gazebo

French drain completed

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Memorial Day I could not do any haying. So I decided to just grit my teeth and finish digging the French drain for the machine shed hay storage area. I only needed to dig the sump area but that took a while as the tractor could not reach down very far. I tried to put the clamp on forks on the John Deere bucket but that did not work very well. I think if the ground had been easier to dig in then it would have worked great but it’s not. I finished lining everything with gravel, laid down the drain pipe and buried the entire thing in gravel. I then went ahead and filled the bottom of the space with a couple of inches of gravel. After a week of being in place the space feels drier when you walk to the back corner. It smells less like moisture and the humidity is even lower. It’s pretty amazing. I

t was early afternoon so I then leveled the dirt mound for the gazebo and laid in about one inch of gravel over it. I tried to break out the compactor but the throttle cable needs to be redone. It’s torn and won’t keep the throttle wide open. It’s an easy fix, I just need to get the part ordered. As soon as we finish haying its back to fencing and getting the gazebo area prepped. The holes for the gazebo supports need to be dug before the ground turns into concrete.

The sheep almost killed the chives that I planted in the big ceramic planters next to the front steps. They really like chives! They ate them down to the dirt level and then even tried to nibble down further into the roots. I have been thinking about making a screen that goes around the planters to hold the chives in place when they get big they drop down and hang everywhere. I had taken a couple of measurements and decided that the easiest way was to paint a circle on the welding table and just free hand it from there. I am still using stick welding. I have a wire feed but have not tried using it. I was under the impression that the wire fed items needed to be clean and ready for a weld. The stick just burns through all that crap. I need the practice anyways. So I started working on it. I had to grind out all of the nails so there were no sharp edges to the design. It was fairly warm outside so I decided to weld in a short sleeve shirt. This is not something I have done before. I remembered why when I went to take a shower. I had a major flash burn to my forearms and lower biceps. It looked like I had been standing in the hot sun all day. It did not feel good in the hot shower. Eventually, I will get back to the project and finish it.

Last minute project before the new siding

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We have finally been able to get some contractors to return our phone calls. It has been incredibly hard to find someone who has the time to side our house. We have gone around a few times on what we want and have finally settled on a LP plank siding that has a baked on paint coating called Diamond Kote, it has a 30 year guarantee. I will most likely be dead and Annmarie won’t care that the house may need a coat of paint by then so we are happy with our choice. We need the old vinyl siding removed then the new siding installed along with three windows that have to be replaced from the storm damage that tore up the siding. Here is hoping that we have that process rolling by the end of the month.

Since we had started talking about the siding Annmarie came up with an amazing idea to just create a mud room. Our back door porch has a roof, there is one outside outlet already in the space and a porch light. We just need to add three walls, one with a door and one with a small window in it and then we would be done. When the house gets sided they could just enclose in the mud room and no one would know we had just thought it up. The room just needs to hold coats, boots, our food dehydrator and our barn clothes. This way we could keep all of the mud out of the house. The room does not need any heat as there is no plumbing out there at all. As an added bonus it would enclose our outside power panel so it would now be better protected.

Mr Rainman has come over a few days this year and we went to town clearing off the porch and then ripping down the siding. I had forgotten the house was yellow. When we moved here the house was covered with white shingles before they put the vinyl siding up. Mr Rainman got the pressure treated sill boards cut we just need to modify them to fit around the steel corner posts. Our plan was to hammer out the sill and at least two walls this weekend but it is supposed to be below zero F this weekend and that might not be possible when my face is trying to freeze off. I had to special order an outside door that has a left hand hinge and opens outward. Not a lot of outside doors open outward. It is amazing how expensive building materials are now. Material to build three 2×6 walls with plywood outer sheeting, house wrap, one window and one door costs $3000. That does not include any insulation or inner wall material. I will probably just use smooth one sided plywood for now and then decide later if I want to add something else, it is the mud room.

Just before the beginning of the year I spent a few hours on the tractor and brought in a bunch of dirt for the front hillside. I am making a spot for the gazebo. I figured as much rain as we are getting might as well help me by settling the dirt down into a working platform. Hopefully I will be able to find another day in between rains that lets me smooth out the platform a little better. This will make it a lot easier to compact in the early summer.

Unfortunately, we had a pretty decent windstorm in the last two days and it has ripped the trash can enclosure door off its hinges and spread all of our torn down material from the back porch. There are plastic siding pieces all over the ram pasture. It is quite the mess.