This last couple weeks were away from the ranch. Five days were spent in Las Vegas. Hey, I know what your thinking, but there was no gambling going on for me. I'm smarter than that. One look around and I just knew all the glitz and glamor was not built because people won fortunes. No, no. I had a Grand daughter that was graduating from high school. She will soon be 18 years old. Oh boy, I don't even want to think about how close I am to become Great Grand Father. Sheesh, that sounds old.

Since we are into sky pictures, here's one that my sister took last May from her back yard of the Las Vegas lights. She lives in a town to the South of Vegas that's called Boulder City. Just over those hills is the valley that Las Vegas resides in so the picture is taken facing North toward Vegas. What you are seeing is not the sun going down but the lights of Vegas reflecting into the sky from the other side of the hills.

After returning from Vegas, my friend's parents in Iowa were having a 50th wedding anniversary. For some reason his parents took a shine to me and made sure that I received an invitation to the celebration. Of course during that three-day stay my friend roped me into a tree-sawing experience. I always carry work clothes, gloves, and a set of basic tools everywhere I go, just in case.

About once a month I travel to our Capitol city of Lincoln Nebraska to help with odd jobs at a place called Nebraska Family Council. It's a nonprofit organization that watches over the Nebraska lawmakers and gives them advice about family issues in Nebraska. They acquired a hundred-year-old house a couple years ago and made it their headquarters for the organization. The building is in constant need of maintenance and repair. So, the task for this week was to raise up a sagging porch, lift up a sagging porch ceiling and paint over the slippery porch surface with porch paint that had sand in it.

Here's where we had to crawl into to gain access to the sagging porch under side. We always have to make a home improvement store run before beginning any project. This time we gathered up two short building jacks, screws for the sagging ceiling boards, and paint. Now for a base to keep the jacks from just sinking into the ground we reused a cement slab that was two inches thick, and two feet wide and four feet long. Al the fellow in the picture facing the camera was helping me with these projects. I would like to say that the two of us alone carried the ready made slab to its final resting place but neither of us could lift an end of the slab. Al and I canvassed the neighborhood and convinced a couple healthy young men to give us a hand with moving the slab. Once we got the slab to the entrance of the crawl space, we formulated a brilliant plan.

We placed the slab on an old skate board with plywood pieces under the wheels. As we slowly moved the slab along under the porch the piece of plywood from the rear would be placed up in the front and rotation of plywood pieces continued until the slab was in the proper place. I felt like I was an Egyptian moving a building block for some great pyramid.

We didn't find too many surprises under the porch, only two bits of fur from some critter's lunch. Everything went off without a hitch and it was time to tighten up the jacks and lift the porch up. A treated 4X4 piece of wood set on top of the jacks and spanned several floor joists. We turned up the jacks as far as possible by hand then used a wrench to lift. It's truly amazing how much lift can be applied with screw jacks.

One of the perks to helping around the house is to spend a night 30 miles out in the country on the farm. There's nothing quite like seeing the stars in a completely black sky while hearing the croaking frogs on the pond singing bass to the chirping cricket's song. Early morning breakfast on the patio with Folgers in my cup is a great way to wake up. It just doesn't get any better than that.

That's about it for this week. Thanks for dropping by and leave a comment to let me know how your week has been.

Finally the containers for Poor Man's Patio are planted. The final count for containers to be watered is 24. Up from last year's 10. That watering issue will be bigger this year. There are too many containers to water for just one leg of drip system so I will have to either have two legs or figure out something different. I came up with my own special mix for potting.  It was equal parts of vermiculite, Miracle Gro potting soil, and Omagro compost (composted yard waste sold to the public and landscappers). It should be the best ever. I might have over planted just a little, but when container planting it's always good to over plant some.

My makeshift potting table is nothing more than just a couple old rickety saw horses and my loading planks for the truck. The whole process of planting the patio took about 2 hours. Then it was off to the Goodrich store (ice cream store) for a giant butterscotch malt for supper. I planted the pole beans in the two pots and hope that they will do well. The Morning Glory soaked over night and will be planted today or tomorrow. I hope they do better outside than in the sprouter. I just haven't gotten the hang of using the sprouter yet.

I got day lilies from my friend, Carol, this week when I brought over the ladder so she could clean out her gutters. I wanted to plant the day lilies interspersed with the Daffodil and Tulips that are now dying back.  I've discovered that day lilies are not bulbs but are called fans and are a clumping plant. The day lilies are not going to work out like I wanted. I think the hostas will be just fine, and the area will be covered with mulch. I didn't know that day lilies were clumping and got so big. That height will block the small hostas in front of the foundation bushes. So Day Lilies go somewhere else for sure. It's been a learning process for me on how to plant flower beds.

Well, here is the Poor Man's Living Patio for this year. It looks a little different than last year.  It has Dusty Miller, Begonias, Impatiens, Vinca, Wave Petunia, and in the trellis pots pole beans, Morning Glory, and the new addition to the patio is the trellis.  I hope it turns out like the picture in my mind.  Once I got the potting mix made it was not too long to get everything potted up.

Well, that's what's been happening around the Urban Ranch this week.  I'm getting a little tired from all the mixing and potting so I'm going to sit back and enjoy my cup of Joe while taking in the view.  See you next time and leave a comment and tell me what you been planting.

Hi again. The weather this week was rain with rain and more rain. There was not much to do except inside work.

I decided maybe it was time to clean out that kitchen cabinet that housed the left over containers. Just how many left over containers does a family of three really need?

In fact I’ve discovered that the best left over container is a mason canning jar. If the left overs are put in the jar hot and the lid screwed down it will seal. Now I’m not saying this will be good for long term storage but it does extend the left over time from 2 to 3 days to at least a couple weeks time. I store the sealed jars in the refrigerator as an additional precaution. Anyway one 33 gallon trash bag full into the trash made the closet much more tidy.

Many of the GRIT bloggers have been posting about their chickens and their techniques on caring for them. Well, since I had time on my hands because of the rain this week I decided it was time to assemble my flock of chickens. I even found a barn coop for them to stay in if needed. I’ve been collecting my girls for some time by frequenting the local Good Will store. The Iris were cut from my sea of Iris on the West side of the house. These stems had fallen into the yard from the Iris bed. Instead of just throwing them in the compost I decided to bring them in the house to decorate the table. It’s the first time real flowers have been in the house since .... well since ever. Another first for Old Nebraska Dave.

My black beauty tulips came into bloom right after the tulips of fire started winding down. They are now just about finished but the Iris are starting to come into full bloom. I am in need of reblooming day lilies and have been in hot pursuit of tracking down some for over planting the tulips. I have discovered that day lily roots are referred to as fans and the best I could find was about one dollar a fan. That’s just a little more expensive than I thought it would be.

As you can see the Iris are really starting to put on a show. Hopefully this display will last a couple more weeks until the peonies come into bloom. They are starting to produce the big buds and usually break into full bloom about Memorial Day in Nebraska.

Since I couldn’t dig in mud for the watering system, I decided to start working on the trellis I have in mind for the living poor man’s patio. While in the home improvement store placing concrete blocks on the transport truck a man came walking by and asked, “How many of those are you getting?”

I replied, “I’m getting 10 but wish I could get more.”

He surprised me with, “I have about 30 blocks at my place that I would just give to you if you want them.”

Well, free is good, so I followed him home and gathered up the 27 blocks he had and sneaked home with a load of I figure close to 1500 pounds on my little Ford Ranger named “Ranger Rick – Ricky for short.” I think he’s rated for a payload of 500 pounds. I can truthfully tell you that I didn’t feel a single bump all the way home.

This was one of the rainy days so I set up shop in the garage. I started working on the trellis that will hopefully be covered with pole beans and morning glory. I was real hesitant about the morning glory because in my humble opinion it’s real close to being a noxious weed. It’s hard to keep under control and stay contained. My plans are to plant it in a container on the patio and never let it get out.

This is the top of the trellis. The sides will be of similar construction and when it’s all together it will stand 8 feet high and 10 feet long. It’s sort of being designed as I build it. I do that a lot. I can build one step then the next and the next. I have the picture of what I want in my mind but I only figure out how to build it as I work on the project one step at a time. It’s not the best way to build I suppose but it works for me. A friend and I once designed a storage shed on a paper napkin while eating breakfast at Burger King, bought the supplies that afternoon, and built the shed over the next two days.

I’m hoping to get back to the watering system this next week. I have run into a snag with the watering system. The tank has been setting for over 15 years unused and has rusted through the seam of the tank. I tried to light up sparky my welder, but just ended up blowing a bigger hole through the rust. The lesson learned was you can’t weld rust. The plan now is to pop rivet sheet metal over the hole, solder around the patch seams, and seal it up with silicone sealant. If that don’t do it then plan C will have to go into effect. Oh, plan C, ah, haven’t figured it out yet.

That’s what has been happening on the urban ranch this week. I hope you have enjoyed the adventures for this week. Leave a comment about what’s been going on in your part of the world. I hope you have a great week and I’ll see ya next week.