Month: December 2011

Morning Adventures

Ann Marie HardinLeave a comment
I’m not sure if we have mentioned it, but the grey horse loves babies – of any sort.  She and the puppy have had quite a time because she keeps wanting to sniff him, and since her nose is as big as his head, he finds that a bit frightening.  So, this morning when I looked out and noticed that she was craning her neck to try and get her nose over the barrier between them and the sheep, I suspected we might have babies.  When I went in to the sheep area, though, I didn’t immediately see or hear any babies, so I decided the horse was just being a knuckle-head.  Then, the sheep shifted, and there were two of the cutest little tri-colored lambs standing next to their mama.  I did a quick gender check, and they are girls.  These are the cutest ewe lambs we’ve had yet, and I’m looking forward to adding their coloring to the herd.

Mama and her babies

All is well until I hear a crash behind me, and the horses are suddenly there in with the sheep.  Meeka (the aforementioned grey) had pushed down the board I had wired up to keep the horses out of the sheep area this summer.  The floor is just not stable enough for them.  But, she really really wanted to see those babies.  So, now I had 22 sheep of various sizes, 2 newborn babies, 2 full grown horses, and Zeke (the border collie puppy) all in this tiny little area.  Mama sheep is understandably upset.  The babies are just trying to stay near mama.  Zeke is trying to stay out of everyone’s way, and the horses just want to get to those babies.

I pick up Zeke and put him up in the upper part of the barn to get him out the way, dash back outside to holler at Sarah to call Grandma to take her and her cousin to school, because I’m not going to make it now.  Sarah of course wants to know why, so I tell her, “I’ve got baby lambs and the horses just broke into the barn to come greet them!”  Luckily, she understands exactly what this means, and dashes back in to call for a ride to school.  I return to the barn to try and sort everyone out.  After a little looking and thinking, I get some grain and lure the horses out.  They’ll do just about anything for their morning grain, even leave babies.  Of course, I also got three of the summer lambs (mostly weaned but only half-grown) with them.  They don’t want to go back in, so I leave them out with the horses for the time being and go back in to feed the sheep.  Then, I go to the other side of the barn to give the horses their hay out in the lot.  It all sounds kind of complicated – mostly because it is.  But it’s doable, and the babies will have a chance to get fast enough to be able to avoid the horses. 

45 minutes later, I finally have all the sheep where they need to be and fed, the horses fed, the appropriate gates opened and closed, and can head to town to meet Steve when he drops off the PT Cruiser to get the damage from the suicidal deer of a few weeks ago repaired.  We then spent most of the day getting my grandmother’s new television purchased and set up for her.  Her old one had died of old age after a long a distinguished life of service.  When we finally got home, we snuggled the lambs a bit and took some photos.

Sarah snuggling one of the lambs.  It is impossible to not smile when holding a less-than-one-day old lamb. 

Sneaking up on the greenhouse

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I snagged 8 used windows today for free.  Six of them are double pane 1/4 inch thick on a side, very heavy and 3 ft x 5 ft.  Nice and big, they are old windows that had some kind of plastic film put on them to keep the light out.  The film peels right off with no problems.  I forgot to bring some towels or blankets with me to put between the windows once I put them in the back of the pickup.  It was raining any way and they would have gotten wet.  So instead I used two feminine hygiene pads (hey, they are sticky on one side) at the top of each window.  They nice thing is with the adhesive strips the pads stuck to the glass and stayed in place.  It worked great, I didn’t break a single window.  Luckily I had 14 pads in the pickup.  Two of the windows are 2ft x 2 ft, single pane wooden framed.  These are the type of windows I had initially figured I would have to use.  The double pane old school ones were a great find.  I am still trying to decide on how big to make the greenhouse.  I am thinking around 12 ft x 20 ft.  I want to dig down 2 feet so the ground never freezes in the Winter.  I am also considering making the back wall a heat sink/super thick wall filled with rock/dirt to help regulate the temperature.  Still not sure yet how to do the back wall.  It will have to be pretty tall to help with the temperature regulation in all four seasons.  This is my new fantasy project.  Won’t happen for at least two more years.  This gives me time to do at least fifty revisions of the plans in my head.  This many plans and revisions usually means I don’t have as many problems when I am actually building.

I rehung the upstairs bathroom door.  It closes now without scraping on anything, but it still won’t latch shut.  I spent two hours getting it just right and another 30 minutes trying to get the latch to work.  As Annmarie was calling me for dinner it dawned on me that the reason for the old hook latch at the top of the door was probably because the latch did not work a long time ago either.  I think the solution is to move the entire metal plate 1/16 inch into the room.  This will create a little visible gap when the door is open, but I can stain the wood and it will hide it.  The whole door frame is warped into a C shape with the middle of the C being where the latch is located.  This means taking the locking plate off and chiseling out 1/16 and re-drilling the two holding screws.  Gonna be painful, but I am off the door project for the night.  I was going to do the spare bedroom door tonight but I used up the two packs of shims I had on hand.  So I will get four more packs of shims next week. 

houdini 2

Steve HardinLeave a comment

So it is not enough to own sheep that get out of the fence at every opportunity, we have a puppy who is worse.  After the fiasco earlier in the week were said puppy just leaped over the doggy pen gate and was waiting for us on the front porch when we got home.  We decided that something more secure was needed.  The kennel is the best option for security (Zeke hates it and howls for 30-45 minutes when kenneled, down from 2 hours).  Unfortunately, his bladder limit is only about 4-5 hours.  We were going to go have an early Christmas dinner with my parents and might be gone past the potty limit.  Our solution was to kennel our adult dog in the house and put the puppy outside on our overhead dog run.  We clipped him onto a 15 ft retractable leash attached to a five foot chain onto an overhead wire.  NO way the puppy can get free.  Our 80# lab cannot get off this setup.  Six hours later we come home in the fog and snow and try and spot the puppy in our yard.  No puppy, then Annmarie says “He is on the front porch!”.  Zeke came running out to great us in the driveway.  How does a puppy get off of said prison?  You chew through the cloth band holding the clip to your collar.  So now the retractable leash is toast.  So not only will I need a new retractable leash, I will need to pickup a small section of chain to clip to Zeke’s collar and then (three feet later) clip the other end to the retractable leash.  This way he can never get to a section that can be chewed in half.  

Finished access hatch to stairwell light.

Steve HardinLeave a comment
New puppy, “Zeke”, border collie for the sheep.

 Well, I managed to finish the stairwell access panel despite watching a new puppy constantly.  Zeke is a constant distraction to make sure he doesn’t sneak off and go potty some where he is not supposed to go.  He does very well, will sit at front door already and does make little noises when he needs to go out.  Hates being alone.  Follows me every where and whined when I used the saw and he had to stay on the porch.  Staying on the porch was his idea.  He did not like the saw or the sander. 

This will be painted white soon, sure will be easy to get to the light!

 I had to recut several pieces and tear one back out after installing it, but I did finally get it in place and done.  The hallway side will be painted all white and the inside (bathroom side) will be left bare wood.  It turned out very nice and was made out of $20 worth of wood and some scrap dowels I had laying around. 

View from inside the bathroom

It turned out nice and the dowels lock it into place.  My dowel material was warped.

Next is to repair the fence out by the cattle guard.  Something ran in to it and tore it down.  A small recreational vehicle most likely.  After that then I can start cleaning out the spare bedroom and getting ready to finish it off.  On my off weekend I will do some painting so someone else can watch the puppy.  I don’t want everything covered in paint!