What did you do in the garden today?

[MissChick@dee]

Roofers banging away on the roof, racing the rain.
Fox snatched one of my hens last evening, but didn't get away with her.Fox ran off with her through the alpaca field, so I didn't have clear shot. Alpaca scared it and it dropped Cinderella, who hobbled and flopped her way back up to me, where she collapsed. I had to put her down. She is now in the trap.

This old fox is a serious pest. Multiple visits a night, any time of day, and has killed numerous hens and ducks all over the valley. She has no fear of people, and is smart as a ...well....fox. She is very individually marked, so we know it's her. Here she is just trying to figure out how to get to the bait without getting trapped herself. 4 trips to the coop last night alone (she can't get in, but she sure tries) Yes, she's sitting in a giant pile of feathers from her strike earlier in the day.
View attachment 1809223
It's not for lack of food, she just prefers shopping at the local markets instead of hunting.

Anyway....haven't been to the garden yet today. I need to put up a deer fence around the melons as the deer are tripping on the irrigation lines. I put a few seeds in where the original plants died. I'll weed tomorrow.

... ... sorry for Cinderella. It’s never easy to put down a animal. I’m hoping by the time this posts that the fox has been dispatched.

 

[MissChick@dee]

THey went over it with a large magnet sweep several times, but then they blew the roof and more landed that they didn't catch. A storm last night blew MORE off the roof that they didn't catch. I've already collected over 200 that have washed just from the downspouts last night and the night before.

We are metal dectecting tonight and picking up bits with our own magnetic sweeps. Roofer knows I will send bills for car tires, tractor tires, implement tires, mower tires that get damaged from nails.

DH just picked up 3 more from behind my truck that were not there when we went to bed last night.

It would be different if it were one or two but it's a crazy number. I have also found 4 20 inch long rolls of nails from their nail guns they tossed in the yard and forgot about. OMG if I had hit that with the shredder mower!

Also, I caught one guy on both days using the back of my hayshed as a toilet! Even though there was a fully modern private bathroom available to them in the barn they were roofing! He walked 100 yard to take a wee on my building! WTH! WHO DOES THAT?!?!?! I also had to clean up their lunch mess....chicken bones, banana peels, peach pits, orange peels, they spilled sticky soda on my porch (rain took care of that), scratched the heck out of my vinyl deck railing. Yes, roof co. manager will be getting feedback. I spent an hour every two hours, going around collecting the plastic shingle wrappers and blowing pieces. They didn't seem to understand that the animals here will eat that crap and die, or it will blow into my hayfield rendering bales worthless.

I've determined that having contractors working around is like making sausage. You don't want to watch the process, just enjoy the end product. UGH.

Dang!

 

[MissChick@dee]

When the roofing manager called me last week to schedule the install, I told him the good days would be Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before 3pm, Tuesday will be wet. He said, "you people are always wrong. We'll deliver the shingles Monday, do tear off Tuesday and roof Tuesday."

So the crew shows up at 630am MONDAY and starts ripping my roof off, no shingles ever did arrive. Glorious roofing day, sunny, just a light breeze, and 75 degrees. Gorgeous.
Manager calls at 130pm to say, "well guess you noticed they started a day early." DUH...I wasn't prepared for a crew of 15 people and their mess, just a delivery of shingles, so that day of work shot.

Tuesday, it rains before dawn. Crew shows up at 7am, they have nothing to do, but make a mess and hang out chatting until 9am when the shingles show up. OK.....spend all day working. Manager shows up on site at 1pm. Says, "told ya it wouldn't rain" well it didn't rain that morning 30 miles south of me....but it rained here. I then said, but it's about to rain. He said 'nah'.

Three minutes later, the crew is sitting in their truck while a downpour goes over. Manager is standing under the eaves of the barn looking at the sky. When he left, he did apologize for the 'always wrong' comment.

Two more pop ups in the afternoon that crews just kept working through..ticked off. OH and get this. They finished at 530pm, but sat around chatting on their coolers in my driveway, or in their cars - radios going , until 730. Guess they were running out their 12 hour clock.

Shakin’ My Head~
Some people.....

 

[igorsMistress]

Funny how our fields of expertise color our lives! I'm a scientist, can't help it! so the phrase "I read it on the web" sometimes gives me involuntary twitches.

so true!

 

[igorsMistress]

No metal costs moe upfront andactually would raise my insurance premiums. It's not as hail resistant as we think it is. And insurance goes up because it will cost more to replace.

We have a high impact rubber asphalt composite roof. Looms like normal shingles but much tougher. 50 year transferable warranty. Will get the generic code for it when it dig out my binder later.

Didn't see your response here.

Nope, sorry. Our old roof was 5 years old. (and it was a replacement for a 2 year old roof that was beaten by 2" hail, single layer asphalt both times, our state doesn't allow stacking of layers- we didn't live here either time.)

Although I appreciate your input. I got the quote for what our rate would be if I went with standard shingles like what was on there, it would be exactly the same as always, if I went with steel (went up 17%) and then what it would be if I upgraded to the high impact roofing. Rates dropped for my separate hail policy by 30% a YEAR! All keeping the same $$$ per building deductible, which is standard in a high risk hail state.

We've had no claims in 23 years on our home policies.

It's not that it will last for 50 years, like companies say it's a 30 year shingle or a 40 year shingle. It is covered by the manufacturer for 50 years.

It's also not the intensity. It's the size, the driven speed, angle of impact, and duration.

Meteorologist, can't help it.

Our hail lasted one hour and 11 minutes at mixed size, mostly of nickel and dime size. It spent 14 minutes at quarter (1") size, and a full two minutes at 1.78". It was a narrow band of hail at the larger size of only about 20 feet wide that went over the neighboring pasture, the center of my orchard, one of the barns, and the center of the house, before crossing the road to the neighbors pond and house.

Luckily we had almost no wind so they came straight down and were repelled by the windows and siding. Our young roof didn't blink at the 1 inch hail, but cracked and bruised with the 1.78" hail at terminal velocity, as did my umbrella and foot. Although watching DH run across the lawn with a 5 gallon bucket on his head was worth the price of admission.

That said, the roofers did more damage to my gutters that the hail did! Good grief.

@penny1960 it's an amorshield SBS ClassIV shingle You can also go super fancy and get them that look like slate and tile, but that wouldn't suit this style of house.

Anyway......
Garden, spotted a squash bug the other day in the main garden. Bwhahahaaaa won't he be disappointed. I didn't plant cukes or squash in there this year.

Beans are planted as is some nice mustard for harvesting actual mustard seed.

Another .52 inches of rain last night. Install irrigation systems all over and what does it do? Rain all the time. Many of our farmers still can't get into the fields.

Fox came shopping 3 times again last night. She was hungry enough to TRY to get the bait, but didn't get stuck in it.

I will keep trying. I heard hysterically crying pre-teen boys last evening at dusk from down the road. I wonder if she visited their duck pen. I'll call later when I know they're all up.

Anyway.....everyone have a pest free, weed free day !

It's the impact resistance of that rubber and asphalt combination. Very big deal in TX and CO, should be in more places for more carriers. Since the prior roof was only 5 years old, l can see why the rate wouldn't have gone down.

Still, might be worth asking your agent about a new price. I've had one claim from hail damage, right after we bought this house. The roof was only 5 years old but no transferable warranty unfortunately. Thankfully we'd been with our carrier many years without claims so we had claim forgiveness and our rate didn't go up afterward.

 

[WthrLady]

Didn't see your response here.



It's the impact resistance of that rubber and asphalt combination. Very big deal in TX and CO, should be in more places for more carriers. Since the prior roof was only 5 years old, l can see why the rate wouldn't have gone down.

Still, might be worth asking your agent about a new price. I've had one claim from hail damage, right after we bought this house. The roof was only 5 years old but no transferable warranty unfortunately. Thankfully we'd been with our carrier many years without claims so we had claim forgiveness and our rate didn't go up afterward.

Ya, our rates are LOW! I've asked our neighbors what they pay. I'm doing well. Major National Military based insurer. Been with them 30 years. I'm not going anywhere.

OOOOO NEW avatar! Relative or story behind it IgorM?

 

[MissChick@dee]

Good Morning Gardeners
My Banana Yucca has 4 blooms last years there was only one.
The purple fingerling potatoes have blossoms.
It’s going to be 95 today what a jump in temperatures. The one nice thing about living at this elevation is that it cools down at night. We slept with the windows open last night it was lovely.
Time to go play outside have a good one!

 

[pennyJo1960]

Lot's of things to look forward to here then have 3 folks coming to give bids
so will pick all roofing companies

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Funny how our fields of expertise color our lives! I'm a scientist, can't help it! so the phrase "I read it on the web" sometimes gives me involuntary twitches.

But I have trouble remembering when we didn’t have Google!

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

When the roofing manager called me last week to schedule the install, I told him the good days would be Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before 3pm, Tuesday will be wet. He said, "you people are always wrong. We'll deliver the shingles Monday, do tear off Tuesday and roof Tuesday."

So the crew shows up at 630am MONDAY and starts ripping my roof off, no shingles ever did arrive. Glorious roofing day, sunny, just a light breeze, and 75 degrees. Gorgeous.
Manager calls at 130pm to say, "well guess you noticed they started a day early." DUH...I wasn't prepared for a crew of 15 people and their mess, just a delivery of shingles, so that day of work shot.

Tuesday, it rains before dawn. Crew shows up at 7am, they have nothing to do, but make a mess and hang out chatting until 9am when the shingles show up. OK.....spend all day working. Manager shows up on site at 1pm. Says, "told ya it wouldn't rain" well it didn't rain that morning 30 miles south of me....but it rained here. I then said, but it's about to rain. He said 'nah'.

Three minutes later, the crew is sitting in their truck while a downpour goes over. Manager is standing under the eaves of the barn looking at the sky. When he left, he did apologize for the 'always wrong' comment.

Two more pop ups in the afternoon that crews just kept working through..ticked off. OH and get this. They finished at 530pm, but sat around chatting on their coolers in my driveway, or in their cars - radios going , until 730. Guess they were running out their 12 hour clock.

I had OSHA inspectors show up when the team manager was not around and none of the workers could speak English. Of course they spoke Portuguese so work stopped until we got an interpreter to show up to tell them they were getting fined for not wearing their safety belts. That was quite a day.