Farm

Almost ready to tile.

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I spent all day yesterday on my knees. I have to say that it would not have been possible without my gel filled knee pads. I spent six hours on my knees and have no pain or any issues with my knees. It is amazing. Do I need to thank NASA for the technology? Because it is well deserved whomever is responsible! 

I got the subfloor laid in both closets. This took much longer than I anticipated. The corners and cuts were complicated and I did them all with a razor and no saw. 

Once it was installed I needed to figure out how lay the tile such that it went across the hall in the proper fashion. The hallway is 50 inches wide and the tile is only 6 inches wide so it leaves a 2 inch gap or 1 inch on each side with a 3/8 inch gap on each end. So I opted to leave the 1.5 inches on one side. I don’t want two 3/4 inch wide pieces on each side. Too easy to mess up the cutting or installing. I had to measure it all out by laying the tile on the floor and drawing on the floor with a permanent marker. Once I had the starting line I needed another parallel line 18 inches so I can alternate each tile. 
The next step is to get my tile saw set up on the back porch and a few more tools and I am ready to start laying tile. I have to do it over the course of three days because I have to be able to get out of the room and I have to work from the hallway mark so I don’t get my hallway alignment messed up. It complicates things but it just means short intervals of tiling and I will go all the way to the wall. Usually, I do the center part then let it dry and cut all the edge pieces and install them the next day.  This time I will complete whole sections. 
We are going to go order grout this week. I forgot to buy it. You can see my two parallel lines in the picture below. 
 

 

It is happening

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The border collies are trying very hard to be in every picture I take now. I have given up on trying to move them out of the frame. Sunday was the day it started. I am officially beginning the library flooring project. I had a few odd facts to share about day one subfloor installation.  It takes 56 screws to attach a single 3×5 ft piece of concrete board to the floor, this is a lot of screws. Installing this many screws would be harder if I didn’t use an impact driver.  I broke three driver bits, this was made possible by my use of an impact driver. I was afraid I would run out of driver bits as there is only one per bucket of screws and I only had four buckets.  I went out to the old house and dug around until I found every driver bit to fit the square headed screws.  I found 14 bits that would work and brought every one into the house. I can use the impact driver without fear of running out soon. 

I want to send a heartfelt thank you to the manufacturer of gel filled knee pads. This job would not have been possible without the knee pads. I finally gave up on screwing down new sheets when I started to get a blister on my palm. I did try to use my left hand only but it is so awkward I had to go back to the right hand. 

The weather is amazing. We are talking about planting a garden but want it to be above freezing.  This morning early it was at 30 degrees F. Still not quite warm enough. 

  

Spring is really going to happen

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I had a directive to get the subfloor inside installed so I could start laying tile inside the house. It was a good plan and one I was going to follow. It started out slow as I slept in till 0630 as I was sore from the previous days digging. While I slept AnnMarie started our taxes. So when I woke up she wanted me to re figure how our money was spent on the farm. It seems that my tracking of expenses and income vary wildly from the IRS. So the numbers had to be all added up again. While doing this Donna stopped by to say the neighbors bulls were out in our lower wheat field. So the dogs went with us to run the bulls back across the road and into their pasture. We called the neighbor first. As we were walking down the fence line we spotted this deer carcass trapped in the fence. It’s a young deer that got its rear leg stuck. I could not get it loose and will need to come back with wire cutters and cut it out and repair the fence. It made us a little sad and we would have cut it loose this winter had we seen it. The bulls went back with very little effort. The dogs did not get to chase them at all. Their mere presence had the bulls moving where they needed to go. 
 
A friend brought a dump trailer over to get some old sheep manure loaded up. He left the trailer and vehicle so I could fill it sometime today. The problem was another friend from my old job came out and we talked and spent a couple of hours catching up and drinking coffee. He mowed our front lawn while I loaded the trailer. I got an EMS call and had to leave for a couple of hours. When I got back I finished loading the trailer and then scraped the area down over by the lamb shed so I would be ready to finish the gate and fencing arrangement. I do realize I am not fencing but this was preventing us from opening the currently installed gate more than half way open.  I also piled the compost pile back up into a tall pile again. This lets more moisture into the pile and helps break everything down. If I could pump water into the compost piles in the summer they would break down a lot faster. If I can get a couple of weeks with no rain I will burn some more wood scrap piles. 

 

AnnMarie did get to work on the back drip system. She got it roughed out but needs more one more trip to town for more zip ties, a zip tie gun and an automatic timer that can be outside in the weather. Of course no one has a zip tie gun. A whole stinking wall of every size zip tie but no gun to tighten and cut them expeditiously. We ordered plastic a couple of weeks ago. We would like to plant tomatoes and get them to actually grow. We need an extra 4-6 weeks to maximize our production. We keep ending up with lots of green tomatoes in the fall. We dropped a high low thermometer inside the plastic to see what our temperatures will be. 
 
I did come inside the house and remove all the floor trim and start getting ready for subfloor installation.  Tomorrow I will empty out the room and start laying subfloor. I would like to start laying tile by the end of the week. 

Tree farm

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Annmarie has me on a short leash. The weather is perfect for building fence but there are a couple of projects that need to be done first.  I have been told that those projects need to happen as they are holding up other projects.  So yesterday, I went out to plant shade trees. Grandma Ruby’s squirrel planted walnuts and some other shade tree in her horse troughs. We let them grow last year and I needed to get them out of the planters so we could plant our garden. Annmarie is going to set up our troughs on a drip system with automatic timers so our plants get plenty of water this year.  The only problem is the trees are in the way. So my job was to plant said trees. There were 11 trees, the problem with this is it requires 11 holes in the ground. After I spent an hour digging the first three holes by hand I decided I needed a new game plan. I needed to pick tree locations that could be reached by the tractor so I could use the post hole auger to drill the holes for me.  What good is a mistress if you don’t use her?  So I removed the grass in seven more spots with a shovel and my mistress and I dug the other holes. I sat, she did all the work. It still took me over five hours to get all the trees in the ground and watered. I planted all the walnut trees in the ram pasture. I still need to put up some fencing around them, but for now there are no animals in there to eat fresh new green leaves. Once I get some fencing up the sheep can use the pasture but no horses. They reach over the fence and eat the tops out of the trees.  
 
Spring makes everything a beautiful green color. There is so much water that the pipes still connected to the hand dug well are running water (see picture) behind the lamb shed.  I was thirsty so opted to take my life into my own hands and drink from the spigot. Ice cold clear wonderful water and I am not sick a day later. It always amazes me that we can drink the spring water year round and never get sick. A true blessing to have fresh water year round.  Eventually, I would like to get an old windmill and water pump setup over the well to pump water out for us. 

 

After I got the trees out of the planters I tilled up the dirt with a shovel. I took quite a bit of dirt out with the trees so I let Annmarie know that we would need to buy more soil. 
 

Weather be damned

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My morning started out very pleasantly.  I got to talk with anmarie while she got ready for church, then while I made breakfast I had coffee with my nephew. After that I went out to start my morning unfortunately I still had tiles to unload.  This is the third day and my shoulders are sore. One of the problems with a monotonous task is its boring. It still has to be done. Every time I threw another box onto my shoulder it hurt!  It felt like pure torture. I keep myself distracted by doing math. Doesn’t everyone?  I calculated that I had 30 of 75 boxes left to carry. I had 1650 pounds of tile to schlep to the root cellar. Each box was worth $53.3.  This calculation was ongoing after every box I redid the math to see how much was left and how much I had already carried.  It felt like forever but I did get done before the rain started. After I got undressed this evening I realized why my shoulders hurt so much, both of them are solid bruises. 

 

It’s time to get back into fencing but the weather is just not cooperating. I am going to start with a double gate arrangement in front of the lamb shed that allows us to give access to the barn from the soon to be built pen and outside access. It involves using two gates on opposing corners in a square pen arrangement. Unfortunately I cannot just install four posts and call it good. I need to add L shaped supports to keep the gate posts from falling over. 
The ground is rocky and hard. I had to use the breaker bar repeatedly to break up the rocks. It took 30 minutes a hole just to dig. I now bury the posts in gravel. I tap it down with a wooden handle then use the breaker bar to tap it down until it is tight. 
I was able to get one gate installed and one L completed. I still need to finish cutting off the support boards. I put the railroad tie on the outside edge of the building was to protect it. The animals are rubbing on the corner and tearing it up.
I hurt and feel miserable. I am not ready to be at this level of activity. My Apple Watch told me I burned over 1300 calories today!  That is the most I have done since I got my watch. I can tell. 
 
50% completed!