Today Mr Rainman and I went over to a neighbor’s house to pickup some old bags of mortar mix and some calcium field conditioner. It went well and he is always a pleasure to visit. Once those were unloaded it was time to decide which section of fence to work on, the driveway, four corners or the upper gate? We opted to work on the driveway. I wanted to get the wild rose bushes protected from the alpaca during their growing seasons. The alpaca will not let them grow through the fence. They will nibble off every single little green spot they can reach. The Roundup that was sprayed on the driveway is starting to kick in and you can see it working. The game birds and rabbits love to hide in the rose bushes. We lifted the woven wire up off the ground four inches so the little animals can still crawl under the fence. This took us about five hours to install posts and 300’ of woven fence.
The Gingerman came over to help us get the “little dumper” truck onto the flat bed so I could get the brakes worked on. I failed to take into account that the truck was the length of the trailer and all weight is only on the tires. The trailer looked like an upside down U. The Gingerman had to drive it off the trailer and park it in front of the house. He will buy a master cylinder for the brakes and see if he can get the brakes working because my trailer is not going to work. When it starts to warm up consistently I will need to get back to working on replacing all of the rubber window sills.
We finally got some rain! It has rained almost 1/2” over the last five days. We had gone almost three weeks without any rain. The grass needed the moisture. Now I hope it will rain every week for a month.
Saturday was a full day for us and farm work was not going to happen. Mr Rainman came out and spent the day catching up a lot of little things. I had purchased 20 bags of sand, 15 stepping stones and 12 bags of pea gravel the day before for the projects. He started by working in 18 bags of sand into our future asparagus/strawberry elevated bed out in the lavender area. Our two year asparagus crowns had just arrived on Wednesday and they needed to be planted. He had two bags left over and I used those when I planted the 24 crowns that evening. We don’t get to do anything but hope they survive this year and maybe next year we will get to harvest some asparagus as it will be three years old by then. The Gingerman is bringing us some strawberry starts next month and we will put those right on top. The Lavender only gets watered twice a week so we are going to put the asparagus on the same circuit as them.
Annmarie has been wanting to be able to feed the cats barefoot but now that we have to walk across eight feet of rough gravel she has been requesting stepping stones. He got a channel dug and then the concrete steps set. Once he got the gravel around everything he watered it really well and then reapplied gravel. The extra gravel went outside the fence on the yard side. We are going to make a small gravel area by the gate so the extra gravel went there. It turned out very nice. The only thing left is to extend the cat rain roof so their food gets better protection when it rains. I need to extend the sides down and put a front on so the snow cannot blow in as easily.
The next project is purely a Mr Rainman idea. We had been talking about various ways to fill in the old flower beds in the mud room. He had suggested filling them up with pea gravel. This was a wonderful idea so I picked up 12 bags. The only real problem is even though it was bagged it was still pretty dirty. So he brought the cement mixer over and washed the pea gravel in it. When it was clean he dumped it out on the ground and scooped it up for the mud room. It looks great! I decided it needed a little help drying before we moved the cabinet and shoes back in place. So I started up a small electric heater and cracked open the window. It’s been 24 hours and I think it will take 3-4 days to get the pea gravel all dried out! Once it is then all of the stuff can be put back in place. Mouse is grumpy because his food area is cluttered and he does not like it.
The last thing he did for the day was gets all of the garden beds cleaned out and an old wooden barrel cleaned out and tossed onto the burn pile. It was too far gone and had a large hole in it. We are still holding off on planting the garden due to the freezing temperatures
The contractor came out and installed two of the three windows but they were not double hung. He had ordered double hung but was not given them. New ones are on order. Our new siding should be delivered May 13, 2024. They will start on the sides away from where the windows need replaced.
Our cows started having calves 2 days ago! We now have two calves on the ground and healthy. There are 7-9 to go, I am unclear on how many cows are pregnant.
Normally I don’t talk about my paying job on the blog as I try to keep them separate and for the most part it is manageable. Unfortunately, today that was not possible. I volunteered to help out the Sheriff’s department yesterday in training officers how to recognize and test impaired drivers. I learned about this from the hospital as we were sponsoring this learning opportunity. I volunteered and set aside seven hours, to assist, what this really meant was I started day drinking around 1300 and had to keep it up for four straight hours. I really did not understand how much alcohol one has to consume to keep your blood alcohol level sustained. It is a lot! I failed every single sobriety test they could think to test on me. When I got home I just kept drinking water and could not fall asleep. So this morning I really needed a lot more sleep. I had a hangover. Nope, no sleep for self induced misery at our house.
I ended up going to town, getting a bunch of stuff to fix the driveway fence, ground anchors for the greenhouse and food for the dogs. So when I got home I threw some more fencing tools in the back of the pickup and went out to work on the driveway fence. I was hand driving eight foot T-posts into the ground but they are so tall I had to back the pickup up to the spot and stand on the tailgate so I could drive them in. I am installing seven feet of woven wire where we have wild rose bushes. The birds and bunnies love to hang out in the wild bushes. But the alpaca love to eat those same wild rose bushes. So they are constantly eating them down as far as they can reach. The plan was to install tall T-posts and add an upper section of woven wire so the alpaca cannot lean over the lower section and eat the tops out of the bushes.
I had been fencing for a few hours and just did not feel well. Finally around 1530 I decided that a nap was needed. Trouble was if I went back to the house the wife would tell me to suck it up! So instead I set an alarm on my phone and laid down in the driveway on the little hill. It had some grass and honestly I was beat and needed the sleep. The pickup was still parked crooked in the driveway as I had just driven a post in prior to the nap. I got my nap in and woke up about three minutes before my alarm went off. I jumped in the pickup and headed toward the road. I had started at the cattle guard on the road and was working my way toward the houses as I improved the fence. As I approached the road I saw the ambulance and fire truck come roaring up the road. They slowed down and asked if I had seen some guy “down” on the road near a blue and white pickup. I said no and they went on down the road. About 30 seconds later it occurred to me that I was the person “down” and the blue pickup was our green pickup. I called the ambulance driver on her cell phone and told her I was just hungover and needed a nap! They had to cancel Pendleton Fire Department ambulance, the Lifeflight helicopter and the police came out also!
I am glad one of the neighbors called for assistance. As I used to volunteer for the fire dept they all got a laugh out of it. I will strive to ensure that my future naps are out of sight of the road.
I spent most of the day just puttering around doing little things. Sometimes it seems like I don’t do much on those days but it all needs to be done eventually. I watered our three new fruit trees, two apricots and a peach tree. They are still in buckets and I will get them in the ground next week. They are all blooming so I will have to pick off the fruit as soon as it shows up. I don’t want them to produce fruit this first year, I want them to grow and spread their roots.
We had already moved our chive plant up to the front porch entrance pots. I split it in half so we could have some in each pot. So today I split our edible creeping thyme into two bunches and put it around the base of the chives. We would like the thyme to grow over the side of the pots. The thyme was in an old half wine barrel in the back garden area. When we moved the barrel the entire back is rotted out so it needs to go away. We will use the soil in the other garden planters then I can burn the rotten barrel. Both planters got a good soaking with water to start them on their way.
I dug thistles on the front hillside. Since we are trying to establish clover we cannot use any type of herbicide on the hillside. So all thistles are dug with a shovel. This took quite a while to get done. As soon as I finished that I went and cut ends for our tomato enclosures. Annmarie wanted panels on the end to keep the cats out so she could plant basil plants between the tomato plants. I almost found enough clips to hold them in place correctly. I need four more small clips. Now that I think about it there may be four out in the old house. I will have to check sometime.
I have been slowly working on the Bell! I run the wire brush over it to clean up the rust then hit it with some Rustoleum spray paint. I have been doing this for over a year. Today I decided to just hit it and make some solid progress. Mr Rainman and I had lifted the bell off its stand a couple of weeks ago so I had a lot better access to the bell. I got both uprights sanded and painted. I ran out of dark blue spray paint so now it is a bright blue. I went over to the old house and found eight more cans of spray paint so I figured the bell was getting whatever color I had on hand. I was able to break loose the bolts holding the ringer gear onto the bell. I cleaned the bolts up and ran the threads over their entire length to make sure I could tighten them on the reassembly. I then worked on the ringer gear and got it all cleaned up. I am not going to paint the bolts until I get them on the bell. I think another two hours and I will have the entire bell body cleaned up and painted. Once that is done I will need to make a new wooden base for the bell. Then I need to buy four 2x8x20’ boards and I can mount the bell in the upper portion of the hay side of the machine shed. This will keep it totally out of the weather.
Since the Gingerman got the Little Dumper running yesterday I figured I had better do my part. I went over to look at the door rubber seals. I ended up having to grind down some rusted screws holding a metal plate to the bottom of the door. It was just one solid horizontal piece of rust. I was able to grind the tops off and pry the metal piece off. I then had to grind down the screws until they were flush and smooth before installing the new rubber seal. I managed to get the seal on and only had to cut about one inch out of the bottom middle and use seal glue to put the gasket back together. I tried to take the screws out of the door so I can gain access to the window but there was one screw I could not budge. I will need to spray some penetrating oil on it and hope I can budge it next week.
I have all of the door seals and the front and back window seals. The front window seal needs to replaced ASAP. It is torn and has multiple holes in it. The rear window seal looks great but since I have a new one I might as well replace the old. I did try and latch the passenger door but it would not seal tightly. One more thing to adjust and repair on the old truck. I suspect the rotating mechanism is not rotating! I know, it took a pure genius to figure that out. When I get the panel off to get at the window I will be able to get at the door lock/handle mechanism at the same time.
I did it, I actually finished a project all of the way! I was able to go up into my wife’s old office area and find all of the wood for her laser, some metal, some plastic, some plexiglass, some stone, some tile and move it all out to her office so she can organize it. It is all piled up on the assembly table but she will get it sorted out soon.
I finished the last thing left to do and that was put in the corner trim below the router. I had to cut the trim into three pieces and hide the cords behind the trim. I also had to use the router to make a path for the router power cord. It only took a couple of hours but it was just something I never seem able to take time to complete. I cleaned her office floor and walls while I was out there. It took longer to set up and find all of the tools then it did to just finish that last piece of trim, which is why I have avoided it for so long.
1957 Chevy 1 ton truck running for first time in 20 years
The Gingerman snuck out yesterday and got the Little Dumper up and running! He says the heater hoses still need to be replaced. Once that is done then we can focus on getting the fuel tank flushed and the brakes repaired. I went to the tire place on Friday and they had to come out and mount the new metal wheel rims on the truck to see if they would even fit. There is a 3/8” clearance from the heavy duty spring leafs. So the new tires should go on this next week. Once that is done we are going to roll the truck onto the trailer and I will take it in so that the brakes can be gone over and fixed. Once the brakes are done we will work on getting the hydraulic bed lift to work!
Four metal rims and six 12 ply tires cost $3013.08. We are currently up to a grand total of $4098.65 into getting the truck functional. I am hoping to keep it under $5500. This is still way cheaper than a $7.5k dump bed trailer that still needs to be attached to a pickup. This way I can just drive Little Dumper wherever I need it on the farm without worrying about the trailer.
Stewart Creek Somethings 