gazebo

Winter feeding, a trial experience

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Annmarie has a friend that offered to let us put our sheep on about five acres of grass. The grass is over a foot high but the ground gets pretty wet in the late fall and he wants the grass knocked down so he will have a good crop of hay in the spring but he doesn’t want cows in there tearing up the ground. We went and looked at it last week and it has woven wire all around the outside and just needed a trough and some wooden stays to pull up the woven wire where his cows pushed it down trying to eat outside the fence last year.

We have never tried this before and did not know how many animals would fit into the 16’ stock trailer as the field is about 40 miles away. In all reality, we didn’t know how many sheep we actually had. But I figured we would count them before moving them so all was good. A month on good green grass is wonderful, when they get back we will sort them, keep our 13 lambs that are pre-sold and then take the rest of the lambs to the auction. They will be 10-11 months old and at their heaviest weight all with just grass feed.

So Mr Rainman and I cleaned up the farm on Thursday and got wooden stays and tools together to fix the fence and move sheep on Friday. I needed to buy another box of staples for the DeWalt fence stapler. I love this thing, it’s awkward and heavy but it slams out fencing nails like it is nothing. I was able to finish wiring up the power to the Gazebo and he got the lights strung up. We need a remote control to turn the lights on and off, it is already ordered and coming. The shelf supports also lean a little too much so I will need to add some spacers to make the countertop/sitting/shelf only tilt a little towards the outside. This way the water will run off outside the Gazebo. My customer from Tricities came over and bought a cow/calf pair that afternoon. We found the calmest pair possible out of the herd that were not polled and that is who we sent with him. They loaded fairly easy and he messaged me back saying they are doing great. He has them in with his small herd of goats. He brought out the heads of the two steers that we had taken to the butcher the previous week. Their heads will go on the old plow to just sit and let Mother Nature remove all of the skin and hide from them.

Friday morning we ran all of the sheep into the barn. There were a lot of sheep! I counted them as they came out the end of the chute to get into the barn and there were 93 sheep! This included the ten baby lambs that we got this summer. There was way too many to go in one trip. So we only tried to load 1/2 the herd into the trailer. Well, not all of the sheep thought that was a great idea and after they got 2/3 of the way down the chute they decided to turn and try and crawl over the backs of everyone still coming. All this did was create a logjam and Mr Rainman had to wade into the chute and grab them individually and toss them the other direction before pushing them into the trailer. This meant it took us about 20 minutes to get them loaded instead of five if they had cooperated. There was still some room, but not more than enough to fit another ten sheep, so dividing the herd was the right way to move them.

Off we went! Did I mention that when I started hauling the cows the trailer spare tire was flat so I had taken it to the shop to get repaired? I had not yet picked it up. We got to the outside edge of Pendleton and one of the stock trailer’s tires blew apart. I knew what it was the instant it happened so I pulled over and we called the tire store. I reminded them that my tire was already there so they put together another tire and brought them both out for us, we only waited 45 minutes. It was less than five minutes once they got there and we now had a spare tire. Of course we did not have a jack or tire speed wrench so I am not sure how much good that would have done us but that is not their fault. I will be buying a scissor lift and tire wrench to be mounted inside the trailer for just this reason. I am pretty sure both sides have the ability to mount a spare tire, and having a spare spare is a really good thing.

We had looked at the weather the previous day and it said rain most of the day so we packed rain gear just in case. It rained the entire time we were building fence. The DeWalt stapler does not like the rain. About 3/4 of the way through the job it started acting up and not wanting to staple. We fussed with it to keep it going but it was starting to slow us down. We ended up losing one of the lambs on the first trip, it got suffocated. I think it was when we blew the tire out the sheep ended up laying down for an extra 45 minutes and just laid on the lamb. We had to make a second trip to get the last of the sheep and they traveled without any problems but there were only two lambs in the second load and mostly larger sheep. Our rams are in with the sheep and Wil put his eight sheep in with ours also. He turned his ram loose into the herd so we are both hoping rams cross groups. By the time we showed up with the second trailer load of sheep both of the herds had finally started to co-mingle. Initially, they were staying separated.

I had Mr Rainman drop me off at the tire store so I could pickup “Little Dumper”, 1957 one ton truck. They had finally finished the brake job and some wheel bearings. The trouble is it would not start, so the owner and I tried for about five minutes before someone finally told him it was out of gas. They took me down to get two gallons and it started right up! I drove down to the gas station and put 16 gallons of non ethanol premium fuel in it for the drive home. It was starting to get dark and I don’t think the headlights work. I had just gotten to the edge of town when it started to act up. Like it was not getting enough fuel or getting too much. I kept milking it and slowing down then speeding up. I was driving the back gravel roads and waving everyone by me. I had called a friend whose house was on the way and asked her if I could just park it there until I could tow it home, she said yes. The problem was as I was coming down the hill towards her house it was running great! So I just took a risk and kept on going! It died within sight of her driveway and I could not get it started again.

I had called Annmarie when it started acting up and asked her to drive the back way in case I got stopped somewhere. She had heat and lights in her car. I had two people stop before she got there asking me if I needed any help. This is so nice in a rural area. I told them I was fine and help was on the way. We called my nephew again and he went to the farm and grabbed my heavy duty tow strap, purchased to pull the tractor out of the mud, and brought it out. He towed me back to the farm and I messaged Gingerman. He will tear out the carburetor and do a clean and rebuild. He said one of the floats kept sticking when he was getting it started the first time. The brakes work great and since they are 100% manual, no power was required to operate them on the tow home.

Staycation day 10

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It is not really day 10 as I had to work on Monday but it’s close enough. The Gingerman spent Sunday with my daughter working on a creating a yard gate for my mother-in-law. He got it all up and attached with extra support inside garage so gate doesn’t sag. I have a welded horseshoe chain ready to go. I just need to meander down there and get it installed.

Mr Rainman came out on Monday and cleaned up a bunch of rotten wood and emptied some old decking out of the grain bin. It sounds easy but there was a lot of stuff and the spot he did it is looking amazing. We are going to empty the chicken coop first of all of the rough cut maple and black walnut that is stored out there. Next year we will take the black walnut from last year and get it stacked out there also. It’s waterproof and we will put stickers on the green stuff and just stack the other nice and tight. That will be a lot of weight to hold everything down. We will put wood stickers on the concrete so the wood has an air gap. This will free up a lot of space in the old chicken coop.

I plan on moving most of the tool storage from the old house out to the old chicken coop. Most of those tools and supplies are super specialized and I have them all sorted into separate bins. This way you can just grab a specific bin type for the needed job type. I only do tile work occasionally, same with painting supplies. I am also going to sort out most of my corded tools and give them away. They work just fine but I use battery powered almost exclusively now. It is so convenient when I am out and about on the farm. He also got the back drainage tank set up with a drain. This sits under the roof valley and catches the water and ice as it comes off our roof. We split the drain pipe in hopes that it would not freeze up this winter and crack.

I keep running to town every couple of days to get little things for the next project. I had to go and buy electrical conduit and wiring plus some miscellaneous wiring items. I figure that by the time I am completed there will be about $250 worth of electrical supplies just to get a double outlet of 110V out to the Gazebo. We want a string of lights around the inside of the gazebo. We have a set upstairs on the breeze porch that you can set the brightness on and I can wire in a timer if needed.

Today I worked on getting all of the conduit installed. I glued the main line together and pulled 130’ of 12g wire through it. I was able to install the wiring in the brick box I made last year. There is quite a bit of humidity inside the box so I used vulcanizing tape and electrical tape in alternating layers to keep the moisture out of the electrical connection. It takes a while to get it all taped up and it is pure misery to remove but it’s how we did it when I was in the Navy and it held out against salt water so I figure I should be good for a few years at a minimum.

I wanted the conduit in the Gazebo to be fairly hidden so I mounted it under area where the countertops are going to be installed. I had to loosen the gazebo anchoring bolts into the 6×6 boards to make enough room to jam the conduit behind the posts. This makes for a nice clean conduit run. I will need to anchor it all back in place tomorrow.

Snoop, ancient black alpaca, was whining at me over the weekend until I gave him an apple over the fence. The alpaca are incredibly noisy and if they want something they are more than capable of communicating that desire to you via a cacophony of altering sounds. I have been feeding the animals leftover apples for days now and still have 2-3 more days worth of apples to feed out. They were the rejects from my mother’s trees.

We still do not have any more lambs! It is the most bizarre thing ever. Yes there are still some pregnant, about 8-10. I checked on Little Dumper on Monday but the person in charge was not present and I was unable to get an update. I need that truck so we can get a bunch of rocks to put on the hillside to stabilize the gazebo downhill side bank.

Staycation day 8 Final 10% completed

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My goal this time off was to actually check items off my list. I love the first 90% of a project but that last 10% is always painful! The last 10% of a project can take 25% of your time and by the time it gets to the true detail work I am tired of it and ready to move onto the next project. So what you are going to see are a lot of completions of little things that I have ignored for years!

Last winter I had the outside chicken door freeze open and/or shut. In a bad ice storm it is going to freeze. There is no way to really effectively block that without applying some type of heating system. I just want to stop the water from running down to it and then freezing in the night. To stop that I took an old metal wring from a whiskey barrel and cut and bent tabs then attached it over the door. I caulked it top and underneath to ensure that the water cannot run down the back of the door. This should work 98% of the time, we will see how it does this winter.

I spent a day cleaning the wife’s office. I had not been in there in a few months and I was applying for school last week and noticed that the office needed a good once over. I ended up vacuuming and dusting and removing all spiderwebs. I oiled down the window sills and cleaned the windows. After I did all of that I realized that I had never touched the Murphy bed we bought at auction. I have to repair it but I had not even cleaned and oiled it. So I spent a couple of hours and rubbed orange oil/beeswax combo into the wood. It looked amazing once I was done so I was determined to get it repaired. I ended up finding some furniture barrel nuts and a bronze sleeve bearing. The wood is torn up around the place they had the old screw attachment located. So I decided I could drill an oversized hole, insert and glue in place the bronze sleeve and then use locktite to keep the barrel nut at the right location. I ended up having to drill out the support straps a little to get the barrel bolt through it. I opted to let the super glue dry for a day or two before I did any assembly.

Yesterday, Mr Rainman came out and we really worked on knocking out a lot of little projects. I cut the last piece of oak kickerboard to go under the oven cabinet and we nailed/screwed all three pieces in place. This way the dog’s play toys cannot go to purgatory. I only had to fish out two toys before installing the boards. You can see from the pictures what a difference it made. The picture on the left is before I completed it and the one on the right is after they are all installed.

We have some of the very first cooking stones that Pampered Chef ever made and one of them is a large round pizza stone. It occasionally just rolls out of the open fronted storage area. Annmarie wanted me to install a wooden stop to prevent this potential tragedy. The stone has survived several rolls out onto the tile floor undamaged. I sanded down the front of the cabinet and glued then pin nailed and clamped the little 1/4” stops in place. I will rub a food grade finish on them tomorrow so they will be off the list. The slot on the left holds the stones but I wanted both sides to match and if someone accidentally puts the stone on the wrong side it still will not roll out. The stones are very well seasoned and cookies just slide off of them after all the years we have had them.

The back door trim got reinstalled for the third time. The mud room outside door keeps shifting with the weather. I think I have gotten it figured out this time. I ended up doing some latch work and should have it perfected. If I have to remove it a couple more times I will need to recut a new piece due to all of the nail holes.

We had to bring the table saw around to the front of the old house so that the window trim in the mud room could be finished. I needed to cut a custom width on the inside of the window. Luckily, we were able to find four pieces of scrap that were wide enough to work. I trimmed off the joint sides and kept the middle. I had to shim the window trim quite a bit to get it to fit correctly. The outside trim was just an intact 1×4 that we cut to size and sanded down. I will rub finish into all of this trim tomorrow when I get the trim in the kitchen. The pneumatic nailer and compressor had to be brought over. I am missing my 18g midsize nailer. We have looked everywhere for it but I do not really want to buy a DeWalt trim nailer to replace it, those things are expensive. So we made do with a larger finish nail.

The mud room does have an attic enclosure. I was up there when we first moved into the house as I had to run wire for house power through it. We sealed up the gaps and then installed the old trim back up. Due to adding a wall we ended up having to leave off the back board. I painted it all today after the caulk had time to dry. I am not sure we got the right white paint can correct. When it was wet the paint looked a little off. I won’t know until it dries and if it is really noticeable there is enough leftover paint to repaint the entire ceiling so it will all match.

Friday the last of the oversized roofing screws came in. So on Saturday I got back onto the machine shed roof to finish screwing in the roof ridge. It only took about five minutes to complete but before I could get down I wanted to remove the antenna pole that had been on top of the machine shed. Another thing I should have used the boom truck for along with the ridge line installation. So instead I just crawled up onto the hay room roof ridge and scooted over to the pole. I was able to unscrew five of the six anchors. I had used one off brand type with a weird star shaped pattern. I stayed on the roof and Mr Rainman went to get bits and then put it in a leather glove finger held in place with a rock jammed into the finger. He then tossed it up onto the roof at me. I could not move at all so the throw practically had to hit me for me to catch it. There was much cajoling and when that did not encourage him to throw harder some name calling may have been utilized. He could not find the correct head type so he had to throw me up two 1/2” open end wrenches so I could unbolt the pole from that half of the roof anchor. We ended up having to move the ladder, cut the grounding wire holding it up then move the ladder again and unhook one of the anchors. It came down finally. All the usable parts were removed and salvaged for later potential use and the rest tossed onto the metal scrap heap. That has been up on the machine shed roof since 2017!

After four attempts at welding and a couple of days to spray paint the house number was ready to be installed on our fence. I argued pretty vehemently against its current placement location. After I installed it I was unsure why I thought this location would not work. It turned out pretty nice, the paint covers some of my juvenile welding but it should hold together. I think the wire fed welder would work better for this kind of job than the stick. But I have not yet setup my wire feed side of the welder. I will need to do that next year.

Mr Rainman stayed very busy today. He mowed our entire lawn and tossed it all over the fence for the sheep and chickens. This should help remove some of the foxtails from our yard. The yard is pretty rough and not very easy to mow. He repaired the drip line in the lavender patch and put all the spare repair parts into Annmarie’s shed. Some weed whacking was done on the front hillside to knock down the rest of the thistles.

We don’t have any bees currently but Annmarie wanted us to expand the bee area so that she could easily walk around the hives and set stuff down without it always disappearing into the grass. He installed approximately another 50 blocks and the area is definitely large enough for 2-3 hives now.

Lastly after much discussion it was decided to dig the electrical ditch so I can run a single outlet to the gazebo. This way we can have the pellet grill out there and a string of lights. Unfortunately, where the ground is not getting hosed down by the sprinkler it is incredibly hard. So Mr Rainman started digging and then put water on in a couple of locations to soften the ground for tomorrow. I was able to go in and dig out another ten feet of the ditch and then start it all the way to the Gazebo. I took the hose and made water run down into the ditch from the gazebo side. I did this three times so hopefully in the morning we will not have any trouble getting down far enough for the ditch. I will need to buy conduit on Monday after work so I can wire it all up this next week. Mr Rainman is only going to be able to help three day in the next couple of weeks. So I will be flying solo most of my staycation. I am very happy with the progress we are making on the list.

Staycation day 5

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It seems like every project is two steps forward and one back. I was able to work on the machine shed ridge line install yesterday. I had found some small two foot peak sections somewhere on the farm but they were not enough to cover the entire ridge line. I purchased some trough metal that I turned upside down and used as ridge cap. It was at a close out and I only paid about $8/piece. I was trying to use up my leftover roofing screws from the barn. The only problem is I ran out with only 27 left to be installed. They are oversized as I was reusing metal tin and needed a larger size to go through the existing holes. This meant I had to drill a pilot hole first. I drilled those 27 holes before climbing down from the roof and of course could not find a #14 screw anywhere in town. I had some #10 but they were red! I ended up ordering some and they should be here this week. Luckily, I ran out of screws as the sun was heating the roof up to unbearable temperatures but I kept trying to get it all done so I would not have to climb back up on the roof. I ended up going to town to get some oak, some trim for the cook stones enclosure, sheep and lamb pellets and some bolts to fix the gazebo door.

I had enough time to repair the gazebo door, cut off the door handle bolt and install a new one. I still ended up beating and bending the door into submission to get it on. Our original plan was to use the door to get to the grill outside after I built a lean to on the back of the gazebo. Nope, not going to happen. That door will be staying shut, it took a hammer and a couple of minutes to get it shut the first time. The grill will be going inside the gazebo. I just have to figure out where the grill is going to go as I need to run the power to that spot.

Today I took the second repaired cattle feeder out into the alleyway and got it ready for a large bale. I dumped some more scraps onto the burn pile. All the burn piles are starting to grow pretty fast now as we continue cleaning up. I got the weight box for the tractor and took it over to the machine shop so it could be repaired. The supports keep bending from the weight of all the metal horse shoes. I beat on the three point supports with an eight pound sledge hammer then proceeded to weld some supports on all three attachment points. I am hopeful that it will keep them from bending now during the winter use. I am still welding pretty roughly but it is holding and that is the main purpose for my welding skills.

I took 1000# of sheep and lamb feed out to the barn. We are storing the sweet feed in the large grainbin we have in the momma/baby area. I put 450# in it today and I am pretty sure I can fit another 1000# in it. The lamb creep feed gate is up and we are now feeding the lambs where the mommas cannot reach. This should hopefully help the mommas not slough so much weight. I took all of the leftover feed bags and net wrapping and bagged it all up and took it out of the barn. Annmarie had been complaining about there being no box knives out in the barn. I found two knives in the trash bin, some lamb nutrient mix and some hoof treatment powder. So now we know where all of that is located.

Annmarie really wants the house number holder completed so I started welding that project today. I am a mediocre welder so hopefully this turns out well. I got the rough frame welded today but had to let it cool off before I could work on it some more. Tomorrow I will grind it smooth and try and make it pretty. Hopefully the tile will still slide into the end. We will know tomorrow!

The porch lights went out for the third time! This is after I wired the new ones in. I took the main one down again, took it all apart and used a voltmeter this time to check everything and the switch. It turns out that it was the cheap porch light bulbs. They had blown up with all of our power losses. I bought LED this time!

Staycation Day 3

Steve HardinLeave a comment

It’s that time of the year again where I take the much needed Staycation. As always, this time of the year I will be working on getting ready for winter. This also means I will be attempting to finish up a few projects I have laying around.

Day 1 staycation :

Saw me going to town for half the day. I had to get the new diesel pickup titled in our name. I also washed the exterior of it and spent about thirty minutes at the car wash vacuuming out dog hair and leaves. I got some wipes to wipe down the interior but they are too wet. I need to take a roll of paper towels out when I use them to dry the plastic afterwards. I found a plastic tool holder area behind the back seat so I will be able to keep a few things I use on a regular basis back there. I bought four new tie downs and they will be stored in it. I may put a pair of gloves in it also plus a set of battery jumper cables. I also purchased a steering wheel cover and some new floor mats. I almost got some seat covers but I was not sure they would fit. I will do more research but I need to get a heavy duty set of inexpensive covers for the front and back seat. The seat covers will have to wait until after I get the steering fixed and the new shocks installed.

I attempted to buy hose clamps while I was in town and could not believe the price at $3/ea. I ended up ordering them online for $0.35/each and will wait the six days until they come. Yes, I had to order more than the 10 I needed but I usually end up using them for something. I just need the 1/2-3/4” size to fix the black poly pipe in the lavender. I accidentally cut it with the hedge trimmers a couple of weeks ago.

I was going to finish the window trim around the mud room window but did not want to drag out the table saw so I attempted to cut the board longwise with the radial arm saw. After the board exploded in my hand I decided that it was not a great idea. I need to find more wide boards then I will run them through the table saw first. I gave up on this and went and sharpened the chain saw and went out to the old chicken coop area and hacked on a tree. The tree keeps growing lower and lower so it needed to be raised back up so that we could see out past it and I could drive the tractor under it. I knocked all the limbs I wanted off of it and left the branches laying around so that the sheep could eat all the leaves off of the ground. The nice thing about early in the staycation I can just pick and choose from all the items on my to do list. As I start lining things off the list my choices shrink and I may be forced to do something I managed to avoid all summer.

Day 2 Staycation:

I went out and brought the first cow feeder back to the machine shop so I could repair it. Big surprise, I needed some grinder cutoff wheels and used them all up on the Gazebo so I had to make a quick run to town. I bought 12 so there would be extras in the toolbox. I managed to not buy any DeWalt tools despite it being the last day of the sale, buy one tool and get the battery free! I just bought two 20V off brand batteries last month that fit the DeWalt and I am going to try them out. They are more than 50% cheaper than the DeWalt Brand batteries.

I was able to weld the feeder together and take it back out to the orchard. It is all setup and one side spread open so that a large bale could be easily inserted and sides closed once we start feeding the big bales. I went up to the upper alley way and got the second feeder. It was in rougher shape and required more welding and grinding to repair. I even broke out some paint and painted over the rust spots and repairs. I tried to match paint colors but the green can nozzle was plugged so black paint works. Honestly, as long as the metal is protected I really don’t care what color combination is as long as paint covers the repairs.

Mr Gingerman helped me snag some rebar and put the now clean branches onto the burn pile behind the old chicken coop. We can now see field four and the gate from our front room window. We can break out the binoculars instead of hoofing it up there to see where the sheep are at.

Day 3 staycation:

I decided to weld up the tile house number that Annmarie made on the laser cutter. I looked in every building and her office and could not find it! I had even purchased the metal for the hanger last month. I finally gave up and measured the gazebo openings for angle iron to be mounted at the lip height so a countertop could be installed. I have been piling up scrap steel in the machine shed for just this purpose. I can get a 20” piece installed that will let me use three preexisting holes in the rim of the gazebo panel. It got two cut out and edges all ground smooth. I then took them to the gazebo, clamped them in place then marked the three holes. I drilled pilot holes in the vice then finished the holes. Once I had the two outer bolts in place I realized that my center bolt is about 1/2 “ too short so I will need to buy four more bolts to get those installed correctly.

Did not manage to get outside until the early afternoon. I went out and took down the gazebo door and tried to figure out while it will not shut. I ended up beating on it with a hammer and bending parts of it with a crescent wrench. After a couple of attempts I realized that I needed a new three inch bolt that was threaded 100% of the shaft. I don’t have any so I added that to my go to town eventually list. The bolt is for the door latch so it is fairly important to have it in place before I hang the door back up.

I asked Annmarie where the house number was located. It was in her office in the windowsill behind the barn door! No wonder I could not find it. We had it there for safekeeping. It was definitely safe from me. I ended up cleaning up all the tools and calf table away from the corral loading chute. I will need to back the stock trailer up to the chute this week so that I can get the three cows loaded up Friday morning to go to slaughter. They are going to kill three this Friday and two next Friday. The sheep are not getting killed until the first of the year.

Our momma sheep are getting skinny again. The lambs are literally sucking the calories out of them. I put a protein lick out for them and tomorrow I will get some creep feed for the lambs. Feeding the lambs separately a high protein diet should relieve some caloric load from the ewes. Annmarie has a friend that agreed to take all the sheep for a month to clean up a boggy area on their property that is a little water logged. They don’t want cattle on it. It is a hay field that was too wet to get a third cutting on it. This is perfect for us.