Month: May 2025

Francine is not a Francine

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I did get to go outside and do some work. On Saturday I went to Home Depot and picked up 1300+ bricks to install the floor in the gazebo. They were only 25 cents each. It will be cheaper to use the bricks than it will be to pour concrete even using our forms and bagged concrete. As I was waiting for the bricks to be loaded I noticed that the fender on the flat bed needs some welding. I also noticed that the trailer is sinking a lot when a bunch of weight is added! We are going to look at some air bags or an added leaf spring to keep the trailer from sagging so much. The pavers weighed approximately 6300# and they were on a 7500# trailer. I ended up having to unload about 1/4 of the pallet from the farthest back pallet and move them into the back of the pickup by hand so the tires on the trailer would not rub on the fenders.

On Thursday night we went and picked up a starter hive of bees and drove them home to their new abode. I unloaded and carried them out to the new bee enclosure and Annmarie suited up and smoked them and moved them into the new hive. They are all in the new hive and after the third day they quit eating the sugar water concentrate we were supplying. I would say they are settled in. Annmarie is going to add another nuc this weekend.

Mr Rainman helped me hook up the mower onto the little John Deere so I could mow all day on Sunday. It was time to bring some pain to the cheat grass. We mow it down as we cannot kill it everywhere it is on the property. He had to go up to field one and hose it down with 2-4-D again as we had another vineyard weed sprouting everywhere and trying to choke out the grass. It had not sprouted when we sprayed 2-4-D the first time. I mowed all over the farm all day. I was able to get into field one and mow a single row around the entire outside next to the fence and the far corner that we did not hay last year. It was all cheat grass last year. It was better this year but I wanted to give other grass a chance so we knocked it all down. I was even able to drive into the second ditch along the creek embankment and mow down last years eight foot tall dead and dry thistles along with some large green ones trying to come back. I got the entire floor of the ditch mowed down. It looks a lot better now.

Mr Rainman is going to start spraying Roundup along side all of the fence lines. This makes a huge difference and keeps us from having to burn the fence lines. Fire is bad and it changes the temper of the metal fence. He just started spraying the Roundup today. We wanted to get all of the broadleaf herbicide sprayed before switching to Roundup.

Francine is not Francine, she is a he and is now called Frank. I do not know how we went almost two weeks before catching this. I would have sworn that I had checked. He now has a pink tag in his left ear with the number 404. We are going to keep bottle feeding him and use him for one of our rams in a year. He still thinks he is a sheep but in the morning and night you can just holler his name and he comes running for the bottle.

Bathroom remodel day 43

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It is starting to get there! We are only on week 13! I did not work on the bathroom Friday other than to move the vanity into the bathroom to see how it fit. Annmarie and I needed time to see it in place and time for our brains to percolate on how it was going to fit.

Today was the big bathroom push, I really wanted to go outside and mow tall grass down with the tractor but it rained off and on most of the day. Nothing really strong as evidenced by our 1/100” on the rain gauge. I do really think we got more rain than that. So going outside was not going to be a great thing so I opted to do the responsible thing and stay inside to work on the bathroom.

I did manage to run around the house, picking up, roasting coffee, cleaning up floor and doing laundry before I got started in on the bathroom. I opted to work on the vanity first. The crown molding is incredibly tedious and I just was not looking forward to it. Annmarie and I played with the vanity until we found the level spot but the vanity was not sitting right. I realized that I knew it only had three supports on the four legs. So I opted to move one of them from the front leg and put it on the missing back leg. Nope, it was a weird all in one piece that was hammered into the bottom of the leg. It was hollow and had a metal cap on it. Once I started prying on it I had to break it all apart. There were holes drilled in the bottom of each foot for these steel sliders. I had to get the drill out and drill out the hollow metal tubing from all of the holes, even the hole that was missing the top. This means I need something to go inside the bottom legs. I found an adjustable set of furniture elevators that will work. I had to special order them, they should be here next week. Now my excuse for not working on the crown molding was gone. I cannot put the granite top on the vanity until the feet are repaired as I had to tip the vanity up onto its side to get to them.

I am definitely going to have to do some reworking on the vanity drawers. The pipes are not in the planned spot. The top drawer is fine but the next two down will need to be reworked. I will just remove the drawers and get the countertop, sink and all plumbing installed then I will worry about fixing the drawers so they will fit.

It took me over three hours to do the other half of the crown molding. I am officially done with the crown molding for now. When I go to put the custom cabinet in, I will have to cut the top of the molding in the corner where the cabinet will slide in. This way I can wrap the crown molding around the top of the cabinet incorporating it into the room seamlessly. I only managed to cut my fingers once today with the tin snips. Working metal is best done with gloves but when doing finish work like this I find myself not wearing any gloves. I cut the pad of my fingers with the nippers! They are appropriately sharp enough.

The decorative hook we had ordered to hold open the bathroom door came on Friday so I decided to try and install it. I will have to remove it and put it back on once the final trim is installed. I had the wall hook installed and was tightening the last screw on the door piece when the screw head twisted off! This is a ridiculous problem, I should not have been able to twist off the screw top. Now there is the bottom half of the screw stuck in the door. I could spend an hour and gouge out a huge hole attempting to get that broken part out of the 115 year old door. I am just going to move the piece over 1/8” and drill out a bigger hole so I can easily insert the two screws. This is a stupid problem.

Spring activities continue

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Despite the need to finish the bathroom other work still has to happen on the farm. Mr Rainman came out on Monday evening to help me sort and load cows. We wanted to sell off our four largest Dexter cows, there were 11 for sale and we don’t have enough meat customers for that many animals. I happened to look into the stock trailer while Mr Rainman was hooking it up and spotted the kittens. I just tossed two pallets over a couple of horizontal telephone poles to make a cubby and then moved the kittens out into that hiding spot. It was only about eight feet from where they were originally. I figured out the momma would hear them and deal with it. She did, Annmarie spotted her moving the kittens an hour later.

We got the four cows separated from the other seven and loaded them into the trailer. Only one refused to go into the trailer. She had gotten turned around and would not back up. We just let her out of the chute and ran her around again. This time we did not let her slow down in the chute so she could not turn around . As always it was a five minute gig to just drop off the cows at the auction. We got the check on Saturday. We had one heifer and three steers. The heifer sold for $2/# and steers $1.75/#. They did very good. I was hoping for $1.50/#.

I was able to get another friend to hatch out a dozen straight run chicks for me. She will replace any roosters with new chicks when I can determine gender. I thought I had eliminated all but two of the roosters from the January batch but yesterday I saw two crow that were not on my list! I only want two roosters so I will be looking a lot closer to determine who is a rooster and who isn’t. I will have to thin out at least three more I think. One of the new chicks died by fratricide. Its fellow baby chicken sat on it after it got behind the feeder. So now there are 11 chicks.

Our asparagus did not die last year! We had four shoots pop up from the strawberries this week. We planted ten plants but it is just now starting to warm up at our house consistently and we think that is why we are behind our neighbors on growth rate. We still only have four shoots buy there is still some life and we thought we had killed it all. We want to get another container going for just asparagus.

We had a lamb that got sick and had to be put down. We have had two more sets of twin lambs and think we are all done lambing. We have put all of the sheep back together into one herd. We are only locking them up into the ram pasture now at night. They can go in and out of the barn freely as they want.

Annmarie is working on getting all of the garden, lavender, herb water going today but as always there is some part we are needing to get the job done. She has a shed full of drip line and 1/2” PVC connectors but there is always one thing. We will keep working on this until it is done.