Month: February 2023

Office closing in on finish line, sorta…

Steve HardinLeave a comment

My last two days of staycation were spent working on the office. The nephews came out to move their grandma’s new loveseat into her house. It was on our front porch so they had to move out the old one, into the wife’s new office and on the way past the old chicken coop we picked up an old TV stand, an empty Victrola case and an old wooden closet. All four pieces got unloaded into the office. I tried to keep them more toward the middle as I knew the trim still needed to be installed. More like measured, cut, sanded, dry fitted and cut a second time. I was not really feeling like working on the trim so I cleaned and polished all of the furniture. Annmarie was out of town so I wanted it to all be clean when she got home. Sarah came out and held the new overhead room light up into the air so I could easily install it. Letting it hang by the grounding wire just doesn’t seem to be a good option any more. The new light works wonderfully. The only real problem is I, for some unknown reason, put the light switch on the wrong side of the door. I think I got a left hand sided door and really needed a right hand door. So now the switches are behind the door. I did install the switches before I had the doors installed.

On Sunday, I took the wife out to inspect the office. I had spent the morning cutting and dry fitting trim. I could not do the floor trim until I trimmed out the door first. Unfortunately, the wall is leaning about 1.5” out away from the room. So when I squared up and leveled the door there is a huge gap near the top of the door. I had to come up with an overlapping system of boards to fill the gaps and appear to be planned. Once that was done I could start in on the floor. I managed to get over 50% of the trim cut and dry fitted.

Annmarie decided that she did not want the closet. It will get moved to the other room for me to use. I am going to store some cleaning supplies in it and some other stuff. It rained for most of the day so I kept wiping my feet on rags I put down outside the entrances. The puppy just does not care whether its cold or rainy or snowy, she wants to be outside. I tried to let her into the laundry room to dry off and she just did not want that. She wanted to run around free. We try to bring her into the house in the evenings and she will stay inside for about 20 minutes before wanting to go back outside. She spends most of her time in the evening on the front porch making sure no one can get into the house. I think I have another three days on the office to get it done. I already installed all the light and switch covers earlier in the week. Once I get the floor trim completed I need to work on the built in stained glass lights and frame to hold it in place. The sheep are not doing anything nor are they currently have babies. They are in limbo when it comes to birthing no more new babies. We had a pair of bald eagles come visit. They flew around the farm for a few hours before wandering off.

Lamb day

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The sheep have taken up more of my staycation than I anticipated. I spent a whole day on Friday messing around with them. Due to all of the babies and only having one Jug left open It was determined I should tag and band babies. I usually just turn the babies loose and in a month try and match and catch random babies. It tends to be inaccurate and fairly labor intensive. Annmarie has been trying to get me to tag and band from the jugs for ages. The real problem is banding the lambs at that age is not easy. I have tagged and banded over 330 male lambs so I am pretty confident in getting it right now no matter the age. Plus it has the added benefit of actually being able to track each ewe accurately. Meathead helped me tag band and give selenium supplement to everyone in the jugs except the newborn twins under the stairs. We then put fresh straw in all of the used jugs and moved panels around to make the momma/baby area bigger and created a chute for the pregnant mommas to get into the barn. As the momma/baby group gets bigger we just keep giving them more of the front of the barn and the preggers get the smaller back half. It took us few years to figure this out! Nothing is ever easy when you start, there are a lot of hard lessons to getting a good routine down. The feeders get moved around also to correspond to the number of mouths needing fed. 






    

  • Date of update- Feb 3, 2023
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  • # of Lambs born – 15
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  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 8
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  • # of ewes still pregnant – lots
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  • # of single lamb births – 2
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  • # of twin lamb births – 5
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  • # of triplet lamb births – 1
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  • # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-6
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  • # tagged female lambs-4
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  • # of bummer lambs – 1
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  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 1
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  • Total # of lambs on farm -13
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  • % birthing rate- 188%
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  • % production rate -163%
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  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
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  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 87%
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Staycation is paying off

					

				Steve HardinLeave a comment			

		
	


	
		

			

It’s been a busy two days.  I went out to the barn yesterday hoping for babies and found none.  So I kicked everyone out, filled the hay feeders and then grained everyone.  I went and opened the barn door to let the sheep in so I could go fill the triplet’s water and spotted a brand new lamb, still covered in goo out in the barn lot.  I literally had only taken 15 minutes to get everything in place.  Now I had no clue who had given birth and they had all bum rushed the door as they wanted to be the first one to eat grain, even the new mother.  I walked up and down the feeders looking for the ewe that had just given birth.  I found her but she was low woman on the totem pole and had not managed to secure a spot on the wall feeder.  We walked back and forth along the feeder until I was finally able to catch her and lock her in a Jug.  As soon as I had the Jug gate secured she hit the gate with her head at a dead run trying to get out.  I went out, scooped up the newborn lamb, I had leather gloves on and they got all gooped up, I then wiped the lamb down with some old hay netting and put her in with her mother.  Mom was not interested in the lamb, only in eating.  I left the lamb and asked Sarah to check in on them in 90 minutes so I could get started on applying polyurethane sealant to the new office floor.  I can use two coats and the best part is if I apply the coats between 4-12 hours after the previous coat I do not have to sand the floor between coats, this was a huge selling point for me. It took me almost three hours to get the first coat on the floor.  I went out after dinner and applied the second coat.  I was back inside by 2100.  The floor looked pretty shiny, but the floor was still wet.  





On a side note, I was at the door doing the last one foot of floor, since I was at the door I had the polyurethane can directly in front of me, instead of the side like normal.  I also had a cheap work shirt with a short breast pocket only.  I had dirtied my two shirts already this week with the zip close breast pockets.  Of course my phone was in my breast pocket and yes it slipped out of my pocket and dropped into the polyurethane!  It was totally immersed, I fished it out and dried it off as best I could.  I then finished the floor and then went inside the house, took the phone out of the case and buffed off the polyurethane until it was gone.  My case had a cover over the charging port but the women tell me that the speakers are no longer as good as they were.  I usually Bluetooth it to an external speaker anyways.  My hearing is not great and I need the bigger louder speakers.  The phone case had to go in the trash.  I am now using Annmarie’s phone case and need to buy a new one.  I am “not to be trusted” without a case. I drop my phone several times a week in the course of just using it.  
























This morning the plan was to get outside, do the chores real quick and then start on the walls.  The Juniper on the ceilings is not going to get sealed, it will remain untouched. The floor was dry enough to walk on.  That polyurethane really did dry quick.  I was pretty impressed.  I am definitely not a professional applicator, as I could spot the imperfections in the finish but most people are not going to notice.  

































The sheep had other ideas.  I found two more ewes that had given birth and the single from yesterday had turned into a set of twins and the crazy mother was now paying attention to both of them.  I got the ewe with a single and the other with twins into new Jugs and proceeded to then feed everyone grain and hay, then let them back in and get water a couple of times for all the Jugged mothers.  Once that was done it was time to go to the old house.  I got interrupted earlier at breakfast to get a loveseat delivered for my mother-in-law.  The nephews will come out on the weekend and help me move the old one out of her house and into the new office and then take the new one to her house.  One more reason for me to get this thing done!  Sarah came out and we started to rub the “Tried and True” onto the walls, it gets applied with a lint free cloth liberally then wiped off in 60 minutes.  It took us almost six hours to get all the walls rubbed on then off.  Tomorrow I will work on the trim.  

					


	
	


			
				


	


		
Closing in on office

					

				Steve HardinLeave a comment			

		
	


	
		

			

Well the sheep are letting us down.  Annmarie is hoping the mommas all have their babies this week while I am off so she does not have to deal with them at 0400 in the dark before work.  I am hoping the same thing but yesterday there were no new babies.  So the triplets stay in the pen with their momma and everyone else still gets to run around.  
























I had to go to town so I picked up the new front tire for the John Deere tractor.  I also picked up stain and polyurethane for the office floor.  Annmarie and I decided that a lighter color would be better in the office.  I told her it would show more floor imperfections but we decided that since it is the original floor that is not a problem.  There was a lot of “wax on, wax off” action as I stained the floor.  The floor that was sanded the smoothest took up the least amount of stain.  The small spots of brown/white paint that could not be sanded out show through.  There is some kind of green stain over by the window across from the door, no idea what it is but it shows through.  There are also two spots of oil stains that show through on the NW wall that show through also.  The rough sandpaper marks are visible, for the most part now you cannot catch your toe on any edge in the room, you can tell there are a couple of wavy spots but no edges.  The worst part is the temperature needs to be above 50 F for the stain to dry effectively. I was smart this time and worked carefully towards the door so I did not stain myself into a corner.  This only takes once before you realize it is crucial to getting even coverage.  I will need to hang both heaters in the windows today before I start sealing the floor.  I will also need to dry mop the entire floor to get any loose particles up before I put down the polyurethane.  I kept snapping pictures to send to Annmarie to see if she liked the color as I progressed.  










I placed an order for parts for the barn system on Sunday.  I am super stoked about getting it installed.  I am hopeful I can do it this weekend.  If needed I will get the entire light strings up and then do the charger conversion last.  I could have lights in every room of the barn for $300 in supplies!  I will be making a You Tube video for this process.  It is too cool not to take the time and record it so it can be duplicated.