Friday, June 30, 2006

Porches





The back porch to the mud room has been painted and the west porch has some new lattice and will be painted soon. The usual way to enter the house is through the mud room so the back porch gets a lot of use. The mud rooom is on the list for a redo as well because it is not finnished inside needs insulation drywall and some electrical plugs.

Friday, June 23, 2006

Did you ever get that sinking feeling?




I noticed that the floor in the gathering room (livingroom) was not quite level, so I got out my carpenter's level and got down on my hands and knees and checked it out. The level showed the floor to be off about a half a bubble. That equates to three or four inches, Yikes, that is not good news. I found a carpenter working on another house and had him come by and look it over and sure enough he confirmed my suspicions. When we checked the rest of the house it was found that the second floor had sagged down about four inches because the folks that built the house used a steel cable to hold the second floor joists in place. Welllll, folks its like this...ahem ... steel cable streches over time when weight is applied to it and this was what was happening to the house it was sagging into its self.

The cure was to put cement pads in the cellar(the old posts were sitting on flat rocks) and new posts and jack the floor back into place and then put posts in the gathering room holding up a beam that crosses the room at the most sag to shore up the second floor. This is after jacking up the house untill the second floor was mostly level. This has been done and it has been an experience for both the carpenter and me.

The pictures show most of the story .... I must admit it was 'interesting to hear the house pop and groan from the jacks pushing it back into place. The second floor doesn't lean to the southwest anymore the first floor is level. I am not saying everything is perfectly level and plumb, it wasn't the day it was built-it was (is) an old Amish farm house and still has that character, plain, functional, no frills. I feel better that the old house is under better supports now, maybe I can sleep better ? Just hope we haven't caused some other problem when the house was jacked up.

The Fence is UP :)


The fence is up the gates are in place, a few finnishing touches are needed and a good paint job. This has been quite the project, it took a lot more than I thought it would in time and money, but it looks pretty good for what it is and for who did it.

Seven hundred feet of four board fence over eighty, eight foot long posts, six inches by four inches. If anyone were to ask me to build another board fence I think I would run and hide. It is (was) a lot of work and it still has to be painted......sigh

I got an offer from two men to help with the fence and I took them up on it - they had the right tools like a nailer gun, chain saw and air compressor. They could produce more in less time than I could with my hammer and hand saw. Did you ever try to hammer a nail into white oak? This is how it is done ... first you get the board in place and then you place the nail, pointy end toward the board and hit it with a hammer hard. Hopefully you will not hit your hand or fingers, now the nail should be a little ways into the oak. Then you hit the nail again and again until it bends. Then you cuss, swear, sweat, and try to pull out the offending nail; which of course doen't want to leave the board. Eventually after using your best bad vocabulary you get the nail out and try again, and after that nail bends you try again, usually after two or three tries you get the nail into the board and post (sort of). Then you do it again and again till you get so tired you quit for the day....

I can't wait to see what kind of trouble I get into painting the #%@**damn thing .....

Friday, June 09, 2006

Photos of the goats



Here are the photos of the goats that have just joined the farm, they sure are lively characters and they try to get into everything. The goats put a lot of life into the old farm. I am just beginning to learn about goats (dairy goats) so this should have some interesting moments. One of the larger goats needed medication on her teat. Well the little lady was not happy with me putting salve on her teat and she tried to kick me and then escape, we went around in circles and finnally I got her against the wall and got the medication on a teat, I just hope it was the correct teat.

The all white one is Snow and she is an escape artist, I don't know how she does it but she gets out and none of the others do. I wish I could catch her in the act of getting out of her side of the barn so I would have an idea how to prevent it. She is so cute and loveable that she comes to me and I just pick her up and put her back in the stall.

Thursday, June 08, 2006





Progress report June 06
The fence is moving closer to the barn there are only fifty-two more posts to nail boards on. Then there is the painting of the thing.

The porch on the west side of the house has been rebuilt making it safe to use across its full width and improving its looks as well as function.

The barn has been altered for goats, two pens have been made out of former tie stalls for horses. This took a lot more effort than at first estimated, working with old oak is a challange and anticipating the goats needs is hard when you have no experience with the animals. A visit to the Casey County Fair led to buying goats from a lady showing Nigerian Dwarf goats at the show. She also had two Nubian Does for sale and I bought them hoping that they will breed and I will get to milk them in the future. Oh, this I have to see myself-me milking goats that ought to be worth a chuckle or two. Even the goats will get a kick out of it :)

Things seem to take longer to do than I had planned on, I guess I don't realize just how much work there is to some projects.