Month: April 2017

It is happening

Steve HardinLeave a comment
 
The border collies are trying very hard to be in every picture I take now. I have given up on trying to move them out of the frame. Sunday was the day it started. I am officially beginning the library flooring project. I had a few odd facts to share about day one subfloor installation.  It takes 56 screws to attach a single 3×5 ft piece of concrete board to the floor, this is a lot of screws. Installing this many screws would be harder if I didn’t use an impact driver.  I broke three driver bits, this was made possible by my use of an impact driver. I was afraid I would run out of driver bits as there is only one per bucket of screws and I only had four buckets.  I went out to the old house and dug around until I found every driver bit to fit the square headed screws.  I found 14 bits that would work and brought every one into the house. I can use the impact driver without fear of running out soon. 

I want to send a heartfelt thank you to the manufacturer of gel filled knee pads. This job would not have been possible without the knee pads. I finally gave up on screwing down new sheets when I started to get a blister on my palm. I did try to use my left hand only but it is so awkward I had to go back to the right hand. 

The weather is amazing. We are talking about planting a garden but want it to be above freezing.  This morning early it was at 30 degrees F. Still not quite warm enough. 

  

Spring is really going to happen

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I had a directive to get the subfloor inside installed so I could start laying tile inside the house. It was a good plan and one I was going to follow. It started out slow as I slept in till 0630 as I was sore from the previous days digging. While I slept AnnMarie started our taxes. So when I woke up she wanted me to re figure how our money was spent on the farm. It seems that my tracking of expenses and income vary wildly from the IRS. So the numbers had to be all added up again. While doing this Donna stopped by to say the neighbors bulls were out in our lower wheat field. So the dogs went with us to run the bulls back across the road and into their pasture. We called the neighbor first. As we were walking down the fence line we spotted this deer carcass trapped in the fence. It’s a young deer that got its rear leg stuck. I could not get it loose and will need to come back with wire cutters and cut it out and repair the fence. It made us a little sad and we would have cut it loose this winter had we seen it. The bulls went back with very little effort. The dogs did not get to chase them at all. Their mere presence had the bulls moving where they needed to go. 
 
A friend brought a dump trailer over to get some old sheep manure loaded up. He left the trailer and vehicle so I could fill it sometime today. The problem was another friend from my old job came out and we talked and spent a couple of hours catching up and drinking coffee. He mowed our front lawn while I loaded the trailer. I got an EMS call and had to leave for a couple of hours. When I got back I finished loading the trailer and then scraped the area down over by the lamb shed so I would be ready to finish the gate and fencing arrangement. I do realize I am not fencing but this was preventing us from opening the currently installed gate more than half way open.  I also piled the compost pile back up into a tall pile again. This lets more moisture into the pile and helps break everything down. If I could pump water into the compost piles in the summer they would break down a lot faster. If I can get a couple of weeks with no rain I will burn some more wood scrap piles. 

 

AnnMarie did get to work on the back drip system. She got it roughed out but needs more one more trip to town for more zip ties, a zip tie gun and an automatic timer that can be outside in the weather. Of course no one has a zip tie gun. A whole stinking wall of every size zip tie but no gun to tighten and cut them expeditiously. We ordered plastic a couple of weeks ago. We would like to plant tomatoes and get them to actually grow. We need an extra 4-6 weeks to maximize our production. We keep ending up with lots of green tomatoes in the fall. We dropped a high low thermometer inside the plastic to see what our temperatures will be. 
 
I did come inside the house and remove all the floor trim and start getting ready for subfloor installation.  Tomorrow I will empty out the room and start laying subfloor. I would like to start laying tile by the end of the week. 

Tree farm

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Annmarie has me on a short leash. The weather is perfect for building fence but there are a couple of projects that need to be done first.  I have been told that those projects need to happen as they are holding up other projects.  So yesterday, I went out to plant shade trees. Grandma Ruby’s squirrel planted walnuts and some other shade tree in her horse troughs. We let them grow last year and I needed to get them out of the planters so we could plant our garden. Annmarie is going to set up our troughs on a drip system with automatic timers so our plants get plenty of water this year.  The only problem is the trees are in the way. So my job was to plant said trees. There were 11 trees, the problem with this is it requires 11 holes in the ground. After I spent an hour digging the first three holes by hand I decided I needed a new game plan. I needed to pick tree locations that could be reached by the tractor so I could use the post hole auger to drill the holes for me.  What good is a mistress if you don’t use her?  So I removed the grass in seven more spots with a shovel and my mistress and I dug the other holes. I sat, she did all the work. It still took me over five hours to get all the trees in the ground and watered. I planted all the walnut trees in the ram pasture. I still need to put up some fencing around them, but for now there are no animals in there to eat fresh new green leaves. Once I get some fencing up the sheep can use the pasture but no horses. They reach over the fence and eat the tops out of the trees.  
 
Spring makes everything a beautiful green color. There is so much water that the pipes still connected to the hand dug well are running water (see picture) behind the lamb shed.  I was thirsty so opted to take my life into my own hands and drink from the spigot. Ice cold clear wonderful water and I am not sick a day later. It always amazes me that we can drink the spring water year round and never get sick. A true blessing to have fresh water year round.  Eventually, I would like to get an old windmill and water pump setup over the well to pump water out for us. 

 

After I got the trees out of the planters I tilled up the dirt with a shovel. I took quite a bit of dirt out with the trees so I let Annmarie know that we would need to buy more soil.