I am way behind on the blog.  I know it and have been so busy I have let it slide.  On a plus note I have been taking pictures of the changes.  Lets start with the chickens.  I got more of the little buggers.  There was a sale at the feed store and I picked up some naked neck turkens, only 8 pullets.  We kept them in the house for almost two weeks in the brooder I made a couple of years ago.  When they get so noisy that you cannot watch TV in the living room then it is time to move them outside.  It is never simple so I had to go outside and clean out the baby area, apply more wood pellets, clean out the feeders and waterers and install them in the baby area.  I opted to go with the nipple waterer.  It is not freezing cold yet so the nipples will not freeze up yet.  We managed to get everyone moved over without incident and the chickens are doing well. 

Yesterday we had a wild storm pass through.  The winds topped 70mph!  No buildings were damaged but one of the two pears trees in the orchard broke.  The tree snapped its trunk in half about five feet off the ground.  So we put the sheep in the orchard this morning to clean up the mess.  There were hundreds of pears all over the ground.  The sheep will eat all the leaves and hopefully strip the bark off also.  Once the tree is bare I can go out and cut it up and throw it on the burn pile.  We have already talked about replacing the tree and planting 6-10 more fruit trees out in the orchard.  There are only a few trees left from the original orchard that was in place when the Annmarie’s relatives purchased the place.  The three black walnut trees I planted this summer are hanging in there and we will be planting a few more next month.  

There are days on the farm when you realize why farmers are on farm time.  Farm time has its own dictations and sometimes it passes quickly but usually it drags out and sucks you in until the task is done.  Farm time does not care for a schedule or deadline.   I had plans to go out first thing in the morning and load up some hay in the pickup and move it around to the wood shed.  Annmarie and I had talked about feeding Hogs (horse) in the yard daily and how much time it would take.  School is starting and we don’t have as much time in the morning.  It was decided that moving the hay next to the house would make all things easier.  I didn’t get to do it first thing as I had to run into town for an errand.

  I went out to the barn and started loading 8 bales into the back of the truck.  They were heavy!  I drove around to the back hillside and figured I would just drive in next to the fence and directly behind the wood shed.  My handy dandy rock wall is making a fairly level area.  It was tight but I made it.  I drug all eight bales into the wood shed and started to back up.  I tried to back out but the dirt is super light and kinda steep.  I kept spinning the back tires.  By the time I tried to put it in four wheel drive I was stuck up against the rock wall and couldn’t get enough travel to engage the hubs.  After 20 minutes I called uncle and got Annmarie to come out and help while I went for the tractor.  I chained the tractor to the pickup and had Annmarie drive the tractor.  No go, it could not pull it out.  I dug a path three more times by hand, threw rocks under the back tires repeatedly and even went and dug up a whole bucketful of dirt to weigh down the front of the tractor!  In true guy fashion I just kept trying different things.  Two hours later we finally got the pickup out.  I then filled the area with a little more dirt and leveled it with the tractor.  I really need to work on the wall and raise it another three feet.  

Today was the day we finished the first cupola!  It was a dreary over cast day.  A very good day to be on the barn roof.  It was very tolerable.  I snapped a picture while waiting for Jason to cut the next piece of wood and tie it to the blue rope so I could pull it up and attach it to the cupola.  Since our progress is measured in inches this year I decided I had better go cover the other cupola holes with plastic and a couple of pieces of tin to get us through until next year.  I had just crawled up the hole when a very large storm rolled in.  Jason was out watching for lighting while I tried to finish screwing the tin in place over the plastic.  I got the far side down before the rain started.  Oh boy does a cedar shake roof get slick with a little bit of rain on it.  I managed to get the second piece in place before the torrential downfall started.  I have hopes of doing another couple of days on the roof but I want to get things cleaned up and ready for winter now so I have to take it into account also.  

We ran to town and when we came back we did some more fencing down by the far end of the orchard.  The bull and sheep will no longer be able to sneak through the creek crossing.  We also used the tractor and shovels to clean out the front creek from the far end of the orchard to the creek pipe crossing.  The concrete chute where the old irrigation pump used to pump is full of dirt and grass, we just dug a path and removed most of the weeds.  I want the creek bed to dry up where the water is not running so it can be worked with the tractor.  There was a six foot wide path of mud, now there is a one foot wide channel with all the water running down it.  I am hoping that other five feet of mud dries out.  Here is a picture of the finished cupola.  

Day 5, one piece left on each side then other 2 sides!

It has been a long holiday weekend.  Jason and I worked on the cupola both Saturday and Sunday.  It was hot!  A nice overcast day would be nice.  On Sunday at lunch time Annmarie wanted us to start sprinklers.  So I changed out broken sprinkler heads on two sprinklers and tried to pump from the front creek.  With three sprinklers running we started to run out of water, so I shut one outlet valve, water level still dropping, so I shut another outlet valve, level still dropping so I throttled the last one down 50% and the creek level still dropped.  We cannot pump out of the front creek at this time.  There is only a small amount running.  So after Jason cut the same board three times and I threw it off the roof three times we called it quits on the roof for the day.  Instead we went to go look at the spring head up by the old chicken coop.  It does indeed have a cavern and it was all clogged up with grass and weeds.  We raked and shoveled the grass out till we got down to the area I could dredge with the tractor.  I dredged it and scooped out a few yards of foul smelling mud and dead weeds.  This is not pleasant work by any stretch of the imagination.