spring the Triple Crown variety that I had planted, the traditional type that requires 2 years to produce fruit, was leafing out but didn't really blossom.  I just got back from checking on them and all the 2 year vines now have shriveled up leaves and are DEAD!    Oddly enough though the roots are now producing new 1 year old vines (which are going to die next year).  

I planted a second type of blackberry known as a PrimoCane.  Meaning the one year vines can produce, usually in August.  The two year old vines will produce early in the year and you can actually get two crops per year.  So far, fingers crossed, those two year old vines seem to be doing ok.

The traditional blackberry vines that were the furthest away from the tree line did keep some leaves on their 2 year vines.  I don't see any berries though.  I have the trellis up on the primocane about 5 feet tall and the 1 year old vines are already growing higher than that and the 2 year vines still have berries developing.

At this point I'm not sure what to do with the traditional triple crown blackberries.  They seem to be pushing out plants 1 to 2 feet away from the main fine.  They aren't developed enough to tell which variety they are for sure.  They most certainly are a disappointment in the yard that I have.

Without cutting out 20+ mature trees there really is not other place to grown things right now.  I'm not cutting down trees, unless they are diseased or ugly crooked black walnut or hackberry.  The hackberry is taking over, I could cut out half of them and they would still be the main tree I have.  I have some dying black cherry trees, which is a shame, and come box elder that need to go.  Taking those out might open up small areas but I still need to find a place for fruit trees.

I am really starting to despise all the wildlife around the project house.

I planted around 50 tomato plants the other week.  When I went back and checked on them I found this.  All the tops of all the plants has been chewed off.  

Attached File


Then I noticed some of the lights in the house were not working.  I tried to change the bulb but the new bulb didn't work either.  I went to the basement to check the breaking and noticed an animal had dug under the basement door.  When I got to the breaking box I noticed this, freshly chewed electrical wires.  The door was padlocked and intact, so not a person.  Just some type of rodent that decided it wanted to chew on some live wires.  Unfortunately I did not find an electrocuted rodent in the basement.  That wire runs through a very tight conduit, with multiple sharp turns, and comes out into a part of the crawlspace that is barely accessible by a skinny person, which I am not.  It looks like I will have to run a whole new line to fix it.

Attached File

I have fencing that I can put around the garden to keep the big animals out.  Just one more project to add to my todo list.  My March list is still not complete.  It has been a very busy year for me.

The tulips are about the only thing that have gone right this year.  It doesn't look like I have posted pictures of them.  I do have updates and pictures that I need to post going back months.

On our list of plants that are not juglone tolerate we can 100% add Strait 8 cucumbers.  Even a small amount of juglone will kill them off.  I planted some last year and they died in a matter of weeks.  I planted them this year, didn't water them as I was out of town, and they died within a week.  I planted a couple Snake Gourd plants in the same area and they seem to be doing well but I will have to see if they actually bear anything as some plants will grow in juglone but won't produce any fruit.

The wild black raspberries are doing very well after I put them in the trellis.  The primocane blackberries are doing well.  There is even one plant of the Triple Crown blackberries that has put out blossoms and should have berries.

Or I just remove the walnut trees from the garden area, enrich the soil, and wait for the juglone to dissipate.  I'm stubborn at times.  

Here is the long promised tulip pictures from this spring.

Picture from April 1st as the tulips were growing.



The flowers hit full bloom around April 20th.

A simulated picture of what it all looked like from the drone.  I had sent mine off for repairs and it wasn't available when everything was in full bloom.



From the south driveway looking north.



Across the street looking north.



Straight across the street.



Across the street looking south.







It didn't take long for people start stealing bouquet of tulips.

Thank you.  Given how late and far apart the bulbs were planted I was shocked that there was about a week where everything was 100% in bloom.  I didn't start planting the bulbs until early January and didn't finish until almost the end of February.  Yet by April 20th, everything was in bloom.  The mid-February bulbs had much smaller leavers, were shorter, and had smaller flowers.  Sunlight, length of day, and ground temperature has more to do with when the tulips flower than when the bulbs were planted.

I've been trying to color coordinate everything that the entire front of the house all works together.  That is a secondary priority though.  I had thought about using different colors of tulips in the front, the red and white combo looks really good and so would mixing the orange/red tulips in with the red but there is not enough width in front of that wall to plant bulbs to be confident that it would look good.  With most of the wall I can only plant two rows of bulbs and even that it tight.  Plus there would be no telling what it would look like after the bulbs started splitting.  So I kept it simple.

If my yard tulip patch is any indicator of how things will look next year, I might as well dig up all the tulip bulbs and replant this fall.  I will most likely leave them but I will be expecting disappointment next year.

Here is the patch I had in my hard on April 5th 2017.  Full bloom was two weeks earlier last year.



Here is how the full bloom shot of the patch on April 17th this year.  Such a disappointment.  



Since then I have learned that tulip bulbs like to dormant after they bloom and lose their leaves.  They do not like to be watered and the ground should be well drained and dry.  With the tulip patch once I lost the blooms and leaves, I planted some annuals around it and kept watering them all summer.  That might be the main cause of why the patch looked so terrible.  Since the bulbs had moisture they split and turned into a lot of small bulbs, some too small to produce flowers.  That would also explain why the plants were so short.  I plan on covering up the dirt with either compost or mulch and leaving it barren the rest of the year and hope that will protect the bulbs and keep them from dividing.

I read that AFTER I committed to the project last fall.  I bought the 1,500 tulip bulbs, most on clearance for 50% from Lowes, after the typical fall planting season was over.  You can see from the bag that 50 bulbs cost $20, that would be $600 in bulbs every year if I paid full price and treated them as annuals.  Some of the bulbs were purchased at 75% off as different stores will mark them down earlier or later than others.  I have less than $300 into it.  So I'm in no hurry to dig them up.

Work kept me away from the project until January.  It was at that time when I started researching the fertilizer and steps to keep them looking good year after year...that was when I found out that probably won't happen.    But I still had the dream and was determined to try to make it happen...at least once.

I have read multiple ways to get tulips to not split as fast.  Picking the right variety, planting 1 foot deep instead of 6", providing very well draining soil, limiting fertilizer to only in the fall, and keeping away moisture during the summer.  I would have to rework the entire bed and dirt to make that happen but then the front wall would have to be barren the rest of year so that I wouldn't have water plants to keep them alive and looking good.  So I'm not sure that I want to go that route.

A few more pictures.  I will need to organize the pictures and put them in order in a complete set in a post.  That way people can see what it took from start to finish.

The biggest obstical to planting this year was that the soil had never been used as a flower bed.  The soil was hard, had a lot of clay, was very wet, and tons of rocks.  The rocks on top of the stone fence all came out of the area below, digging down just 6 inches.  I had to use a pick axe the entire time to dig and then the shovel to move the loosened material.  I would do one 4' section of sidewalk at a time, partially to use those lines as a marker for where I was at and as a counter to see progress.  It was very difficult to stay positive when it would take 30 minutes of digging just get to get one 4' section done.  But then when it was done I could mark it off as complete and try to use that as positive motivation to get the next one done.  About half way through the south side I stopped trying to clean up all the rocks and digging a full 6 inches but it was still taking 10-15 minutes to dig and plant each sidewalk section.









Tulips started emerging early March.  The north side had about 2 months in the ground but the south side was only in the ground less than a month.  I did expose the bulbs to freezing/near freezing temps most of the winter, which is required to trigger/trick them into sprouting.

North side.



South side, growing after less than one month in the ground.



North side April 1st.



First bloom was on the north side April 1st.



The south side two months after planting the bulbs.

Tonight I slipped on a small immature walnut that dropped on my steps.  I caught myself but felt something pull in my shoulder.  This is not the first time that this happened or that I have rolled an ankle because of walnuts on the ground.  While I do like how impressive some of my trees are, I've lost any kind feelings towards walnuts around the house and yard.  I'm not going to cut down large trees just to cut down walnuts but give me a good reason, or even a bad reason, to remove a tree and I am going to do so.

I would also like to have water features and koi ponds around the house...but wait juglone kills fish too so that is no go.  So something like the picture below right behind the house is not possible because the trees drop too much trash and would kill of the fish and probably the water plants.

I was really hoping to have the place decent enough to have people over this year for some burgers and fireworks but I'm still not that far.  I barely got things done enough to shoot off fireworks.

Here was the line up of fireworks.  Maybe next year I will have enough done to have guests.



This was the finale that I put on in the back yard.

Part of the way that I spent my July 4th was finally getting the pressure washer that I bought a few months ago to good use.  The deck and steps were covered in all sorts of dirt, grime, build up, and algae.  Not any more.

First a preview of how dirty it was and how clean it got.



The side deck before



During



After.  I've been wanting to do this since I bought the place.



Side steps before



Side steps after



Tall steps before



Tall steps after



Close up of the tall steps before



Close up of the tall steps after

Somthing about dirty before and clean after photos make my mild OCD happy

Also that drywall/plaster combo is hot garbage, we have a lot of it around here in 50s ish era homes, no idea of the time line for that method but it seems to be around that time. I have smoked many sawsall/multitool blades in that crap. I made 4 holes with a brand new $60  6-3/8" hole saw and it's junk now

What are your plans for electrical?

Good thing I didn't post a picture of the damage the pressure washer caused to some of the deck railing.  The damaged part isn't perfect and doesn't match.  I just put that out of my head it or it would drive me nuts.  The deck and steps have driven me nuts for 2 years.

I'm not sure on the exact time period of the drywall/plaster combo but drywall wasn't invented until 1916 and was first sold as fireproof tiles and later adapted to walls.  I have some of it my 1903 house as well but it is framed with planed lumber not the rough cut, putting it anywhere between 1940 and 1960.

The electrical is a mess.  Some of it was done 30 years ago and seems pretty good still, other than missing grounds even though the wire had ground wires.  The stuff in the 12 year old additions was done poorly, animals chewed on some of it, I've found some loose wires...etc, so it all needs to be looked at and reworked.  The circuits I replaced due to the person cutting out the copper when the house was empty are working, except for the ones the animal chewed and one of those goes through the wall, into a conduit, and to other part of the house.  I might have enough room to put in a junction box right below the main breaker box, if not i have to track the wire through the conduit and into tight crawlspaces, then pull a longer wire to splice it.

I would like to redo the main electrical outside the house to get it to 400 amps, running one 200 amp line to the current breaker box and one to a new 200 amp breaker box that I would put in the middle of the structure.  That will take some time to do that though.  So I've though about installing the 200 amp breaker but running just a 60 amp line to it for now. Then I can rewire a lot of the circuits from the middle of the structure which would be a much shorter run, clean install done right, and circuits branched in a way that makes sense.  I would still have to get into tight crawlspaces and run some of the wires.  There is an old foundation that I would have to deal with as well, finding a way to get wires through it.  That part of the crawlspace is filled with jagged rocks and the height below the joists pushes down to 8-10 inches.   I would want to dig out a path to area that I would need to get to.

In my town, during Tulip Time, that would get you arrested, or at least fined and your name in the paper.

Looking good. The tulip pickers is funny, but got to be annoying.

Fleas are still really bad on the property.  Typically I pull up my pant legs and spray bug spray on my legs, socks, and boot tops followed by putting the pant legs down and spraying them.  That is the only combination that seems to work.  The other day I gave a quick tour of the back yard and was wearing shoes instead of boots.  The grass was short and I knew it would be quick so I didn't mess with the bug spray.  One ankle is about 20 bites and the other ankle has about 15 bites.  Before I made it from the house to the garden, in the short grass, I could feel my ankles being chewed on.  I even put Bifenthrin granuals down in that area of the yard a week ago.   I just ordered 96 ounces of Bifen IT and will going to town on the back yard and around the house.

Mosquitoes are still bad but not greatly reduced from when I first got the property.  Clearing out the brush has helped some.  I'm working on adapting my leaf blower into a misting system so I can spray Bifenthrin into the remaining brushy areas and knock down the mosquito population.

Also it looks like Powderpost beetles have returned to destroy the floor joists in the basement of the two story part of the house.  There is lots of previous damage but I'm seeing fresh sawdust on and under the joists.  I ordered something to take care of them as well.

Whew....you've got quite a fight on your hands to bring this place back! Termites, beetles, evil walnut trees (I had no idea), and tulip pickers.

Good luck...it's a beautiful property and will be worth it when done!

Don't forget the Asian Tiger mosquitoes, fleas, ground hogs, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, and deer all of which cause me problems.  Then there is the poison ivy everywhere....like this.

I had what I called a poison ivy tree.  It was multiple mature vines, over an inch thick, growing up the tree by the back steps.  I finally pulled that down.

When I say the fleas are bad, despite keeping the yard mowed and putting some granuals down.  Here is an example of what happened to my ankle and shin when I walked through the yard for a couple of minutes with no bug spray on.

It's a small picture because no one really wants to see my chewed up leg but it is necessary to show how bad things are.



To help control the fleas and mosquitoes I picked up this product but have not used it yet.

I'm still very far behind on the updates that I promised. Here is a quick update from one of the many projects that I was working on today.

I finally cleared a bit of brush away from the creek bank by the bridge.  I'm not sure that the images do any justice to scale of the area.  It is at least a 30' by 40' area not counting the creek.
Before



After



It does give a pretty good view of the bridge and retaining walls.  The retaining walls are failing and the heavy rains is starting to wash the bridge out.



A closer view from a different angle.  The proper fix will be to build a proper retaining wall starting at the bedrock in the creek bed and angling the wall along the bank instead of just having a flat surface that will stop and trap water.



More brush clearing.

Looking SW before clearing brush



Looking SW after



Looking SW before



Looking SW after


A picture of the fish in the creek hanging out under the bridge.

Another recent project was trying to kill off an infestation of Powder Post Beetles.  They get the name from the fine wood powder they excrete as they destroy your house.  I knew the house had previous damage but there are very clear signs they have come back.

The first sign that I noticed was on the joist then I noticed the sawdust below the joist.



To take care of them you can spray an insecticide on to the wood.  This is what I used.



Here is some prior damage.  The destroyed wood looks like puffed up powder.  The little circles are the holes where the beetles entered the wood.



This is a destroyed joist in the house and what the beetles will do if left unchecked.  Someone put a sister joist on it long ago.

Get some pant cuffs (elastic bands with velcro). I use them to keep ticks and bees out when checking my hives. Keep spraying around your ankles/feet though.

This sounds like a great idea.  I tried to find some but no joy.

Any idea where they can be bought?

Any recommended brands?

Amazon. I can't recommend any brand, just bought a couple of pairs of cheapest cuffs with the better ratings:

pant cuffs

Thanks for the tip.  I will have to look into them for when I'm doing more clearing work in the weeds further back.

It is really annoying that I need to consider coating myself in bug spray and protective gear just to walk to the garden.  I plan on eliminating the pest problem around the house so it won't be necessary.  The rest of the property will still require that though.

Just read through the whole thread. Really enjoyed it. Keep up the good work. Sub'd

Thanks.  A question for you and others that are following.  Would there be any interest in YouTube videos of various projects or just walk through updates on things?  I've been considering doing that and would like to do that just to document things better...but as is evident in this thread even just keeping up with picture updates is difficult at times.  If there is interest in the videos what would you like to see?