Grape planting and then some

The grape planting went well today.  We managed to plant and stake 21 grapes in the first grape swale.  That required extending the swale by about 30 feet - a wonderful problem to have (too many grapes).  Here is our budding vineyard as of Monday afternoon:

21 grapes are in the first vineyard row!

While we were there (and we had help - thanks Matt!), we got the garden shed settled into its permanent home.  That took some significant lifting, shifting and shimmying but it was accomplished without major incident.  We even had time to move all of our garden tools and most of the garden supplies from the hoop house to the shed.  It will be very nice to have all the tools in the garden now.

Our new shed, complete with front step.

With the grapes and shed done, Jeremy and Matt started rearranging the hoop house and I started planting peppers and eggplant. I planted about 40 pepper plants and the kids planted about 20 eggplant.  The garden is starting to fill in!

2 beds of peppers in a row.  The cages aren't on all of them yet.

The hoop house needed to be rearranged for 2 reasons.  First, my brother was coming with the load of wood Jeremy brought back from Colorado last week and it needed a place to be unloaded.  Second, we need a place to start working on the timber frame joinery.  Fortunately, by the time Scott got there, they had made ample space for the new lumber. 

Because of all the rain we've gotten, it took several tries to get the trailer anywhere near the hoop house.  There are now tracks all over our bottom field and we are thoroughly convinced that we need to get a driveway done pronto.  On the upside, we were finally able (and by we I mean my brother) to get the trailer reasonably close.  Then we all started moving lumber.  In total, there was somewhere around 5000 lbs of wood on the trailer as near as we can estimate it.  This will finish out the vast majority of the wood we need to build the cabin and it gets us well on our way to starting the joinery.

Carrying the timbers into the greenhouse.  This was a 12' long 7x10.

 

Here is the growing pile of lumber in the hoop house.

In other news not otherwise reported here, we spent last weekend helping my brother convert our mother's carport into a finished room.  We managed to get everything framed in and the exterior sheathing and siding done.  It was a busy weekend!

This is shortly after we started framing. 

 

We hung the door after this, but its close to where we left it after 2 days and about 80 labor hours of work.

Ok, I think we're caught up now.  Stay tuned - it will be a busy summer!