Homemade Tomato Cages - Cost Benefit Analysis and Final Thoughts

It's the third year of using our Homemade Tomato Cages and with that experience under my belt, I thought it might be useful to perform a final cost benefit analysis to determine if it was worth it to go through the trouble of making these Homemade Tomato Cages.  There are also a few pros and cons of these tomato cages that I'll pass along in case you're interested in replicating these for your garden. 

In case you missed the previous posts about these tomato cages over the years, you can read the First Post, the Second Post, and the Third Post in chronological order.  These posts offer the full story along with details on how to make some of your own. 

So was it worth it to build these myself versus buying them?  Right off the bat my knee jerk reaction is yes since there just aren't commercially available tomato cages that are this big and this sturdy.  But how much did each tomato cage cost?  Well I purchased the following materials:

5' x 50' Reinforcing Mesh, 10 Gauge -        $29.99
10" End Cutting Pliers (to cut wire mesh) - $19.99
Spool of Wire for securing cages -                 $3.49

New Pages on the Blog

A few months ago we added some additional pages to the world famous Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes blog.  These started out as the garden variety "About Us" types of things, but quickly and predictably took on a life of their own.  You now have a lot more back story of the three pooches here at the homestead, and we'll add more later.

So please take some time, if you haven't already, and read the background story, pictures, and blog entries about the three furry critters that make our lives so dang entertaining.

The Tale (or Tail) of Tito

The Saga of Shaak Ti

The Story of Shadowfax

A Guilty Dog

Wanna see what a guilty dog looks like?

Shadowfax the puppy had a dilly of a time digging up the clematis vine that I had just planted, her toes were caked with dirt.  At least she looked appropriately guilty. 

Being bad can make you tired, tired as a sleepy dog. A pink-tummied, spotted, sleepy dog.

Homemade Vanilla Extract Follow Up

It was over a year ago that I wrote about Making Homemade Vanilla Extract.  That post detailed how to make the vanilla extract, but I never got around to mentioning how it turned out.  Well, it turned out great.  We've been using it for six months or so and I can't tell the difference between the homemade and the store-bought, except that the homemade stuff is 1/10th the price.

This is what it looked like after about six months.  Since we have two bottles this size, we took one bottle, ran the contents through a coffee filter (to get the vanilla bits out) and left the second bottle in the dark pantry to keep infusing its vanilla-esque goodness.

A few months later, it was even darker and more chock full of vanilla flavor.  Since it's pretty much just alcohol with vanilla beans in it, it will stay good for quite a while.  This is a good thing since it might take us another year to get to this bottle. 

Glimpses of Yellow

We saw glimpses of bright yellow this week on the homestead.

Yellow tulips are almost spent, this is probably their last day of full blooming glory.

Brilliant yellow American Goldfinches.  This picture doesn't do them justice, but click on it and see how many you can count.  Their cheery active songs and yellow feathering make them a tiny orb of sunlight, flitting around the yard.

Cavalier Evacuation Update

We learned today that Cavalier, North Dakota is re-opening (Grand Re-Opening?) Friday morning at 7:00 am.  Our house guests will probably have some breakfast with us and then hit the road.  It's been fun to have them here, but they're clearly stressed, anxious, and concerned about their house. 

They actually have a friend in town who ignored the evacuation order and scoped out their house.  They learned from their friend that they have about four inches of water in their basement, which isn't catastrophically bad, but certainly is going to be a significant clean up. You can read more about the damn that held and how the town is re-opening on the Grand Forks Herald or WDAZ website.

And even though residents are being allowed back in, the situation is by no means resolved.  The water behind the dam is slowly dropping (by 1/10th a foot per hour) but could realistically still be a problem.  Anyone who comes back in town is being warned that they could be evacuated again, and it's suggested to keep a bag packed in case the order is given to high-tail it out of town again. 

Evacuation of Cavalier, North Dakota

Big news from North Dakota.  Alycia's hometown of Cavalier, North Dakota is under a mandatory evacuation.  The dam about 6 miles west of town is threatening to burst and flood the town.

Alycia's parents live there and already had about 4 inches of water in their basement from seepage due to the 6 to 7 inches of rain that fell over the last 3 days.  Her parents are under mandatory evacuation and are going to be staying with us for little while. More information (and probably some humorous stories) to follow.

You can read the whole "dam" story on the Grand Forks Herald/WDAY News site.

More Bird Sightings - Scarlet Tanager, Indigo Bunting, Northern Baltimore Oriole

It has been an amazing week of bird watching here at the homestead.  After chronicling our sighting of a Rose Breasted Grosbeak and Goldfinches in the post Bird Sighting - Rose Breasted Grosbeak earlier this week, we had several additional cool bird sightings.  Over the last few days we spent much of our time either out in the garden or on the front porch relaxing after working in the garden, so there was ample opportunity for spying birds. 

It's truly a perfect time for bird watching since migratory birds are passing through and trees haven't fully leafed out yet, making it easier to see the birds.  All the photos are from others much better than myself at capturing birds with a camera. 

The first bird we saw was a Scarlet Tanager, a vibrant red bird that grabbed my eye immediately.  I was hoping the red meant that it was a cardinal (I really want to see a cardinal), but the black shoulder and smaller size led us to an identification of the Scarlet Tanager. 

Photo Credit

I also spotted an Indigo Bunting, a bird as brilliantly blue as the Scarlet Tanager was red.  The Indigo Bunting is actually a fairly common bird in South Dakota and North Dakota, but this is the first time we've seen one here on the homestead.  He (I know it was a dude since the ladies aren't nearly as colorful) was a very cool bird, so amazingly blue. 

Photo Credit

After seeing these two cool birds in one day, we thought we had seen enough fantastic things for one season, but the next day we saw a Northern Baltimore Oriole.  This bird caught my eye as a sudden flash of orange.  He (again I know it was a male since the females aren't as colorful) stayed just for a few minutes, and wasn't interested in the sunflower seeds we had to offer.  A bit of research indicated they prefer orange halves, so it might be time to build special feeder just to attract orioles. 

Photo Credit

Spotting the Northern Baltimore Oriole actually led to some concurrent spirited Internet research between Alycia and myself.  There's some debate as to whether the Northern is a different species than the Baltimore Oriole.  From this website about Orioles:

When John James Audubon painted these birds in 1836 and 1825, he considered them to be two different species. For about three decades starting in the late 1960s, many ornithologists thought they were the same species and "lumped them" into the Northern Oriole. Now they've "split" them back the way Audubon thought they were all along.

In addition to the new birds, the Rose-Breasted Grosbeaks have been around all week as well, sometimes as many as a half-dozen at a time.  They're entertaining birds to watch - tumbling, climbing, squabbling with one another, and just generally making for good bird watching.