Barn cleanout – Stewart Creek Somethings

Predators out of control

September 7, 2026Steve HardinLeave a comment

My sister wanted to take the little orange kitty home, she had named it Cheese. Unfortunately, Saturday night something decided that cheese was on the menu. I went out Sunday morning to feed the kitty and found a head, skin and some intestines, the rest was gone! It was on the feeding ledge. Needless to say I was a little shocked as we had not heard anything, disappointed as we had been working on taming the kitty and fairly angry that something ate our kitten!

So I spent the morning moving our ring camera from watching the chicken coop to watching the cat feeding area. I have moved the shotgun to the back porch and we have an alert set so it will wake me up in the night. It is game on and I am going to win! I used the mint planter to put in a post and mounted the camera on top of that. It has night vision so we should be able to see anything that comes in. I even took the dinner bones and put them out to attract any predator that likes meat. This is such a stupid problem.

When I went out to the woodshed to get a shovel I opened the door and a bat fell down off the top of the door! The bat was not happy. I tried to right it several times but it kept rolling over onto its back. I used an old cat dish to scoop it up and try and put it on the ledge. It rolled off the ledge. I finally just left it alone. It kept making this clicking sound and my hearing aids loved it so they kept amplifying it! I did get the shovel.

The Gingerman and I have been talking about changing out the blades on the old mower. He brought over a 3/4” socket and wrench for the job. We decided to tack weld the bolt to the old blade so I could hold onto the blade and keep it from turning. We broke the tack weld twice so the third time it was more of a weld than a tack. It still took a board to pin the blade and Gingerman on a five foot cheater bar on the wrench to get it broke loose and taken apart. I had to grind the bolt off of the old blades and then reshape the head with the grinder. When we put them on we only put them on snugly. We did not put them on with the cheater bar. This is the first time in 15 years that the blades have been changed out. I actually broke one of the blades so they had to be replaced, the thing was so lopsided that you could not use it. When the PTO was engaged it felt like the entire tractor was trying to leave the ground for outer space, the shake was so bad.

I took some extra time and welded the cracks from both sides as we had the mower turned on its side. I tried to hit all the cracks and then paint over them so the welds don’t rust as easily. I use whatever color is on the shelf and works!

I then dug out the barn for an hour or so. I had to do most of it by hand as I am getting into the tight spaces. I only have the feed area left in the main part of the barn. I am not feeling it but it still needs to get done.

I filled the water area in Alcatraz with 2-3” rock in an attempt to keep the mud down. This should allow the animals to walk right up to the water and not have to get into any mud. I need to drag the ground in Alcatraz and remove about two inches of soil off the top. There is so much organic matter that nothing will grow. If I put all of that onto the compost piles I can get it moved out to the fields as fertilizer.

Barn dig out initiated

September 5, 2026September 4, 2026Steve HardinLeave a comment

The big question of the day, will the new tractor fit into the barn? Before I could answer that question I had to go out and pick tomatoes from the back garden. The onions have been ready but with the party we just left them in the ground. I pulled them all out and hung them over the edges of a bin to dry out and form a skin. We had two bins worth of onions but one of the bins had some volunteer tomatoes come up so I am going to keep watering the tomato plant in the hopes of getting more fruit. I also planted beets in the old pea bin. I will probably plant some carrots this weekend in one of the other empty bins. I need to chop off some of the low growing branches on the back tree as it is starting to get in the way again. I will just add that to the list.

I need to work on the greenhouse again. Mr Rainman told me if I watched some YouTube videos I will need to caulk the panels in certain places to hold them in. I have had two panels pop out this last week. But the next thing after the barn dig out is moving rocks. I MUST get the rocks on the hillside below the gazebo put in place. The plan is super large rocks at the base of the mound and then at least 5-6” rocks all over the hillside to stabilize the gazebo base. After all of the effort to get the gazebo up and build the pad I do not need it washing out.

I was able to find my manure forks for the tractor bucket and install them. I was actually able to drive in and out of the barn without moving any fence but I had about three inches of clearance on each side and that is not realistic for hours of in and out travel. So I removed distal half of the fence on the left side of the entrance. I am going to move the entire fence over 12-18” when I rebuild it. That will be the last thing I do after cleaning out the barn. I put in a few hours today moving dirt and muck and have the barn over 50% done. I was able to hand dig out the entire sorting chute and did not have to remove it. This saved me about an hour of labor. I find that the labor gets a little harder every year. I was even able to turn the tractor around inside the barn. That is the real test of too big. The hydraulics are a little touchier than the John Deere so I am still getting used to them. My hope is to get the barn and gate all completed this weekend then I can switch gears and start hauling rocks.

I moved some water into the chicken yard and the chickens have started to lay in the coop again. I am getting at least four eggs/day now. The dog eats 2/day and the wife 1/day so they are at least out producing our daily consumption. I still have not gotten the roof on the yard but that project keeps getting pushed out to a later date.

I was thinking today in the shower about a seating area outside the gazebo. I may create a level gravel area outside and below the gazebo. There is a section of the hillside below the gazebo that has shallow soil and a rock bluff that not much grows there but cheat grass. I would need to build a retaining wall out of metal panels like I did for the horse area. This would make a nice gathering area. It’s a thought. If I do it I will need to put in some subterranean drain pipe to allow the gazebo roof to drain appropriately and keep the bank stabilized. I will keep musing on this idea to see if it is doable without too much work. Annmarie talked to me about putting in a water feature on the other side and I will want to do that before anything! I love a good water feature. My last one looked like a pair of breasts, it was accidental but everyone said the same thing when they saw it. It will be shallow so there will be no fish but I am hopeful that the birds will use it to bath in and the bees will be able to easily and safely get water.

Barn clean out done!

September 21, 2025Steve HardinLeave a comment

I managed to finish getting the barn dug out this week. I figure my total time on the barn was around 12 hours. This is a far cry from the 40 hours it used to take me. Using the manure forks on the John Deere and just figuring out how to make it into most crooks and crannies with the tractor has cut way down on the hand work. I probably only had to do about four hours of hand digging. The next big thing is to haul the old round bales from the lamb shed and put them into the overhead walkway so we can use them as bedding. They are three years old and have virtually no nutritional value but will make great bedding. I used to buy straw but using old round bales has zero cost associated with it. I used to spread it out when I put it out on the floor. Now I just spread the rolled bales evenly throughout the floor and the sheep break it apart and spread it out throughout the barn. If I have a gap or two a week later I just dump another bale in the shallow spot and the sheep do their magic again. I do need to reset the chute and bring in the four feeders from outside. This will need to happen next week as I am thinking about taking some sheep over to Hermiston next week.

Annmarie wants me to work on getting the old compost out of the barn lot so the horse will quit digging in it for a snack. About 1/3 of the way into digging out the barn I remembered this so I started to put the bedding into the momma/baby area. This has a very shallow soil depth and does not hold water very well. I am hoping to increase the soil depth so I can add some seed. I figure this area can take next year’s material also and I will hopefully have something to work with after that. As I was filling that area I noticed our chickens in the front ditch eating out of the water. They had waded into the shallow water and were eating bugs out of the water. I had no idea chickens would do that! I have only ever seen water birds do that. The chickens do have all you can eat grain available so it is not because they are starving. It was pretty weird.

We had several people send us pictures of Annmarie in the Mounted Band so I picked a couple I liked to add in here. Roundup is pretty much nonstop for us with me having to work in the ER and Annmarie working and doing Round-Up stuff also so not a lot gets done on the farm except feeding animals and collecting eggs.

Our honeybees are still alive from the nuc we purchased this spring. The flowers are fairly sparse this late in the season so we have had to start feeding the bees sugar water. So Annmarie took out one frame so a one gallon frame feeder could be dropped into the hive box. I scraped it and let it gravity drain into a bucket, we got almost a quart from the one frame. We are using it all for ourselves! We are hopeful that we can get one more hive next year and then we can start to actually harvest some honey. I set the frame and wax back outside so the honeybees can clean it up and get it ready to be used next year.

Farm projects progressing

August 4, 2024Steve HardinLeave a comment

The siding contractor is done with the siding. We just need our gutter fixed and a screen replaced. Mr Rainman has been working on getting our porch ceiling painted. He used a thick primer to fill in the gaps between the boards. We thought about painting it white but were afraid it would be hard to match our siding. Annmarie remembered the porch ceiling being blue when she was a kid. I had to look up why blue and the reasons vary quite a bit. It was supposed to keep away evil spirits, it represented the sky so it made the porch feel bigger and it repelled bugs. We are going with the first one.

The annual barn clean out has been happening over the last two weekends. Mr Rainman started it by getting a main path dug all the way through the barn (5 hours). I have worked on it two more days a four hour day and a three hour day. We have managed to get most of the barn dug out in 12 hours! This used to take 40-60 hours to do. We started earlier this year and it is really wet still inside the barn, so there are no hard sheets of dried stuff. It is scrap-able with the manure forks. I took the forks off yesterday and used the bucket to scrape the muddy material loose and then just leave it to dry for a while. Mr Rainman had ambitions of finishing it next week. The rest all needs to be hand dug. It should take about six hours.

We will have gotten the whole thing done in under 20 hours which is pretty amazing. I keep getting better and better with the little John Deere tractor. I think the real reason is I don’t want to get off and pitch fork as much crap as I used to, before becoming more aged. I am getting more efficient as I age!

We have been having some trouble with random people coming down the driveway. We had installed a ring camera this year and are now having to monitor it. For some reason we have someone on a motorcycle who keeps coming onto the property. Annmarie is making another sign to do down by the driveway cattle guard. Once we have the gazebo up we are going to install a 16’ gate across the driveway down by the first house. Initially, we are going to keep the gate open and only close it when we work the animals. If we keep getting unknown visitors we may have to install a solar automatic opener with a battery backup. This will force everyone to stop and push a button to open the gate. If we install an auto gate opener we will bury an auto sensor from our side that will open the gate so you can leave. I am hoping that we won’t have to do that but when we install the manual gate I will weld new hinges on the gate and install a double post and offset post for latching. This will make the installation of an auto opener very easy.

We got the side fence temporarily back up so the dogs can no longer steal cat food or harass the cats. This week we will start in on the gazebo! This is our next big project. I am thinking it will take us about six weeks to get it all up in the air. We will still need to finish the floor inside, create countertops and an entrance cover and ramp. For now just getting it up with the roof on it is the goal this year.

I had to order more parts for the micro hay baler. I needed another $500 worth of parts and am probably going to have to pop off the wheel on one side to be able to reach all of the gears. I will definitely be ordering a spare chain and will only allow myself to take out links one time before just replacing it. The chain only costs $150, all of the gears are over $2k.

Barn Dig out completed

August 23, 2023August 25, 2023Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last week went fast and slow at the same time. The Apprentice stated that she wanted to work. The barn needs dug out and I have to go to the paying job. This seemed like a match made in heaven, to me. I attempted to teach The Apprentice how to drive the little tractor in and out of the barn. It is a tight fit and you have to watch the rear tires and the front bucket simultaneously so you don’t smash either one into the barn or knock out a roof support. After 20 minutes I realized that the time to just get in and out of the barn was going to be too long. So I had the Apprentice start shoveling the barn in areas the tractor would not go. I used the tractor to break up stuff it could reach and had the Apprentice make a long pile of poop in the center of the barn. She kept digging every day and I had to come home, eat dinner and then go out on the tractor and spend a couple of hours digging out the piles that were made in the center of the barn. She had that entire thing done in four days!

The barn floor is now drying out before we lay down some new bedding. I have to repair three boards that I managed to tear up with the tractor. This is only the second time I have torn up some boards when I was digging out the floor with the tractor. I just have to screw down three 4 foot long boards. It will take the impact driver to get the screws into the ancient wood I reused as the subfloor.

I had the Apprentice attempt to clean up the ground outside the barn with the tractor. The wind was blowing and after she ate about a half a pound of dust and poop she called it a day. I will have to come back later to scrape the ground clean. The Apprentice wanted to keep working but we were headed out of town on Friday so the apprentice agreed to come out early on Saturday and we would start in on the fence around field #1. I need to get that field fence up so the cows and sheep can get in there and eat it down. I have also been spending some time in the evenings picking blackberries. Annmarie uses them in her breakfast smoothies and we freeze them in individual serving portions. I have been picking wild blackberries and our domesticated thornless ones. The domesticated ones are huge in comparison to the wild, but the wild ones are much sweeter. The domesticated ones also have NO thorns, it is so pleasant to pick them. My hands look like I have been dragging them through rose bushes after picking wild berries for a couple of days. I was able to swing a deal with a friend for jam. I pick the blackberries and they make the jam! This way we both get some. They don’t like the hornets. I have not been stung a single time by hornets this year. I have managed to “pick” a couple off the blackberry bushes that I thought were fruit. It’s always a surprise when you go to put it in the bucket. I wash it, measure it and freeze it in known quantities so we can use it for jam and pies later in the year. I need to pick about four more gallons.