alpaca

Gazebo moving along

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The grain bin gazebo is starting to come together. I as usual did not watch any videos, ask anyone and spent 10 minutes looking at pictures on the internet as a precursor to building said gazebo. The guy I purchased the parts from told me it was the bottom 10 feet of a 20 foot grain bin, he gave me two tubs of bolts and nuts, four floor anchors, a pile of roof anchors, a door, the roof parts and central roof ring. Supposedly the only thing missing was the vent cap for the roof. This was promptly unloaded and ignored for two years.

Well, let me say that it is definitely the bottom half due to how heavy the pieces are. We did not get enough pieces to go to ten feet, only eight feet and if we put up a full ring for the roof then you would have hit your head every time you went in and out of the gazebo. We could have cut one of the upper panels but then I was afraid it would weaken the roof. The bottom line was after talking with the boss, wife, we opened up enough of the gazebo to have a full six pieces to go around the entire top and to get the gazebo sides over ten feet into the air. It’s actually about ten feet six inches high now at the walls with the roof I think it will be another 4-5 feet higher.

This morning I decided to do a little research on how to put the roof together. Yeah, I was better off not knowing. They used a crane, built the roof and then stood on the ground and proceeded to add a row of panels and lift up the entire grain bin as they built it. No ladders needed! The only drawback for me is that I don’t own a crane. Instead we used the trusty Kubota with the forks on it, a chain and some Vice-grips to hold the chain at the far end of the forks. This worked to get the third and fourth row in place. The fourth row was the worst. We ended up having to drill out three holes that we just could not get lined up, they were off by about 1/8” and the entire rest of the panel was already bolted together.

Mr Rainman came over Friday morning and we got the three panels up on the high back wall. It was a battle to get them bent into shape, another problem with not putting them back on in the exact order they were removed. I put up the last three rings myself with the Kubota being my trusty partner. At no point did I fall. I did tear my finger away from one of my fingernails enough to make it bleed and discovered a metal sliver in my finger this morning. The bolts had to be put on between the panel and the wooden support posts and this was an incredibly tight fit. Putting the posts 1/2” from the metal and then adding bolts meant some of the bolts are touching the posts. This is a good thing when I screwed in the lag bolt anchors.

The trusty Kubota is not going to be able to lift the center ring for the roof. It will only lift something about eight feet into the air. I am going to bolt two ten foot 6×6 posts to the upright frame of the forks resting each one on a fork. But first I am going to get a stout wooden pallet. This will let me put a diagonal support out to the front of the forks. I will then build a small open box with 45 degree supports at the top for the posts. This is where the roof ring will sit. I can then lift it up and get it centered with the tractor and then assemble the roof. I think this will work. No, I am confident this will work!

I just have to figure out how the roof support pieces go onto the sides…

Gazebo posts almost in

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When they asked me at the lumber store if I wanted grade #1 or #2 6×6” posts I opted for grade #2 as they were going to be outside and I was being cheap. After having spent almost an hour per post sanding to get the knots flattened out and the paint off of the board I should have gone with grade #1! I managed to get four of the six posts installed today. They are anchored at the bottom in the Simpson steel ties buried in concrete. We have about 250# of concrete in each of the six holes. Between the concrete and the weight of the grain bin panels I don’t expect the gazebo to leave the ground. Once we get the gazebo together we will toss six inch plus rocks all around the base of the gravel pad to hold the pad in place. This will add to the stability of the entire structure. For that to happen I need Little Dumper (one ton dump bed pickup) functional. It has been at the brake shop for two weeks and they have not contacted me yet. I will need to call them next week. When I dropped it off I asked them to not take as long as it did to fix the tires. I was assured it would not take that long.

The grain bin panels are also attached to the wooden posts by 4” structural screw in anchors. Each panel is held with 8 anchors. This will keep the post and metal sides from shifting.

I spent about an hour trying to figure out how to lift one of the panels with the tractor. I cut a couple of pieces of chain then looked at all my different connectors. I found one that I could put through a hole on the panel. I slid the two forks on the tractor together and then wrapped a chain around them with the lifting part of the chain between both forks. I took four vise grips and clamped them on either side of the chain to keep it from sliding. This will let me angle the forks and get another three feet of lift I am thinking. It will just take some manipulation of the forks to get it in the correct spot so one person can bolt it in place. That is the theory at least, a real world test will be necessary to see if that is correct.

Annmarie went out to work the bees today and they are no more. She was right a few weeks ago when she thought the queen had died. It took the drones a while to catch on to reality. The surprising thing is we saw honey bees flying around so there must be a wild hive somewhere else on the property, we are just not sure where. The honeybees have been drinking the milk my mother-in-law is leaving out for her kittens. We can officially now say that they are not our bees! We were able to salvage some of the comb. I will be melting down the last of our wax and pelletizing it so we can have wax if we need it for anything.

The alpaca are really getting used to coming in the front yard. Snoop, our oldest black alpaca, always goes off by himself. Every single one of the other alpaca is on the right side of the walkway and he is the only one on the left side. They are finally starting to make an enough of a dent in the green material that you can see the difference.

We are getting a contractor out next weekend to see about installing solar panels on the barn roof for our house. We are tired of the power going out all of the time.

There were no new lambs today.

Welding, Farmer style

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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.

Alpaca are sheared!

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I was able to finally catch up with a new helper, The Apprentice. They messaged me this morning and stated they could come out later in the day. This gave me enough time to work on some inside chores and do some laundry. I like to write blog entries on Sunday morning. I made breakfast shit on a shingle as there was extra time. It turned out very nice, I sent a picture to the child as she was not here for breakfast.

Once The Apprentice messaged me I headed out to get ready. The third manure spreader needed to be unloaded so I picked it off of the trailer with the tractor and put it next to the other two. We flipped gates and got everything ready to push the alpaca up toward the barn. We walked down and I fed apple slices to the three Musketeers and Snoop on the way to the barn and The Apprentice walked behind them encouraging them to follow. Once we got them into the barn lot we snagged one and let the games begin. They are so painful to shear. I had to use two blades for each alpaca. I really needed three blades. I think if we had done them earlier in the year there would not have been as much grit, dirt and rocks at the base of the hair. This would have made the blades last longer.

At one point on the last alpaca as I am trying to milk the second to last blade I stopped cutting any hair. Yet I still managed to slice out a divot of skin from my left thumb tip about 3/32” deep. It bled a lot. The Apprentice told me to just pore some of the powder dust for the alpaca toes onto my wound. It’s some kind of styptic powder designed to stop the bleed. I did it and it burns! The blood kept breaking through so I had to go find a first aid kit, a nonstick cotton pad and a roll of tape to get the bleeding stopped. I then forced my left hand into a leather glove to hold it all together. This worked very well for controlling the bleeding. I managed to barely get the last alpaca sheared. I had to use an old blade to get the final hair cut off.

We then went out to check on the red plums in the orchard, they were overripe and had fallen off the tree. I tossed them over the fence to the sheep. The Italian plums are just starting to turn colors so I give them 1-3 weeks still. The nectarines were all red and fairly big but still very hard. I think they need another 1-2 weeks. We tossed apples over the fence to the sheep and the Asian Pear has another 1-2 weeks. I will need to pay better attention to the orchard for the next 3 weeks. We swung by the garden and picked 3 pints of blackberries. Annmarie will now have fresh fruit for breakfast.

We then went out to the barn to discuss how to dig it out with the tractor. I had forgotten how hard it is to drive the little tractor in and out of the barn. After walking The Apprentice through the process I decided that they could dig out the edges of the barn and hand dig the momma baby area. The tractor can be used to move the debris once it is tossed outside the barn. They will be out in the morning to give it a whack. We will see.

When I came inside and took the bandage off of my injured finger it was black from the weird styptic powder. After a shower the edges of the wound are black. I think I chemically cauterized the wounds with the styptic powder. It never started bleeding again even after I held it under the shower for 10 minutes. Now I will have to wear a weird bandaid until it heals.

Predators 8/ Farm 1

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Friday I went up to field #3 first thing in the morning to attempt to call the coyote in. I am using the new electronic call I got this week. I hung out for about an hour and did not see a single coyote. The quail did not see me as I was hiding behind the cattle feeder. The sheep ran by without seeing me either, yet no coyote showed up. I went down and picked wild blackberries for a little over an hour. I filled all my containers I had brought. I only picked two patches and skipped another three. It was starting to warm up and the hornets like the berries when it gets warm. I went inside and washed them all off and then repacked them into individual bags and froze them. I ended up with 25 snack size bags full. Annmarie uses a single frozen bag every morning in her breakfast smoothie. I try and collect them for her and I will need to collect more in 2 and 4 cup quantities so we can make pie and cobbler throughout the year.

I got all the tools together to go up and work on the fence surrounding field #1. It is a green seven acre field that the sheep and cows need to get into so they can eat for a few more weeks. I had the tractor bucket full of tools and wire and stays to drive up there. Of course I did not take a rifle, there is no place to put it on the tractor, I would have to hold it the entire time. Of course I saw two coyotes running out of field #3 and a dead lamb in the field. They had just killed it and it was almost noon! I dumped off the supplies and went back to the house to get the rifle and call. I spent another three hours trying to call them back and had no luck. We have now decided to lock the sheep into the barn lot and feed them last years hay from the machine shed.

This is honestly a stupid problem. This weekend alone I have spent about 6 hours trying to spot coyotes. Each sheep lost is $100 down the drain. I will keep going out every day until I can kill them. The next evening when I walked up to the find the carcass and hopefully catch someone snacking I had to walk around looking for the carcass. The only thing left after 24 hours was a hide and a spine with a few ribs attached. Nothing else! I of course did not see a coyote.

Sunday I went out to get Annmarie some blackberries for her breakfast, as I froze all the others I had picked. I went out and checked on our thornless berries in the garden. I had to come back inside three times to get more containers. The berries are huge compared to the wild ones. I left some fresh ones for Annmarie and froze another 16 bags. I will need to pick berries again in about four days. I had plans to go up and look for coyotes again but ended up cleaning house instead. Sarah said she would help me shear alpaca after she got done at church. My helpers are gone again for a couple of weeks. So we need to get the alpaca done.

When she got home we rounded up the alpaca and ended up shearing four more in about three hours. The only ones left are the three babies. One of them had crawled down into the ditch and was covered in water so he would not have been easy to shear. We are planning on shearing the rest on Tuesday or Thursday this week to get them all done. Annmarie has been washing the alpaca and is on her second saddle. It is amazingly cleaner when she is done.

My priority now is the fence around field #1, coyotes and finishing the freezer room. I want to store the cleaned and ready to be cleaned alpaca fiber in the freezer room. This will get it out of the house and into one spot. I just have one piece of OSB to install on the wall and it will be ready. Okay, I need to wire five outlets also but that will only take an hour. I can wire the light later. I am pretty sure I stole power from the next room for the overhead light. Basically, I need to get some more stuff done on the old house but it will have to wait until this winter.