Posts from — November 2007

Well this weekend passed without a trip to the woodland garden. It is getting late but more pressing matters came up. I gotten a Trojan virus on the computer and it took all weekend to get the computer up and running again.

Be that as it may next weekend rain or shine I will be out at the woodland garden clearing all the leaves and getting the area ready for it’s winters nap. Raking leaves is an important part of getting ready for winter. Leave left laying on the lawn will harbor pests, and disease that will cause a lot of lawn damage. Good housekeeping will help eliminate a lot of problems next spring.

So even with the holidays fast approaching I will be out at the woodland garden next weekend because what I do next week end will in a big way determine what I will need to do next spring to get the garden looking good.

A Report next week on my progress. Have a good week and here is hoping all your fall chores are finished.

We first purchased the Woodland Garden back in 2000. It was love at first site and I knew before I got out of the car that I wanted it. It had not been occupied for well over 5 years and even then not much had been done to it for a least the previous five years. That did not matter once I saw all those big trees I was hooked.

It even came with a trailer and small deck. What else could you ask for. We quickly decided to purchase and were the proud owners only 2 weeks latter of the Woodland Garden. We went out that first weekend and spent the day cleaning the little trailer and cleaning up debris from the surrounding area. Finally it was time to hook up the water which I did with a garden hose. Well the water worked sort of. A minute after I turned it on we had water not in the faucets but out from the walls and under the floor apparently it was never winterized and all the pipes had frozen and exploded behind the walls.

Our First Trailer

Well as you can imagine this was a big disappointment to us. So we pitched the tent and spent the night in it. The next day I was a bit more adventurous and started to do a thorough inspection and decided that it would take a humongous amount of time,energy, and money to repair the poor neglected trailer. So we took a drive down the street to look at some new and used park model trailers at the dealers. We saw several that were really nice and would of bought one but the price tags were in the $22,000.00 to $35,000.00 range and I did not want another loan payment. It was a bit of a let down on the way back to Woodhaven lakes we stopped at one last dealer he said he had just taken a trailer in on trade and that it was a little rough but he would set it up on our lot and get rid of the old trailer for $2,500.00 it was a deal.This was what we got.

The New Trailer

As you can see we cleaned the lot up but more about this in a latter post

Well fall is defiantly in the air and it is time to closeup the cabin at the woodland garden for another year. So yesterday I went out and it was a beautiful day to work. It is a good thing because the overnight temperatures for the next week will be in the upper 20’s. Without a central heating system it is important to disconnect the water and winterize the plumbing.

I got the water supply shut down then connected the air compressor to the main water line. I opened up the faucets on the sinks and also the shower and proceeded to blow air through all the lines. Once I was sure that the water was out of the lines and the hot water tank I disconnected the compressor and then pumped RV Anti-freeze through the lines. Once it was running out through all the faucets I poured some in each sink and drain then forced some down the toilet . Now the plumbing was ready for what ever winter would bring.

The next thing was to empty the pantry and pack up the paper products and perishables to be brought home. That includes the beer and other Alcohol which is strictly used for medicinal purposes after a long day of garden work. Then the fridge was packed up all the goodies placed in the ice chest for use at home. Finally all the draws were emptied of silverware, utensils, plates, etc. and they were placed in rodent proof plastic bins. that was it for the cabin.

I drained the pond and removed the fish to bring home an overwinter in my aquarium. The pump also got some antifreeze after it was cleaned up and stored in the shed for the winter ahead.

I was tempted to start raking the leaves but I decided to roll the dice and come back next week to do that chore. I hope that the weather will cooperate.

I will be adding post over the next week or so of previous articles which were lost during a major database loss. Please do comeback and check in. Have A great week!