bathroom remodel

Wow. Welcome to the new year!

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I feel like an apology is due, this is the longest absence I have taken since I started writing this blog (March 2010). Initially, I started doing it as a way to track changes on the farm. When we first moved here I had Annmarie create a website but that was not easy to upkeep. You had to actually know how to program and the updates took hours. We have multiple old pictures of the farm and can see changes and know the history of others but I wanted some other generation to know what happened. That was my initial reasoning, after 15 years I write the blog for myself. I enjoy the process and I enjoy documenting the changes. I even occasionally go back and reference the previous entries for data or dates. I am really just documenting my farm therapy sessions.

Life has been catching up to us and we had a lot of things going on at once. In the six weeks our daughter got married, I have had two visits to the ER, had a scope, and have had pneumonia twice. Annmarie closed down her parish, worked on multiple wedding dresses, got sick, and kept everything going. The energy necessary to blog has just not been there. I will catch up the last six weeks.

We sold three cows and had a new group do the slaughter/cut/wrap. They did a great job and the meat look great! They will be doing the other four this month. We just sort them the evening before and leave them in the corral for pickup the next morning. It works well for everyone.

The sheep decided to lamb during wedding prep and wedding weekend. This caused a decided lack of tracking on my part. I could search through all the text messages and get close but I decided to just publish the results:

  • Date of update- Feb 14, 2026
  • # of Lambs born – 38
  • # of ewes who have delivered babies – 23
  • # of ewes still pregnant – 4 in area, I don’t think they are all pregnant maybe 2 but they only have 30 days before we call it a bust.
  • # of single lamb births – unknown
  • # of twin lamb births – unknown
  • # of triplet lamb births – 2
  • # tagged male (weathers-neutered) lambs-unknown
  • # tagged female lambs-unknown
  • # of bummer lambs – 2
  • # of lambs who died in first two weeks – 6
  • Total # of lambs on farm -30
  • % birthing rate- 165%
  • % production rate -130%
  • % survival rate at birth – 95% (two still born, very small, we think triplets)
  • % survival rate at 2 weeks (bummers count as death as they need help and leave the farm) – 80%

We will keep the sheep separated for another month and see if any of the last four have babies. Two look like they may but who knows. We won’t be selling very many lambs this year. We will need to save most, if not all, of the female lambs as replacements to our herd. We like to be around 35 ewes and we culled very hard last year. So we will only have 27 ewes this summer that can be bred to give birth in January 2027. The following year we will have 40 if we hold everything this year. We will need to cull again so that will drop the number down to our goal. We probably just need to keep 5-7 every year so we are on a rotation.

I took a three hours and ran all of the bagged grain we had in the machine shop into edible pieces. My repair job on the first grinder, done last summer, did not work and after an hour of fighting with it I went over and got the new one. It finished the last half of the grinding in 20 minutes. I took all of the cracked grain to the barn to feed to the sheep. They get grain at least once a day. We also keep a protein lick outside for the sheep to eat on all day. They are nursing and the calories are necessary to keep them from getting so skinny.

The cows are doing great! We have five bred females (maybe) at least 3 are obviously pregnant and the other two are first time mom’s. They are not due for another 8-12 weeks. That will leave us with three calves from last year for slaughter next year. We have not sold any yet as we are waiting to see how many we will need to save for our own consumption. We are still running two cows herds, mommy/calf and eaters with the bull in Alcatraz unless he is out working.

Our bulbs that Mr Rainman and I planted on the new flower beds by the rock wall (right side only) are already growing out of the soil, some of them are 4” tall already. I messed up the left side of the rock wall and need to tear down about ten feet and put an actual string line up so the wall does not meander towards the running water. I need to move it back about 12-18”. I also need to finish the floor in the gazebo. I am going to need another 40 bags of sand to get a deep enough layer to effectively use the compactor.

If I am lucky I will be able to squeeze in a new roof on the fencing shed. Annmarie wants me to put a tarp on the back of the bee enclosure. The wind blew rain into the bee hive. I am thinking about putting up a gutter also. The chicken coop will need dug out this year along with the barn. I need to work on Alcatraz. We have a spring seep along the back fence and it is eroding out all of the dirt. I need to toss some more dirt over the fence with the tractor, to get that built up in a 30’ section of fencing. Ideally, I also need to dig out the old lamb barn. Lots of stuff to do outside.

I have started to try and grow house plants from seed. This is not going so well. I started with 96 plugs and have only managed to get 8 plants to come up. I have tried twice now with smaller mini greenhouses and have managed to get two plants to survive. I figured I better up my Christmas game for this year so I am starting early so the plants are well established. I have two grow lights, three heating pads and a set of shelves dedicated to growing new plants. Everyone has gotten my current plants for several years now so I figured it was time for some new ones.

Outside work may be my priority but I have officially been working on the downstairs bathroom for greater than 12 months. So it is now the number one priority. I have the inside trim sanded and just need to cut it to fit and install. I need to just drag out my compressor, hose and finish nailer to the front porch so I can just take a weekend to install all of the trim. I will do that once I get a good dry fit. I also need to finish installing crown molding now that the cupboard has been installed. Hopefully, I can find three full pieces to finish it.

I did manage to spend a day on the tractor moving horse poop and shuffling our compost piles. It was drizzling lightly and after I got done with the stacks we ended up getting 3/4” of rain in the next day. Disturbing the piles helps them get oxygenated and allows more water to seep down into them. Plus, the horse poop was piling up in several places.

I had to weld up new anchors for the 3 point weight last summer. The welds held but the thin sheet metal did not. I do not know why company’s do this. I will have to weld an angle iron cage to the entire outside of the sheet metal to give it the structural integrity to carry the weight. I have the entire thing filled with horseshoes, it makes a great counterweight when I am moving large bales of hay with my little tractor. I should have just made the entire thing myself but I did not think I would need to do that. I should know by now that a lot of things just don’t last anymore.

We moved the bone yard back up onto the hill as far from the animals as we can get. The boneyard by the wheat fields was bringing the coyotes down for more than just water. It takes about 45 minutes to drive up there and back with the small tractor. We have not seen any coyotes down by the house since we moved it. Unfortunately, the neighbor saw one crossing the road out of our field last week. So they are still around we just are not seeing them as much.

Bathroom day 51

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I have been informed that there are a mere 24 days left until company arrives for the wedding! This does sorta put things in perspective. It is only day 51 of the remodel, even though it is week 45. At this rate I will be able to stay ahead of the weeks passed by the number of days worked on the project! Not a great accomplishment but it is something. I have been working on the dreaded Sheetrock. Again, there are just a few things that I don’t care for and Sheetrock work is one of them. I tried something different this time. I was super careful to scrape really well with the next size up drywall scraper/knife. When I was close to finishing I did a wet sand. I had never tried it before, it did leave some slight grooves from softening things up too much it was super easy to repair once it all dried up.

I shot texture on the wall this morning and the main section looks good. It will be ready for primer tomorrow. I will have to dig around in the closets to see if we have any leftover paint. I still need to put some more texture on the wall opposite the closet. I ran out of texture in the can.

I have been working on getting the inside trim dialed in this weekend. I had to tear custom width oak for the top and bottom of the cabinet. I spent almost 90 minutes just sanding those pieces then dry fitting them. This required multiple trips to the saw to get the length right. I installed the top two and the bottom side one. The front needs a nail gun but I only have the air finish nailers and I want to wait to set that up until I have all of the trim pieces cut and dry fitted.

I put a couple of 2×2 at the top of the door to work as spacers so I can nail the trim to them. The trim needed to be lower to cover the hanger hardware. My goal is to hide everything. I am working in pine on the inside of the door as that is what I used on the walls. The outside will be done in the same trim as all the rest of the interior. I was at the hardware store for over 30 minutes just digging through pine boards to find some I could use as trim, too many knots, cracks, chips on edges on a large portion of the boards. I needed one board 8” wide and 7’ tall. I ended up buying a 12 foot section of 1×10” and cut the middle out of it to get a clean piece. Gingerman kept going out in the morning with me to help me tear them down then he went off to do his own chores. It is hard to tear a board down by yourself and make it straight. If I owned some expensive stuff I could do that but my $100 table saw requires two people to carry it into the yard and two to guide the board through the saw.

I have all of the boards ripped and now they need sanded. But I spent about four hours this weekend sanding and wanted to make some progress on the oak cabinet trim before working on the door opening. I have three more oak cross pieces to sand, cut, fit and install. Once that is done then we can talk about how large and how many doors I will need to cut.

I spent almost two hours today trying to find the striker plate for the sliding door. I even went so far as to clean up the old house, cleaned up the mud room and even took all the tools and junk piled up in the laundry room but I did not find that striker plate! I am sure I put it somewhere “safe” I just cannot remember where. Hopefully, I can find it in the next week. It can wait as it only means the bathroom door cannot be locked. On a plus side I did find all the cabinet hinges, knobs and magnetic closures! I would have had to hunt those down eventually. I kept finding needed stuff, I even found the instructions for installing the striker plate, one would think I would have found the actual item.

Still doing Fall catchup

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Last weekend Mr Rainman came out to help for the weekend. The plan was to knock out the Lavender and get it all trimmed and weeded so it was all ready for spring. Fortunately or unfortunately, however you view it Saturday was a burn day! We have been trying to burn the pile for the last two months but we keep missing the burn days. So we got the pile of cardboard from the old house, the mud room and the pickup and then proceeded to light the pile on fire. It took off straight away so we decided to go down the driveway and start pitchforking the tumbleweeds over the fence and stuff them in the back of the pickup to be tossed on the burn pile. My Mother-in-law came out and said she had a bunch of stuff for the burn pile so we piled that on then noticed that the apple tree broken branch had been cut out by one of the nephews so we piled that onto the burn pile and kept one branch to start the new burn pile behind the grain bins out of sight of both houses.

We kept forking weeds over the fence until the wind was blowing so hard that we had to hold them on the fire with a pitchfork so they didn’t just blow away before they could catch on fire. We were losing weeds and figured that it was a waste of time to just keep going.

Annmarie has been cutting stuff out of cow hide for the progeny’s wedding on the laser. It smells like charred leather so I offered to hang them out in the old house. This way they can air out and start to smell good. It worked amazingly well! Nothing the smell of dirt and old wood cannot fix.

My car battery died because I left the dome light on. I let it sit around for a week before I put the ancient charger on it. Mind you when I put the charger on it you could turn the key and get the radio and dash lights. After 12 hours on the charger the battery was totally dead, nothing worked. I tossed the ancient broken charger into the trash can. Mr Rainman offered to come out during the week and install a new battery. I had been driving the gas guzzling pickup for over a week and had already filled the tank twice. I looked at the battery compartment and was dreading the attempt to install it. He had it changed out in no time and it works like a champ again.

The bathroom deadline is approaching quickly so I have been working on getting it completed. We shimmed out the wall on the inside of the door so it is ready for trim. The entire inside of the bathroom is ready for trim. I need to get the Sheetrock repairs completed so that I can put primer on the wall and get it painted. There is a lot of height difference in some places so I am going to have to build it out with the mud to make it look right. I am not the best sheetrock person but I can muddle through.

On Sunday it was supposed to rain so after feeding the cows and getting the barn ready for the momma sheep we went out to the lavender patch to trim it up. We had intentions of keeping nice individual plants. In places it is growing into a single row and we are going to let it. While Mr Rainman cut the lavender I worked on pulling weeds next to the yard and in the next walkway. The weeds were the worst in those two rows. In the spring after we spray the grass we are going to have to use some kind of growth inhibitor to keep the grass from invading again. We even spotted a few honey bees on the lavender despite the wind blowing pretty hard.

Predators 13/ Farm 8

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I did get the hand towel and wash cloth hooks hung in the bathroom. I had plans to go pickup sheetrock on Saturday but it was raining. I did try to get oak boards on Friday but they did not have any and the store I would have normally gone to was closed on Friday for the holiday.

Honestly, this is a stupid problem to have. After breakfast, I was relaxing in the living room, our daughter was feeding the baby and next thing I know the Gingerman is scrambling for the door. He grabs the 30-30 on the way out the front door and runs to the end of the front porch and shoots once out into the ram pasture next to the house. I am looking out the window but I cannot see a coyote. He leaps over the railing and then scrambles around in the snow. He gets one more shot off in the yard then almost falls trying to get through the gate into the ram pasture. I see him line up for a third shot and pull the trigger, click no boom! There were only two cartridges loaded in the rifle. I had not checked it recently. He had ran out into the snow in only his socks in an attempt to kill the coyote. He did not kill it and it had another chicken in its mouth! I am going to count chickens again tomorrow after work but at this rate I was already going to give the neighbor four chickens, I may have to to give him 12 and some chicken food just so we get some eggs through the winter. At this rate I won’t last two more weeks before they have killed every chicken. This is a stupid problem.

Sunday the Gingerman helped me pull down all of the Christmas decorations. We pulled it all down so the wife can sort and organize her village setup. Half of the boxes are for the village setup. But while we were in the attic the Gingerman points out that the side window would make a great sniper location for offing the coyotes. So we have removed the screen from the window and laid out a rifle. So now instead of bursting outside and the coyote seeing you coming we can just run to the attic, pop open the window and bingo, next chicken killer is out of commission. The real problem is that the Gingerman took a walk up to the CRP while the fresh snow was still present. The entire fence line looked like a coyote highway. He thinks there are multiple coyotes living up in the CRP. So it is not going to be a one and done kind of endeavor.

I had purchased some cedar oil a few months ago and had plans for rubbing it on our walk in closet walls and ceiling. That plan did not materialize and the full container has been sitting on a shelf in said closet for a few months. Annmarie went to grab a skirt and noticed some moth damage! Needless to say, I spent most of Sunday cleaning the closet, polishing the shelves and putting oil on the walls and ceiling. We also threw out the trash, junk and clothes that do not fit. By the time we were done there was quite a bit of closet rod visible. The instructions said to use the stuff sparingly and it is not a very big container. I probably only used about 20% of the small can, a little truly does go a long ways. We are keeping the door shut for a while so the smell does not overwhelm the bedroom. It smells like it did when I installed the cedar 20 years ago.

Annmarie made some bee food and I took it out today. I listened at the box and could not hear any bees, I also could not see any bees. I popped the feeder lid off, we have an extra box on top that houses two 1/2 gallon feeders that they can come up into from inside the hive. I had to pop the lid off and there were no bees. In their defense there was no food either, they had emptied both feeders. I did knock on the box once also. By the time I got done changing out both feeders I could see the bees around the outside entrance. They were kinda milling around without any real purpose. I even saw one fly for a couple of feet before going back to the hive.

I waited until Monday to finish the post. Annmarie had a great idea today, she said we should move the two angry brown alpacas to the field with the chickens! The alpaca do not like dogs and will cause a ruckus and try and chase them away. So now we have the two meanest alpaca we own in the same pasture as the chickens. I even put out a couple of bales in the middle of the ram pasture so the alpaca would spot any coyotes coming. I also counted hens once it got dark and there are still 17 hens and three roosters alive and well in the chicken coop. So I am still going to let the chickens free range for a while. I will need to lose a couple more before I lock them up. They will consume more food and they will need water that is not solid. This means more work for me and I am not willing to do more unless it is really necessary.

Bathroom remodel day 50

Steve HardinLeave a comment

The deadline for the bathroom to be completed is our daughter’s wedding in January 2026. This seems to have become a mantra whispered, sung, stated regularly to ensure I do not forget. It is going to be close! After our grandson’s baptism today, Gingerman helped me get the cabinet into the bathroom.

The first thing I had to do was kill the power and get the outlet attached to the back of the cabinet. Luckily, my measurements were good and the hole lined up with the box on the wall. I was able to get it fit properly in my electric nook. I have another small extension that needs to be plugged in so I have enough plugs for all the various bathroom electric items. I just cannot remember at this point what safe spot I chose nine months ago. I am still in contemplation mode, I have not started tearing apart the mud room or old house yet. I think it’s in the back room of the old house but I am just not sure. We have been moving things around so there is no telling where it is actually located.

I was able to get four countersinked screws in the upper portion while leveling the cabinet. The trim near the wall is going to be painful to get lined up correctly. The wall is slanted and the wooden and tile portion are different thicknesses, I am going to have shape the trim piece to fit into the gap. Annmarie ordered metal hooks Sunday so we can hang hand towels next to the sink. I also think this will cut down on water splashes against the cabinet. I am going to carry the ceiling trim around the top of the cabinet to help incorporate it into the room. I had to bend the trim during removal so I will have to hope I have two more intact pieces out in the cellar. I know there is at least one leftover but I think there may be two. I will need to check that this week so I can order some if needed. I will also need to buy four feet of 4-5 inch oak for the foot and top of the cabinet.

When we turned that cabinet on its side to get it into the bathroom, there is about a 1/4” clearance from the ceiling. If I had made the cabinet any taller we would not have been able to stand it up in the bathroom. I would have had to try and shorten the bottom equally. I am not sure that would have gone smoothly as I would not have torn the cabinet apart again to do that.

I had some more straight run chickens grow up. I had to kill two extra roosters as I only want two. When I went into the coop for eggs tonight I saw one more extra roosters that will need to go. The chickens adjusted to daylight savings time well. They were all in the coop when I went out to get eggs.

Our first 30 bales of small round bales has been eaten by each group of cows. They each got another 15 bales today. The grass is green and the cows were not really interested in the hay. Not a single cow even budged or gave me a sideways glance when I was putting the hay out into the feeders.

I got the second coat of oil onto the $25 sewing cabinet we bought. It turned out really nice, a little Formbsy’s, tung oil and a lot of elbow grease made it a gem.