Month: March 2023

Dang Dog

Ann Marie HardinLeave a comment

I think every puppy gets a post like this. And it’s really, at the base of it all, our fault. We know it – every time. As usual, we haven’t spent enough time actually training the puppy, and now we get to pay the price for that. The good news is that no-one was hurt. The only potential casualty is my cell phone, and maybe a pair of shoes. I should start at the beginning.

Steve had asked Mr. Professional to check on chicks at the local feed supply store. Steve had not mentioned this to me, but Mr. Professional had, so I was not completely surprised by the early morning text from Steve begging for Sarah and I to bail him out and pick up the chicks, all necessary supplies, and get the brooder out of the chicken coop where it lives. He assured us the chicks would be ready at 10:00am, and that the feeder and waterer were in the brooder. Now, it’s important to understand that for the past several years we have been timing our chick purchase so that they can brood out in the coop in the baby Fort Knox Steve built for this exact purpose. So it’s been a while since we have used this particular setup.

Sarah was tasked with getting the brooder all put together while I picked up chicks, bedding, feed and a new heat lamp. As is usual, when I arrived, I was told things were not exactly as we had anticipated. I thought I was picking up 25 reserved chicks of unknown breed. The feed and supply place said they weren’t doing reservations this year and the limit was 10 chicks. At that time I was only the fourth person to show up for chicks so I took my number and gave the chicken lady my sob story. She said she would ease up on the limit since it didn’t look like too many people were waiting (there were only four of us at that moment) but that the chicks wouldn’t be ready to go for another forty minutes or so. Well, the feed and supply store is never a place I mind shopping in, so I wandered around, filling my cart with things we need or will need soon. I picked up some T-post sprinklers for the pasture we are going to reseed this year, some new gardening gloves for when I can eventually get into the garden, and the chicken supplies. I didn’t do too bad. Only two items of clothing made it into my cart. The rest were honest-to-goodness farm necessities. Really they were. I went back to the chicken lady with my number 4 in hand, and discovered that there were now 11 people waiting for chicks. I was not going to get my desired 25. But, I talked her into 12, so I could live with that. I checked out, got loaded up, and dove home.

Sarah had everything set up, but after some consultation and consideration of the coming holiday (Easter is in 10 days), we decided we needed to move the chicks upstairs to inside office (as opposed to my new office). So, the bedding, the brooder, the headlamp, feed, feeder, and what Sarah thought was the waterer went upstairs. It turns out the waterer was missing. What Sarah thought was a waterer was another feeder. We got the bedding spread, and the chicks in the brooder, and I tasked Sarah with filling the feeder while I called Steve to see where he thought the waterer might be. All of his suggestions were various locations in the coop, so I kept him on the phone so he could offer clarifications while I went out the the chicken coop. All was well until I opened the side gate.

Chance, who had not rushed a gate in ages dashed out that gate and straight to the overturned horse feeder where the rooster and a hen were sheltering from the rain. The hen beat her off and ran for the coop, so she turned her attention to the rooster. She chased him all over the ram pasture, with me shouting, “Chance, No!” at regular intervals, while not chasing her since that would only enhance the game. Eventually the rooster turned his circle back towards the coop, and hunkered down in a corner behind me. I wasn’t able to get my hands on the puppy, but I was able to give the rooster a chance to get to safety. Chance was not too sad, and took off for a turn around the pasture. I was done yelling at her, and called her over so she could get back in the yard. All was going well – she was actually coming back – until she noticed the gate to the sheep was open. She put on the brakes and dashed through that gate at full speed.

Now I was chasing her, and hollering, “NO!!” since she was headed for the babies and mommas. She ran them back into the barn and turned to look at me as if to say, “Didn’t I do good!” I called her back and again everything looked OK. Until she saw the one lone ewe. There is something about loners that turns the dogs’ brains off. Chance locked on and wouldn’t let up. She was pushing the ewe towards, which would have been fine, but the ewe was panicked, and slipped in the creek. The next thing I knew, Chance was also in the creek nipping at the ewe’s back legs. I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say she was not actively trying to hamstring the ewe, but that is sure what it looked like! So I had pretty much no choice but to jump in the creek too and drag the dog off. Now we were all three in a corner by the little foot bridge at the end of the momma-baby pen and were in pretty close proximity to one another. I had Chance by the scruff. She kept eyeing the ewe until I finally started correcting that behavior – firmly. Chance go the message and eventually started sucking up to me. In the meantime, Mouse had decided to come help and was laying down pinning the ewe in place with his border collie stare. I needed help. So I tried to use Siri to call Sarah. Apparently Siri did not appreciate my panicked tone of voice and refused to respond. So I laid my cell phone on the nearby bridge and operated it one-handed to call Sarah. She came running out. She was able to call Mouse off, which freed the ewe to cross over the bridge (where my cell phone was still sitting) and run into the ram pasture. I got Chance and me up out of the creek, and realized my cell phone was no longer on the bridge. Yep – it was in the cold muddy rushing creek – nowhere in sight. My shoes were full of mud and water, and I was wet up to my knees. Sarah came back and took Chance. I knelt down on the bridge and felt around the creek bottom. Miraculously I touched my cell phone and was able to fish it out. There was no apparent damage, and it was still on, so I am hopeful.

The ewe was walking rather stiffly, but made it back to the barn where she can dry out and warm up. Chance is completely unrepentant and is unaware of the forthcoming nightly training sessions. I’m pretty sure my shoes are ruined. My cell phone might recover. It’s supposed to be able to tolerate water up to 6 feet for up to 30 minutes. We will see.

There was no chick waterer in the coop. Steve is picking one up on his way home.

Animals think spring is coming

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Along with the great weather the animals are thinking spring is coming! Annmarie went to check on the bees and they are fat and happy. They have tons of pollen and are bringing it back to the hive. We have not seen a single flower but they are getting it from somewhere. They just ignored her while she took some pictures. Hopefully she can get into the hive next weekend and we can tell how much honey made it through winter. If there is lots I would like to steal some more. So we will see hopefully next week.

I let the puppy out into the ram pasture to tear around. She ate lots of sheep poop and ran all over. The sheep were still in the barn so the only animal she could try and terrorize was the horse and she teases the dogs by standing next to the fence. I built a fire and cleaned off the old house porch and burned lots of scrap wood. Chance did come when called and I was able to tell her to “go home” and she ran for the front yard. She is super smart, unfortunately there really is such a thing as too smart. She has been jumping up on the table outside and digging. So far not under the fence. But we found out today that the reason there are dog mud prints on the new office door is that the puppy has learned to open the door!
We have one of those curved handled doors and she is reaching up and opening the latch while pressing on the door. She opened it twice yesterday so we are back to using the dead bolt to keep the door purposefully shut. She will hardly come in and visit with us. She comes and gets loves and hugs then wants to go outside. She sits on the front porch or lays by the door to make sure no one sneaks up on us. We did not teach it but she takes it seriously. Mouse has been picking on her to establish his dominance but she is starting to get tired of it. She is starting to bite back, I expect her to be the dominant dog in another three months. She is just not putting up with his shit anymore.

The sheep are still lambing! We are definitely giving them a small area only so the ram can chase them down more efficiently. This lambing forever is painful. We only had two ewes give birth this week, both had twins. I spent a bunch of time out in the barn on Saturday cleaning out feeders and reloading everything with fresh hay. I really want to get out here and install the 12 V lighting system! The DeWalt hack to the rescue for lighting. But I need to get the wife’s office done first. I told myself no other projects until I get that space completed!!

To that end, Annmarie came up with a fairly brilliant idea, it’s one we have bantered about but I could never see it before. She talked about a rough camping space in a yurt up in field four. We could put it next to the bluffs and raise it about four feet in the air so the animals could not get into it. This would raise it up just enough to give it a great view of the surrounding bottoms but still allow the bluff to protect it from the worst of the weather. Elevating it would also make it easier to install a composting toilet and a small solar panel with a 12 V marine battery. Heck, I might even just be able to use the DeWalt hack and give them a couple of batteries! The internet is spotty so you won’t be using an electrical device much. It would have a small propane heater and double burner propane cook top. Maybe not even have any source of heat. But that would limit the time of the year people would stay and it is pretty in the winter, although we would not be able to have running water in the winter. In the no freezing months we could have 150 gallon water tank. It would not be terribly expensive to get setup. Let’s get through this year and see if it is something we want to do.

The neighbor moved his Angus cows in the field just across the road from us again this year. Our old bull, Thor, is a pain in the ass and he goes down to the huge culvert under the road and crawls under the fence and under the pseudo fence on the other side therefore getting into his cows. This then prompts the owner to text us and we have to go get him. Now he worked hard to get over there and is never super keen to just come home. I chased him around with the tractor for about 30 minutes before he went back to the culvert and I was able to move a panel to lock him in that area. Mr Professional came back out and before we could formulate a plan, Thor just went back through the culvert. He just ducks, squats and bulls his way through. We chased him all the way up to Alcatraz through the bottoms and then our yard and into the impenetrable pen. Now that he is in there with the ram and other two whethers we will have to feed every day. It took 1.5 hours to get him corralled. I am so glad we are taking him to his soon to be forever home! Only six more weeks to go before he is no longer a problem.

Office is as good as done!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

This was a very productive weekend! The office took up half of the weekend, not the exciting half but definitively the productive half. I spent a couple of hours on Friday pouring over the instructions on where to attach the door hangars. They only needed to give one measurement, the distance from the top of the door to the bottom of the wheel. No where in the entire instructions, which I kept from last time, did they bother to give that distance. They gave some other random distances and spots on the door that were wrong but not the one I needed. I ended up getting a couple of clamps, cutting two small pieces of wood to the hanger and trying to get it to fit onto the track. I managed to find the correct height, then I measured the door from the floor, subtracted the gap at the bottom and the gap at the top and came up with a door build height. I rough cut the 16 foot board at 82” on one side so I could get them out of the old house alone. It took two of us to thread those 16’ boards into the cramped space. I stacked the boards in bunches of five then cut off both ends at the same time so the boards all matched. Mr Professional came out and we set up a workspace out in the yard. I was initially opposed but after assembling two doors next to the saw in the sunshine, it was nice.

I had come up with the design of using the 2” wood for the X but I had a star pattern drawn out on a piece of cardboard and before I could stop him Mr Professional had ignored my pattern and we went with the hollow X. The next day we tried my pattern but I realized that I would have to cut every single piece in half and I was afraid it would cut down the structural strength of the door. We made it out of tongue and groove that we also used on the walls. We glued them then used pipe clamps to squeeze them together and then screwed on the cross pieces and hung them up on the wall to dry. I think I could have perfected my X cross pattern if we had made a third door. They are not exact but you have to pay attention to notice the difference. This was done on purpose. The direction of the long X pieces on both doors was deliberate. Ideally the screws would all line up but we had to miss knots in the wood and this is not a factory thing, it’s supposed to mimic a barn door and most people don’t measure out placement for screws on a barn door. I just need to rub on the finish for both doors. It will only take an hour but today there was no time.

We needed to get the Glowforge laser engraver all set up. I had purchased duct work to vent it out the side of the room but I failed to account for the actual width of the laser. I ended up running to town and getting metal dryer vent solid ducting and a clamp on connector. We then just drilled a hole right out the back of the laser through the wall and mounted the actual fan outside the building. This means we had to make a shelf outside and we will have to build an enclosure around it and put on a slanted roof over it to shed water from the corner drain off the roof. To get the fan controller through the wall I unwired the controller from the fan allowing us to drill a small hole and use a piece of copper wire to pull it through. This then meant there was no power for the fan outside the house. So I had to kill the power, get into an outlet box and drill out the back of the box to outside and wire in jumper power to a new outside box. This was done and we were able to verify that the fan does work. We added a screen to the inside of the vent so that birds could not fly up the vent. I need to get a waterproof cover that allows the plug to stay plugged in.

We had purchased a sheet of cork 2×3’ long to put behind the Victrola wooden screen we removed from the front of the Victrola. It turned out pretty nice other than I mounted it on the wrong side of the desk. I hung up the office clock after I ensured it was going in the desired spot. The only thing left now is to finish the insulation in the attic, install the attic vent fan, getting freezer room floor installed and then completing the wiring in the second room. Luckily, the only thing left that the wife can see is rubbing on the oil finish on the door, a mere 1.5 hours of labor.

Upstairs bathroom might get finished

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I keep focusing on the upstairs bathroom. I want to get it 100% complete. I had purchased a special Kreg Tool jig to allow me to drill holes on an angle and screw boards end to end. It’s a quick and dirty way to join pieces, much faster than any type of glued joinery. Since we are covering the panels with fabric, it was merely a requirement to build a sturdy frame. The Kreg jig worked like a charm. I even did very well cutting all my pieces the same size. I had the whole thing assembled and then tried to clamp them up in place to drill the pilot holes so I could then install the magnets. Nope, I did not do something right. Turns out I used the wrong inner pieces on two different squares. I had to take them apart, thank goodness for screws, and put the proper pieces back together.

Once I had them all clamped in place then I drilled through each one with a 1/8” drill so that I could line up the magnet on the panels with the face of the closet. I used a 1/2” Forstner drill to get a nice hole to glue the magnet into. I have magnets that will hold 20# and I am using at least four on every panel and six on the larger panels. They should stay in place without any trouble. The hardest part is getting the magnets lined up so they attract each other and not push away! I managed to line up the first panel but almost messed up the magnet direction twice. I decided that since every panel is unique and has holes drilled in different spots I needed to be more careful in my magnet application. I only did one panel and am going to do one panel every night until I get them all finished. I cannot have 3-6 of them all drying at the same time and then try and put them back up on the wall. Our new electric stapler came this week so as soon as the spare staples come we will be ready to go if I can get them all set this week.

Annmarie went out and fed the bees today. They made it through the winter! I saw one fly out of the hive yesterday when it got over 50 degrees. She did not put on her bee suit and open it up. It is still not warm enough yet to expose them to the cold. We are going to get one more hive. We have no plans to go past two.

I have been trying to get one of my plants on the breeze porch to crawl across the ceiling. I built a trellis that hangs from the ceiling. It covers a space about four feet wide and five foot long. The plant has started to die, I think I am overwatering it. So I got a new pot for my large jade plant, about 2×3’ and am going to use my old jade pot for the crawling plant. That pot has a hole in the bottom and can drain all of the extra water. I hope that is the problem. The jade should be good in its new pot for another 5-7 years. I would like to get a five foot jade tree grown before I die. It is not easy and it takes a long time. I have been at it almost 10 years already. It might grow faster if I was nicer to it but I like my plants hardy. Plus I keep cutting it and trimming it to the shape I want. I am working on my staff Christmas presents already this year. I usually start splitting and repotting in Sept/October. I have 12 African violet starts going now. This batch is for me, I want to fill up my shelves again. Once I have the shelves full I will make a set for the staff. They are pretty slow growing so it will take a few months to get them up to any size.

Lambing update week 7

Steve HardinLeave a comment

This weekend I had to spend some quality time in the barn again. The mother/lamb area needed to be expanded. It now covers 2/3 of the barn. The rope we used to tie one side of the creep gate in place is getting stretched by the ewes and the thin ewes are able to crawl through the side. This morning one of the ewes was stuck in the creep gate. She got stuck right in front of her back hips and could not move. I had to pull the pins out of the gate and drag her back out. It took her about ten minutes to get her sea legs under her. Her lamb was glad to see her and kept nursing as much as it could. This has prompted us to get bigger eyelets so that we can stick a 1” rod down through the right side of the gate. We are out of the skinny rods so the bigger aluminum ones need to be used. I am afraid to use an eyelet that just gets screwed into the wood. I am afraid the ewes will just tear it out by pushing on the gate. I had four of them pushing on it Saturday as they were able to get their noses into one of the feeders. They could barely reach it with their tongues but they were not giving it up! I had to lean over the gate and hang in the air to push it away from them. They would not let me pass. I have a bolt on eyebolt that will fit and now just need to install it.

We are now certain that a second ram is needed. We have been lambing for seven weeks and we are still not done. So this spring we are going to keep the sheep in a small contained area when we introduce the ram. NO more letting the sheep run over 40 acres and the ram having to chase them all down.

  • Date of update- Mar 12, 2023
  • # of Lambs born – 48
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 30
  • # of ewes still pregnant – 12 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant
  • # of single lamb births – 13
  • # of twin lamb births – 16
  • # of triplet lamb births – 1
  • # of bummer lambs – 5
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 3
  • Total # of lambs on farm -40
  • % birthing rate- 160%
  • % production rate -133%
  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 83%

We had one of the traveling staff from Florida come out for a few hours on Friday and see the lambs and ewes. She got to pet everyone and tour the house. We then fed her leg of lamb for dinner! It was amazing as always. She wore her snow boots out in the barn. Being a city slicker she had never seen anything like it before. She kept marveling at the fact that there were no neighbors.