Mighty warm Christmas
Return to DiscussionsI've been working clothes free a couple days, not Christmas day though, it's Sabbath anyway so i don't work and attended services and then a dinner instead. but will get in another nude days work tomorrow, cleaning up some more area to plant a few more fruit trees. Got 3 apple trees ordered of some old varieties, Albemarle Pippin, Cox's Orange and Ashmeads Kernal. And the 3 planting sites with compost and minerals stirred in ready to plant when they arrive. It's been mid 60's to 70 F for several days and will remain for several more, but with rain coming in by Monday it'll limit the nude work time. Then I'll go back to work in my shop on some projects. (a non nude workplace) It's been real nice to be able to get in some time out there warm enough to work unhindered by fabric. just has a good feeling to it that can't be described really. Middle Tennessee isn't usually this warm this time of year but it does happen on occasion. I've seen it hit 70 on rare occasions most any time through the winter. Starts getting a lot more common by March.
After Jan 1 it turned cold so there's been no chance of any fabric unladen time since then. But we're starting to get past the cold a little now and then, today it was finally just warm enough to loose the clothes for awhile so got out and enjoyed it while cutting some small trees off the slope. The wood goes into firewood to move to the woodshed and stacking the brush in burn piles. Some are cedar trees and they get moved to the sawmill for future lumber or greenhouse timbers. Working across the hillside a little at a time to make room for more fruit trees. I finally called the huntin club guy and got his go ahead to mow the place again, it's around 30 acres that I used to make hay on. I stopped because the hay got poor quality and I got rid of my horses. But now I'm gonna mow with a pickup mower, and use the chopped grass and weeds for making compost and mulching. It'll make great quantities of it. It may be more than I can keep mowed, but it hasn't been mowed fully since I stopped several years ago and it's getting pretty rough and grown up, too many tree saplings taking over. I'll have to cut a lot of them. But that's all isolated land I can work clothes free on if I feel like being a bit risky, as there's chance of some one of the club guys passin by. Although it's not likely they'd care what I wear or dont. They'll just be happy to get it mowed. I'll be happy to get lots of compost and mulch to make my orchard and gardens grow much better.
A full slate of work for the nudist! We live at a resort for nudism so if the weather allows I can do it all nude, and our postage stamp yard takes very little time to mow and weed eat, less than 45 minutes most of the time. Then it's back to dealing with the double dug 4x12 garden bed I've promised my lover to get together before spring has sprung. Lots of work there but worth it since our soil is pretty much crap for planting anything directly in plain soil. Your comments on compost have me contemplating getting a composter going. When it's work in the nude it always feels like less work! Good luck with your big mow job.
Our local hardware store had their first shipment of plant arrive so we picked up about 10 kale plants. They'll be going in one of the garden squares...not sure which one. Other than those, we're waiting so see how our weather is going to work out. We've got another freeze forecast coming in a couple of days so the new plants will be vacationing in the shop with all the others. But...March is not far away.
Kale handles a whole lot of cold for us, usually has to get below 15F before it shows signs of suffering. Lower yet to kill back the outer leaves a bit. It's still too cold for nude work but I'm getting a new trailer built to haul chopped grass with my old toyota 4x4 pickup. And just got in the mail today a compost thermometer to monitor the pile cooking temps. It'll take some experimenting to get the right nitrogen to carbon ratio. With it in the right range and then turning the pile with front end loader a few times, 2 weeks is all it's supposed to take to turn a pile into compost. If I have too much pure grass or some legumes with it, I might have to add some sawdust to keep it from getting too hot. To start with there will be a lot of dead weeds and briar stems mixed with it, so that will probably be enough carbon to keep it from overheating. If it doesn't get hot enough I can sprinkle some chemical nitrogen into it when turning it. ammonia sulphate or calcium nitrate.
The trailer on the tractor to catch grass is only 6 ft long x 4 ft high and maybe 3 ft wide. It'll fill quickly, so I need a much larger one to offload several times. Then take the whole load to the pile site, or later to the orchard and garden to mulch with it. My neighbor brought in a 22 ft camper trailer frame with 2 axles several years ago, left it sit so long I finally asked him about it and he said I could use it. So I'm reducing it's length to 12 ft, and building a lumber box on the frame with hinged back gate. (I have a band sawmill so I make my own lumber) Make it about 4 ft deep and 6 ft wide. It should take 5-6 loads in the small trailer to fill it. That's where the pitch fork comes in handy. It'll mean a lot of mowing and transferring chopped grass with the fork. And many trips back and forth from field to composting site. And I haven't decided where to do the composting yet. Our land is very limited on level places. 80 acres but it's mostly mountainside steep and rocky. Might just do it out there in the fields, that'd be most convenient I guess. Or I could haul it all back to my sort of level acre of garden site, (my naturist garden on the mountainside with orchard on the surrounding slopes where most of it will get used) I have an old NH L555 skid steer to handle it once the pile is made. I bought it several years ago pretty cheap because it needed engine reworked. I rebuilt the engine and it's been a nice machine. But needs a new set of batteries now. The ones we put in it when I fixed it are about to quit. Usually have to put a charger on it to get it going after it sits a day or more. that's a $300 bill. I'll have a sell a few more timber trees pretty soon so I can get them and don't get too low on cash.
If I can get some good stuff growing to market I can cut off the occasional need to do other work for money. I got tired of cutting trees and sawing lumber anyway. Then as the fruit trees start producing should get a good bit of fruit to sell also. People are waiting for good quality food that tastes like it's supposed to. Production in the world isn't really keeping up with demand. And a good share of what is produced is poor quality. I will try to do what little I can to help that out.