About a week ago, son David called and said there were free swamp mats, stacked in a yard, leftover from when, during a COVID layoff, he had worked as a skidder operator on the pipeline near Floodwood, Minnesota. These pads are for heavy equipment to run on over possibly soft ground, so they don’t get stuck or damage the soil. They are about 18-feet long, composed of 8×8-inch timbers, bolted together about 4 feet in width. Some folks use them for firewood or even building projects.
As Floodwood is only about 86 miles from us, Will called a friend who is an independent semi-driver to ask if he could haul some home for us and if he was interested. That was a “yes-yes” and he’s going to go get them tomorrow. Today, Will and I drove down there to scope out the situation and were very happy with the results. There were literally acres of piles of swamp mats, maybe 10 feet high. All the way home, we talked about ideas of how to use some of them for other than firewood. We can possibly use them for solid walls for Will’s cow run-in shed he’s building off the cow yard, even, with some pressure washing, saw some up on our bandsaw mill for other projects. The not-so-hot ones, of course, can be firewood for Drew and us. We’re pretty excited to see them home tomorrow! It’s so cool when something like this comes up. Free is wonderful. Of course we’ll be paying for the trucking, but, still, what a wonderful opportunity!
Otherwise, we’re filling seed orders as spring gets closer and closer. (Closer for some folks than us, but closer, anyway!) I’m mapping out our gardens for this year. As we don’t have time to start onions this year, we got together with friends, Sherri and Dara, plus the folks at the Nett Lake Reservation, to make a group order of onion plants from Dixondale Farms in Texas. We’ve bought plants from them for two years now, and a long time ago, when I did market gardening, I bought cases from them. The more you buy, the cheaper the bunches are, so we always try to order with friends.
With our warmer weather, we’re sure thinking of spring! — Jackie
