Ranchetting in Kentucky, or...

[dgibson]

...how dgibson is spending his spring & summer. First, there's the large garden, in which Sam and Will are a big help:

Here's The Wife watering in some tomato plants, or, in the local dialect, "waterin maters" with some help:

I'm also making sure that Will is learning how to properly widen his ass on an ATV so he will fit in with all the rest of us lazy redneck easterners:

Here's a partial view of our "orchard," which consists of cherry, apple, pear, and peach trees planted this year, with two blueberry bushes thrown in for good measure:

Looking at this picture makes me glad I'm not the peach tree; poor stiff apparently did something to hack off The Wife:

Finally, a little something for the local wildlife...a small plot of Tecomate Homeplace Wildlife Mix, which has clovers for the deer and wildflowers for the birds & butterflies. I just planted that Friday, so it'll be a little bit yet:

If you look closely you can see one of The Boy's brightly-painted birdhouses, which is currently inhabited by a beautiful (and semi-rare) Kentucky bluebird.

Before my western friends start up about the "ranchette," I bought my 10 acres of heaven in order to save it from being turned into 10 1-acre lots, or possibly 20 1/2 acre lots. That's exactly what the seller was going to do with it if I didn't buy it. I'm in debt up to my eyeballs but I managed to save at least a little bit of The Good Stuff from urban sprawl. So nah nah, boo boo.

 

[Nut]

Great pics Darren! You have a great looking family for sure.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Those are great pics Darren, we are still just coming out of winter here. If you can talk one or more of the tree services in the area, especially those that trim around the power lines to dump you some chips so you can put them around your fruit trees, you will help keep the weeds at bay and the mulch that is produced over then next bunch of years will be a major help to them. THe chips are usually free every where else I have been and they are glad to get rid of them. Put them in about a foot deep to start and out to at least six feet from the trees out in all directions. Some don't like the looks of it at first, but the benifits to the plants when the stuff starts to really decompose is phenominal...

Nice place you have there...

 

[Elkhunter]

Great pictures D.

 

[dgibson]

Russ, NOTHING is free around here. The kind of quantity you are talking about would probably run in the hundreds of dollars. The wife, though, has a thing for those recycled tire mulch ring things, so we're trying those.

 

[Nut]

You taking the tires off my kinfolks houses?

 

[dgibson]

Hee hee...nah, those disintegrated long ago.

 

[pawclaws]

DG with that promotion maybe you can afford some brand new tires! (Don't get crazy though; buy seconds.

 

[ELKCHSR]

It was a try Darren...
Give um a call, you may be surprised...

 

[schmalts]

you must have a good tiller, that soil looks well worked up!

 

[1_pointer]

Wonder which will get 'et by the deer first, the fruit trees or the food plot????

That can't be your wife, she's too 'purty'!!! Good looking family and good luck with the place. Whens the trophy home going up??

 

[Little Nut]

good pictures

 

[dgibson]

Schmalts, that's the result of The Wife's uncle, who brought up his "small tractor" and worked it up for us. He made 3-4 passes, dropping the PTO tiller a little each time. By the time he was done it was all nice powder.

1_p, The Wife's trophy home is already built...she even lets me sleep in it. It ain't near as big as those Western trophies, though!

Something is starting to sprout in the foodplot...too small to tell what it is yet, though. Probably just weeds.