Grain bin gazebo

Gazebo progress

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After we sorted cows we worked on getting the 1/4 round trim installed on the porch. I made a mistake and only bought ten pieces 10” trim to cover 78’ of trim. This may sound like a lot of extra but it was going to take one piece for each end (2) and four for each long side (8) for a grand total of no extra pieces! I have never installed 1/4 round overhead before but knew there was going to be something special about it. I cut the first end piece and installed it without any difficulty and went to cut the adjoining 90 degree piece and could not get a match despite cutting it six times! I was trying to cut a 45 degree miter with another 45 degree slant. I had it all so screwed up I could not figure it out. I knew I had to quit guessing or I was going to run out of wood. So we watched a YouTube video. You have to use the wall side against the fence and then cut a 45 degree cut. Once I did this I was able to cut all of the pieces and reuse my short piece to get the trim completed. We had to use the router on the trim to get around a metal connector and on a separate piece two nails stuck in the overhead that cannot be removed. The blue color on the porch ceiling really turned out nice and the blue trim really made it snap! The only thing left is to clean off the porch, scrub it down with cleaner and get the furniture back on the deck.

Mr Rainman was able to finally get the dirt/gravel pad all compacted down nicely so we could start figuring out where to place the grain bin/gazebo. I started setting up the first row of walls to get a decent orientation on how it was going to fit. Once I had it bolted together then Annmarie and I went out and we discussed where the support beams would be located and how much of the walls I was going to remove to create an open type building. It turns out that it takes six panels to make a full circle. We are going to take out two panels on one side to create the entrance. They only sent us enough panels to go three high but that is only eight feet high and they told us we had enough panels to go ten feet high. So to compensate we are going to take the four panels from the opening and raise up the other four panels another 32”! This will get us 10’ 8” instead but that will give us enough clearing above the posts to bolt in the ceiling.

I had to order a case of 4” structural bolts so we could attach the panels to the wooden posts. We are going to install 6×6” posts on steel supports that are embedded in concrete pillars. Each post assembly costs around $100. I thought it was the wood until I looked at the receipt today, the stainless steel supports that go into the concrete are $65/each. Once I had the first ring assembled I marked the post holes and placement with some paint then we took down the walls again. I had converted the little John Deere over to a post hole auger. We drilled a 6” hole first then once all six of those were done we came back over them with the 12” auger. I managed to snap two shear bolts on the 12” auger. We kept hitting buried metal, large rocks and large tree roots.

Tomorrow, Mr Rainman will reassemble the first layer of the gazebo so he can start pouring the concrete piers. Hopefully, he can get all the piers poured but I am unsure if it can be done in a single day.

The grass is getting very high on the front hillside. We are going to let the alpaca nibble on it and see if they can make a dent.

Hay torture

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It’s that time of year again where I wish I had a clone. This clone could then work for me doing all of the things I don’t want to do, chief among them is bring in the hay. Last week on Sunday, Mr Tex came out to pickup hay bales, he had informed me he had a friend that would work just as hard as him, so I said yes bring him. His friend has the same stature, lean and tall. Yes, his friend did know the meaning of hard work and did work very hard. We will henceforth call said friend ”Mr Clone 1”. I appreciate it when all I have to do is drive around the fields and someone else loads the trailer. I did help unload the trailer every time and we did get another 10 ton of hay unloaded into the barn! It was hot and they were both worn out by the time we got done, it took about 6 hours. I treated them to lunch at the minimart as we needed truck fuel. We had only driven 57 miles and burned up 20 gallons of gasoline! All of those miles were in the field getting hay. So the barn is basically full, I think I can fit another 3-4 ton only between the two rooms. I currently have 27 ton stacked in the main barn. I am saving the space for our second cutting we are going to get off of field #1&2. This will be the first year ever to get a second cutting on our grass hay that is non irrigated.

Since we had just gotten back from vacation and the rain had finally quit and everything had dried out it was time to get back to haying. I went out and turned hay in field #3, we had 1/2 the field cut and it needed to be turned. The Girls (Daughter #1 and Daughter #2) did chores while we were away and the sheep continued to lamb. We had one set of triplets that the mother could not feed the third baby and by day 4 the Girls had to bottle feed it and give it to our regular bummer caretaker. She gets all the bummer lambs for the price of coming whenever we call. Annmarie saw a family of raccoons running up the creek. We think they are living inside the barn so we set out a live trap in the barn with cat food. Raccoons love cat food! My chicken egg production is down and I am not sure if its due to fright from raccoons or just the heat but the chickens need to lay more! I managed to only spend 13.5 hours outside on my first day back from vacation doing farmwork.

Annmarie found a 18’ grain bin that is disassembled and 8’ high with all of the roof pieces for sale. It was delivered and we were able to unload it in four loads with the Kubota tractor and a set of loader forks. It is so much nicer to use the pallet forks instead of your back. We just stashed it all in a pile out of the way. That is totally next years project and when they delivered it was when I realized there was no top cap for the roof. I am going to have to try and hunt one down or else make one. The real question is how fancy do we get? I know I will be running some conduit to it so I can put in some outdoor outlets. I am even thinking about tapping into the water line but I am not sure how to do this as I only need 1/2’ line and want to use pex tubing and an antifreeze fixture. I may even go so far as to put an underground shutoff valve that will drain the above ground line so I can just shut it off in the winter. But I have to keep reminding myself that this is next years project and I need to just let it go.

Daughter #2 has managed to get the tractor stuck out in the field twice already. Once she hit a bad culvert with some undercutting from the flooding and the other time she hit a spring and got stuck in the mud. The springs and mud are really bad this year. I am going to have to move some more dirt around to mark the edges of the muddy spots so we don’t get stuck in the mud as often.

The puppy, ”Chance” missed us while we were away but the Girls managed to get her to not holler every night when she is kenneled so that was very pleasant surprise when we went to bed. You still have to get up and potty her at 0400 but that is a small price to pay for the whining and yipping to be gone.

Lambing is now officially commencing

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Again, the haying continues. We are still using the Micro hay equipment from Italy. Everything has done alright but the rake. The back wheels fell off last year and we attempted to weld them back on twice but the metal is not very good and it it keeps weakening and breaking so we now just use the front half and sooner or later we will have to repair the back half. It works for now and that is really the fact that continues to be pertinent.

I spent all day today on the tractor turning and rowing field two and then going back over it and cutting under the rows with the sickle bar. I was doing this after the rowing when I heard a change in the way the sickle bar was mowing and yes, I broke a bolt and the mower was not functioning correctly. I went back to the house and called it good.

I needed to be cleaned up early as our summer guest is arriving today, Monica! Monica was our foreign exchange student 8 years ago. She is going to vet school in the UK and came to spend summer with us instead of flying back to Taiwan, yeah for us! We are excited to have her and to teach her about the animals. She came at a perfect time as we just started to lamb today. Our first ewe had triplets this morning and was watching and feeding them all. This round of lambs is the first from our new ram we purchased last year. By this evening we had another set of twins and a single.

I let the sheep in the front yard to mow. Eventually, I am going to have to mow the lawn but that means I need to not be on the tractor all day and so far that is not happening. But, the lawn continues to grow so I have to do something. The sheep mowing will need to happen for another few days to really put the lawn in its place.

We have been talking about putting in a grain bin silo gazebo for outside cooking and entertaining. I realize we are not exactly social mavens but having a spot out of the weather where we could gather would be very nice. We could even put a little power to it so we could have lights and a plug in. So we have been asking around to see if someone knew of someone getting rid of a bin and have not had any luck yet. Annmarie was perusing Craigslist yesterday and spotted someone selling 18’ bins with 8’ walls and the entire roof. We reached out today and the pieces and parts should be delivered in a couple of weeks! So now we need to mock up some plans to take into account how we want to setup our outdoor area and where. We have the spot picked but it means we will need to move the yard fence out to accommodate the new location.

I am fairly certain with the amount of hay we still have to process, the new office needing to be completed and the bridge to be built we will not be getting to the Gazebo this year, but who knows if winter fails to come until December we may have time. But at least now we will have the parts necessary to do this project.