Author: Steve Hardin

Staycation day 5

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It seems like every project is two steps forward and one back. I was able to work on the machine shed ridge line install yesterday. I had found some small two foot peak sections somewhere on the farm but they were not enough to cover the entire ridge line. I purchased some trough metal that I turned upside down and used as ridge cap. It was at a close out and I only paid about $8/piece. I was trying to use up my leftover roofing screws from the barn. The only problem is I ran out with only 27 left to be installed. They are oversized as I was reusing metal tin and needed a larger size to go through the existing holes. This meant I had to drill a pilot hole first. I drilled those 27 holes before climbing down from the roof and of course could not find a #14 screw anywhere in town. I had some #10 but they were red! I ended up ordering some and they should be here this week. Luckily, I ran out of screws as the sun was heating the roof up to unbearable temperatures but I kept trying to get it all done so I would not have to climb back up on the roof. I ended up going to town to get some oak, some trim for the cook stones enclosure, sheep and lamb pellets and some bolts to fix the gazebo door.

I had enough time to repair the gazebo door, cut off the door handle bolt and install a new one. I still ended up beating and bending the door into submission to get it on. Our original plan was to use the door to get to the grill outside after I built a lean to on the back of the gazebo. Nope, not going to happen. That door will be staying shut, it took a hammer and a couple of minutes to get it shut the first time. The grill will be going inside the gazebo. I just have to figure out where the grill is going to go as I need to run the power to that spot.

Today I took the second repaired cattle feeder out into the alleyway and got it ready for a large bale. I dumped some more scraps onto the burn pile. All the burn piles are starting to grow pretty fast now as we continue cleaning up. I got the weight box for the tractor and took it over to the machine shop so it could be repaired. The supports keep bending from the weight of all the metal horse shoes. I beat on the three point supports with an eight pound sledge hammer then proceeded to weld some supports on all three attachment points. I am hopeful that it will keep them from bending now during the winter use. I am still welding pretty roughly but it is holding and that is the main purpose for my welding skills.

I took 1000# of sheep and lamb feed out to the barn. We are storing the sweet feed in the large grainbin we have in the momma/baby area. I put 450# in it today and I am pretty sure I can fit another 1000# in it. The lamb creep feed gate is up and we are now feeding the lambs where the mommas cannot reach. This should hopefully help the mommas not slough so much weight. I took all of the leftover feed bags and net wrapping and bagged it all up and took it out of the barn. Annmarie had been complaining about there being no box knives out in the barn. I found two knives in the trash bin, some lamb nutrient mix and some hoof treatment powder. So now we know where all of that is located.

Annmarie really wants the house number holder completed so I started welding that project today. I am a mediocre welder so hopefully this turns out well. I got the rough frame welded today but had to let it cool off before I could work on it some more. Tomorrow I will grind it smooth and try and make it pretty. Hopefully the tile will still slide into the end. We will know tomorrow!

The porch lights went out for the third time! This is after I wired the new ones in. I took the main one down again, took it all apart and used a voltmeter this time to check everything and the switch. It turns out that it was the cheap porch light bulbs. They had blown up with all of our power losses. I bought LED this time!

Staycation Day 3

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It’s that time of the year again where I take the much needed Staycation. As always, this time of the year I will be working on getting ready for winter. This also means I will be attempting to finish up a few projects I have laying around.

Day 1 staycation :

Saw me going to town for half the day. I had to get the new diesel pickup titled in our name. I also washed the exterior of it and spent about thirty minutes at the car wash vacuuming out dog hair and leaves. I got some wipes to wipe down the interior but they are too wet. I need to take a roll of paper towels out when I use them to dry the plastic afterwards. I found a plastic tool holder area behind the back seat so I will be able to keep a few things I use on a regular basis back there. I bought four new tie downs and they will be stored in it. I may put a pair of gloves in it also plus a set of battery jumper cables. I also purchased a steering wheel cover and some new floor mats. I almost got some seat covers but I was not sure they would fit. I will do more research but I need to get a heavy duty set of inexpensive covers for the front and back seat. The seat covers will have to wait until after I get the steering fixed and the new shocks installed.

I attempted to buy hose clamps while I was in town and could not believe the price at $3/ea. I ended up ordering them online for $0.35/each and will wait the six days until they come. Yes, I had to order more than the 10 I needed but I usually end up using them for something. I just need the 1/2-3/4” size to fix the black poly pipe in the lavender. I accidentally cut it with the hedge trimmers a couple of weeks ago.

I was going to finish the window trim around the mud room window but did not want to drag out the table saw so I attempted to cut the board longwise with the radial arm saw. After the board exploded in my hand I decided that it was not a great idea. I need to find more wide boards then I will run them through the table saw first. I gave up on this and went and sharpened the chain saw and went out to the old chicken coop area and hacked on a tree. The tree keeps growing lower and lower so it needed to be raised back up so that we could see out past it and I could drive the tractor under it. I knocked all the limbs I wanted off of it and left the branches laying around so that the sheep could eat all the leaves off of the ground. The nice thing about early in the staycation I can just pick and choose from all the items on my to do list. As I start lining things off the list my choices shrink and I may be forced to do something I managed to avoid all summer.

Day 2 Staycation:

I went out and brought the first cow feeder back to the machine shop so I could repair it. Big surprise, I needed some grinder cutoff wheels and used them all up on the Gazebo so I had to make a quick run to town. I bought 12 so there would be extras in the toolbox. I managed to not buy any DeWalt tools despite it being the last day of the sale, buy one tool and get the battery free! I just bought two 20V off brand batteries last month that fit the DeWalt and I am going to try them out. They are more than 50% cheaper than the DeWalt Brand batteries.

I was able to weld the feeder together and take it back out to the orchard. It is all setup and one side spread open so that a large bale could be easily inserted and sides closed once we start feeding the big bales. I went up to the upper alley way and got the second feeder. It was in rougher shape and required more welding and grinding to repair. I even broke out some paint and painted over the rust spots and repairs. I tried to match paint colors but the green can nozzle was plugged so black paint works. Honestly, as long as the metal is protected I really don’t care what color combination is as long as paint covers the repairs.

Mr Gingerman helped me snag some rebar and put the now clean branches onto the burn pile behind the old chicken coop. We can now see field four and the gate from our front room window. We can break out the binoculars instead of hoofing it up there to see where the sheep are at.

Day 3 staycation:

I decided to weld up the tile house number that Annmarie made on the laser cutter. I looked in every building and her office and could not find it! I had even purchased the metal for the hanger last month. I finally gave up and measured the gazebo openings for angle iron to be mounted at the lip height so a countertop could be installed. I have been piling up scrap steel in the machine shed for just this purpose. I can get a 20” piece installed that will let me use three preexisting holes in the rim of the gazebo panel. It got two cut out and edges all ground smooth. I then took them to the gazebo, clamped them in place then marked the three holes. I drilled pilot holes in the vice then finished the holes. Once I had the two outer bolts in place I realized that my center bolt is about 1/2 “ too short so I will need to buy four more bolts to get those installed correctly.

Did not manage to get outside until the early afternoon. I went out and took down the gazebo door and tried to figure out while it will not shut. I ended up beating on it with a hammer and bending parts of it with a crescent wrench. After a couple of attempts I realized that I needed a new three inch bolt that was threaded 100% of the shaft. I don’t have any so I added that to my go to town eventually list. The bolt is for the door latch so it is fairly important to have it in place before I hang the door back up.

I asked Annmarie where the house number was located. It was in her office in the windowsill behind the barn door! No wonder I could not find it. We had it there for safekeeping. It was definitely safe from me. I ended up cleaning up all the tools and calf table away from the corral loading chute. I will need to back the stock trailer up to the chute this week so that I can get the three cows loaded up Friday morning to go to slaughter. They are going to kill three this Friday and two next Friday. The sheep are not getting killed until the first of the year.

Our momma sheep are getting skinny again. The lambs are literally sucking the calories out of them. I put a protein lick out for them and tomorrow I will get some creep feed for the lambs. Feeding the lambs separately a high protein diet should relieve some caloric load from the ewes. Annmarie has a friend that agreed to take all the sheep for a month to clean up a boggy area on their property that is a little water logged. They don’t want cattle on it. It is a hay field that was too wet to get a third cutting on it. This is perfect for us.

Gazebo up!

Steve Hardin1 Comment

This was the weekend to finish up the gazebo! The rental equipment came on Friday at 0900, a scissor lift and 45’ boom lift. I got the requisite five minutes of training and I was in control of my own fate. I knew that I needed to get the boom setup first as it was needed to hold the roof up so I could tear down the platform. But I needed to get the scissor lift onto the front hillside first as I was going to park the boom in the corral and all access would be blocked. Luckily, there was a hook hanging from the bottom of the forks so I was able to just use the hook on the boom. I thought the 45’ boom was a little overkill but it just barely reached out far enough! I ended up with the boom fully extended and had to drive the boom forward a few inches to get the needed distance.

I was able to put up a chain attached to two points of the center ring and over the boom hook. When I took tension off the platform I was ready to tear it all down. During the dismantling of the platform I discovered that one side was only held up by a single screw, the other two had failed. The pallet I had built the platform on fell apart into three pieces. I was pretty impressed that it all held together long enough to get the rental equipment out to the house. The best part is they rented it for one day (8 hours run time) and did not pick it up until Monday. So I was able to use it over the entire weekend.

Once the platform was off the Kubota, I drove it out of the middle of the gazebo. I then tried to drive the 4×4 scissor lift with big tires into the gazebo, after having to drop all the protective rails to make it go under the opening, it was four inches too tall. Nope, one wheel kept spinning and it would not go more than three feet. I called the rental company and they sent out the mechanic. I worked on the baler as the new parts came on Thursday. I put the gear on backwards and had to pull it and was attempting to get it on correctly when the mechanic arrived. It turns out that this machine had been having some issues and he did not know about it. It turns out to mostly be poor design. It uses hydraulic pressure to drive all four wheels and once a wheel starts to spin all the pressure goes to that tire! We got the lift into the gazebo by nudging it a couple of times with the tractor forks. I was able to get four more roof panels on by myself for a total of 8/24 that were attached on top ring and bottom to the wall.

Mr Rainman came out Saturday morning at 0700 and we dove right in! It turns out we had four roof pieces that had the upper eight inches cut off! So you cannot bolt them to the upper ring. It was pure happenstance that I installed one on Friday and then Mr Rainman found three more. Once we knew how many we had we spread them out every fifth panel evenly around the roof. The scissor lift had to have a little push/pull help with the Kubota to get it turned inside the gazebo so we could finish getting the roof panels up. We made really great progress but it was starting to get late and we had three panels left. I was tired and wanted to quit, but we were almost there so we stayed and finished the last three. The entire roof was up, all the panels that could be bolted to the center ring were but we were having trouble with six panels not lining up at the bottom of the roof. The roof was too high, it needed to drop about one to two inches on just those panels. We decided to let gravity do its job overnight and come back in the morning and all would be perfect. Especially since we had already bent one anchor by me extending the boom when I should have been retracting it.

It was not perfect the next morning, absolutely no part of the roof had shifted. Now on one hand this is great news, but it still left us with the conundrum of how to lower the roof. Especially, since the wind was blowing 10-15 MPH, I was so glad we finished putting up the roof on Saturday! We talked about going up in the scissor lift and trying to just hang and throw our body weight around to get the roof to slide down. Instead we moved the boom truck around to the back of the gazebo and used the boom to “push” down on that side of the roof. We got all but two holes lined up and ended up drilling new holes for those last couple of holes.

I had this brilliant idea to cover the center top ring with the panel I had cut in half earlier in the assembly process. I wanted to just use one piece of the panel but it was not wide enough. So my awesome idea was to just stack them like a cross at 90 degrees, drill a hole and put an eyelet on top then drill four more holes and put the eyelets in the opposite direction so I could then anchor the new “free” lid to the center ring. The wife was away at church and I was sure this was going to work. The big issue was neither myself or Mr Rainman knew how to tie quick release knot. The second knot I tried was called an exploding clove-hitch knot and it held 60# of metal and let us raise it 45’ into the air with the wind blowing! I wanted to release the hitch as soon as it hit the roof but Mr Rainman wanted to wait until we knew it would work.

We went up in the scissor lift and started working on getting it attached. As we were getting ready to attach it he asks me if we should go down in the lift, walk out and look up to see how it appeared from the sidewalk. I naysayed this suggestion immediately! I was tired and wanted to be done. We got it all tightened down when the wife pulled up and promptly walked over and started saying “no” repeatedly. It was all Mr Rainman could do to not fall over laughing. So we dropped the lift and I went and looked. It did not look the greatest but I did not want to spend a $600 plus for a new cap if I could even find one so I got her to agree to let me use the cap idea as long as I cut the cross into a circle. Of course I thought I had a lot of metal cutting wheels and ended up only having two new ones and two used ones. I got it cut with my big DeWalt 60v grinder. I had half a disc left and only exploded one disc.

The amazing exploding clove-hitch was again used. It was easier to tie the second time and it did work as we tried it out after we brought down the cross. We got the round one up, we dropped the scissor lift, looked at it and then tried to anchor it down. This necessitated a trip to the hardware store to get shorter tighteners. We got six tighteners on it and it is not going anywhere. The knot gave way when it was pulled from the ground, we used 100’ rope and tied the knot in the middle of the rope.

All the equipment was moved out so it could be picked up on Monday. Again the scissor lift required some pulling to get it out of the gazebo but it was a down hill trip to the driveway so I was able to get it out without any more assistance. So it only cost about $1100 to rent equipment and I only had 2.5 hours of run time on the scissor lift and 2 hours of run time on the boom truck. Yes, I do know that I probably should have done that 3-4 weeks earlier. So learn from my hesitancy/cheapness and just rent the equipment early. It is a dang sight safer that is for sure.

Gazebo back on the menu

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I was not certain that this weekend would be the completion of the gazebo. On Monday I was not able to reserve the needed equipment. It was still out. On Wednesday I missed work due to illness and slept most of the day. So on Thursday I went and rented the equipment, I had to get a boom that had uneven forks but they agreed to deliver it on Friday but their delivery driver was out sick so Friday was up in the air. This morning the two pieces showed up. I had to move the scissor lift into the yard first then set up the boom truck as it was going to block access to the yard.

I noticed that when I was driving the 4×4 scissor lift into the yard that it only had two wheel drive. It tried to get stuck in the driveway on the gravel. I got it into the yard without too much difficulty but I had noted that when one wheel spun all other wheels ceased turning under power. The boom was another experience. You can choose three different types of wheel turning. This ended up with me going into the corral crooked. I got trapped up against the gate and had to crawl out the window. I was convinced I was going to have to remove the gate on the corral to get into it. Once I walked around I realized that I was trying to go into the corral on a diagonal. I got back out of the gateway, straightened it out and tried again. I was able to jog it back and forth between the two open gates to get it lined up on the center of the gazebo. My one minute instruction did not handle the myriad different ways to move the boom. I was shown how to change the angle on the entire vehicle to straighten out the forks if needed. There is a large hook on the boom and I am just going to use it instead of the forks. I was able to reach out and center the hook where I thought it needed to go. I then went and found a chain and crawled up my central platform. The wooden shims had all fallen out and the entire ring was cockeyed. I had the chain on it and ready to lift when I realized that the hook was fixed and could not swivel and my chain was at a 90 degree angle to the chain which would cause the center part to try and spin when I lifted it up into the air. So I got brave and moved a whole bunch of loose wood and moved the chain 90 degrees. I then went and lifted the chain with the boom, it worked! I had the roof suspended in the air from above. I then proceeded to tear down my original platform. This was slightly disturbing. I only had one screw on one side holding the platform level. When I got it all down on the ground the pallet I had built it on broke into two pieces immediately and if I had kicked it, it would have fallen into three pieces. Needless to say the platform was not my greatest idea and went from unsafe to death defying in fairly short order.

The 4×4 scissor lift would not move on the grass, it kept spinning. I called and they agreed to send out the mechanic. I worked on the baler while I waited as the new parts came yesterday. I had one gear that I attempted to put on backwards and am now putting it on correctly but it’s only on about half way when the repairman arrived. Come to find out this exact machine has had several documented issues that the mechanic did not know about but the sales staff did, he was not happy. It has to do with hydraulic drive central pressure and no articulating wheelbase. He was able to get the machine closer to the fence for a nice straight shot. I ended up using the Kubota to push it into the gazebo. I had to lower the rails as the lift is 96” high and the opening is only 92” high. Once we had it inside the mechanic was kind enough to help me get the rails back up. Safety first! It then took me another 30 minutes to get all the tools together.

I was able to get three new panels installed and four more attached to the gazebo at the top and bottom. I was also able to get about 70% of the bolts in the middle of the panels installed. I then got about 100 bolts and nuts set up and ready for tomorrow. The only thing I could not find was a 1/2” open end wrench. I had two and now I cannot find a single one in either the machine shed or old house. Mr Rainman is coming in the morning and I am hopeful we can get the entire roof installed tomorrow. The nice thing is once the lift is in position I just turn it off to conserve my run time hours.

The horse is loving this project as she has to be in with the sheep because she cannot get to her water. So it’s an all you can eat buffet for her.

Winter is coming

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Winter is coming and Fall has officially started. I have a bunch of vacation (staycation) planned for October. I had 22 items on the list and managed to get two done this weekend. At least 16 on the list have to be done. I tried to rent a boom forklift and a scissor lift on Friday but the scissor lift is overdue and they did not know when it would be returned. There is no sense renting one without the other. Unfortunately, after further inspection the roof of the gazebo has been blown off the blocks I had used to shim it up. This has caused the one side to fall about twelve inches. Luckily, the strap and platform are holding it all roughly in place. I will try and rent equipment on Tuesday. If not then it will be the first weekend of October project. I will only have two days to get it done. It will still cost about $1800 to rent the equipment. Now had I rented a crane in the first place I may have been able to do it in two days but I am doubtful, I think it would have taken 3-4 days. But, I would not have needed the scissor lift. I think it would have been a wash on the rental price.

I took the day on Saturday to finish up the lavender. I had spent a couple of hours on it earlier in the week. We have about fifteen volunteer plants growing where they are not supposed to be. But I had to really hack into the plants that tried to die this spring and I am not sure that we will not lose ten plants this winter. So in the spring I will replant all that die and take the extras out and put them in the front yard along the fence. This took quite a while as I had to take a pair of loppers and dig into the plants to cut out the dead and save the live part of the plant. I ended up with quite a pile of lavender scraps tossed over the fence. It is amazing how much scent the plants can put off even if there are no flowers. I smelled so strongly that I was occasionally coughing from the scent overwhelming me.

I did go check on Lil Dumper to see if the brakes were done, nope. They had ordered parts and torn it apart and discovered they had the wrong parts. So new parts were ordered and hopefully it will be done this week. When it gets done I will be able to move soil from the barn lot to new flower spot in the orchard. We are going to toss out a bunch of wildflower seed and just let that area go wild for the honey bees. Mind you we don’t currently have any bees but there are still honey bees around we just don’t know where the hive is located. We have a Nuc on order for the spring so we can start over again next year. I told the brake place that it was taking as long as the tires and rims took to do the brakes. He had assured me when I dropped it off this time that it would be done faster than the later, he was wrong.

I also ordered more parts for the baler. I was sent the wrong large gears and am missing two crucial bushings. When the parts come I can send the others back for a credit. Which is a good thing as it is $500 worth of parts, they should be here this week.

Sunday I spent on the weed eater killing the nasty stuff on our front hillside. We had a lot of thistles and tall weeds that needed knocked down. This is a messy process and it gets worse when you crawl down in the ditch and try to weed eat all of the water plants. If you angle the weed eater one way it tosses the water away from you and the other tilt angle throws it right at you! I was able to dig down into the top two inches of water with the weed eater. I did the lower half of the ditch first and by the time I started back up the ditch I was beat and left the last 1/3 for later. I thought I could just go back inside but after I filled the horse trough with water it took me another 45 minutes to spray off the walkway and bridge. Otherwise we would have tracked all that cut grass into the house. Annmarie got chain and figured out how to keep our porch gates open. The puppy, Milo, can no longer squeeze between the rails and has yet to figure out how to open the gates with his nose. So we have to keep going outside to open the porch gates for him to go potty. Since winter is coming we want him to figure out how to go potty by himself without us standing there and encouraging him.

I am just starting to get back to some sustained level of physical exertion. I had no idea how doing nothing for six weeks and then doing slightly more than nothing for four weeks would affect my level of conditioning. I still feel like I am going to die by the end of Sunday but at least I can get to that level of exhaustion now.

The coyotes are making me crazy. This morning when I went out to let the sheep out of the pasture and the moms/babies out of the barn the coyotes were right on top of the hill barking and howling. I could not see them but there were there. So after feeding I ambled back to the house, grabbed the shotgun and some hearing protection and popped off a round out the back door. They took off and quit making any noise. This is a stupid problem.