The puppy held out till 0530 this morning before whining to let us know it was time to be let out of his crate so he could go potty outside.  So Annmarie got out of bed and let all three dogs outside.  I came down 10 minutes later to let them inside.  Bailey (adult chocolate lab) and Zeke (border collie puppy) were right outside the door ready to come in, Sprout (Brussels Griffin) was no where to be seen.  Sprout only weighs 11 pounds, therefore negating the effects of having a fence.  He can just crawl between the cattle panel squares.  Annmarie stuck her head out a little later to call him in and heard him barking up past the chicken coop.  She thought he had something cornered and needed a human to bail him out.  So we went out with guns and flashlights (I wore my new ball cap light, very cool!).  We ended up walking past the old hen house, the spring and all the outbuildings.  No Sprout any where.  Annmarie went to let the animals out while I took the dogs and arsenal back to the house.  Within a few minutes Annmarie’s mother calls to say that Sprout is down at her house.  It turns out that she had seen him on the back hillside.  He was chasing coyotes off the property!  He was over a 1/4 mile away from the house and in the opposite direction of the out buildings.  The sound of his barking was bouncing off the out buildings making Annmarie think that is where he was located.  Sprout needs to learn that at a whopping 11 pounds multiple coyotes are going to make mince meat out of him.  He just does not get that concept.  He came home happy as can be and still in one piece. 

Annmarie talked me into going outside with her to feed the sheep and horses our left over apples.  The sheep loved them.  I happened to look up from feeding the sheep to discover a four month old lamb inside my chicken yard.  The lamb has been crawling in my chicken door set in the fence to go inside and eat the grass no one else can get.  It crawled out the door while we were watching.  Still no new babies.  January is going to be a busy month.

Stairwell overhead fan, for hot air movement.

I installed the fan in our stairway today.  I should have measured the actual width of the stairwell before ordering fan blades.  After getting the fan installed I have less than one inch between the ends of the fan and the wall on both sides.  Now the nice thing about that is I did get the fan centered!  It works without hitting any walls but we are probably going to order the 42 inch blades (our current blades are 44 inch, total width).  It is already making a huge difference.  We lowered the upstairs temperature by 4 degrees with the fan pushing the hot air back down.  I don’t like standing on the ladder on the stairs, despite having a special ladder that has adjustable length sides.  Only one more time up on the ladder, to install the trim on the upper stairwell window.  It makes me feel safer just thinking about it.  When we do the barn roof this summer, I am going to have safety harnesses.  That way if I fall the rope will catch me.  

Fan in action.

We opened Christmas presents tonight and Annmarie got me a light/laser combo that I can attach to a gun.  I am going to put it on the pistol grip shotgun!!  It has great potential.  I need to shim under the bracket to get it to fit properly.  I am stoked!  Always looking for ways to get ahead of the predators. 

I went out to feed tonight in the dark.  I had to put out extra so in the morning we would only have to open gates and be done.  So I was stepping off into the sheep area with hay for the horses and tripped over one of the dark ewes.  I could not see her, so I landed on my face and chest in the sheep poop laden straw.  Now the good part of this is I just added some more straw last month so it is about eight inches deep.  Lots of padding for the fall, didn’t hurt at all.  Annmarie got me a bill cap light for Christmas!  It clips onto the bill of your cap.  I tried it out when the dogs went out to pee.  It works great.  Not great for shooting because you get a little too much light back into your eyes, but for feeding it is going to be the Bomb! 

I snagged 8 used windows today for free.  Six of them are double pane 1/4 inch thick on a side, very heavy and 3 ft x 5 ft.  Nice and big, they are old windows that had some kind of plastic film put on them to keep the light out.  The film peels right off with no problems.  I forgot to bring some towels or blankets with me to put between the windows once I put them in the back of the pickup.  It was raining any way and they would have gotten wet.  So instead I used two feminine hygiene pads (hey, they are sticky on one side) at the top of each window.  They nice thing is with the adhesive strips the pads stuck to the glass and stayed in place.  It worked great, I didn’t break a single window.  Luckily I had 14 pads in the pickup.  Two of the windows are 2ft x 2 ft, single pane wooden framed.  These are the type of windows I had initially figured I would have to use.  The double pane old school ones were a great find.  I am still trying to decide on how big to make the greenhouse.  I am thinking around 12 ft x 20 ft.  I want to dig down 2 feet so the ground never freezes in the Winter.  I am also considering making the back wall a heat sink/super thick wall filled with rock/dirt to help regulate the temperature.  Still not sure yet how to do the back wall.  It will have to be pretty tall to help with the temperature regulation in all four seasons.  This is my new fantasy project.  Won’t happen for at least two more years.  This gives me time to do at least fifty revisions of the plans in my head.  This many plans and revisions usually means I don’t have as many problems when I am actually building.

I rehung the upstairs bathroom door.  It closes now without scraping on anything, but it still won’t latch shut.  I spent two hours getting it just right and another 30 minutes trying to get the latch to work.  As Annmarie was calling me for dinner it dawned on me that the reason for the old hook latch at the top of the door was probably because the latch did not work a long time ago either.  I think the solution is to move the entire metal plate 1/16 inch into the room.  This will create a little visible gap when the door is open, but I can stain the wood and it will hide it.  The whole door frame is warped into a C shape with the middle of the C being where the latch is located.  This means taking the locking plate off and chiseling out 1/16 and re-drilling the two holding screws.  Gonna be painful, but I am off the door project for the night.  I was going to do the spare bedroom door tonight but I used up the two packs of shims I had on hand.  So I will get four more packs of shims next week. 

So it is not enough to own sheep that get out of the fence at every opportunity, we have a puppy who is worse.  After the fiasco earlier in the week were said puppy just leaped over the doggy pen gate and was waiting for us on the front porch when we got home.  We decided that something more secure was needed.  The kennel is the best option for security (Zeke hates it and howls for 30-45 minutes when kenneled, down from 2 hours).  Unfortunately, his bladder limit is only about 4-5 hours.  We were going to go have an early Christmas dinner with my parents and might be gone past the potty limit.  Our solution was to kennel our adult dog in the house and put the puppy outside on our overhead dog run.  We clipped him onto a 15 ft retractable leash attached to a five foot chain onto an overhead wire.  NO way the puppy can get free.  Our 80# lab cannot get off this setup.  Six hours later we come home in the fog and snow and try and spot the puppy in our yard.  No puppy, then Annmarie says “He is on the front porch!”.  Zeke came running out to great us in the driveway.  How does a puppy get off of said prison?  You chew through the cloth band holding the clip to your collar.  So now the retractable leash is toast.  So not only will I need a new retractable leash, I will need to pickup a small section of chain to clip to Zeke’s collar and then (three feet later) clip the other end to the retractable leash.  This way he can never get to a section that can be chewed in half.  

New puppy, “Zeke”, border collie for the sheep.

 Well, I managed to finish the stairwell access panel despite watching a new puppy constantly.  Zeke is a constant distraction to make sure he doesn’t sneak off and go potty some where he is not supposed to go.  He does very well, will sit at front door already and does make little noises when he needs to go out.  Hates being alone.  Follows me every where and whined when I used the saw and he had to stay on the porch.  Staying on the porch was his idea.  He did not like the saw or the sander. 

This will be painted white soon, sure will be easy to get to the light!

 I had to recut several pieces and tear one back out after installing it, but I did finally get it in place and done.  The hallway side will be painted all white and the inside (bathroom side) will be left bare wood.  It turned out very nice and was made out of $20 worth of wood and some scrap dowels I had laying around. 

View from inside the bathroom

It turned out nice and the dowels lock it into place.  My dowel material was warped.

Next is to repair the fence out by the cattle guard.  Something ran in to it and tore it down.  A small recreational vehicle most likely.  After that then I can start cleaning out the spare bedroom and getting ready to finish it off.  On my off weekend I will do some painting so someone else can watch the puppy.  I don’t want everything covered in paint!