Grain bin gazebo

Gazebo progress continues

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It was supposed to rain all day and it looked like it was going to so I drug my feet on going outside. I didn’t think picking rocks in the rain would be fun. Annmarie told me I could finish the barn but honestly digging up sheep poop fell to the bottom of my want list. Instead, I went through and prioritized my auction choices and whittled them down to two pages worth of items. I have seven days left to make up my mind about whether I want/need anything. I want several things, the real question is do I need it? I will let you know as we get closer to the deadline. The price may determine my need.

I was able to get more done on the pad reinforcement. I only managed to get the tractor up on three tires twice while loading the bucket by hand. You just have to keep removing rocks until the tractor sets back onto all four tires. Sometimes I just hang on the side of the tractor and jump up and down to get it to fall back on all its tires. If this works then I drive it down the road to empty the bucket. You just have to be careful not to run over anything that will cause the tractor tires to leave the road or else the bump will be exaggerated by the off center load.

I tried to leave the gate into the wheat field open again today. I did it yesterday and the five alpaca ended up out in the wheat field. I had to chase them out with the tractor. Yesterday, they were visible and around the gate when I left it open. Today, I looked to make sure that no alpacas were present. One of them saw me leave the gate open and came running. I again had to go chase them back with the tractor. I am closing the gate every time now. Milo and Chance have been staying in the yard, I open the corral gate and leave it open while I unload the bucket, both dogs stay in the yard!

I was talking to the kids today about leveling off the down hill area near the gazebo and then I casually mentioned that I probably needed to level the hillside approaching the gazebo. I am going to build this up with dirt and rock hillside. This just means bringing more rocks down into the yard, then more dirt. I will keep taking dirt from the old Blacksmith shop area. I just have to pick out the metal I find as I dig.

Once I get the pad supported I will dig a trench at the top and line it with a French drain pipe and run that down the hillside and under the new section I will gravel over. Once that is in place I will bring in another 3-4” of gravel over the top of the pad on that side. I may have to get another load of gravel delivered to the house.

I really need to work on building the new 3-point weight box. This will help the tractor stay on four wheels with a heavy load in the bucket area. My old one was commercially built and it fell apart, even with me welding it two more times. The metal was too thin. I have some 3/8” L stock I can make the next one out of and it will not twist, bend or break. I am going to cut the old one apart and use some of it in the new one, waste not want not.

Gazebo retaining wall

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Since war has been declared on the backyard predators not much killing has been happening. The Ring camera likes to alert on the cats and chickens but we are not having great luck with it sending us alerts for predators. So at night I turn on the camera on my phone and watch it live while we are watching television. This way I can spot it if something comes to the back porch. Well Annmarie spotted something and I have gone out a couple of times to only find a cat. Friday night we spotted a skunk! This is probably the skunk that sprayed our Border Collie in the front yard. Chance still smells like skunk even after three baths. The trouble with this is that the skunk was coming towards the back door and I really did not want to get sprayed directly in the face. Washing the dog was as close as I want to get to the offensive part of a skunk. So I grabbed the spotlight and 22 pistol, Gingerman grabbed a shotgun and his phone light. As soon as it was safe to go out I was headed towards the garden when a voice came over the Ring camera telling me that something had jumped the gate and was headed towards the chicken coop. I went that way, spotted two different cats but nothing else when the Gingerman hollered and said he saw a black and white streak headed into the garden.

I ran that way and we scoped out the entire lavender, garden are and orchard and did not spot a skunk. My bet was it was hiding in the raspberry/blackberry patch. But that is so overgrown you kinda have to push your way through. No way I was going in there looking for a skunk. I went back in and the Gingerman took light and looked some more without any luck. I found a second good flashlight and put it back by the back porch. The weather was rainy and windy last night so the skunk did not come around. I do not believe the skunk killed the kitten but it did spray the dog so it needs to go away. It will spray the dog again if given a chance. I still think there is a town raccoon out there somewhere and that is what killed the kitten.

We are starting to get some washout on the downhill side of the gazebo platform. I am sure it is from the rain coming off the roof. So I switched gears and am starting to support the hillside. Large, barely able to move, rocks on the flat level area and then rocks at least six inches in size above that on the hillside. Some of those large rocks weigh so much that only three can be carried in the bucket of my tractor. It won’t lift the bucket with a fourth one present. I am going to use about half the rocks out in the alley way. I may have enough rocks for the support wall maybe. It will be close. I can always go on the back hillside, there is an endless supply of rocks there.

I know I am getting old, the big rocks make my butt and sternum hurt after I move them around for a few hours. I muscle them into the bucket and then into place. I was able to leave all the rocks in the bucket and just dump the bucket where I wanted them. I could just sort them in place at that point.

Gingerman sent me the link to the biannual farm consignment auction yesterday. There was 30 pages of equipment and supplies for sale. I have managed to cut it down to two pages of watched items. It’s a three hour, one way drive to pick up the equipment in Idaho. Once I realized that it was pretty easy to knock the list down from four pages to two. The list is probably below one page but they have 10 of the mini excavators for sale! I could move rocks all day long with one of those. They also have a bunch of accessories and extra attachments so I have all of it flagged so I can watch them. They also have several mini skid steer loaders. I could get into every nook and cranny of the barn and not have to do any hand digging! This would be the bomb!

Gazebo progress

Steve Hardin1 Comment

Monday was the day I was going to finish the barn clean out. The trouble with that is I needed to go help the Gingerman unload the flat bed trailer with the hay on it. We fed one bale to the alpaca as they had been helping themselves to it while it was on the trailer. The second large bale went out to the cows and momma sheep. There is plenty of grass still for them but they are lazy. Once that bale is gone they will have to go back to working for their food. We are trying to get the sheep pregnant so some extra calories will not hurt them a bit. It had rained just over half an inch in the last week. But 2/10” was last night so I decided to run the land plane over the gravel road to refresh it and knock down any holes. I love the land plane, it does a great job on the gravel road. I have to wait until the road has had a good soaking or I cannot work it easily. I then switched over the arena groomer and smoothed out all the ground I had disced up for a fire break. I also used the arena groomer to clean up the field that I had plowed. I made a burn pile of all the weeds. I will need to do the other field next and it needs a burn pile also. I can burn those in December/January.

I went inside to have some lunch and another cup of coffee and told wife I did not want to dig out the barn. So she convinced me to just work on moving rocks for the Gazebo instead. I know that sounds counterintuitive but I did not want to shovel in the barn. Instead I loaded big rocks and some smaller ones. I need 50# plus rocks for the base of the support wall then all rocks above those need to be at least six inches or larger. I am told that is what is needed to stabilize the pad to prevent it from sloughing. The amount of rain we are getting has caused part of the pad to slough. So it has moved up the priority list and cannot wait until winter. I had visions of just piling up the rocks but once I picked up a shovel to mark the base layer I just shoveled the entire thing and called it done! I am going to bring over a hand truck so I can just scoop one large rock up at a time and wheel it into place. I will start working on this after work for at least 30 minutes so it can be over and done.

Regardless, I managed to escape digging poop out of the barn today. That is a joy for another day.

Our new back door Ring camera placement did not detect anything last night. We even reviewed all the footage. We had a hard time seeing so Annmarie asked that I move the camera closer. I moved it over to another closer planter bin and the focal length for the camera is much better. We get a clearer picture. Now it is just a matter of it alerting me to a predator and I can do my part and avenge Cheddar!

Barn dig out initiated

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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.

Treasures

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Sunday we went over to a neighbor’s house to finish getting his chicken coop ready for chickens. It now has chicken wire over all the windows and around the entire yard with bird netting over the entire chicken yard. He is all ready for chickens. I will hopefully be getting a few laying hens over there in the next week. He doesn’t want a rooster so I will have to get rid of the third rooster we now have. I usually only keep one rooster but we now have the chickens ranging up past the old chicken coop, behind the barn and up on the back hillside. Both roosters are trying very hard to keep apart and it is leading to a much wider roaming region.

Mr Rainman went over with me and we got our trailer loaded with an old cow feeder, a wind directional feeder, an old grain bin that used to be on a very old combine and an old cook stove. The cow feeder just needed rolled out into the pasture and filled with hay. The wind directional feeder needs a wire bucket installed so the hay will be contained while the horse is eating it. The grain bin is big and should hold a lot of grain but the entire bottom is rusted out. We poked holes in it while we were loading it. We knew this before we loaded it but reality set in when the tractor forks went through the floor. The stove just needs a wire wheel brush and some new stove black paint to get it back in shape.

We are going to put the stove in the gazebo. I will cut a vent hole in the door of the gazebo and make a covered wood pile out next to the corral. We won’t need that much wood and it will all have to be fairly small to fit into the fire box on the stove. The fire box and ash box are in great shape and do not need any repairs. The floor has to go into the gazebo before the stove can be set.

I will need to get some sheet metal to fix the grain bin. I am thinking 1/16” should be plenty thick. I am not sure what gauge of sheet metal that corresponds to, Google will have to tell me. Google says it is almost 14 gauge so I guess 14 gauge is what I will use. I will definitely need to practice first and I suspect the wire feed is going to be the key to my success when working with sheet metal.

The wheat field has gotten enough water to really shoot up and is doing well. The mild temperatures have been allowing it to grow.