Closed Cell Spray Foam

This week we hired a crew to spray in closed cell spray foam. It was an expensive option, but it was a lifetime choice. It doesn't settle, compress, take on water or mold (according to research). Also, it fills in all air gaps. Today was the first day after insulation, and the upstairs was noticeably cooler. I think we will be happy we chose it.

 

In poplar news, the Op-367s either look like this

 or this.

The larger ones are doing great. The smaller ones are starting to succumb to the grasshopper plague. Also, because of the house building we didn't plant them all at the same time ... or the right time. Another thing that I started doing about mid-summer (should have been earlier) is spray deer repellent on them regularly. It seems to be helping.

One last tidbit. We found another little friend.

This marks the 4th species of snake we've found on our property. This is called a smooth green snake (a highly original name). It was wicked fast. Pretty cool.

Blog Catch Up

It has now been over a month since my last blog. I figured I better get back to it, so here is a hodge podge of what has been going on.

We are nearly done shingling. It is going well and believe it or not we’re getting pretty good at it. Shingling on a steep pitch as ours is, is largely a function of weather. We just haven’t had that many days without extreme winds or rain or both.

On top of that, we spent some time helping our community fight a swelling Missouri River. We’re not out of the woods yet and the river is still rising. We continue to pray for the folks in the flooded areas.

We have been working on the second floor flooring on and off. The flooring is one of those projects (rare as they may be) that is turning out exactly how I wanted it to. We are blind screwing 2x6 tongue and groove down with 3” trim head screws. Here’s a tip. Get yourself some reversible bar clamps and use them as spreaders. It is so much easier to force errant boards into place.

My Mom and wife have starting tuck pointing the north wall. That process deserves a post of its own. Stay tuned.

This year we didn’t want to miss out on so much planting like we did last year. So, we planted (at least half of) a large garden.

We added 18 Canadian Haskaps to our Honeyberry plot. AND

We have finally started getting our poplars in the ground. So far we only have about 70 of 150 in the ground. We have mostly Op-367s, but I cut some ‘native’ poplar cuttings from my wife’s parent’s house last fall. It will be interesting to see which we get more growth out of. I plan to document the growth this year, as a lot of people seem to be interested in poplars as fuel for the woodstove – the Op-367 in particular.

Big Ol' Broccoli

We planted the broccoli at the end of February, I just hadn't gotten around to writing a blog about it ... or any blog ... since January. Nonetheless here they are today, they are looking great.


On of them is a brussels sprout. We bought some seeds and are seeing how they do in the ND spring. Also, as an experiment, I took a cutting from one of the poplars I have dormant in the garage and it actually rooted. Promising.



One more thing, this past weekend we planted some leafy greens in our cold frames which had some spinach already growing in them.

I'm a Tree Herder

I had a thought the other day. Why am I trying to keep 10 tiny trees alive from ten miles away? Wouldn't it be easier to pot them and bring them into town? "Absolutely!" said Frank Gomez of hybridpoplars.com. Ok, so I'm a little slow with my epiphanies.

So, I loaded up my tools and some containers into the trusty rusty pickup and began herding the rogue poplings into town. 10 out of 300 lived, not a great outcome. One might think that I would be upset. At first I was, but I am choosing now to chalk it up to experience or lack there of. I will be wiser next year, and by the by, Frank has graciously agreed to replace the ones I lost next year and he has given me tip after tip along the way. If you want to look at it with a positive spin, I now have the strongest 3 percent of the trees for propagation purposes!

So, until next year this is where the little buggers will live (well, they have a winter home in the garage).

Random Updates

I haven't had much time to blog lately so I thought I would lump a few brief entries into one ball o' randomness. This first picture is a pretty decent sized harvest of snap peas and broccoli. We ate some and froze the rest. The broccoli was two years in the making since the rabbits ate it before we could last year.

This is one of the poplars. It is doing well, most are not. The weather this spring was not great for these guys. The guy I bought them from said the heavy rains we received likely caused them to rot before they grew. Even though they could be considered a failure this year, I am still optimistic for next year. You can click the tag at the bottom for the rest of the story.

We were so excited about the broccoli that I decided to grow a second round of it as a fall crop. The seeds were planted in peat pellets that we received as a gift one year. They work just fine, but I still like soil blocks much better for moisture retention and size.

This is one lonely maple that lived from the maple experiment. It is the only tree standing from the 15 seeds planted. About 4 seeds germinated, but only this one is still going. One out of fifteen doesn't sound very good, but for free seeds I gathered in the neighborhood I think it is encouraging. I will try again next year with a lot more seeds. I also plan to harvest some acorns to plant this fall.


That's what's going on in brevity at our household. Hopefully I can keep up and dedicate enough time to certain topics in future entries.

OP-367 Update

I'm starting to smell the stench of failure. Don't get me wrong, some of the poplars look like this.


Most of them do not. I was looking for about 75% of the cuttings to survive in order to call it a success. Granted I have never done this before so I could be wrong, but it is looking to me like I am going to get about a third of them to live. Not a success in my book. Tomorrow I'm going to email the guy that I bought them from, and see how many of the cuttings he will replace and how I can do better. So far his customer service has been excellent. I think it is important to share failures as well as successes. Along those same lines, here are a couple of things I would have done differently.

1. Weather - Ok, so I can't control the weather but I can tell you we are having an unusually cold spring complete with the occasional frost.

2. Longer Cuttings - Since we have sandy soil on our land, I think longer cuttings would have been in contact with more moisture. Also, our soil seems to "float" the cuttings to the surface when it rains. Longer cuttings would probably anchor down a little better.

Only time will tell how many poplars are really going to live. The good news is, I can take my own cuttings in the future if I do ever get them to grow.

Operation OP-367

If you know what an OP-367 is, you might be as big of nerd as I am. Last night my wife, my parents and I planted 300 hybrid poplars on our acreage. Clone OP-367 to be specific. What was the purpose, you may be thinking. It is the birth of my future wood lot. Why poplars? Poplars grow fast and can regenerate from the stump once cut down. Poplars are a hardwood, albeit a softer hardwood.

Here's the plan: you plant a quarter acre a year of the poplar cuttings for four years in succession. Every year (after the fourth year) you harvest a quarter acre for firewood. The trees will be about 4-6 inches in diameter, a good sized log that doesn't need to be split. Just cut it into length for the wood stove. Each quarter acre should yield 3 cords of wood their first cutting and 5 each cutting after.

Poplars aren't as good for firewood as say oak, but they will yield more BTUs per acre when planted on 6' centers.

The little buggers came in bags of 25.

You plant them so that only one bud is showing out of the ground. That's a Sakakawea dollar next to it. It was the only change my Dad had in his pocket.

My Wife and my Mom doing some final watering.

I tried to mulch around each one with mulch to retain moisture.