remodel

Only a little Gimpy

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On Tuesday I did a walk around the house with the contractor. He wanted to return the overhead lift so he spent a couple of days finishing up the caulking on the upper part of the house. It is looking good. They just have to fix a corner of the front gutters, replace a screen in a window and finish caulking the lower part of the house. They got the yard all cleaned up and we are going to start putting some water on it to cut down on all of the dry weeds the dogs keep bringing into the house.

Mr Rainman came out to mow the fields and has missed coyotes two mornings in a row. Gingerman and I went out Thursday evening and Friday morning and did not see a single coyote. So maybe he managed to scare it off, no body, no credit.

On Wednesday, we had another big event, the dreaded lightning strike fire. We had a storm pass over Pilot Rock and lightning started four fires in a very short amount of time. A couple of the fires got controlled fairly quickly but the wind picked up and started to really spread the flames. The lightning continued to start more fires as it moved. Our area ended up with several big fires. Four days later and there is a state disaster team, agencies and assets from all over the state fighting fires around us. Highway 395 is closed down 39 miles outside of town and we are surrounded by smoke. The fires are continuing to grow. Luckily for us the fire never jumped the highway before town so we were safe and the wheat crop next to the houses is intact and ready to be harvested, not everyone was as lucky. I spent a couple of hours driving around looking for our Border Collie, Chance. She got out of the yard during the storm. She came back to the house as I was headed down the driveway. Annmarie called me to let me know she just showed up at the front gate ready to be let inside the yard. Milo is doing great, he is going to the vet to get neutered next week. He doesn’t know it yet.

Well I am officially out of the boot and able to bear weight on my healing foot as long as I wear a stiff soled shoe. I heard this on Monday so I started walking around with the boot as I did not have any shoes for the right broken foot. It hurt, pins and needles and stinging when I bore weight on it. After only six weeks no weight bearing I expected to just jump right back into the hard manual labor and, per the wife, I did not listen again. I didn’t want to listen, I don’t want to rehab, I don’t want to take it easy! But after having to sleep 10-12 hours each night after bearing weight I would say it is a lot harder than I expected. First thing in the morning when I put my foot down the whole thing has pins and needles. I am walking with a slight limp that progresses if I push it too much. So I am trying to take it easy for me.

Mr Rainman came out on Saturday and we went out and wormed the sheep. Most of the sheep look great but some of the ewes are pretty skinny so we worm when that happens especially since they are out and about on the farm. I was able to use the drencher device and it is so much faster than filling syringes. It still took us a couple of hours to go through the herd. He jumped in with the sheep in the chute and held them so I could dose them. You always get your feet stepped on when you are in the chute and I do not need that yet. One ewe had an abscess on her chin that I lanced. They get them from the cheat grass. We have been mowing and spraying the cheat grass but this year it is winning. We are planning on spraying Rejuvra on the fields this fall to help us control the cheat grass. This time in the barn pointed out that we still need to dig out the barn and the chicken coop. They are on the list. Mr Rainman wants to put the heavy panels in the hay room so he doesn’t have to carry them as far. Normally we take them outside the barn. This is a valid strategy he employed today to get the barn opened up today so he is ready to start digging it out with the manure forks on the John Deere 2520 tractor. The smaller tractor is the only one that will fit into the barn.

The plan was to hook up the small sickle bar mower to the John Deere tractor but Mr Rainman had to move equipment around in the machine shed first. I put away my auction winnings that the progeny, Gingerman and I picked up on Friday. The tools were brand new and looked unused, I should have bid on more tools. I did not win the large toolbox I wanted. I am looking to create a metric toolbox and a standard so that I can easily find the correct tool. I am filling up the big tool box and cannot fit any more open end wrenches or sockets in it. We wrestled the mower onto the tractor then spent an hour getting it greased up and the teeth oiled. I needed to mow the orchard and for it to be feasible we needed the smaller tractor and the smaller sickle bar. This was not the offending sickle bar that I broke my foot on. Except we were not sure that this sickle bar was in working condition. After doing everything possible to make it work I cut the orchard with it. It was brutal as the grass was too high. I also managed to hit one of the metal horse panels encircling a tree. Luckily, the mower belts started to slip and I quickly turned off the pto, usually I pop off a bar tooth when this happens. I was able to pry it off and get back to cutting. The plan was to just pick up the downed grass and toss it over the fence for the animals. The sheep and eater cows can get to it.

After all that I was whooped and needed a shower and some rest. I took a nap!

On Sunday, I cleaned house and moved upstairs back into our bedroom. I have been sleeping downstairs so I did not have to try and maneuver the stairs with a bum foot. So the puppy and I are now back in the master bedroom. Things are starting to get back to normal.

Mud room 99% done

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We are now using it officially. There are two little things left to complete the entire job and honestly they are going to wait. I need to trim out the window and I need to add another outlet on the other side of the door. Both of those things are not a rush and the power thing requires me to kill power to the entire house/old house out at the pole in the front yard. So no one can be home when I do that. Mr Rainman got the shelf wood supports installed and the short side shelves installed. We had to wait for the metal brackets to arrive before the shelves over the doors could be placed. Luckily, the brackets came with both long and short screws so I did not have to make a special trip to town to get short black screws that go directly into the shelf. I bought too much cedar closet lining. I was thinking it would go on both walls but after installing it on one side the smell was pretty overpowering so I decided one side was good enough. I am ordering a little UV light bug trap also and will give that a try and see if we cannot keep the bugs under control. We built a custom shelf for the new food dryer from leftover wood scraps. I had to adjust the lumen output on the overhead light from 3400 lumen to 5200. The shelves cut down on the light but using a 1×2’ LED light has made all the difference. The room is not dark. Yesterday, I got all of the metal supports and last two shelves installed.

I spent today finishing emptying out the laundry room and moving all of the raw alpaca fiber bins out to the mud room. There are still a couple of pair of boots but the laundry room is fairly empty now. It is quite nice and now needs a deep clean! I ordered a couple of rubber shoe mats and a foot stool so you can sit down if you need to put your shoes on. Not necessary for rubbers but if we have to break out the snow boots you definitely need a place to sit down to lace them up. I ordered an extension cord today for the dryer also, the cord was too short to get to the outlet.

Mr Rainman had a good idea, he said to buy bagged pea gravel to fill in the old planter spots. It’s washed and we probably only need 6-8 bags. It will be easy to move and easy to install. As soon as the local stores start selling their spring yard stuff I will get some. I also need to get some stepping stones so that Annmarie can get to the cat shelf in her socks. Now you have to cross six feet of sharp gravel to feed the cats. We used to just toss it on the back porch! It is the one downfall to the mud room, you cannot just open the door and feed the outside cats. It is a small price to pay for the mud room. I love 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.

Bee Equipment storage area almost completed

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It has been busy in our lives so I am a little behind on the blog! I will attempt to catch up this weekend. Mr Rainman was able to come out last weekend on Sunday and help me finish up a couple of projects. Well, almost finish a couple of projects is probably more accurate. We went back into the old wood shed and finished installing the plastic liner for the bee equipment storage room. We also got the shelves installed so we could hang all of our bee frames. We even managed to install a shelf and setup another row of holders so if we needed to hang more frames a second set is already installed on the wall, it just needs hangers. The only thing left is to install is a door. We put pallets on the floor so I will be able to put out mouse bait without fear that any other animal can get to it. Mr Rainman filled the bee area with all of our extra bee supplies that we picked up this summer. We have enough stuff for four hives now. We have two live hives but are not sure if they are both going to make it through the winter. Time will tell but we have done everything we can to make them successful.

The chickens are still thinking up ways to die. Many years ago I tried to raise quail in the chicken coop. Once that endeavor failed I just kept the cage in the chicken coop. Unfortunately, it was cobbled together from scraps so the lid was made out of 3/4 plywood and OSB. Over the years the OSB has sagged and the height difference between the boards made a grip spot for the brave or fool hardy chickens to roost. This has caused more sag and the storage area under it to fill with chicken poop. One of the bright chickens got its leg stuck. We had to tear into the lid to actually get the chicken loose. Once the chicken hobbled away after it was freed we tore the quail cage off the wall. It had a lot of screws in it and it was built right onto the wall so all of the screws had to be found to get it down. I left one board so the picked on chickens could get away from the main set of perches. We then put a new chicken run entrance in place. I ordered a new solar chicken door from China. I know this as the bank had to call me about my “Run Chicken Door” purchase. They had flagged it as fraud and had stopped the charge from going through. I told her it was legit and I was attempting to stop my chickens from becoming raccoon food. We then blocked off the other yard entrance that night, forcing the chickens to use the new opening. The door will just screw onto the front of the plywood. It’s solar so it should work all of the time as we are installing it on the West side of the run. I want it to be the last door to close due to the sun going down. This will make the run area a safe haven for the slow pokes that miss the main coop automatic door. Now I just need to work on getting a wire top onto the chicken yard.

Freezer room closing in

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I had a plan on Sunday to get the freezer room almost done. I knew I would not be able to install the insulation in the ceiling as I need it purchase one more roll first. I figured if I could get the last section of the wall covered and then I could use something on the ceiling to hold the insulation up. I wasn’t sure what but I have two full sheets of wood paneling and 1/2 sheet of 3/16” plywood. I think it’s enough to cover the ceiling. After I got the siding up, four separate pieces of varying types and sizes of siding, I figured I could use the scraps of 1×4 boards I had used for trim in the office. I had just enough to cover the ceiling liberally and make it easy to install the paneling. Paneling is not designed to be hung upside down and it will need a lot of wide headed screws to hold it up. This took a lot longer than I had anticipated. Piecing things together may not cost much in materials but it does cause you to use a lot more screws and a lot more time.

I cut off a little piece of the thick bathroom future countertop, after sanding two edges I glued them together. I need to cut a triangle shape and was missing about two inches of the tip of one triangle to complete the top. I will leave it glued and clamped for a few days as I will not be able to work on it until then. I will need to put a new blade on my skill saw before I cut the triangle. I plan on sanding it all down first up to 80 grit, cut the proper shape and then finish sanding it. I was hoping I could crawl underneath the counter and screw up from the bottom to hold it in place, but I don’t believe I will be able to do that. I don’t really want to just use glue. I may have to drill four holes in it, about 1/2’ deep and then attach it directly from the top then fill it with a walnut dowel glued in and sanded down. I am going to have to use a polyurethane coating to seal the top. I need something that can get dusty and will be easy to wipe off when its cleaned. This is still an idea that is incubating, hopefully by the time its sanded down I will have finalize my attachment and finishing plans.

I have two very nice pieces of three foot by 20” chunks of two inch thick black walnut. I am unsure where I am going to use them. Once the freezer room is done and the freezers are moved I will start working on my office area. I have the inner door (old wooden exterior door), it just needs a new opening created that will hold it. My current door opening is not square and about an inch too short and too narrow. I will have to reframe the top and one side to make it fit correctly. I keep fluctuating on what I will setup in the man room. I believe I am going to setup the reloading equipment on one side and then start working on a jewelry bench on the other side. I will need to keep an eye out for a scrap kitchen hood to use as a soldering exhaust hood. Annmarie is so happy with her indoor “grow” super quiet vent fan that I think I will use that as the suction source for the ventilation.

This will get the room closed up but I will still need to buy a new back door and a new window. I need to fix the back porch as one corner is trying to fall apart. I will also need to line the entire inside of the room with boards. Needless to say it may take me a while to get this done!

Annmarie spotted our barn owl! Their used to be a pair of them but in the last few years we have only spotted one. Their was a mated pair on the farm for over 30 years. Maybe the pair is just hiding so well that we only ever spot one at a time?