What's been happening here.

I had been busy resisting the urge to garden in order to accomplish everything else that has been needing attention but today was such a perfect day that I thought I would at least mark out the new raised bed plots and till them up the last time so they would be ready to build up when I had time. Well, I got carried away and had so much fun fiddling away on such a nice peaceful day that by the time I realized it was time to milk the cow the beds were done and now all I need to do is plant them. So the barn didn't get cleaned and the piles of junk that I threw out the barn windows this winter during cleaning didn't get disposed of but I had a great day and got a lot accomplished that wasn't on my list of things to do right now. What once was a row of trees (dead ones) is now raised beds thanks to a bunch of work with the chainsaw, Caterpillar and Kubota with the tiller. I still have one stump that was from a living tree that the Cat couldn't push out and I didn't want to make a big mess with the backhoe digging it out so I burnt it, or tried to, there's still a little bit of it left so I'll burn on it through the summer and by fall it will be gone and ready to put another set of raised beds in it's place. To make the beds I tilled, then laid out rail road ties to form the beds 36 feet long by 4 feet wide, then filled them with topsoil from the field, five loads with the loader for each bed, then I put 10 foot lengths of 3/4 inch PVC pipe bent to form hoops that will hold the plastic covering that I will put on after I plant each bed. I'll roll up one side of the plastic to tend the plants and then be able to put it back for temperature control. Right now I am going to just plant lettuce because that can take care of itself until I get home in a month or two, I'll have Kyle water it once in a while, and maybe I'll have him put in the tomato starts and a few other things, or I can rush home on a weekend and plant some things later. For some reason I just can't go without a garden, I've had one every year of my life and I just can't seem to take a year off! This time of year I get to craving fresh green things so it's a good thing the dandelions are shooting up everywhere, I like to take the whole plant off at the ground and eat a dandelion salad, especially when they are tiny and tender like right now, actually, they won't be really of edible size for a couple of weeks but I have been cheating and eating the microscopic plants anyway.

Another thing that may be of interest is my turkey experience, which seems to have begun it's round of the grapevine, which means I had better tell it before it expands into a flock of turkeys instead of just one.

The other day when I was feeling stressed and in a hurry and I decided it was foolishness I took a bit of time that would have otherwise been spent sweating over some meaningless project and went for a walk in the woods, for those of you who picture North Dakota as a treeless expanse of space let me inform you that I have an excellent woods here that I enjoy immensely, as do the various wild things. As I was walking I almost literally stumbled on a flock of ten wild turkeys, which isn't all that uncommon because I see them on a regular basis, but I was a lot closer this time and they didn't notice me which was unusual because turkeys are usually hard to sneak up on and even harder when you are crashing around not even trying to be sneaky! So I hunched down small so I wouldn't be so obvious and the big tom noticed me and came right over to investigate I guess, which kind of shocked me because that's the last thing I expected. I don't know why but he decided to jump at me so I grabbed him by the legs, which was when he finally got scared of me and put up a fight, but not much of one. In swinging him up after I grabbed him and with him flapping to get away I broke his legs, which was too bad because I wanted to keep him alive to add to the genetic pool in my domesticated flock of wild turkeys. I took him home and splinted his legs in the hope that he might recover and that's when Paul and 2 of his boys came up needing help getting things they had bought at a sale a few miles from my place ( I had been at the sale with them that morning but couldn't stay all day like they did) so I put the turkey in with my other ones and we went to get the things at the sale. The next morning the turkey was not doing well so he ended up being eaten after all, which wasn't all bad because I like turkey an awful lot! The result of that whole deal is that now I am a huge fan of turkey hunting and I think I will try a lot more of it in the future, though I'll probably try more conventional methods rather than just grabbing them, I think that was a once in a lifetime experience! Maybe now turkeys will be a reminder to stop fretting and take a break now and then, you never know, something interesting might happen!
I bought another motorcycle the other day at an auction, and since it's supposed to get over 175 miles per gallon I might be going to town more often just to get one thing instead of waiting until I have a whole long list of things and use the 15 mile per gallon vehicle to go get them. While in town I usually like to stop in at the library so you might be hearing from me more regularly since I can use the computer there. It seems ridiculous for me to buy yet another motorized vehicle but I guess it won't hurt much and inflation would just take the money anyway so I might as well spend it on things that I want to have. With two diesel Volkswagens (one car and one pickup) and two motorcycles I should be spending less money at the fuel station and more money on other things, or rather, I will now be spending the money I used to spend for gas on other things like keeping all of these vehicles maintained, it's a never ending battle but I am having fun doing it most of the time. I've begin making plans for upgrading my little turbo diesel Volkswagen car now that I have the engine rebuilt and have driven it, I was thinking of selling it and just fiddling with the VW pickup but the turbo car is just too much fun to part with and it is a perfect candidate for a souped up diesel project I have wanted to do for a long time. I originally wanted to take a Mercedes 190D 5 speed and swap the original 2.3 diesel for a 2.5 turbo diesel and then upgrade that with several gizmos that I would build. The problem with that was that it would be very expensive, there are almost no aftermarket parts or upgrades for that Mercedes and putting it all together would be tough, this little turbo VW is a perfect candidate as it already has the engine/transmission combination I want and there are tons of very cheap parts and upgrades for it. So now the goal is to take the stock 70 horsepower car (which is really completely adequate, if not more than enough) and with some tweaking make it equal to the newer 1.9 TDI powered cars with 90 horsepower, that will be a pretty zippy little car because it weighs about half of what the Jettas do that have the 1.9TDI and those are quite fast. I am hoping to make that power with regular upgrades like larger exhaust, intercooler, raise the boost pressure, fuel screw increase on the pump, spring changes on the pump and governor modification. That should (I hope) take it to somewhere near 90 horsepower, after that I want to add the homemade gizmos, water/methanol injection, propane injection and hydrogen injection which should drastically increase horsepower even further, I am guessing around 120 +/- then I will need to add several other things to help with engine longevity which might be starting to degrade due to the other upgrades. If my ideas are correct (and they are based on facts well proven) this should also raise the fuel economy tremendously which isn't something I am going to complain about! With all of that said, I probably won't get much of that work done this summer, maybe I'll be able to tinker with it this next winter.