Author: Steve Hardin

Wife rabbit punched me

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I have been having horrible rib pain the last two weeks. Nothing I seem to do is making it better and it just persists. The odd part is it is all low rib and diaphragm region. It has been going on long enough that I had started accusing Annmarie of rabbit punching me in the ribs when I was asleep. I could not figure out what was causing the pain. Well I figured it out on Wednesday, it is my welding class. We are doing vertical SMAW welding (rod welding) and the way I am holding it in an attempt to get a passing bead is causing me to tense up my muscles. So for six hours a week I am tightening my diaphragm and rib muscles. They do not like nor appreciate the workout. I have quit blaming the wife.

The closet shelves look great and Annmarie has already started to put stuff on them so tomorrow I need to get some varnish on them. I am going to do it in the upstairs bathroom area so I can leave the vent fan on all night long. I got a little light headed when I put the stain on and don’t want a repeat of that with the varnish.

Earlier in the week I was lazy and with the weather being nice I fed the sheep out the side of the barn onto the ground. The sheep kept trying to sneak in through the door and get directly into the hay room. So every time I opened the door to toss out hay I had to be quick. As I was getting ready to head back inside I noticed one ewe picking the alfalfa leaves off of the back of our ram. He was almost green from standing under the door as I tossed out flakes of hay. She had figured out it was easier and more productive to just eat off of his back then dig through the hay on the ground.

I like to make a hearty breakfast when I am going to be working outside during the day. This lets me skip lunch and not starve to death, I had ham, potatoes and onions this morning then poured some green salsa over the top and it was wonderful. Our pig turned out very nice this year and the ham is very good.

I need to go pickup my 1×8 x8′ boards we purchased at the fundraiser but I need the flatbed trailer. I still had 20 railroad ties on it so today I hauled them off with the tractor. The only bad part is I have to manually lift all 20 ties onto the the tractor bucket one at a time. So I now have about 30 large wooden fence posts to use next year. I want to put several in the barn lot to finish stiffening the outer fence and cross fencing the inside.

I got a call this week from the water conservation district about our grant application to fence off the creek in a couple of places. This helps limit and control access to the water mostly for the cows. I can still use the sheep to go in and clean out the weeds alongside the waterway. This will also allow us to kill areas and then replant them which will cut down on the weeds. We should know by January whether we get the grant or not. We supply half the cost of the fence, which equates to all the labor to install it and have to purchase all the supplies in advance and don’t get reimbursed until the fence is installed.

I ended up moving scrap metal around to our metal pile behind the grain bins. I still have a pile over by the old house that needs to get moved. I will be seeing if I can put on an old tire onto my Toyota pickup bed trailer I got from the scrap yard. I can haul it around with my tractor and get it filled with all the metal from the old house. I also need to drag all the scrap metal and fencing in the ram pasture to the pile. If it doesn’t rain tonight and tomorrow I can do that in the late afternoon. This will get the ram pasture all cleaned up.

The chickens are not doing their part. We were down to two eggs a day and now that I have replaced the light bulb we are getting 4-5 eggs/day. I really need to off the slackers.

Omelet anyone?

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I have been craving a ham and cheese omelette for days. One would think that this would be an easy fix, but one would be wrong. The light went out in our chicken coop and I replaced it early in the week but this sudden change screws with the chickens ability to lay eggs in the winter. Now they have to get used to the light again and this has caused the egg production to halt. We also have a bunch of free loader house finches sneaking into the coop whenever the automatic chicken door opens. They are going for the easy meal plan.

Now we had an extra dozen eggs on top of the fridge on Monday but Annmarie took them to town and sold them to one of our customers. Annmarie consumes one raw egg a day with her morning smoothie, fresh fruit, frozen fruit, Greek yogurt, raw egg and a splash of milk. I need three eggs to make a decent omelette. I am only getting 1, 2 or 0 eggs per day this week. I cannot seem to gain eggs in the fridge. Tonight when I went out I got 2 more eggs total. I now have a total of four eggs in the fridge and will be having an omelette in the morning tomorrow! Luckily, I held off on using the two eggs in the fridge for French toast this morning. I never would have gotten my delicious ham, cheese, onion, garlic, jalapeño sharp cheddar cheese omelette. I can already taste the deliciousness. I went out and worked on the shelves some more. I faced the sanded down oak plywood sheets with an oak 1/4″ edging. I smeared glue on the whole thing, pin nailed it then put clamps and wood shims to hold it all together. I will take the clamps off tomorrow and work on getting the pieces stained and clear coated after that. It is going to make the house stink but it needs to be done. It will take me a few more days to get the stain on and both sides of the shelves sealed up. I want to be able to just wash them down if needed. Pretty much anything is going to be more organized than it was before. I took out all the gun barrel clamps they had on the left side of the upper cabinet. I found several hats I thought I had lost when I cleaned out the cupboard.

Annmarie has been working on getting our laser cutter up and going. She is trying to get it perfected so we can burn in the old pictures from the farm and put them up in our kitchen. To do that she needs to practice and practice. I am having trouble keeping my phone propped up in the kitchen while typing the blog so she took a piece of scrap she had printed a picture on and make a ipad/iPhone holder out of it. I love it and think it is even neater with the picture on it. I can now do the blog without using the napkin holder and pushing the bottom up with my keyboard.

Annmarie imported all of my blogspot posts into WordPress so I now have all the blogs since 2010 in one place! She also managed to create a new look, a quick subscribe button, search function, categorize by month and year and a list of top 50 tags I have used that you can click on. It is super cool! This is where the magic happens at our kitchen table. I type most of the blogs up right here, it is more convenient than going up to the computer. Once I finish the welding class a new kitchen table is on my agenda. I am going to weld it into two pieces that stack and the bottom piece will be on casters. I will then glue on a solid piece of granite to the top of that. I would like to have some wooden dividers built in also. I am still trying to decide how those are going to fit. I have to build and tear it apart in my mind at least a 100 times before I start a project. It cuts way down on the redos.

I did snag a picture of the new diamond bungee cord arrangement in the barn. I had a partial box made out of 3×3 wire mesh so I finishing wrapping it with wire and will use it in the barn lot. It is all ready for rocks, although I should put a wooden post in it before I start tossing rocks into it.

The new barn kitty is a pest, she comes running the minute you open a door and wants to be greeted. If you don’t stop and pet her she will follow you around the entire barn getting underfoot. I was trying to do the horse’s feet today and had one of their front feet in the air and the the cat kept rubbing on the other down front leg. The horse kept trying to hop to the side with only one foot on the ground. I finally had to shoo the cat away so I could finish cleaning out horse feet.

I am wanting to build another fence! I make Annmarie crazy with all the fences but honestly, they all do something. I want to plant flowers on this rocky hillside to cut down the erosion. We want to do bee hives sooner than later and they will need flowers. I like the disorganized chaos of wildflowers. Annmarie likes orderly flowers better. The horses and sheep keep eroding this hillside so I am going to fence it off and then plant the whole thing in wildflowers. The fence will keep the horses and sheep out of the flowers and hopefully the bees will like it. We will mount a sprinkler on top of one of the posts so we can water it in the summer.

I have decided to add an occasional piece of Bad Dad Poetry, they are all inspired by my daughter and I write them for her with a theme.

My wallet is thin

My pocket yearns for the days of prosperity

It used to struggle to hold in the bounty

This month times are lean

If only someone could help?

Catch up time inside

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Winter should be here soon, even though the grass is still green. I have moved on to inside projects. It’s after Thanksgiving so it is time to give up outside things. I did sneak in an hour this morning adding a new hook above the sheep doors so I could run a bungee cord over it and stiffen the doors in the middle. I need to get a picture of it now and everyone will understand why we spend $35/year on bungee cords. The cords hold our feeders up to the walls and each other also.

Today I worked on our hall closet. We bought a special tool to drill holes into the walls so we could add movable shelves. I figured out how to make them work today and have spent two days sanding oak plywood for the shelves. I had two extra sheets of oak from the cabinets I made a few years ago. I am even going to face the front edge with some leftover edging from the air return. Tomorrow I will glue on the facing then stain it in the evening. The big problem is I took the door off when we laid new tile on the floor. I cannot seem to find the door. I have been searching for months. It may have ended up on a burn pile…

We had prime rib cut from our beef this year. We have always made it into steak in the past but decided to try our own. It was amazing!! I took a picture below before I started adding the dry rub. It is so much leaner than what you get at the store and we cook it in a salt coffin low and slow and it was the best prime rib we have had in a long time and it didn’t cost us $85. There is one more and I am thinking about cooking it on the table top Traeger grill we got this summer. I should probably practice with brisket first before I attempt the prime rib.

Annmarie had been talking to me about installing a half door going into her craft room. She has mentioned it several times but this week I had a free day so I just went out to the old house and dug around until I found an old door that was wide enough. The door was not perfectly proportioned and one panel was larger than the other. I decided that I did not want to have to move the door handle as this was going to be painful. So I measured the height I wanted and just sawed the door off at that height. This left two sticky up parts on each side. So I popped the leftover panel piece out with some pliers and a hammer. Then I beat on the scrap piece until I was able to pull it the top molded part of the door. I then glued the side of that piece and beat it in to the top opening back into the old grooves. Viola, a half door! I had to shave off 2.5 inches off of one side and then chisel in some spots for old hinges I found in a drawer. img_6565It took me another 2 hours to hang the door as no door, no matter how small is ever easy to hang. I had to remove the hinges twice and chisel them deeper into the wood. My tolerances were only 1/8″ and that was a little too tight. I thought I would just attach the latch part into the wall and I would be done! This is were you realize 5 hours into the job that you used the top part of the door and the latch is backward and you don’t want to change the swing side of the door. So now I will be buying a sliding latch to go on the front of the door to keep it closed. The best part of this is that I drilled a hole into the door casing 11 years ago when I was running new electrical wire. It was an accident and I have meant to fill it for years. I will now be using that hole as a receptacle for the new sliding lock I am putting on the half door! Maybe I was planning for this eventuality and did not even realize it myself.

Final fall Mowing

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I am still trying to get ready for winter. I should be ready, I guess I am ready if you count having enough food for all the animals. The nice thing about Winter is it waits for no man! Once it is here I will be done prepping regardless of how many things are left on the list. This morning after I went out to let the sheep out of the barn I unhooked the hoses and shut off the outside fire hydrant spigots. I had two of them still open with Y splitters and hoses still attached. Annmarie caught me unhooking these hoses. She said I got lucky as we have had three freezing nights this last week. I like to think of it as good timing, no break, no foul.

I decided to rake the leaves in the yard and do the final mowing. My heart is really not in the task and I have lots of other things to do so I cheated. I closed off gates so that the only place the sheep could go to get real food was our front yard. I am hoping the sheep will eat the leaves along with the grass. I had to keep the dogs inside all day which they did not appreciate but hopefully with a couple of days of no dog time the sheep can make a dent in the yard.

Annmarie wants us to create a chute that goes from the barn to the bull/ram corral. She doesn’t want us to create a mean ram by pinning him up against a wall, tying on a halter and dragging him across the barn lot. We were suppose to go out and calmly talk about needed changes to the fence and I was supposed to listen not throw up road blocks to change. She doesn’t want any more of my mammoth rock cribs. We need a rock crib to keep the fence from leaning over courtesy of the horses. She wanted a gate in the side of the fence. I managed to pull the fence out of alignment and add in a four foot gate bolted to the large corner rock crib. The fence is still leaning and I will need some type of rock crib I am just unsure what kind I will construct.

I managed to get the rest of the cow panels up inside the fence to stop the sheep from jumping through the feeder panels. I also found all the tools and picked them up. I found an impact driver and two 3.0 amp batteries and about 12 fastenal anchor bolts in the lamb shed hidden! This is a major score as I needed those 12 fasteners to finish the last of the wooden rails over behind the lean to. Once those four boards are in the corral will be officially completed. I still have to fix the low side of the lamb shed as the sheep have punched out about 4 boards and can now get out of the barn. Tomorrow the plan is those four boards and hopefully get the lamb barn completed. I put both batteries on the charger and should be good to go in the morning.

We had ordered a white mail box for our repainted stand but the new box was smaller than the one my Mother-in-law purchased. So then we had to buy another mailbox that was the same size. I put the numbers on today and cut wooden platforms that I screwed onto the stands. The platforms allowed us to then screw the boxes to the entire stand creating a completed official mailbox. I had already brought gravel down to the road and created a flat spot for the mailboxes a few weeks ago. I love our new red and white mailbox. Since the gates are open for the sheep the dogs cannot hang outside. At night they want to terrorize the entire front yard so I put a stop to that. I placed a flashing light on everyone’s collar and was able to stand on the front porch and holler at everyone in the dark. It is even better than trying to keep track of them during the day!

Winter is almost here

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Well, I can no longer say that Winter is not coming. It has frozen three times this week and we have had to turn our propane stove on. Last night when we went to bed, Annmarie wanted to open opposing windows wide open! I was freezing to death, so I moaned and groaned until she agreed to crack both windows only. It took me 20 minutes to get warm before I could fall asleep. I am putting another blanket at the foot of the bed just to add another layer over my feet!

Yesterday was errand day for me. I took a drive over to Hermiston to pickup our pig we swapped for lambs. The hanging weight on the pig was 199#. I brought three boxes home of frozen deliciousness. Our freezers were full but I had a bunch of frozen cherries from last year and the chickens are now eating those. I managed to get the whole pig into the freezer after clearing out the cherries, bacon before fruit!!! We had one pork belly turned into side pork. We have never done this before but we both like side pork and wanted to give it a try. You have to do the whole thing so we ended up with 7 pounds of side pork. As we had sausage this morning for breakfast Annmarie inquired if it was the new pig. I told her we had to eat the old pig first but I did get out a package of side pork for Sunday morning!

Annmarie is doing yoga 6 of 7 mornings as soon as she wakes up. I am on the “gonna workout” plan. The dogs have all learned that the yoga mat is a “no go” zone. Annmarie is not to be disturbed if she is on the mat and the dogs don’t get to step on it. It was not very hard to teach all three of them this rule. Yesterday, while running errands I had to pickup a package at the post office. It was some new yoga tights and dresses Annmarie had gotten on sale. This morning she told me there was a “no go” rule for me also after I violated the yoga zone.

We have had dumpster now for four weeks and have managed to fill it every week. I am hopeful this week that I will get the glass windows out of the lamb shed and break them into the dumpster. This was the sole reason for getting the dumpster in the first place. Annmarie keeps reminding me that if we can fill it for weeks on end maybe we should have gotten one sooner? It takes some concerted effort to keep filling it as I don’t just have a pile ready to go but I think we only have 1-2 weeks left before I will have them remove it. That will have gotten rid of 10-12 yards of trash.

The new barn kitty is still hanging out in the barn. It is a fixed adult black and white cat. Still in the barn and doing well. We feed the barn cats on a regular basis and it is settling right in. I did hear one big howling cat fight this week emanating from the barn but it settled down after a couple of minutes and we have seen the new kitty and our orange kitty both since then.

The chickens do not like daylight savings time either. This week I noticed that some of the chickens were not going into the coop at night. I opted to allow natural selection to occur, only the smart shall survive. Now, I have not seen a predator around but they are always there and yep I was right. Thursday we spotted a suspicious lump out on the back hillside visible from the kitchen window. The magpies were swarming it so it was pretty obvious. I went out and sure enough it was a chicken carcass. Imagine my not surprise when I went out to get eggs last night and every chicken was inside the coop and protected behind the automatic chicken door.

The cows are now getting fed on a weekly basis. Luckily, we have some big bales left this year. They are super handy to feed as I just have to push one or two out to the cows. I still need to get the tire fixed on the small pickup bed trailer as that is what I am going to hook up to the tractor to feed the small bales.

We are putting the sheep in every night now. The first four evenings we had to use the dogs but now if we go out after dark the sheep have already put themselves into the barn. We just give them a little feed at night as a reward. They are not starving as half a bale is enough for a reward and they leave some in the feeders. We are so happy with the new ram, he is super calm. We have decided that he only gets scratched under the chin so that we are not trying for dominance by reaching for the top of his head.