Grain, Hot Tub Prep, Harvests, Bag Beans

So busy all day long! It started with my trip to town to get grain at 5:30 am. I dropped off four empties and picked up four full barrels. I will have more to pickup Saturday morning as well.

The sunrise was nifty with the sun being hazed by smoke giving it the dull glow.

The sheep and alpaca were quite happy to have the grain and jumped on it the moment I let them in. The chickens and ducks spent much of the day scratching it around.

The squash gave me 19 pounds which was a nice little surprise. That means I only need to pick 11 pounds this morning for my delivery to the co-op.

While I was picking the squash I got the call from the locating service and the person showed up quickly and got the gas line marked out for me. Of course it goes right where I want to build the pad for the hot tub, but it should be more than deep enough that it won't cause any problems. I still have to be careful when digging near it.

I had to wheel measure the driveway to determine how much gravel we would need. It is 320 feet long, the 11 was a mistake, which would need about 26 tons of gravel to cover 2" deep. I am getting gravel for the pad for the hot tub and figure I should just get all I need for the driveway at the same time.

I had one of the employees at the hot tub store come out for a site visit to ensure there was no issues with my plans for the placement, location, and having the gas line under it. Everything checks out perfectly fine and I am a go to get this thing going.

The gate had to be locked open while they were here and when I went to put it back I noticed the bracket on the gate was loose so I had to find a pair of nuts to tighten down so there are 2 per leg. All the opening and closing had loosened the singles that were on and made the gate have a lot of slop in its movement.

The cucumbers were quite ready to be picked again. 3 Armenian cucs weigh 5 pounds and then I pulled 37 of the English. Only a couple are wonky shaped with most being nice and big and ready.

4.5 pounds of tomatoes and I am getting some more larger which are Gill's and are a nice red variety. The mortgage lifter is more of a purple/red style and takes a bit longer to ripen.

Started trenching for the electrical. The distance I worked is not horrible and has some rock but small enough I can dig them out. Where I stopped on the left there is a massive rock directly over the gas line which I will have to dig out with the forks of the skid steer next week.

Hive account@stryeyz got home from work with dinner and after eating we set about getting the 130 half pound bags of beans done. We are getting faster at it and it took us about an hour.

This is one of the times I feel a bit extra good about where my produce goes. The co-op has a USDA/WSDA contract for food boxes and this is one of the recipients. The Women's Children's Free Restaurant Box is getting the 65 pounds that will go into 130 boxes. You don't normally see tricolor beans in the stores so they should be a cool thing for the people to open the box to find.

This morning I have to go drop off the co-op order in the valley after picking 11 pounds of squash, then to Home Depot to pickup a bunch of the electrical parts and wire along with I need to go in and buy some 2x6x12 pressure treated and some wood stakes for forming my pad. After that I will be meeting Hive account@stryeyz at the Bark Boys shop so we can see the difference between the 3/4 minus granite and the 5/8 minus basalt. I want to schedule the delivery for monday morning when I hope to have the tractor as well for the day which I need to reserve once I have the gravel scheduled. Also would like to get a yard of garden soil for around the farm. The daily harvesting has to take place as well as all of the above.

I just keep thinking to myself all the pain and effort right now will be handsomely repaid once the hot tub is filled and running, then I can just sit and soak my sore away.