Barn eggs

It is time to bring in the hay.  This is an annual ritual, one that is not always welcomed with open arms.  I did not buy the hay elevator last year so it is going to be another stairway out of bales to the top of the hay stack.  Unfortunately, I had to cover the night shift at work so Annmarie and two young men had to start moving the hay into the barn.  

Before they could even start they had to clean out all the eggs from the barn. I have one hen that is now living in the barn and laying only in the barn. There were 71 eggs in one nest. They got tossed out into the barn lot. I can just imagine what my egg customers would say about getting one of those. 

They started very early on a Saturday and by 2 hours later one of them was dry heaving nonstop and starting to get diarrhea.  He thought he had drank some bad milk the night before.

Unfortunately for the rest of us it was not food poisoning. It was a nasty virus and I have become its latest victim. Annmarie got it next then Sarah now me. I do illness with the grace of a house cat getting a bath. It’s not pretty. All communication with me should probably be done only in the written form to  protect all involved parties. They got 55 bales loaded into the barn out of 295 it’s a start, 16+% complete!!

Now that the old house has been adjusted and supported again the latch I installed years ago to keep the door shut is off by 1/2 inch. I am going to have to move it to make it usable again. Between the night shift and my illness I have not managed to finish the skirting on the old house.  I need to get it done so I can get over to Ruby’s and level that house. I am going to get a bundle of cedar shakes to use as shims when I do her house. 

Lock now 1/2 inch off As you can see we are in the middle of an eastern Oregon summer!  It is hot and dry. One can see why no fireworks and smoking will be happening out at our house.

Farm dead center of the picture

It happened, the wheat fields got harvested last week. I always love to see them working the fields. I had just gotten off the night shift and drove up alongside the fields so I could watch. There is a dusty magnificence about that much food being readied for edible end products. I was told we had a heat spurt that hurt the wheat pretty badly and the yield was low.  Farming is a tough business. Mother Nature is fickle and the weather patterns are not as predictable in our region. 

I found a Kickstarter weather station that gives updates on the Internet to a network of like stations. Some states have entire networks set up for agricultural weather reporting and logging of trends. This helps capture microclimates.  I just need to convince Annmarie it’s worth $250. 

50% completed

I spent yesterday cleaning up the front yard. Once I got all the trash out of the yard I decided that it needed to be finished so I could call the yard side done. I built  a new set of stairs out of all pressure treated wood. They look odd as they are the only true level part of the house. They are nice and sturdy, secure and a foot wider than they used to be.   We had water runoff issues where it was pounding a low spot into the corner of the yard. I filled it with dirt then I attached a 4×4 and filled it all with decorative rock.  The metal bucket is half full of rock and let’s the water pound down without hurting the wood skirting.  Once everything was perfect in the yard I went behind the house and started to tear out the skirt

hand hewn post

I decided to just cut holes in one section near the back porch so I didn’t have to replace all of the skirting.  I did find a couple of hand hewn timbers on the main section of the building.  There were originally only two rooms in the house.  The large front room was an addition and the two small rooms on the back near the creek were additions.  The two small rooms were a kitchen with running water and an indoor outhouse.  I found the hole cut in the floor!
I jacked up the house using the door as an indicator of where it used to be.  The back addition I just kept jacking up till the house complained a lot.  I ended up having to dig about 10 inches of dust/dirt out from under the kitchen/bathroom area.  I still have more of the old concrete blocks from the barn so I am not sure where they will be used.  The 20 ton hydraulic jacks worked very well.  I have one that just does not want to go down even when you open the hydraulic valve.  There is always THAT one noncompliant thing.  

Back addition, kitchen and bathroom

I want to do a little more trimming on the bush on this side.  It had a side die last winter and it needs to be cut out.  I have started to water both of these bushes this week.  We had not been giving them any water this year.  I hope this will help them perk up.

We now have 16 baby chicks!  We went out to the coop yesterday and there was another baby chicken in the coop.  Momma must have carried the baby up into the coop.  They tuck them under their wings and move them that way.  Everyone looks good and is still alive.

I realize it is not perfect, just better than it was and it will last till I am dead now.

It has begun. Yesterday evening we ripped off the old house skirting and today we worked on leveling the old house.     First we put all five jacks into play. But, the level kept saying the house was level but the Windows would not open or close correctly. They had a gap on one side. So finally we quit looking at the level and started looking at the window and doors. We would occasionally go back to the bridge and look back to see how the house looked. Once the doors and windows were right we called it good. 

I used the old concrete blocks from the grain elevator and hog side of the lamb barn. One of the blocks had some writing on it. Annmarie looked it up for me, the little girl who signed her name in the concrete did it 88 years ago!!  I am using the blocks as supports for the pressure treated 4×4 posts we installed to hold the house up. I am saving $5-7/block. Plus, what else was I going to do with them. 

The old concrete blocks were disintegrating. We just smashed them with a hammer to break them up. 

We had company Thursday night and went out to pet the sheep Friday morning. No problems. We were headed out the back door to water the garden and I heard this very loud cacophony over by the old house. It was baby chickens!!  Lots of baby chickens running all over the place and a mother hen clucking at them all. 

Of course the fireproof baby area has not been created yet.  I just had it cleaned out a few weeks ago. So I went to set it up while Annmarie and Chris snagged babies. I had some extra wood pellets stored in the back and we had baby waterers and feeders plus a heat lamp. But I had torn out some burnt wood and cut some of the wire during the fire event.  So I had to cut a temporary panel out of an old piece of plywood, screw it in and then screw in a row of anchors and use scrap wire to repair the hole in the chicken wire. Annmarie snagged 14 baby chickens in just a few minutes. Chris and I wired the heat lamp in place so it cannot fall into the wood pellets or get knocked down.  We did hang water with little pecker valves but I put a small basin of water in the baby area also. The only thing we did not have we baby crumble food. But as these were new babies they can go 24 hours with no food or water. 

They did just fine and once they were safely ensconced in their area they had no trouble finding the heat lamp. 

As we went to bed last night Annmarie told me she heard a peeper peeping. It was dark and I was tired, plus I could not hear anything. I told her, truthfully, I could not hear anything. If you have ever watched tv with me or listened to my car stereo you will understand.  So this afternoon I was out moving sprinklers and heard another peeper. It was a lone baby with its mother.  I managed to snag it and put it with its siblings.  There are now 15 babies, which  hopefully translates into 8 pullets.  

Tomorrow we are going to work on leveling the old house and putting up a new skirt to keep the dogs in the yard.