bathroom remodel

Finishing up winter prep

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Well I got the cows to the butcher and we will be eating #34, his carcass weight was 370#. I will smile every time we have beef for the next year.

On Saturday we were going to make apple butter. My mother had given us about 25 gallons of apples so I wanted to make a big batch. Annmarie had to go to work so I was left alone. I just kept filling up the huge pot we had on the stove. Once Annmarie was back and added my requested “triple normal spice amount” and we tasted the concoction it was decided that another 16# of apples were needed. By the time we taste tested the mixture to perfection the poor pot only had a couple of inches of empty space at the top. We ended up canning almost three gallons in half pints and still had two gallons leftover. Out came the large yogurt containers and we ended up filling eight of those. In about fifteen minutes of texting I had them all given away. With the beef coming we did not want more stuff in our freezer and we have plenty canned!

Sunday I worked on the corral. I dug out the dirt and weeds around the loose railroad ties, then mounded gravel around them. I used a seven foot breaker bar to drive the gravel in around the posts. I was able to tighten up all but two. The post on the end by the gate that took the most abuse would only tighten up so much. In an effort to rectify this issue I realized that we had an unused circular pen gate that I thought would fit perfectly in the opening. I brought it over with the tractor and it does indeed fit in the opening with zero modifications. I ordered some all-thread, nuts and washers so that I could weld a piece of 1/2” pipe on the end of the all-thread. I will then drill a hole all the way through the railroad tie and install one above and below the attachment points on the gate. I am then going to drop a piece of half inch rebar down the entire side and duplicate this on both sides of the gate. This will tie the entire gate and pen together at its weakest point. I am too old to be working that breaker bar for an hour. I had to rest between posts.

We have combined all of the sheep. The ewes that were fat and we thought pregnant have not given birth and are way past when they should have had babies. So all the sheep and the rams are mixed together. Annmarie and I went over last week to look at a place in Hermiston that someone wants grazed down. This weekend I am taking the sheep over and with a few hours of fence repair they should be good for at least a month. The field is all green grass about a foot height. The field is pretty wet so anything heavier than sheep would cause divots in the field. This will help us both out. I will definitely have to count sheep before we go as I am not even sure how many we have!

I have been working on the Gazebo after work. I have managed to get a cable up near the top of the pillars shaped like a hexagon. We are going to string lights from the cable. I would have got that done today but I realized I did not have any small zip ties. I also need a short extension cord. It is going to look pretty cool at night with the lights in it.

We are also now starting to plan our downstairs bathroom remodel. We needed some more tile and are going to go with one that looks like linen wall paper. I measured the bathroom and Annmarie drew it up in a CAD program so we could see the layout. We can get all of the Schluter parts to create a waterproof base to lay all of the tile on in Hermiston from the same store as the tile. We want to get a custom granite top cut for the vanity like we did upstairs. The vanity was a wash station from Annmarie’s grandmother. I will have to modify the top drawer to accommodate the plumbing. Once we get the sheep moved I will be able to load up the vanity into pickup and go to the Tricities to find someone who can create the top.

Day of infamy

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This really wasn’t my day all week. We have had a plugged tub drain since Sunday. I have poured two different treatments of lye down it. I have used the plunger and unknown amount and then used an industrial concentrated size Liquid Plumber. I did manage to get the water to trickle drain after purchasing a $20 rotosnake to try and clean out the drain. I could not make the second ninety degree corner with the snake no matter what I did. So Annmarie and I each took a shower and the water did not drain. On Tuesday, I called for a plumber and was able to get a service time on Thursday afternoon. We both ended up showering at our mother’s houses. I even crawled under the house one evening and looked for a clean out to use the rotosnake in, there are none under the house.

Today is Thursday and the plumber came out early in morning while I was in town. He called and said it was fixed about 20 minutes after saying he was headed out to our house from Pendleton. The reason the water would not drain was because the tub drain lever had gotten moved to the closed position! I have not taken a bath in over 30 years and it simply never occurred to me to check especially since Annmarie was gone all weekend. I am grateful the tub drain works. It does work well as I had to clean it today after the mess I had made in it.

I proceeded to go outside and finish the gate extensions on the corral. The two cows that needed to go to the butcher tomorrow are wild and one is the crazy jumper. My helper is out sick so this was a solo job. I was able to sort the four cows in the ram pasture fairly easily. I left one in the back pen and put the other three out in the horse stall area so they could see each other. I was able to get the rest of the herd into the barn lot pretty easily. I needed to get crazy #34 into the trailer, that cow had jumped out of the corral twice in the last year and avoided getting slaughtered both times. Now that the corral gate and wall extensions were completed I figured it was a done deal. I figured wrong.

I had to call Annmarie to come help me and to bring the border collie. I guarded the area leading to the spring because the temporary panels I normally use are in two separate places doing other jobs. The spring area needs to rebuilt after the flooding and I just have not done it. After five tries the cows went into the back barn area. It still took us several more tries to get number 34 into the corral with eight other cows. The one cow I had already sorted off was too small. There were two huge steers in the corral now so we proceeded to try and sort everyone off. We got it down to just those two and then got them into the chute but one ran into the trailer, turned around and can back into the chute causing a pissing match between two angry steers. They ended up popping the gate into the third offset pen in the corral. I had not extended that small gate as the cows were not supposed to go in there this time.

By the time I got around Annmarie was hollering that the cow was stuck. Yep, #34 had tried to jump the gate and got his front foot jammed down beside the gate on top of the gate hinge. Despite the cow trying to pull down the fence, no amount of pulling was getting that foot loose. I had tried to push the foot up, then got a rope and tried to pull it up over a board. After about three minutes I placed a frantic call to my nephew who lives a couple of miles away. I think the only thing he understood was I needed help ASAP and it involved a cow as the cow was bellowing and shrieking two feet from me. I was able to pull back on the railroad tie while #43 was trying to rip it out of the ground. The cow was beyond all reason.

We ended up putting two ropes over its head, one was perfect and went over the horns but the other went over one horn and the cow’s neck. At this point not getting gored through the corral fence was barely possible. We tied off both ropes to separate railroad ties. I unbolted the gate and attempted to get it off the hinges. Crazy #43 managed to kick it off and then fight the ropes. We had to take a break and get the other cow in the trailer. That crazy cow kept trying to get over the trailer divider the entire time we tried to get #34 into it.

When we went to get #34 in, he got away and managed to get out the downed gate about three feet and now truly raising hell as he could sense freedom. I ended up using the tractor to push him back through the gate and then got one of the ropes stuck under a tire. Annmarie had to cut the rope. Luckily, it was the old rope, not the brand new one she had gotten out of the tack room. We managed to get the rope tightened down and the gate open to the chute. #34 ran down the chute by himself and Annmarie slammed the door shut. There are still two ropes around him that will not be back until after the steers get butchered. The trailer looks like a bouncy house with both steers in it. We put an extra strap across the back and left it backed into the corral.

This is a stupid problem. We are definitely going to be taking every single crazy cow to the auction in the next month. Once the calves are weaned. We need calmer cows. The corral is hard to jump from one area to the next. You have to climb a seven foot wall every time!

While I was moving cows I noticed that the white ram in Alcatraz had some abrasions on his forehead. I fed them then went around to the back of the pen and noticed that the gates were falling down! I did not have time to fix it so a little redneck twine was utilized. It only needs to hold for another day.

Bathroom almost complete 99%

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It was getting cold outside but its not now. We are getting up to 50F during the day lately with rain. The entire farm is covered in green grass, even the dirt barn lot is green! We have not started feeding the cows or sheep yet. Every few days I go out and feed the rams and bull in Alcatraz. They are keeping the grass pretty low in that area but it is present and still growing. I was going to burn the weeds in Alcatraz but it rained again, poured actually. I would tell you how much came down but our electronic rain gauge was not working the entire day it rained. I just looked over at the weather station and the rain gauge is back! It says we got 3/4” of rain in the last two days, this is totally believable. I managed to go outside yesterday and dig dirt for a couple of hours. I am still trying to fill in behind the concrete bridge footings. The far footing had about two feet and now has about 18 inches left. It is not exactly fast going as you have to throw the dirt about eight feet and uphill over the footing. I did also manage to pile up more large rocks on the other side of the stream bed. There is no water, its dry this time of year. I will need some more big rocks from the upper hillside to finish the footing rock walls. Two hours of digging is fine, I don’t think I could dig all day any more. Just too much, it’s my concession to aging to only dig 2-3 hours at a time and move a few big rocks.

After the digging I went into the old house and worked on sanding the countertop for the upstairs bathroom. The thing is a solid two inch piece of black walnut that was air dried. This means the board had warped about a half an inch and I had to sand out the bow in the board. I have seen the DeWalt battery powered hand planers and keep wondering if they would make leveling these pieces easier? I keep thinking I want to try it but it’s a $200-300 trial and I don’t want to be wrong. So instead I just kept sanding it and using a two foot metal square to see where the high and low spots were so I could sand them out. I spent three more hours working out most of the high spots. The only thing left was to actually cut the piece to fit. Annmarie and I had a discussion on how best to get an accurate representation of the space. There was some disagreement and I ended up doing it the hard way with a few pieces of newspaper and a lot of clear tape. I then used this as a pattern and made several cuts with my skilsaw. I only had to make two more cuts and one sanding intervention before I managed to get it to fit. Three attempts is not bad considering the space is not a bunch of straight lines. There were a couple of rounded spots that had to be taken into account. Once I had it dry fit I went over the entire top again starting with 40 grit sand paper and ending with 220 grit. I finished the top and front with Tried and True finish. I really like the natural compounds and that is what we used on the walls in the bathroom. It fits great and now I just need to glue it down to the plywood underneath, that is next week’s project. Once that is done I will be 100% complete with my part on the upstairs bathroom!

I was in the craft room last night when I noticed the dreaded ceiling paint sags! The only thing that creates these are water accumulations from a leak. This sucks as I just fixed the ceiling a few years ago from a failed condensate pump in the second story closest. So we went up and started emptying the closet. It means cleaning off all of the shelves and then removing them. I was cutting the zip ties off to get the power cord loose so I could remove the condensate pump and accidentally sliced the discharge rubber hose in half. My pocket knife just got sharpened recently and it is sharp! I eventually got the condensate pump out and it was empty. This is bad as the water was on the closet floor. We opened up the heat pump and found some water inside. We just turned the heat pump off and I contacted the heating guy in the morning. I sent him a text and later today he messaged me from the top of some mountain. He was up with his father hunting elk and would contact me when he gets off the mountain. Once the repair is complete we will discuss how to fix this issue.

Mowing lawn

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It’s hot in Eastern Oregon, this means everything that doesn’t have water on it all the time is dead, brown and ready to burn. Due to the coyote problem we are now feeding the sheep last years hay in the ram pasture so they cannot get out to be coyote food. We have been watering our front hillside to get the clover well established. It is loving the heat and the water. I decided it was time to let the sheep into the yard. Now after the earlier fiasco this summer with the puppy jumping the back yard fence to get in with the sheep we cannot use the back yard fence as containment anymore. So we are resigned to using the two overhead runs we have in the front yard. The runs work well but the dogs are used to tearing up the front yard and running all over usually. They don’t like the runs. Unfortunately, the sheep getting chased all over the front lawn is a bigger problem so the dogs get some run time.

The screwy part of this is that the puppy, Chance, has been doing great on the 30’ lead when working the animals. She listens, she stops, she goes left/right, rarely do you have to use the lead to stop her. She is just over 1 year old but doing very well. This lulled me into complacency. Friday I put both dogs in the back yard, opened the gate with them both laying down and then took chance by the collar while Mouse stayed down at the open gate. After Chance was on the run, I got Mouse, no problems. The sheep got to stay in all day and at dinner time I ran them out of the yard. They wanted back in at one point for an evening snack but I told them they would have to wait until the next day.

Saturday, I was feeling pretty confident. I let the sheep into the front yard and got the dogs into the back yard again. I opened the gate, both dogs were in a down position and I took Mouse first this time. I was almost to the run, 6 seconds, before Chance broke and took off after the sheep. Fifty sheep tearing up the yard is rough on standing structures, two sheep almost knocked themselves out by hitting the upright grape posts, one sheep slid across the bridge and pushed out the paneling to fall off the bridge, two smashed into the already sheep broken outside lamp. I could not call the puppy off. I was standing in front of the sheep trying to get her attention when she singled one out. She just kept after it. I finally tossed a very large branch at her along with an impressive amount of vocal discouragement. I missed her but the combination got her attention and she ran off to an empty hillside. Annmarie had heard me “discussing” the sheep issue with the dog and hollered out for her to lay down, she did. I calmed down and was able to tell her to stay and walked over to her and got her collar and walked her to the run. The hardest part is to praise her for listening. The sheep got to finish eating in peace. Last night I again used the lead and she pushed them out of the yard without incident.

Sunday morning I again let sheep into the yard and put the dogs on the run. I used a leash and took Chance first! Mouse tried to rush past me when I wasn’t looking but he will drop at command as long as he is not locked in on an animal. I got him on the run. Now here is the weird part if we leave the dogs loose they will harass the sheep incessantly. But if we put them on the run I cannot count on the dogs to keep the sheep away from my plants! The dogs will lay down, hold still and allow the sheep to come in and eat the yard around them. The dogs are not even suckering them in close. They will just lay there and let the sheep eat. It is so weird!! The puppy is on the right side of the picture and our older dog is on the far left side. Neither one is reaching for or harassing the sheep. The dogs obviously got the instructions for the leads memorized. I think, they think, they are still on a lead and are following our instructions.

Annmarie got our upstairs bathroom panels covered with cloth. She just needs to run a ribbon around the edges. We needed stronger magnets if we were going to run the fabric over the edges and over the magnets. She tried and it did not work. It looks good and the fabric was a gift from a friend who is no longer. We can look at it and remember her every day.

Smattering of oddities

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There are times when a week of little things turns out to be an amazing week of accomplishments. This is not normal but it is fulfilling mostly due to its novelty. This week was such a thing. My air plant is blooming which is a first for me! I usually have a hard time keeping them alive but this year I have managed to keep six kicking and one doing well.

On Monday, the plumber came out to look at our instant hot water propane tank. We have been getting an error code for months now that will turn off the propane so there is no hot water. We figured out that stopping the demand or limiting it minimized your chance of losing hot water. Eventually, you just needed to shower faster so the hot water did not disappear. It was at a point where it needed to be corrected. I had dug some carbon out of the exhaust but could not figure out how to get inside of the heater. The plumber tore it apart and discovered that the squirrel fan that blows the air was full of dead flies. Not only was the fan full of dead flies, there was a paste of dead flies inside the fan housing and on the sensor unit. All of that was cleaned and reassembled and the hot water heater has been amazing ever since! This is a way cheaper fix than replacing the instant tank.

Tuesday, Sarah called in the late afternoon to say that one of the sheep had been attacked and something was hanging out. I came home and walked out to the ram pasture. Yep, one of the lambs, 5 month old, had crawled through some metal and cut open its stomach. It unfortunately had knicked the bowel also so I had to put it down. Not a great outcome but it is no longer suffering. I took it up to the boneyard that day. It’s too hot to leave anything dead near the house.

Thursday, I started working on converting the 20V DeWalt charger into a 12V power supply base. I gutted the charger and then had to cut holes in the plastic for the 12V regulator to be visible. Cutting holes in plastic with the a Dremel tool resulted in a lot of melting cuts. My only current problem is the screws are not designed to go through two layers of plastic. As dusty as the barn is I need the top clear piece installed. I will have to go to the hardware store and see if I can find longer bolts. The only thing left is to remove the solder from the battery terminals so I can solder on new ones to convert the battery to a power supply. I just need to finish that last piece and then I can mount it in the barn and start wiring the barn for 12V LED light strings. I am going to have five strings and they will be controlled from a switch bank next to the battery. I also picked up three Banty hens from a neighbor who died recently. We agreed to take care of them.

Friday, Annmarie called about a new pellet grill she had found for 50% off. Most people have already purchased their summer grill and ours had just died last week. So we got it strapped down into the back of the pickup and Annmarie told me to just use the tractor and a pallet to move it around.

Saturday, I cleaned off the back porch and pulled out the dead grill. Once I had a spot cleaned I got the tractor and pallet level with the tailgate and rolled the grill onto the pallet, strapped it down and brought it around to the side yard. I was able to roll it right up to the back porch. There was some finagling to get it up the three stairs by myself but I got it done without dumping the grill over on its side. I then had to start it up and do a 30 minute burn to clean it all out. I tossed the old grill in the trash. We had a 1.5 yard dumpster delivered this week and I filled it up from the net wrap in the barn. I have the big barn cleaned out and have started in on emptying the lamb shed but I ran out of room. I was also able to find the skirting table that had gotten stashed out in the old chicken coop. I had been looking for the thing all week and that was literally the only place left to look.

Sunday, I set up two leg traps in my mother-in-law’s front yard for raccoons. She has several coming up to the front porch now to eat cat food. So we will see how the traps perform. I cannot have them come up to the house and start snacking on our chickens. I set up the skirting table in the yard so that Annmarie can wash alpaca fiber and lay it out to dry. I also cleaned the main windows downstairs inside and out. I like looking out them. It’s really too hot to be outside for any length of time. So I went upstairs and glued on all the magnets for our fabric frames to cover up the storage closet. We should be able to start working on those this week.

All in all it was a lot of things that got marked off the to do list and I am happy.