#stewartcreeksomethings

A lot of little things

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Saturday was a full day for us and farm work was not going to happen. Mr Rainman came out and spent the day catching up a lot of little things. I had purchased 20 bags of sand, 15 stepping stones and 12 bags of pea gravel the day before for the projects. He started by working in 18 bags of sand into our future asparagus/strawberry elevated bed out in the lavender area. Our two year asparagus crowns had just arrived on Wednesday and they needed to be planted. He had two bags left over and I used those when I planted the 24 crowns that evening. We don’t get to do anything but hope they survive this year and maybe next year we will get to harvest some asparagus as it will be three years old by then. The Gingerman is bringing us some strawberry starts next month and we will put those right on top. The Lavender only gets watered twice a week so we are going to put the asparagus on the same circuit as them.

Annmarie has been wanting to be able to feed the cats barefoot but now that we have to walk across eight feet of rough gravel she has been requesting stepping stones. He got a channel dug and then the concrete steps set. Once he got the gravel around everything he watered it really well and then reapplied gravel. The extra gravel went outside the fence on the yard side. We are going to make a small gravel area by the gate so the extra gravel went there. It turned out very nice. The only thing left is to extend the cat rain roof so their food gets better protection when it rains. I need to extend the sides down and put a front on so the snow cannot blow in as easily.

The next project is purely a Mr Rainman idea. We had been talking about various ways to fill in the old flower beds in the mud room. He had suggested filling them up with pea gravel. This was a wonderful idea so I picked up 12 bags. The only real problem is even though it was bagged it was still pretty dirty. So he brought the cement mixer over and washed the pea gravel in it. When it was clean he dumped it out on the ground and scooped it up for the mud room. It looks great! I decided it needed a little help drying before we moved the cabinet and shoes back in place. So I started up a small electric heater and cracked open the window. It’s been 24 hours and I think it will take 3-4 days to get the pea gravel all dried out! Once it is then all of the stuff can be put back in place. Mouse is grumpy because his food area is cluttered and he does not like it.

The last thing he did for the day was gets all of the garden beds cleaned out and an old wooden barrel cleaned out and tossed onto the burn pile. It was too far gone and had a large hole in it. We are still holding off on planting the garden due to the freezing temperatures

The contractor came out and installed two of the three windows but they were not double hung. He had ordered double hung but was not given them. New ones are on order. Our new siding should be delivered May 13, 2024. They will start on the sides away from where the windows need replaced.

Our cows started having calves 2 days ago! We now have two calves on the ground and healthy. There are 7-9 to go, I am unclear on how many cows are pregnant.

Call the ambulance…

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Normally I don’t talk about my paying job on the blog as I try to keep them separate and for the most part it is manageable. Unfortunately, today that was not possible. I volunteered to help out the Sheriff’s department yesterday in training officers how to recognize and test impaired drivers. I learned about this from the hospital as we were sponsoring this learning opportunity. I volunteered and set aside seven hours, to assist, what this really meant was I started day drinking around 1300 and had to keep it up for four straight hours. I really did not understand how much alcohol one has to consume to keep your blood alcohol level sustained. It is a lot! I failed every single sobriety test they could think to test on me. When I got home I just kept drinking water and could not fall asleep. So this morning I really needed a lot more sleep. I had a hangover. Nope, no sleep for self induced misery at our house.

I ended up going to town, getting a bunch of stuff to fix the driveway fence, ground anchors for the greenhouse and food for the dogs. So when I got home I threw some more fencing tools in the back of the pickup and went out to work on the driveway fence. I was hand driving eight foot T-posts into the ground but they are so tall I had to back the pickup up to the spot and stand on the tailgate so I could drive them in. I am installing seven feet of woven wire where we have wild rose bushes. The birds and bunnies love to hang out in the wild bushes. But the alpaca love to eat those same wild rose bushes. So they are constantly eating them down as far as they can reach. The plan was to install tall T-posts and add an upper section of woven wire so the alpaca cannot lean over the lower section and eat the tops out of the bushes.

I had been fencing for a few hours and just did not feel well. Finally around 1530 I decided that a nap was needed. Trouble was if I went back to the house the wife would tell me to suck it up! So instead I set an alarm on my phone and laid down in the driveway on the little hill. It had some grass and honestly I was beat and needed the sleep. The pickup was still parked crooked in the driveway as I had just driven a post in prior to the nap. I got my nap in and woke up about three minutes before my alarm went off. I jumped in the pickup and headed toward the road. I had started at the cattle guard on the road and was working my way toward the houses as I improved the fence. As I approached the road I saw the ambulance and fire truck come roaring up the road. They slowed down and asked if I had seen some guy “down” on the road near a blue and white pickup. I said no and they went on down the road. About 30 seconds later it occurred to me that I was the person “down” and the blue pickup was our green pickup. I called the ambulance driver on her cell phone and told her I was just hungover and needed a nap! They had to cancel Pendleton Fire Department ambulance, the Lifeflight helicopter and the police came out also!

I am glad one of the neighbors called for assistance. As I used to volunteer for the fire dept they all got a laugh out of it. I will strive to ensure that my future naps are out of sight of the road.

Welding, Farmer style

Steve HardinLeave a comment

If you want to know what a true road obstacle looks like, look no further it is a herd of alpaca! These guys are truly obstinate. They will not get out of the road for anything. You can drive right up to them and touch them with the bumper of your car and they might think about moving. If they do decide to move a smidgen it will be at their own leisure. It is easier to go around them if at all possible. All of the delivery drivers have learned to not barrel down the driveway. The alpaca will not move no matter how fast you come up on them and since we have not had a single one hit it means they are always winning in an alpaca versus delivery vehicle situation. On the plus side, we never worry about vehicles tearing in or out of the place.

We had another reason for me to have purchased a welder and to have taken the first quarter of the community college’s welding class. The sprayer tried to fall apart! There is a 3 point platform and the upper point of the 3 point is tearing off of the platform. This was supposedly built for a 50 gallon tank but it is certainly not holding up. There is a part in the front that broke in half that then placed all of the stress on the upright base. This is obviously not a good thing. I had not noticed the front crack as the paint covered it. This meant that we had to take the sprayer off first. Of course there was a lot of water in the tank. We did finally manage to get the tank emptied and all of the main parts torn off the platform. I only managed to break two fittings! I simply don’t like plastic for this reason, but it is a lot cheaper than the alternative. We could not beat the upright back into position so we used a tie down from the top to the far side of the platform and cranked it over until it was close enough. I broke out the welder and used the welding gloves this time. Last time I used my thin leather gloves and it was not enough. I got the top repaired and I am not going to be a commercial welder any time soon but even Mr Rainman can tell that my welding skills are getting better. The beads look like an actual bead instead of welding confetti. I wanted to weld both the top and bottom of the platform so we raised the forks on the tractor up high enough I could stand underneath and weld over my head. Now this was not a skill they taught us in class. Yep, I see why now, I had a sold weld burn to my upper right bicep in the first two minutes. It did not feel good. I then went and put on the leather arm guards I had purchased with the welder but had not ever worn before. Safety is a learned craft, the trick is to survive the first accident. I got it all welded and we put on a new heavy piece of angle iron across the front where the initial crack occurred. It is holding as Mr Rainman is back out and spraying. We even installed a couple of new fittings and fixed a couple of slow leaks we had on the rig. It works like a champ now.

I may even have enough skill to work on the stock rack for the pickup this fall. It needs some repair and rebuild.

New siding work in progress

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Well the contractor did their part and came out and started tearing up the house. They had the siding off in a week. The 60’ boom truck is a little rough on the yard as it sinks in as it moves and the tracks are about 4” lower than the surrounding yard. This works well for Annmarie as she wanted to redo the front yard anyways and this will just move that project up on the timeline. The nice thing is the gate can stay closed so we have not had to move the dogs. They just harass the worker to throw the ball for them. The problem with that is they never get tired and would keep that up all day long. We are installing LP SmartSide siding on the house. We need to have to not paint before we die in 30-40 years and it looks good and is durable. This will be the test. I was able to drive by a house and see it before choosing this contractor. I really liked the final product and I think it will look very good on our home. For the price I sure hope so, but anyone who has had to hire a contractor recently knows they are very expensive. My advice to you is to do your due diligence and find someone who is very reliable and does good work. Don’t skimp out, get it done right the first time. Because paying for it twice or to get it repaired will cost more than doing it right the first time.

I had to call for more farm diesel and again they only filled one side of the tank. It has two 65 gallon tanks in the large tank. It came from a trap wagon so one side had diesel and the other gasoline. I only want it to hold 125 gallons of diesel. So when I sent the check for payment I asked if they would come out and fill the other side. The salespeople keep telling me that both sides should be filled by this is the second time only one side has been filled. So I bought a paint stick, cleaned off the diesel and wrote directions directly on the tank. I am pretty sure they will get it right now.

Parts for “Little Dumper” (1957 truck) keep trickling in. The $44 seat cover arrived and I got it installed. This was not easy to do considering you cannot open the driver’s side door yet. The front left fender needs to be moved forward about one inch to allow the door to open. It needs a little adjustment but it is way better than the original seating. I may still throw a horse blanket over this to keep it protected. But before I can do anything else inside the cab the driver’s side door has to be fixed. It was hard to be inside the cab and contorting myself enough to get the straps in place. The Gingerman is still working on the engine so until that is up and going the door issue is on hold. Plus, we really need the new tires on the vehicle to get it off the ground enough to be able to crawl around under the truck. I have been at the shop twice weekly to get things going but the parts are not easy to find.

Getting ready for contractor

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Last weekend I had to start getting things ready for the contractor. They were going to come out and start tearing the old vinyl siding off and get ready for the new LP Smartside siding. The trouble is I needed to get some things done. I had to remove everything away from the house so ladders, boards, some TREX decking I had left over were moved away from the house. I had to take down the temporary fence on the North side of the yard. I really just rolled it up most of the way. I had never set the posts yet or added a gate as we knew any contractor would have to get over on this side with equipment.

They wanted to bring in a 60’ cherry picker and that meant getting across or through the front spring. I had created a crossing for the septic pump truck but the driver did not want to chance it and was able to reach the tank from our driveway. I had dug out the large rocks I had used for the crossing. So I tore down the temporary crooked fence I had stopping the horse and sheep from getting out of the main barn lot. I filled the crossing with 2-3” rocks and packed it all down by driving over it with the tractor. Some of the water is flowing through the rocks but mostly it is crossing a wide spot with about 2” of water. I used part of the temporary horse corral panels we had blocking the narrow creek side of the barn lot. This can only be temporary as I need those panels to block off the spring access when we run cows through the barn lot. So I may have to insert a small fence. I am thinking about just making a wire gate. We will almost never use this crossing but it is nice to have the option. I am tired of buying new metal gates at $350/each. I need about another 10 gates and am now going to be selective in which ones get a metal gate. I did find three more metal gates while I was out and about on the farm. It took me a few hours to get all of this up and in place.

I salvaged what honey I could from the hive that died in early winter and was able to collect five half pints. We had them all sold in about ten minutes. We could easily sell 5-10 gallons of honey annually we just cannot produce anywhere near that! We are looking at getting another Nuc and starting a second hive this spring.

Every once in a while I find one of these salamanders when I pick up a plank that has been on the ground for way too long! I am pretty sure we have one living down in the main water shutoff access hole. They are pretty calm. I no longer disturb them and just let them wander off on their own. We are so looking forward to getting the siding completed.