My help got hired back to his job so now the bridge has to wait for a month.  Glad he is employed again, sad the bridge is going to take a little longer.  I will get over it as it will still be finished by the end of Summer and it was on the list of Summer projects.  I will still meet my goal.

Annmarie and Sarah are going out and working with the horses first thing in the morning (0630).  Yes, that is really early.  I have to agree, since I was up already I worked on the tool shed.  I wanted to get the shelving unit installed on the wall.  There was a 48 inch space and the shelving unit was 48 inches wide.  Did I mention that this was going to go in a corner or that I only took one measurement?  I installed the 2×4 onto the wall that the unit would sit on and attempted to get the unit in place.  Not happening, it was too big.  I had to move the old Dewalt radial arm saw out of the way and start with the unit about 14 inches higher than it needed to be.  I beat the unit back in with a large rubber mallet then attempted to shove it down.  No go.  It would not budge.  I used a four foot chunk of 2×4 against the ceiling and the top of the cabinet and got it to move down about three inches before it got stuck again.  I went out and got a eight foot 2×4 and some scraps of wood to put on top of the cabinet as I levered it down with the eight foot lever.  I got it in place.  It held with no screws!!  I did add screws and another 2×4 to the top so I could screw from inside the shelf into the 2×4.  Annmarie came out to check on me and I had been at it over three hours.  So I am making progress on the tool shed, it is just taking time.  I am going to build the table top next so I can mount my drill, sander and scrollsaw.  It will be made out of 2×4 on each shelf section, then a full sheet of OSB then about 2-3 chunks of one inch plywood (scrap) it will be 4×8 feet long.  Should be pretty sturdy.

Baby twin boys born last night

We had more sheep babies again last night.  Annmarie came in the house to get me because one of the mothers was worrying at the side of the barn.  The baby sheep can get under the wooden rails.  I will fix this when I do the barn repair.  So we went up there and new babies!!  There were twin baby boys from one of our two very friendly ewes.  Cute little buggers.

Baby chicks not enjoying their enforced outside time.

Original chicken ramp, one loose board on the chicken landing.

For the afternoon Sarah and I cut down all the thistles in the barn lot and ram pasture.  Sarah did most of the work, I was the quality control and difficult to reach chopper.  While she did that I worked on a new chicken ramp for the babies.  I have been needing this for a while and the babies are old enough to come out if they can be convinced it is safe.  So I just threw them all out of the coop after I finished it.  They need some encouragement.  Sarah had to catch them and put them back in the coop at dark.

New chicky ramp.  I even put hardware cloth on the ramp so  they could get a grip when going up and down the ramp.  Heck, I even cut angles with my hand skilsaw.

Porch is starting to pile up with stuff that needs to disappear.

I went back out to the shed today and decided that I needed some peg board up on the wall.  I measured for the board and cut it and all the sundry underlying supports.  The problem with this is I changed my mind about how I was going to organize the space.  I started moving the shelving units all over the place.  I even took one six foot tall 2 ftx4 ft and made it into 2 three feet tall shelves next to each other.  I am going to take a large piece of plywood and place it across the top to make a work surface.  I can mount my drill, sander and scroll saw to this table and actually use them!!!  Very cool concept.  I may even hook up all three to my shop vac so I can have a dust collection system going.  I will need to move my shop vac out of the house next week anyway.  I have the duct work for a dust collection system already.

I did manage to hit my shop light and break out the bulb.  So I may have to adjust the location of this light and definitely need to raise it.  Of course with no light there will be no nocturnal progress made on the shed.

New work bench, needs a new top but you can see how it going to work out, my scroll saw is already claiming a space.  The far wall on the left side of the window is going to be pegboard.

It is better now even with being torn up.  I have taken out five bags and one box of trash.  The trash guys are in for a big surprise. that wooden shelving unit next to the plastic buckets is going to be mounted on the wall to the right of the window. I just need to add in a bottom and top support.

  I also ended up moving my pegboard to a separate wall and am going to move an old cabinet over to its spot and mount it to the wall.  I did remove an old work top/shelving unit that was original in the old house when I cleaned it out the first time.  It is just too tall to work on.

I got the deal of the century today.  I have been talking to the scrap metal yard owner about saving woven wire fencing for me.  I picked up 450# of new looking woven wire (I mean this stuff is brand new, no rust, bright metal color).  It is amazing stuff.  I cannot believe that anyone would rip it out.  I would be good for another 20-30 years!  I just looked up the fence type and I ended up with almost 600 feet of fencing or $0.167/foot.   An amazing price!  I asked for another pickup load and I will have my fencing needs met.  Now if only it would build itself…

Well we are slowly gaining ground.  Another raccoon off to the big blue sky.  We ended up with another family it looks like, so until they are all gone, then the chickens will keep disappearing.  This happened two years ago, but I happened to catch the family outside during the daylight and capped six at once so I got ahead of the game that year, doesn’t look like that is going to happen this time.

I did go out and lock the chickens up in the electrified chicken yard.  I also spent another hour organizing my tool room in the old house.  It was starting to really get out of control.  I was having a difficult time finding tools, so I figured it was time to organize.  I went out and bought a bunch of see through containers and am currently organizing the room.  I hung some stuff on the walls today and added in another shelf.  I may move one of the shelving units.

Baby chicks growing up.  I will open the cardboard cover next week and let them roam out into their play yard.

Yep, I worked on the bridge again today.  We got to pour concrete today!  I was very happy to get the concrete poured.  The only problem was I did not realize how much concrete we were going to pour.  I had changed some dimensions after purchasing sackrette and did not recalculate how much concrete would actually be needed.  This did prove to be a problem.  On the plus side, we used the electric concrete mixer ($280, worth every penny!) I purchased at Home Depot.  It was the only thing that saved us.  We could not have mixed 4.5 cubic yards of concrete by hand (40-80# bags of sackrette).  I was amazed at the amount of concrete we used. I also figure that I saved 50% of the concrete cost by purchasing my own mixer and paying someone to help me over buying premixed and having it delivered.

Finished concrete, will pull the forms off next week (a full seven days Doom).

We figured we better date our work for future generations.

This is our center posts with thread all inserted to attach the pressure treated post between the beams.    Yes, I do know the concrete is not beautiful.  Remember, it will be UNDER the bridge.

My concrete is not beautiful but it is very functional.  I had to leave after lunch to buy more concrete and left my helper to dig out that last post.  I came back an hour later and he tells me this post is worse than the other one (burning didn’t help, stupid steam put out fire).  He had dug down quite a bit and the pickup was in the front yard full of concrete so we hooked onto the post with a chain and jerked it out with the pickup.  It worked!  Saved us another few hours of battle with the post.  This post was not nearly as rotten as the other.
I will be all ready by the end of next week to build a bridge!  I saw our cedar all bundled up at the hardware store while I was picking up the concrete.  They are keeping it for us until we are ready.  Mighty nice of them.

On a positive note another raccoon died.  It was foolish enough to get trapped in the trap.  On a more negative note it was a small raccoon so that means there are several more to catch now.  This does bring the count up to Farm 5, Predators 15.

My labor saver, concrete mixer.

I am so looking forward to work so I can rest and recover.  I need a day off.  I did manage to sneak up and take some pictures of the back creek.

Back runoff creek.  It is way slower now.

Back runoff creek, trying to decide which picture I like best.

New baby boy born last night.  He is a looker, too bad he is the wrong gender.

Today did start out with a pleasant step.  I had messaged the Chicken Butler guy last night after noticing my failed door.  This morning I had a message from him and he is going to send me a brand new replacement.  I offered to send the defective one back to him.  Great news.  Annmarie is sore and tired, her left foot is swollen (I am sure from kicking the raccoon in an attempt to dislodge it from her leg) and I made her stay in the TV room all day with her foot elevated.  I would like to say she took the forced inactivity gracefully, but that is not the case.
Sarah found another baby lamb today.  It is from one of the batch we picked up in December.  Which means she got pregnant within one month of arriving at our farm.  Oreo has been busy.  We listed Oreo on Craigslist and no one has called.  I am thinking he may be our dinner at the medieval feast next month.  I just need someone to help me butcher him on the Friday before.  Still thinking about this, I like it.
The baby lamb is another little boy.  That makes four boys this year.  Two will be ready this fall and the other two won’t be ready until Spring of next year.  He is very pretty.
I managed to catch a cat in our live trap last night.  No skunk or raccoon.  Sarah worked on chopping down the six foot thistles today.  She got halfway through them and will finish them this week.  We set up another live trap down at our inlaw’s house.  We are trying desperately to kill off all the predators.  On a plus note, Annmarie bought all the reloading supplies for the 30-30.  I don’t have time to do it, so we are sending Sarah to Grandpa’s house on Tuesday so he can teach her how to do it.  He has no fine motor skills left in his hands, but he has all the knowledge she will need and lots of patience for his granddaughter.  If that turns out well then I am going to have her load a few hundred 38 cal pistol rounds also.  I may even need some 30-06 rounds!  Definitely need some 357 rounds.  This is just snowballing.

Day 3 progress, doesn’t look much different than day 2! Hard to believe we spent 8 hours on it.

The bridge is progressing.  I did not quite meet my goals today.  Some brainstorms are better than others.  Burning out the posts was a great idea.  Unfortunately, when doing this you need to be sure that you are not burning over water.  The steam came up and put the fire out.  I think it may have worked if we did not add the dirt to the top.  It did help as my helper had the stubborn post out in 30 minutes.  So we decided to light the other post on fire one more time.  I didn’t figure we could get to that post and even if we poured concrete it could be done last.  Since we did not manage to pour any concrete it was no loss.  It took a considerable amount of time to set the far concrete forms.  There is a fabulous crop of rocks on that hillside.  I could not drive a single stake into the ground.  It was painful.  We had to assemble the entire form, get the height right and then back fill with large rocks to hold it all in place.  We pinned the whole form in place, hopefully it stays.
We did get all the rebar in place in the other five forms.  I even made round pieces of rebar to go around the vertical rebar pieces in the tubes.  Had to beat them into shape with a 3# hammer in the vice.
My help was mouthing off and being lazy so I popped him in the nose and gave him a bloody nose! LOL.  He was straining to bend the rebar in the vice and got a bloody nose.  Spent the last two hours with a napkin stuffed up his left nostril and blood all over his gloves.  We didn’t even stop for lunch.  Neither one of us was hungry.  Of course by quitting time at 1815 I was starving.  So we are stopping for lunch tomorrow.  We did get the concrete mixer assembled just before quitting time.

Rebar in place and ready for concrete.