Author: Steve Hardin

Beautiful spring day

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Saturday was amazing, the sun was shining and it was a near perfect day. Since it was going to rain on Sunday we opted to just make it a work outside only day. Once the sheep were done we started to look for my set of small discs. Mr Rainman and I went all over the farm. We could not find them anywhere. I ended up mowing all around the upper CRP field. I mowed down by four corners but hit a buried baling twine bundle and had to take thirty minutes to cut it out of the mower blades.

The kids brought down a bunch of concrete from their remodel. We are going to use it to help stabilize the bank. It keeps getting eroded by the seeps, water and sheep. They have at least three more loads and I think that will make a great addition to this corner. We should be able to stop the corner from falling in.

The seven yearling cows that will be sold or eaten this fall got pushed down by four corners. They are in amongst the trees. We are going to start killing the cheat grass in the two fields near the mother-in-law’s house. We hope to get water on them so we can keep getting the cheat grass to sprout then kill it and start the process over.

I was able to sell five, one year old lambs this weekend ($120 each) so there are seven left to sell by this fall. It was very easy as we just pulled them off as we wormed the entire herd. They came and picked them up a couple of hours later. We just ran them out into the corral and down the chute into their horse trailer. The corral makes loading animals very easy.

The gate gremlins were out in force this weekend. The teenager cows got out of the lower pasture the gate was open. The horse got out of the barn lot, the gate was open. The horse got into the ran pasture with the sheep and was trying to eat the green grass, the gate was open. The surprising part of this is that each gate was left open by a different person! No one was harmed and the animals did just fine. This stuff happens.

I was able to get down to field one and mow the newly made ditch. Mr Rainman spotted some fresh coyote prints in the mud. We have not seen any yet this season but they are obviously out there. I went to the other side of the creek and worked on getting it mowed down. I managed to get the huge hole filled in! That has been there for over 25 years. Someone buried two huge track backhoes in there and spent three days trying to get them out. They left a huge hole that was never filled in. The edges of the hole were straight walled and over eight feet high. It is not safe to drive the tractor in that area without knowing exactly where you going and where the hole is located. I got the entire thing filled in and now anyone can safely go back there and mow it down as needed. That has been on my list for over 15 years and I just never got around to doing it. Usually, when I wanted to do it the ground was so hard that I could not move the dirt. I even used the little John Deere 2520 to do it.

Sunday I was able to work on the baler. Unfortunately, I am missing two parts. One that never got sent to me and one I think I sent back accidentally when I sent back the wrong sprockets. I am pretty sure that one is on me. I have the part numbers written down and will get them ordered first thing on Monday. Otherwise, all of the other parts are all installed, tightened and adjusted. I can get those two parts and the new chain on in less than 90 minutes. Mr Rainman did remind me that we may need to do some maintenance on the sickle bar mowers before we use them. I think I have all the parts for those already.

Lambing final tally

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This weekend some time had to be devoted to the sheep. It was time to worm everyone. We have to wait until the lambs are old enough to do it and no one else is going to give birth. So we ran them all into the barn and proceeded to run them out through the chute system. Mr Rainman did the snagging and holding while I used the oral drenching kit to just pump some wormer down into the back of their throat. This thing works so much better than drawing up syringes. We also knocked V shapes into the ewes we are going to cull after the lambs are weaned. We marked nine ewes for culling. When we go to pull those nine off of the herd in July we will cull anyone else who is not fat. They will have had access to all you can eat green grass and their bodies should have been able to put the weight back on by then. We already have some ewes getting fat on the green grass. We want to cull hard this year so lambing next January will be easy on everyone.

Mr. Rainman found a two week lamb that was weak and being ignored. We ended up taking care of it for 24 hours as our normal go to person was out of town. We managed to keep it alive despite it not really wanting to eat. It is now with it’s forever home and if it is gonna make it will be there.

The barn got put together, we tore down all the jugs and hung the panels on the walls, put up all of the buckets and feeders. When we go to clean out the barn we will just need to take the feeders out.

We also got the alpaca shearing area all cleaned up and ready to shear. Hopefully, we can shear the alpaca in the next week. They just need to be dry, it rained off and on all day today. We got 1/3” of rain and it was needed. The garden and grass fields needed it. The parts I ordered for the new pump are still not here. I am afraid the tariffs and shipping issues may have delayed its arrival. Hopefully, it gets here in the next two weeks.

  • Date of update- May 11, 2025
  • # of Lambs born – 73
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 42
  • # of ewes still pregnant – should be ZERO, but I saw one today that was so fat already. It would have to be an immaculate conception or a through the fence encounter.
  • # of single lamb births – 13
  • # of twin lamb births – 27
  • # of triplet lamb births – 2
  • # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-35
  • # tagged female lambs-30
  • # of bummer lambs – 3
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 6
  • Total # of lambs on farm -63
  • % birthing rate- 174%
  • % production rate -150%
  • % survival rate at birth – 100%
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 86%

Bathroom Day 44

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Well it is week 14 of the bathroom remodel. I spent most of Friday working on it. I was able to get the leg adjusters installed on the vanity and spent about an hour getting it level. Every time I scooted the vanity right or left I had to readjust the entire vanity. I was able to get it level finally.

I managed able to carry in the granite top myself. I did have to set it down three times on the way from the old house. It was not very light, the real reason I was able to do it alone was the sink hole gave me a great place to hold onto that would not slip. I glued the top onto the vanity and then placed the sink onto it. It fits perfectly! I did not seal the sink in place yet as I wanted to get the faucet hooked up first then I can battle the sink and drain. I then set the faucet and then tried to hook it up to the wall valves. Nope! The pipe coming from the faucet is 3/8” Pex with 3/8” compression fitting for the supply valve. The only problem is they did not put the nut on first on one of the supply lines! So I cannot hook it up. On top of that the valves I installed are for 1/2” line. I can swap those out for another $25 to 3/8” but that one supply line is not going to work. I went to multiple stores in Pendleton and could not find 1/4” Pex let alone with a compression fittings. I tried to order it online and finally I have given up. On Monday I will be calling the Delta parts hotline number and figuring out what to do. Needless to say this has put me behind another week, or should I say it’s just par for the course on this project.

I was able to drill bigger holes in the door and reinstall the hold open latch. There was enough overlap to hide the previous holes so the only one that knows they are there is me. Latching the door open after a shower is making a huge difference in the amount of moisture the room retains.

I have the vanity drawers pulled out and am definitely going to have to alter three drawers once I get the drain plumbed. There is no way around it.

Annmarie pointed out that the vanity is fairly tall and with the elevated sink the bathroom is definitely not for short people. The Gingerman and myself are going to love it. I really do want to get the sink functional so I can do my morning grooming downstairs. Once I get the sink functional then I will move onto building the custom cabinet. Once that is done then I will work on the inside trim around the door and doing the dreaded sheet rock on the hallway side.

Francine is not a Francine

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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

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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.