The Apprentice

Field #1 ready for animals, still not completed

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Monday was spent fencing some more in field #1. A new fence around seven acres is no small feat. Not to mention the new section is curved like a C so it makes it painful to stretch. I really wanted to get the fence up so we could let the animals in to eat grass. The road side and wheat field side have an old fence that needs repaired. Unfortunately, sometimes the repair is more painful than just stringing up new wire.

The Apprentice and I got the last 500’ of fence up and even got it all clipped onto the T posts with a single strand of smooth wire on top. I used a four foot piece of pipe as a cheater bar to really crank down on the fence tighteners until the fence started to sing when I ratcheted up the tightener a notch. I opted to not install the wooden stays yet. I wanted to get all of the fence up and without the stays the fence will hold the livestock. Mr Rainman and the Apprentice can get all of the wooden stays on three sides of the field installed on Wednesday while I am at the paying job.

So we went to the far end and worked on the ditch crossing and did battle with the downed black walnut tree. It landed right where we needed to install a railroad tie and put the ditch crossing in place. We managed to get it installed and the paneling cut and in place. The last thing was to install the gate and we had it done enough. Which was a good thing as both of us needed a day off and no fencing. The Apprentice has collected an astounding amount of bruises and scratches in the last two weeks.

Annmarie is inspecting our hives and deciding whether we are going to get any honey this year. The bees split and they have not managed to make as much honey as last year so far. So I don’t know if we are going to get to harvest any.

The quail are everywhere! It is amazing to see how many we have this year. They are really calm and just run around everywhere.

We did have one of the brown alpaca just keel over dead Sunday night. The nephews found it on Monday. It was one of the old ones and was mighty skinny. I had been giving it the side eye every time I saw it when I was headed down the driveway. We now have 10 alpaca. It’s plenty and at least five of them will just come right over to the cars for a treat. If you open the trunk on the wife’s car they will just push up to the hatch opening and expect something. They are so insistent at that point that they will even let you touch on them until they get said treat.

Freezer room completed

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It has been a very productive last couple of days. Mr Rainman has been out for two days and we have been working on getting things completed. I love the stages of a project where you can just keep checking things off and then moving onto the next thing and checking it off! Mr Rainman worked on getting the coal side of the old wood shed cleaned out. This ties into us completing the back bridge as that is the only way to get to the wood shed. We have managed to make quite a mess back there with lots of scrap wood and junk from the shed added onto the pile. We knew that a day of cleanup was coming but The Apprentice reached out last week and said she was coming home this weekend and wanted to know if there was work. We just kept making a mess as we knew the Apprentice was coming and it would cleaned up.

I worked on getting the rest of the freezer room wired. I always have to break out an electrical wiring book when I do three way and four way switches. I just don’t do it enough to be able to do it without writing it down. I am happy to report that the three way switch worked on the first try. I got the light wired and the rest of the outlets tested today. Mr Rainman and I moved the deep freezer and the very first small upright Annmarie and I ever purchased, it is 29 years old! We just jockeyed them back and forth and slid them into place. They both had to be leveled and then we spent the time to organize and clean out both of those freezers. This allowed us to empty a large portion of the big freezer. The little fridge got cleaned out and up and is now going to be our water and gatorade fridge. I will keep it stocked year round. Tomorrow we will unload the big freezer and defrost it with the wife’s hair dryer. Once that is moved we will pull out the ancient radial arm saw and see if someone wants it. This will let me move most of the tools out of my soon to be space in the old house.

The Apprentice started a wood burn pile and lit it on fire after the first hour. They just kept throwing scrap wood on it. She did take some plum tree rounds that were cut on a diagonal and looked like horse hooves to use for nailing practice at farrier school. She did lament that on top of grip strength she worked on this summer she needed to work on thigh strength, its hard to hold the horse hooves between her legs. I didn’t think of that when we were working. Once all of the burnables were picked up she started filling in the dirt on both ends of the wood shed bridge. Tomorrow that will be her primary job.

Mr Rainman and I worked on getting the coal side of the wood shed lined with wood and sealed up. The goal is to get the walls lined then take the 6 mil vinyl sheet, used to be a road sign, and mount it 360 degrees in the room. Once that is done and stickers hold it in place we will bring in pallets for the floor and then close up the door. The goal is to keep the dust and bugs down to almost zero. I need to get all of the bee stuff into one location and get the frames hung up.

We had some people come out to hunt coyotes and they killed zero, did not even see any. They did thin out the pigeons some.

Let there be light

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It is really happening. The weather turned bad, started to rain solid for two days so I decided to get to work on the barn lights. I had torn apart the DeWalt charger, cut slots into it and torn out the guts with a pair of pliers but had not finished unsoldering the pin connectors and soldering on new power supply wires. I turned the Apprentice loose in the barn getting tools together and cutting some boards while I went back into the house and finished converting a DeWalt charger into a DeWalt battery power supply station for a 12V light system I am installing in the barn. I have a five switch box and am hooking the power supply up to it. When the battery dies just plug in a fully charged battery and the lights are back up!

I was able to actually test it out and got power! The regulator I bought will maintain a 6V to 20V output you just have to set it. I was going to set it at 12V but figured with wire resistance I was going to loose voltage the further away from the power source it got. The LED lights will work on a 12-20V range so I just set the output to 20V and hope the battery lasts. Until we start using the system we won’t know how much power a battery will supply. Each light only consumes 10W and each string of lights is only four sets of three lights and one set of four.

The Apprentice and I started running wire to get the five sets done but we ran out of wire. I had only bought 300 feet and really needed about 350 feet. So we did not wire the momma/baby area/tack room as the lights are only about eight feet off the ground. Some of the lights are 16 feet in the air and require some acrobatics to get to let alone run wire along beams and walls. I bought two strand red/black wire so it would be easy to run. I also bought these clamp on connectors that just go directly over the wire. They looked like they would work but I thought they might be an internet scam. I bought them anyways as they looked perfect for what I needed. They worked!! I was thrilled and relieved that I was not going to have to fix everything I had already done. I was able to get one run completed with the lights all wired in and give it a test to see if it would work and it did! I was super stoked as I had just read about the charger hack online and did not know anyone personally that has done it. I had plans for finishing up the barn this weekend but ended up doing some fall cleanup.

The trash guy forgot to pick up our trash this week, by the time I got a hold of him at the end of the week to ask why we got skipped he was very nice and apologized. He brought out an extra can and told me he would pickup any extra trash I had next to the cans on my pickup day. So I spent all of Saturday cleaning house and generating trash. I have two piles of boxes and paperwork and two trash bags full of garbage and one can is so full the lid won’t close. Now we are both happy.

The Apprentice is off to farrier school. I may see her on the occasional weekend while she is at school. She told me she is only two hours away and wants to work. We will see if she can break free or not. I should be able to get the barn lights up and running next week. My wire should be here by Thursday.

Catch all before starting Barn lighting

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The Apprentice came out on Tuesday for her final before school push and we did some work. Well, she did a lot of heavy lifting and I did some other stuff! She worked on moving 120 blocks over to our bridge foundation area. After we get the foundations poured we are going to lay the bricks from the foundation over to the gate and woodshed. But before we can lay those blocks someone has to move each block, weighing 33# each! She got it done!

I was able to get an email reply from the livestock auction house near Hermiston and we pushed our little bull into the trailer. I drove right over, dropped him off and was gone in ten minutes. The check will be in the mail, he needed to go so we could make room for our bull and two rams to go into Alcatraz soon. Once we do that I can make one herd of cows as the young heifers will not get impregnated. They are for eating next year.

I stopped and got some supplies to store more pipe in the overhead of the machine shed. Eventually I will be installing this drain pipe in the barn lot on either side of the barn. I have added some drain pipe already but this should really help with keeping the mud under control in the fall and spring especially. I even remembered to cover up the pipe openings before hoisting it into the air so the birds don’t nest in the pipes. Thank you Mr Rainman for that suggestion.

I dug out the light post near our front bridge, the sheep had knocked it over and honestly we don’t need a light there. I poured a concrete footing and will build a bricked outlet box. I also dug and inserted a piece of conduit so eventually (hopefully next year) I can get the 16’ grain bin outdoor kitchen area installed and we can have some outdoor lighting. Hence, the reason for having power available.

We also managed to find two dried black walnut boards from the old chicken coop to use inside the house. One is for the new dried spice shelves I want to add in the laundry room and the other is for the upstairs bathroom. There is one spot next to the toilet that is still plywood and needs a covering. Unfortunately, I need a 21.5” x 26” triangle and my wood piece is only 20” wide. So I am going to cut a 3” square piece and glue it on one side so I can sand it all down at the same time and cut my triangle from this fabulous piece of two inch thick black walnut.

I of course set all this wonderful wood out on a stand in the yard to sand and it started to rain the next day as soon as I got home from work. I had to run out and move the wood in out of the rain. One would think I pay attention to the weather but I don’t, only during hay season.

As it was pouring down rain today The Apprentice and I worked on getting the 12V lighting system installed. We managed to actually draw out a plan and get all of the lights mounted. I started to run wire but there was a disaster at work and I had to go in. So we will hopefully get all of the wire runs completed tomorrow and maybe even get the lights to work! It’s a pretty ambitious goal.

Round-Up Week

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It’s been a while since I blogged. I blame it on the Pendleton Round-Up. All the locals say time stops and all projects go on hold while it occurs and the reality really does reflect the saying. I have been picking fruit non stop every few days and Annmarie has been drying it, canning it or freezing it. We managed to get the 50 lambs sold before the coyotes ate any more! A person from the west side of the state came over and got all 50, he was gone 20 minutes after arrival. We had them all ready to go. Honestly, this is the best way to sell lambs, all at once. We got a fair price $100 for all over 60# and $80 for all 40-59#.

The apprentice came out for a few hours a couple of days and weeded the hillside again and went in and cleaned up the lavender patch. The patch looks great, I just need to trim it all for the winter and we will be ready for next year. We have about five plants that have taken off on their own and need to be replanted. She is about ready to go off and learn to be a farrier at the end of the month. We will have to tear out our garden soon as the temperature has started to dip down to 45F at night. We have prunes drying in dehydrator now as soon as they are done we will dry the last of the spices before winter.

I had another project for my mother that I was able to get completed before it froze. I said I would be able to do it at the beginning of summer and managed to get it done with a lot of help from a lot of other people. My mother and sister did a great job. Now I can start working on the back bridge foundations.

The quail are everywhere! You literally cannot walk around anywhere on the farm without running into a covey or if you sit still you can hear them calling from all over. They are so used to people that as long as you are 30’ away they will just ignore you. This bodes well for a healthy population going into winter. We also have two covey of Hungarian partridges. We usually only have one on the farm. We also have a bunny rabbit living along the driveway again.

When I leave for work and the moon and stars are out I always try and take a picture with my phone. Sometimes it works out, sometimes not. I keep trying.