Author: Steve Hardin

Treasures

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Sunday we went over to a neighbor’s house to finish getting his chicken coop ready for chickens. It now has chicken wire over all the windows and around the entire yard with bird netting over the entire chicken yard. He is all ready for chickens. I will hopefully be getting a few laying hens over there in the next week. He doesn’t want a rooster so I will have to get rid of the third rooster we now have. I usually only keep one rooster but we now have the chickens ranging up past the old chicken coop, behind the barn and up on the back hillside. Both roosters are trying very hard to keep apart and it is leading to a much wider roaming region.

Mr Rainman went over with me and we got our trailer loaded with an old cow feeder, a wind directional feeder, an old grain bin that used to be on a very old combine and an old cook stove. The cow feeder just needed rolled out into the pasture and filled with hay. The wind directional feeder needs a wire bucket installed so the hay will be contained while the horse is eating it. The grain bin is big and should hold a lot of grain but the entire bottom is rusted out. We poked holes in it while we were loading it. We knew this before we loaded it but reality set in when the tractor forks went through the floor. The stove just needs a wire wheel brush and some new stove black paint to get it back in shape.

We are going to put the stove in the gazebo. I will cut a vent hole in the door of the gazebo and make a covered wood pile out next to the corral. We won’t need that much wood and it will all have to be fairly small to fit into the fire box on the stove. The fire box and ash box are in great shape and do not need any repairs. The floor has to go into the gazebo before the stove can be set.

I will need to get some sheet metal to fix the grain bin. I am thinking 1/16” should be plenty thick. I am not sure what gauge of sheet metal that corresponds to, Google will have to tell me. Google says it is almost 14 gauge so I guess 14 gauge is what I will use. I will definitely need to practice first and I suspect the wire feed is going to be the key to my success when working with sheet metal.

The wheat field has gotten enough water to really shoot up and is doing well. The mild temperatures have been allowing it to grow.

Milo the wonder dog

Steve Hardin3 Comments

We picked up a Border Terrier puppy almost a year and a half ago, we named him Milo and he started to go to work with Annmarie as a therapy dog in training since he was 6 months old. He thinks the hospital is his petting zoo and treat mart. Normally he goes to work 2-3 times a week. We always let him pick whether he is going in or not. He has to have a brush and wipe down before work every morning. So if I call him and he hangs out in his bed or the back of the couch and doesn’t come over for grooming then he gets to stay home. If he wants to go to work he will come running over so he can have his pre work beauty session.

Annmarie has been working very hard to train him to be around the chaos and people that are normal in a hospital. He is immune to wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, canes or any contraption present in a hospital. He can ride the elevator and has no trouble with the stairs or automatic doors. This weekend he had to take a certification test to prove that he is ready to be an official therapy dog up until this point he has been in training.

He passed the test with flying colors and is officially a certified therapy dog! We are very happy and lucky that he is such a special trooper.

Sickness cannot halt progress

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Sickness cannot halt production on the farm, it can merely sideline it! I was very ill last week and ended up catching pneumonia. Ever since that first bought of Covid my lungs have not snapped back and I get pneumonia pretty easily now. Of course I got it and finally had to reach out to my PCP when my oxygen saturations started to drop into the mid 80% range. This caused several days of missed work but Mr. Rainman was coming out for the weekend last week and I needed to take advantage of the help. The plan was to get the sand down and compacted in the Gazebo so that we could lay the pavers. There are about 1200 pavers that have to go down to fill up the space. This does seem like a lot but they just have to lay down then we can put special grout down and seal them all in place.

The real problem was we had still not managed to get the compactor to function correctly. We have done multiple things to get it going. We ended up having to change the oil as this model somehow gets fuel into the oil which then causes the motor to kill itself when it gets up to speed. Once we did that it worked but the throttle cable was still not working correctly and Mr Rainman ended up touching the hot exhaust plat and burning a couple of bolt patterns into his palm. We decided that this project was going to have to wait until the spring. We need to fix the throttle cable again and we need some water available to water down the sand as we compact it. I managed to find a throttle cable that is used on a concrete cutter that allows you to set it at various locations and the cable will not retract with vibrations. I have ordered said cable and it should be here this week. I am sure I will have to fabricate some type of holder to hold it in place but if the throttle cable stays in place it will be worth it. I just need to get a tarp and cover up the compactor for the winter. This chewed up five hours trying to get things up and going before we finally just called uncle and gave up. There is a plan in place and we will pick it up in the spring.

I have several other items that need to get done before the ground freezes so I have to pivot my to do list to get these items knocked out soon. If I were not sick they would have been done now but I have been having to rest. Rest is a four word cuss word when you are talking to a farmer/rancher. It is fairly derogatory and tends to get in the way of all progress. It is not one I like to hear in regard to my work output. I have been hearing it a lot lately from a lot of different directions. Ultimately, despite my will I have been forced to rest and recuperate.

Bathroom remodel day 50

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The deadline for the bathroom to be completed is our daughter’s wedding in January 2026. This seems to have become a mantra whispered, sung, stated regularly to ensure I do not forget. It is going to be close! After our grandson’s baptism today, Gingerman helped me get the cabinet into the bathroom.

The first thing I had to do was kill the power and get the outlet attached to the back of the cabinet. Luckily, my measurements were good and the hole lined up with the box on the wall. I was able to get it fit properly in my electric nook. I have another small extension that needs to be plugged in so I have enough plugs for all the various bathroom electric items. I just cannot remember at this point what safe spot I chose nine months ago. I am still in contemplation mode, I have not started tearing apart the mud room or old house yet. I think it’s in the back room of the old house but I am just not sure. We have been moving things around so there is no telling where it is actually located.

I was able to get four countersinked screws in the upper portion while leveling the cabinet. The trim near the wall is going to be painful to get lined up correctly. The wall is slanted and the wooden and tile portion are different thicknesses, I am going to have shape the trim piece to fit into the gap. Annmarie ordered metal hooks Sunday so we can hang hand towels next to the sink. I also think this will cut down on water splashes against the cabinet. I am going to carry the ceiling trim around the top of the cabinet to help incorporate it into the room. I had to bend the trim during removal so I will have to hope I have two more intact pieces out in the cellar. I know there is at least one leftover but I think there may be two. I will need to check that this week so I can order some if needed. I will also need to buy four feet of 4-5 inch oak for the foot and top of the cabinet.

When we turned that cabinet on its side to get it into the bathroom, there is about a 1/4” clearance from the ceiling. If I had made the cabinet any taller we would not have been able to stand it up in the bathroom. I would have had to try and shorten the bottom equally. I am not sure that would have gone smoothly as I would not have torn the cabinet apart again to do that.

I had some more straight run chickens grow up. I had to kill two extra roosters as I only want two. When I went into the coop for eggs tonight I saw one more extra roosters that will need to go. The chickens adjusted to daylight savings time well. They were all in the coop when I went out to get eggs.

Our first 30 bales of small round bales has been eaten by each group of cows. They each got another 15 bales today. The grass is green and the cows were not really interested in the hay. Not a single cow even budged or gave me a sideways glance when I was putting the hay out into the feeders.

I got the second coat of oil onto the $25 sewing cabinet we bought. It turned out really nice, a little Formbsy’s, tung oil and a lot of elbow grease made it a gem.

Bathroom remodel day 49

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Saturday was incredible, the temperature got up to 78.8 F! It is November 1 and it should not be that warm, to compensate the wind gusted up to 38 MPH. It was the perfect day to get the finish on the bathroom cabinet. I rolled on the Tried & True finish then after it sat for 30 minutes I rubbed it all off with a dry lint free rag. Luckily, I was able to run inside and steal three old T-shirts from my drawer as I could not find the lint free rags. I found them about half way through cleaning up the cabinet and they were no longer needed. I want to get the bathroom cabinet installed in the bathroom tomorrow so I can start working on the custom trim. I am going to have to trim it in place to account for the slanted floor and ceiling and walls!

Annmarie had me pick up a sewing end table a few weeks ago. The finish was in very rough shape. I opted to get some Formbsy’s product to help me fix it. So I spent a few hours rubbing the old finish off and getting the new one on. It turned out very nice. I still need to add a second coat of Tung Oil finish tomorrow before I bring it inside the house. I am not sure where it is going to go but that is not my wheelhouse.

The gazebo needs to get done but I am told for the bricks to actually stay in place and me not have to constantly fix it we need to use the compactor on the sand before the bricks are placed. This sounds reasonable as we do own a compactor but it needs to actually run for it to be really effective. Otherwise it is a very heavy obstacle. I tried to get the old O-ring gasket back on and simply could not make it stay in place. Over a decade ago my mother got me a small box of 402 ring gaskets. At the time I was unsure when I would use that, but over the years it has proven to be a lifesaver. It came through again and I went with a slightly larger gasket and was able to stop the fuel leak.

I tried to start it for about 15 minutes before I pulled the spark plug and cleaned it all up. I tried starting it for another 10 minutes. At some point I looked on the front of the machine away from the fuel tank, choke, and spark plug and spotted an off/on switch. I turned it on and was able to get the compactor started 5 minutes later. It died three more times before I could get it to the gazebo but in reality it just needed to warm up. It was running great when I ran it dry in the gazebo. We have been super careful to make sure that no fuel stays in the compactor to prevent any issues with the fuel system. Mr Rainman is coming out next weekend and we are going to try and get the entire gazebo brick floor installed! It is going to be a steep climb but I think it’s possible.