Winter is not quite over.

Subfloor supports down and second layer of insulation done.

Well it snowed yesterday all the way down to the foothills.  Winter is not yet over.  This morning it was 28 F.  I went up and worked on the attic.  Got most of it framed out.  Only one more spot (four boards) left to install.  Once that is all done then I need to cut the plywood to go over the supports.  You can see how full the attic is already.  This is the reason I need more space.  More space = more junk (I mean stuff) that can be stored up in the attic.  I think we have 10 bins of just Christmas stuff in the attic now.  With the extra space I can bring in the stuff still stashed out in the old house.  That second layer of insulation is more than welcome.  We burned 350 gallons of propane last month to keep the house heated.  Only about 10% of that is for hot water and cooking gas.  I am extremely glad we have a 500 gallon tank now.  They will only fill the tank to 85% full so the most we can have is 425 gallons at any one time. 

I had to start in on the fencing today. The stupid sheep were out on the bag hillside.  We had been chasing an occasional stray out of the front yard lot but almost all of them were out on the hillside.  So Zeke and I went out with Monica and he chased them back into the ram pasture.  We isolated them from the orchard pasture.  They found another large hole down by the creek.  This afternoon the girls and I went out on the back hillside and attempted to put in metal posts on the rocky hillside.  Four of the five posts went into the ground.  It just rained in the last two days so I was hopeful they would go into the ground.  I could not get any posts in the ground last summer in those areas.  There was one spot were I will have to add another rock jack.  The ground just will not take a metal post.  Sarah and I went out and tore out the old fence in the orchard that has been patched five times.  We sunk in four wooden posts and two metal posts.  Tomorrow we will finish stiffening the posts and adding new wire.  We need to get that area opened back up.  We are feeding the sheep extra while they are cut off from the orchard pasture. 

Another day yesterday dedicated to wall.  One stone at a time…



Road completed.

The Northern side of the road is completed.  I haven’t dug into the Southern side (gate is the dividing point) yet.  The southern side just needs to be leveled.  I don’t have to dig into the hillside to make it flat.  I want the dirt from leveling the road to move it next to the rock wall.  I am going to put out some grass seed on the road bed and see how it does.  Hopefully, the chickens will leave the seed alone.  I have started planning the wall across the entire hillside and digging out the base flat spot for the base level.  I am also digging out dirt from in front of several rock bluffs to expose 8-12 inches of rock to use in the wall.  The best part of that is I don’t have to lift those rocks into place.

Tomorrow I plan on getting into the attic and working on the floor.  We need the storage space.  Our ad in the Agri Times is going to run for four issues at $10/issue.  No calls yet. 

More dirt so the wall can go higher.

The tractor started!  I thought I might have to charge the battery after winter but it fired right up.  Zeke and I went up on the back hillside and worked on the road for five hours.  I need him to keep guard while the upper gate is open.  No, he does not just sit by the gate, he roams all over and keeps the sheep away.  I worked on cutting into the hillside but almost every pass I had to stop, get off the tractor and throw rocks over the fence. The only good part about all the rocks is I need them for the rock wall.  I am still going

Rocks picked out of the road while leveling it.

to have to go up on the hillside and scavenge rocks regardless.  It is taking a LOT of rocks to build the wall.  Surprisingly, it is also taking a lot of dirt.  I have the compost pile and every year we are generating around 3000# of compostable straw and manure.  As I start to relevel different areas I will take off some surface dirt and use it for the hillside.  This will let me plant new grass seed in stages around the place. 

Upper road is almost completed.

more dirt.

On the plus side, this is getting me in shape.  It was a lot easier getting started this year than normal.  Working out at work for the last month has been paying off. 
We put an add in the Agri-Times for the whole month of March.  The paper prints every two weeks and gets mailed to farmers.  I am going to put an add in the nickel next month.  We are going to alternate months until we start getting some phone calls.

Future attic floor.

Yesterday, I started back in on the house projects.  I had to go into the attic to find a softball mitt and ended up consolidating boxes and managed to empty four more boxes.  More room for the stuff out in the old house.  I did find the mitt!  I decided that in order to level the floor in the old house I need to empty two of the rooms.  Years ago I bought the lumber for the attic floor and it has been sitting out in the old house.  I took measurements for the floor supports and cut them all out.  Sarah and I managed to corral them all into the attic.  I have a bunch of semi-fancy drawings up there with all the measurements so I can put the pieces in the right spots.  Once I get the elevated subfloor in place, I will roll out another layer of insulation and then sheet it with 3/4 inch plywood.  I need more storage room in the attic so I can take all the household goods being stored in the old house to the attic.  I will actually go through all the boxes in an attempt to thin out what I have to finagle into the attic.  Those stairs are hard to navigate with a large heavy box. 

New floor to the left, spot where I am going to continue floor.

You can sure tell where the sheep have been eating and where they have not.   I want to get this upper hillside fenced in so we can turn the sheep loose on the hillside also.  This is one of my early spring projects.  The rock wall is starting to come around also.  I just keep plugging away at it a little bit at a time. 

Feeders I built this summer in action.

Monica Sarah and I went out last Friday and tagged all the babies.  They had gotten intermixed with the main herd again. While doing this we realized that some tag numbers had been attributed to the wrong ewes.  So we corrected that so our spreadsheet is accurate.  We tagged five babies and then banded (neutered) fourteen more.  We had a 2:1 ratio of boys to girls this year.  Kinda odd, would have guessed it would be closer to 1:1.  I had to hold off on banding the two new baby boys.  There was nothing there to rubber band.  Those mini testicles just kept slipping away.

These are all not hers, she is guarding them from the dog.

Now that the babies are born we are only feeding at night.  This works great for us and we no longer lock the sheep up in the barn at night.  They put themselves in for the night.  It is very nice. I just need the weather to turn so I can get outside and do some more fencing so the sheep can have more space to roam.

I am tired!

The winter chickens have turned out to be an epic fail.  We took another two up to the boneyard.  I now have single digits left from an initial 27 birds.  I am still getting less than 2 eggs a day out of the other 17 hens.  So it is looking like I am going to just purge chickens and basically start over.  So not very many eggs this summer and I am sure this will put me in the red for the year again.  But I need to purge early before I spend the next few months paying for feed.  Pretty disappointing.