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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I made a 18” x 24” x 6 foot tall firewood rack with 5 shelves out of a single cattle panel that sits next to the wood stove.

Years ago, I made two pot/pan racks and all the hooks for them before I even knew what a cattle panel was. Found a chunk at the house we were renting and thought it was heavy duty fence which it technically is. I had just never seen a whole one and didn’t know they were feed lot panels.

and this year I’m using them for garden fence.


55 posted on 05/23/2023 5:06:09 AM PDT by Pollard ( >>> The Great Reset is already underway! <<<)
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To: Pollard
Got my mater/bean trellises set up. I only own one Forstner bit but it happens to be a 1 inch which is the same size as my sucker rod. They drill such nice holes.


Such a snug fit that I didn't need to attach the chain to the posts to hold things together so I just ran some 3 1/2" deck screws through the chain/turnbuckles.


The center set of poles are so tall because I didn't want to cut any more down. I have 12 footers sitting here and cutting in half again gives me 6' posts for my electric fence. I cut the two outer sets to 8' but that left me with four pieces 4' long which are of no use so I left the center set the full 12'. With 2' in the ground, that leaves them 10' tall. If I have to climb a ladder to harvest pole beans from vines that get 10' tall, I'll be ok with that.


Kind of wish I'd have drove the center ones in another foot for 3 foot in the ground but I didn't want to make it hard to get them out later plus it was already dicey using a t-post driver while on the second highest step of a ladder, with the ladder on dirt with a slight grade to it. My ladder is also missing one of the brace arms which makes it a little dangerous even on level ground.

That center set looks goofy being so tall but maybe I'll get lucky and have beans hanging 10 foot in the air. I need to see if the place I got the sucker rod from still has them so I can get some more. They're really handy and drive into the ground a lot easier than t-posts. Just can't use them in the dips because they'll pull up/out pretty easily too. For the electric fence, I take a grinder and cut grooves for the wire to sit in. No insulators needed on fiberglass rods and the cost ends up being $1 per 6 foot post.

The rows are running Northeast/Southwest so hopefully things won't shade each other too much.

Need to get the rest of my maters in the ground. Prefer a cloudy day for that but the forecast is sunny days all the way out. Best I can do is plant them this afternoon after the sun is down past the trees. Ordered a 14 foot square shade cloth to go over top of the trellises for July/Aug or if it's like last year, June/July/Aug. Shade cloth won't get here for a week or so which is too long to wait for planting because I have 18" tall maters sitting here in 4 inch pots. I'm sure I'll have to tear off some circling roots as it is. Gonna go out and get my holes dug at least this morning while it's cool. Gotta build a little raised bed for my Shisito peppers. I'm spoiling them this year with organic raised bed mix.

I work tomorrow and Fri and then have Sat/Sun/Mon off so I should be able to get those high tunnel frames welded up and hopefully get them in the ground too. Now I have a problem where the tunnel is going though. Horse Thistle popped up there this year dammit. I'm sure there's chiggers and ticks put there too so I'm going to mow really short around the thistle, wait a couple of days and then start digging thistle out.

Son, get your gloves and let's go meet Mr shovel and Mrs Thistle.

63 posted on 05/24/2023 7:12:07 AM PDT by Pollard ( >>> The Great Reset is already underway! <<<)
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