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.

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 .....

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.

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.

The Amish Auction

I went to the Amish Auction today and it was a very nice experience. Compared to the previous auction the weather was delightful. The auction its self was located at a large farm there were several venues a lot of horse equipment, tools, household articals, a few private vendors lots of food and handmade crafts such as quilts.

I walked the areas and took note of what was for sale and there were a few items that I was interested in at a given price. I met a few folks that I have met before doing business in the community. There was a mixture of folks, with of course the Amish in abundance, Mennonite, Conservative Christian, tourists, local farmers, and a few sharp business folks.

It seems that everyone was in some sort of dress depicting their group/religous/non-religous beliefs. I wonder what my costume said about me? Most of the conservative ladies wore their traditional dress. I don't think one would ever see them not in their traditional dress. There were similarities, between the conservative groups, with distinct diffrences of detail such as the style of bonnet, yes they wear bonnets and properly tied I might add, fabric with or without design, the male members of the various groups could be identified by their hats, type of suspenders, colors of shirts quite an interesting sight. There seemed to be a lot of friendships between the various groups, many have know each other all their lives. I haven't a clue as to how far these friendships go, but from what I have seen there is a genuine respect between the groups and the local unaffiliated folks like ....well me.

I didn't think that I would go home with anything this time until the auction got to the quilts !
I had my eye on one special quilt cover (just the top part) it is called Sun Bonnet Sue, it has the profile of a girl's head wearing a Bonnet in various colors including pink and blue, very cute. I got the bid on this and I also got a quilt that is a block quilt with colors I like and a quilt with a lighthouse motif. All three quilts for less than $150. Yup, I am smilling here. Next year I am paying closer attention to the quilt auction one man walked off with at least six or more quilts and didn't pay more than fifty dollars for any of them. I bet he is selling them somewhere.

I also bought a pie, an oatmeal pie. I have never tried it before, the taste is sort of like custard you wouldn't know there was oatmeal in it unless someone told you the name. I bought some blankets from a vendor for anyone that drops by to keep warm in. I would say I had a good day.

I also enjoyed the horse auction, there were some nice horses and ponies that went up for sale a team of work horses went for $1000 dollars they were pretty greys the man who bought them looked like he knew his horse flesh. A buggy horse went for $500 with the understanding that you couldn't leave him untied when you stopped becaused he would wander of down the road with your buggy, this got lots of chuckles from the crowd. Quite a show when they are auctioning the horses. There were other live stock as well chickens, duck, geese, turkeys, rabbits, goats, and dogs,cats they went home with someone.

There were fruit trees and bushes for sale, even flowers, the trees looked first rate I was tempted to get more. I didn't see much farm machinery, there were comments that others made that they were disapointed that there weren't more farm equipment for sale.

I spent most of the day there and had a swell time. I got to share the pie with friends later a very good day...

More photos later

Fencing

I really didn't like the fence along the farm lane leading to the house and barn. The old fence was a mish-mosh of patched, rusted, ugly and inept crap. Posts were leaning this way and that and some places there was only a single strand of rusty barbed wire. I am getting sheep and maybe some cattle so I need to have a good fence.

I tore out the old fence took hours of hard, labor intensive work and I was exhausted afterwards. I had talked to a local farmer about him using his tractor and posthole digger to dig the holes for me. Just as I finnished pulling the last post out he shows up with his tractor and auger. No rest for the wicked I guess; so we started drilling the post holes, eighty-eight holes, eight feet apart (mostly), about hole number thirty-eight his auger got stuck on something and he had a very hard time getting it out of the muddy ground. When the auger did come up it was bent and so was the drive shaft that turns it. He tried using the auger for a few more holes but I could see he was getting agravated with the bent equipment. He called it quits for the day and said was taking the rig home to try and fix it and would be back in a few days. We got forty-three holes dug; gee only forty-five more holes to dig (sigh).

Okay so your saying that "whats the big deal the machine is digging the holes!", the big deal is that in order to dig the holes yours truly has to take a board and measure off where the next hole is and in order to keep the holes going in at a more or less straight line, hopefully more, I have to keep walking back and forth to the the previous hole four or so back. So, back and forth, back and forth, slogging through the muddy pasture feeling the water seep over and into my rubber shoes, the sun is hot, the water ucky, the bugs mean, and you can't hear much because of the tractor motor and auger are making such a racket. Ahhh, the country life so sweet and bucolic; ya right, lots of sweat, bugs, aching muscles, stinky shit, heavy lifting, and the sure glow of knowing something is going to go wrong and cost more money than expected. I love this life.

When Mr. Pruit left with his tractor, looking a little glum, I went to the saw mill and looked up the mill owner Mr. Lee. Mr. Lee was busy with some employees and sent me to see his wife who runs a small hardware store, so small that there isn't a sign on the building, and I talked to her about my plans to build a fence. She and I got into a discusion about the posts and then she didn't understand what I ment about rails. Where I grew up the horizontal parts of the farm fence were always referred to as rails; the rails here are to my astonishment, called .....boards! How novel :) So, after figuring this and that and using the handy dandy hand calculator she comes up with a price. As I have said before I get a little weirder than usual when I am about to spend money. Soooo, I tell her I will be back the following day to let her know about the order.

Now we are at the following day, I go back to the un-named hardware store (why name something when everyone knows its there?) and instead of the Mrs., himself is there with coffee cup in hand and he is tending store. He is also engaged in a lengthy tale about a truck he bought years ago that has been giving him trouble which is similar to the problems of the audience a local farmer. The story he tells is actually several stories linked and intertwined with other stories about motors, money, and mis-chance that have happened to all that have come in contact with this offending machine. I tell-you-what; I ain't never buying that damn machine and getting involved in that story....

So, story time is over and we get involved in my problem ordering the fence wood. Of course he has some suggestions to improve the order. Understand I have most of the holes dug, his price is going to be less than the local Co-op's (I'll tell you about Co-ops later) so I better pay attention and act nice or I may not get this lumber for a while and if it extends into hunt'n or fishing season who knows when I'll get the wood. Sooo the tab goes up, just a bit, I am getting my wood maybe Tuesday, certainly by Wednesday or Thursday depending on what they are cutting at the mill on Monday or Tuesday.....sigh

I aslo had a problem that I discussed with Mr. P. my old riding mower broke a cutting blade off and I needed it fixed he sent me to see Mr. B. Mr. B lives a few miles up on the ridge and fixes small motors for a living he has a rather nice place up there and he is busy. My problem is getting my old mower to him. I don't have a trailer or a ramp to load the mower this is going to get interesting hmmmm. Well back to the farm. I spent the rest of the day cultivating the garden planting beans pulling weeds and in general getting sunburned, bit by bugs and tired. Another day passes as I have my dinner listening to the Prairie Home companion on the radio with the cats begging for their food and the littlest dog teasing the cats and me trying to listen to the show over the din. finnaly I threw them all out so I could hear the show. Later I put the Ladies up (chickens) counted them one by one (eleven) counted the eggs for the day (nine), another day is done. Tomorrow I get to go to the big town for some shopping, wow!

This is Wednesday it has been thundering and raining hard off and on all day I figured that it was no sense doing anything outside including checking on the fence wood so I picked one of my projects and got started on it. My project for the day; install the fan/light in the gathering room.
Sounds simple, right? Well, this place has never, ever, been wired for electricity I have to find a way to wire an outlet for the new fixture in a house that is already built. I must have gone up and down those stairs a dozen times trying to get the wire in the right place. I did finnaly after a few choice words escaped my mouth. then I found to my dismay that the wire I was using was ....to short! Arrrrrgh that put me off for a bit. I figured how to over come that situation and started that process.

I started moving thos 4"x6"x8' oak posts..... let me be the first to tell ya' that those tha-ngs are heaveeeey. It is like trying to lift a dead body, not that I lifted that many dead bodies, but you get the picture. I could only carry about twenty or so at a time in the pick up truck. I made two trips and called it quits. I am tired sore, a bit dismayed at the amount of work to do the garden looks like crap, I feel a bit over whelmed with all that has to be done.

I took the weekend off and I got to go to the Amish auction and that was a nice break came home with some goodies. That always helps me feel better for a little while. This being Monday I got back to moving posts, I moved the remaining posts in two trips and went to town for some water seal to use on the posts. When I got to town it began to rain, again, I know one day I will be wishing it would rain, but now I wish it would dry up so I can put my posts in. I did get to put some gravel in about twenty post holes so there is a start.

Another update on the Fence; I had talked to an Amish man about helping me with the fence project and he agreed to help. However he seemed to always have an excuse as to why he couldn't work. So, I started on my own then he comes to help and he was quite helpful and strong, he moved those posts like they were made of balsa wood. Between use in an hour or so we got nine posts set. That was the last I saw of him. I have done all the other posts myself. Some of those posts were real buggers. They wouldn't stay were I put them, they kept slipping out of line, soooo that is were they are-forever. I have been covering the part of the post going into the ground with a black tar like substance to help at a longer life to the posts. Of course me being me and this tar like stuff being tar like, I got it all over me on my arms pants, shirt, glasses, hat, hair, face did I mention all over? I have been cleaning up with Kerosene it is the the only stuff I have that will melt this stuff. So now I smell of kerosene and sweat-let me tell ya that is not the perfume of the day kind of smell, even the dogs snort when they sniff me. I have worn out two pair of leather gloves and almost a third pair my overall are done for they should be burned and there still is lots of rough work to go.

May 27th I finnished the posts except for the posts to hold up the gate, that will take a little help as I want that post to be extra strong to take the strain of the gate moving back and forth. I couldn't resist the tempation to see how the horizontial boards would look and I went to the sawmill and picked up some of my boards. I "try fitted" some boards on the first posts to see how they would look. In my eagerness to see how the real fence will look I was working on the fence boards and I fell very hard down on the boards and landed in the pasture in a lot of pain. I had bruised my chest in several places and in general was felt like I had been kicked by a mule.
I managed to get to the house and put my tools away and called it a day. I have been healing ever since, got a big bruise on my chest and my left hand doesn't feel so good either. Each day I feel a little better so things are coming along I don't think much got damaged, not counting my ego.
I will add to this post as the project goes along and keep you all up to date with my struggles with the big wood fence.

Farm follies

Here at the farm I have been trying to stay busy. I have been mucking out the barn and it is beginning to look better. Nine wheel barrow loads of horse manure and I can see the floor of the barn. I have planted lots of stuff in the garden even if it doesn't look it yet. In the garden are potatoes, onions, peas, tomatoes, cukes, melons, gourds, pumpkins, squash, three kinds of beans, cabbage, brocolli, watermelon. I still have a lot to put in but the soil is hard to work it is mostly clay so I have built some raised beds and loaded them with soil, rotted manure, compost and peatmoss, I will be planting stuff in them also. I have planted trees; ten fruit trees and it looks like they might survive, they all have leaves on them now.

The gourd bird houses now have purple martins as residents and there are barn swallows in the barn as well as the darn pigeons. The geese are sitting on five eggs it is a gamble if they will hatch or not, but the geese are grumpy so and so's and their offspring might have their traits, Oy!! (as she slaps self in the head)!

I pulled the old fence line out by the road took me about ten hours of hard work to do it, but it is done. Now to get a new fence in before the stock arrives. I have four Icelandic Sheep on order; two ewes and two rams. These will be my first sheep. I sure hope they are good survivors cause I am new at this. If all works out like its supposed to next year there will be seven or even eight sheep-that's a flock of sheep!

I am also looking for a cow I don't know which kind of cow but one I can milk of course maybe a Jersey cow. Ha, that ought to be a great picture me milking a cow, even I would get a chuckle out of that.
Before any of this can happen the fencing has to be in place or I will be chasing live stock all over the county....

I bought window shades for the the upstairs bedroom windows. Now the house has a lived in look not that empty nobody lives here look. I get a little dispondent going upstairs I have done nothing with the second floor and it needs so much. Oh well, all in good time.

It got a little chilly here this afternoon so I lit the stove in the kitchen and suddenly it started smoking, I opened all the windows and doors and waited for the smoke to clear and I checked the flue and as I expected the whole thing needs to be cleaned. I cleaned part of it and started the fire again the fire is drawing nicely now. Well, going to have to move the "clean the flue" job up the list, I don't want to get to meet the volunteer firemen at my house I would rather meet them at their house over pancakes...

Speaking of local event there are big do'ns this coming Saturday morning the annual Amish School benefit Auction !!! Yahoo, another chance to spend money on something :) This auction helps pay for the school as the Amish don't attend public school and they pay out of pocket for the teacher, supplies and wood for the stove. Yup, wood stove and an outhouse for the kids...like little house on the prairie.....

The farm gets Brush Hogged

I had been trying to cut the weeds, grass and brush with a riding lawn mower I had gotten about an acre and a half done in Ooooh two or three days of work off and on. at that rate I might get the place mowed down by the middle of July.

My neighbor said he would do it as he is also the one that shares my hay field. But, his brush hog was down for repairs and I was getting tired of looking at the place with all the weeds and brush.

I guess he got his mower repaired and came to my rescue with his big John Deere tractor and huge brush hog. He looked like he was enjoying himself out there chopping all those weeds and brush. Grunt, Grunt more power says the "Tim Toolman". The writers of that sitcom must have been rolling on the floor laughing at that one.

The old place looks nice now that one can actually see it without all the weeds and stuff in the way

What a day is like

Saturday began work at 7:30 am
Filled gas trimer with fuel and oil mix and got it running started trimming around the house then worked on the barn entrances, moved on down the road trimming where the mower can't go, got to the mail box and turned around and came back. Put up the trimmer. Took a walk through the front pasture with dogs checking on whether or not I could us the mower, saw the mailcarrier deliver the mail went to the mail box to fetch it, waved to folks passing by rewarded dogs for "sit stay". Walked back to the house with the dogs. When I got to the house I had a soda got the mower running and mowed the yard and some of the fence line. I went to move the pick up truck and the yellow lab wanted in so I let her ride in the truck as I parked it in another spot so I could mow under where the truck had been, she thought she was going for a ride I guess. When I got out of the truck she wouldn't come out, she didn't want to miss any truck rides:) Still to wet to take the mower into the field so I brought it back to the barn.

Now it is lunch 12:30 made a PBJ and drank a soda, put some cookies in my mouth and pocket got the ladder out of the barn got my hammer knee pads and caulking gun went up on the roof and caulked here and there trying to get the places I thought the leaks might be comming from. While up there it got to hot took off my sweat shirt that was wet and covered with grass from trimming and mowing and threw it down on the ground; the knee pads went with it next as they are the wrong kind and didn't do any good. I was looking around and noticed that I hadn't cleaned the rest of the siding on the second floor north side so I got down off the roof and got out the cleaning brush and cleaner went up the stairs to the second floor and tried to reach the mold from the window with some success. I couldn't get at some of the mold so I came down the stairs got out a new brush hooked up a new hose got some rope out of the truck tied it to the hose and threw the other end up on the roof of the pantry so I could get it from a window on the second floor. Went back up stairs opened the window climbed outside washed as far as I could with new brush got myselft wet and covered with cleaner, chased cat back into the house she wanted to be out on the roof with me I guess. Went down the stairs and outside chased the geese away from my little dog tried to roll up the new hose and it kept kinking up on itself. Got the hose put away noticed the chicken run was drier now and went over and let the girls out to play and got seven eggs. Put away the eggs the brushes the hose got out the tools for building my square foot raised bed garden boxes. Built three boxes got them in the garden. I then thought hmmmm might as well plant something I got out the box with the seed envelopes and pulled the ones marked pumpkins and went around the garden to the west side where it was not so wet and dug up some spots and planted the pumpkin seeds. Took my garden tools back to the barn, put the other tools away, rubbed the dogs belly, got the shower bag off the porch where it was laying in the sun warming my shower water took it the wash room hung it up and the got a soda checked my email answered my mail petted the cat. It is now 5pm

Sheesh where did the day go?

I am back-oh you didn't know I was gone?

I took a trip to visit family in Idaho. It has been a long time since I have seen them and I missed them so much. The visit went well, got to spoil the kids and watch them play baseball, and pick them up at school and watch them at Brownies. Children grow so fast in blink they are past each stage of their young lives. (sigh)

We caught up on the comings and goings of the various family members and all the things the children have been up to since I was there last. It was very hard to leave when the time came.
On the way home all I could think about was was how they looked and how much I missed them.

When I got home I found that my dear urban dog had an encounter by the local rural skunk and was still ordor-iffic if you know what I mean. Nothing like a skunked dog in a warm car to enhance the journey home....

The rest of the animals were in fine shape and the house looked good the siding was cleaned in my absence so the house is looking better all the time.

The chickens are now laying five to six eggs a day and all of them are not laying yet... so there are enough eggs to go around. We built an addition for the geese so they can get out of their jail now and get some sun and play in a big wash tub of water. They are still not friendly critters....one of them laid an egg...just one egg... don't know which one either and they ain't tell'n... I spent most of one afternoon catching up on mail... A neighbor has two horses for sale, one is green broke to pull a buggy the other is still a young thing... I am tempted to get them, they are sisters and look very nice and healthy. I would need to get a trainer to help me with them but it might work out....

Since I have been home I have had a refridgerator put in the house and bought a used riding lawn mower. I have mowing all day and I got tangled up in some barbed wire and had to trek back to the house to get my wire cutter and then trek back to the mower. When I started to drive the mower back to the barn to work on getting the rest of the barbed wire cut off the blades I ran out of fuel.... sooo I trekked back to the barn and got the gas can and trekked back to the mower to fill it up. Luckily the mower started and getting the wire off was not a big problem and it still mows :)

Frick and Frack the delinquent geese got out of their encloser today and strutted around the farm looking like they were in charge. So far they have hung around... how long they will is in question, they are very independent critters.

I spent a lot of time in the sun today and I am paying for it now thank goodness I wore a hat.

Frick and Frack are back and they are not happy

My neighbor brought Frick and Frack (my wayward geese) back this morning. He said his kids just herded them into his barn with no trouble at all, hummmph. I bet there would have been trouble if I had tried it. I noticed he was very careful how he positioned himself when he helped me get them into the new cage (Goose Jail #1). We mentioned to him about the geese making alot of noise and as he drove off he said "ya, but you'll get used to it" as he smiled. Hmmm, me thinks I got the geese back because he wasn't about to get used to their noise.

When ever I go near them they hissss, and honk, ruffle their feathers and act tough. I guess I am going to have to bribe them into at least liking me a little.

They better get used to their new home, they are going to be there a while.

Photos to be posted later.. sigh

The Great Goose Caper

I went to the Amish/Mennonite Sale and Auction Saturday. I was bound and determined to come home with some live stock; my first choice was chickens and or geese.

The poultry barn was crowded with people and birds of every age and description and making it feel more rural part of the barn was where the horses were kept before they were auctioned off. The sights and smells were dramatic. there is nothing quite like the smell of an old barn full of horse sweat/manure and bird shit mixed with tobaco smoke and that feeling I get just before I spend money sort of nervous anticipation. I was getting real intense, spending money does that to me.

The bidding on the stock was held outside the barn in the weather which was cold with a light wind carrying some small snow flakes. There wasn't enough snow to cover the mud though. I got to bid on my birds two geese. This was my first time bidding at an animal auction and I was over anxious; I ended up trying to bid against myself and the auctioneer looked at me and said I have you at fourteen already! I tried to be a little less intense and go with the flow I got the bid on the birds and I ended up buying some pullets also and took them all home.

The geese were not happy about the trip home. and when I put them in the barn and let them loose they were mad. They strutted about and glared at me as if to say "come on just try something we'll kick your butt"!

I left them some food and water for the night; the real fun was in the morning.

Went to the barn to check on the geese and they were waiting for me. I forgot to put my dog up and when I got the barn door to slide open I had to use both hands and swoosh in went my dog a yellow lab and there go the birds!

I yelled at the dog who had a confused look for me and decided to heck with the yelling old lady I am having a run at these geese YaHoo! The next thing I know we are in the barn yard I am mad at the dog and concerned about the now free and loose geese. They strutted about the barn yard and made like they owned the place. The dog was still confused. Then the blasted dog barked and one of the geese flew over the pasture fence and its mate followed and they headed for the farm pond.

For the rest of the day the geese played around on the pond and ignored the world, they had found their play pen. Being Sunday I had to go to the next large town to buy equipment, feed and stuff for the geese and the hens I bought. When I got back the geese were gone they had moved over to my neighbor's pond; a much larger pond and that pond had something mine didn't, geese. So, there swim my geese fat, sassy, mean stinkers wagging their tails and blowing me off.

The neighbor's kids may be able to catch these wayward geese, but their Dad said that the geese would just come back again as geese like to be around other geese.

Sigh, another lesson learned the hard way.

So much has happened

In the past few weeks this ol' farm has been a busy place.

The siding project is almost done; just need some facia nailed on and the washroom is completed, next is the west end of the house under the porch.

A new roof was put on by a local carpenter as I have a thing about heights ( I get dizzy licking an airmail stamp). Also the carpenter rebuilt the mudroom porch for me as it was about to fall down do to rot. Gee, owning an old place is so much fun one gets to meet so many nice people who will cash your checks :) Carpenters, Electricians, Plumbing supply stores etc.

I have had an electrician wire the wash room for electricity and put in a 200 amp panel and service for the electric Co-op. The electric Co-op stake engineers, two guys in a truck, came by three times to figure out how to bring in the electricity. The Co-op construction crew came ned this Thursday. I noticed that they had left and I went into the wash room and tried out the electricity..... ha! I couldn't get it to work. G r r r r eat, I was a more than a bit frustrated and gave the electritian a call and told him that I couldn't get the electricity to work. As usual I ended up looking rather silly; I hadn't checked all the electrical outlets just the GFI one. All I had to do was reset the GFI plug by pressing the aptly named reset button and Viola, there was electricity. I then tried the plugs and the switch for the florecent shop lite and everything worked. I had to apologize to the electrician for bothering him for nothing, he took it well and to his credit didn't say something condencending.

Friday I went to town and bought some wire and other electrical stuff and wired a light in over the kitchen sink. In the process, I had to crawl through the attic over the kitchen where I discovered to my dismay that the previous owner thought that just putting small buckets under a leak was fixing a leak in the roof, one bucket was full by the way; from now on he will be referred to as the DPO, D....n Previous Owner. That just means one more thing to be fixed; sighhhh. Any how I got the light over the sink to work. I am so proud of myself. I also put a bigger bucket under the leak and will seal the roof when the weather warms.

Saturday, today, was the big sale and auction that had been advertised for some time here. We thought we would be early by arriving a half hour before the scheduled opening.....nah things were in full swing and had been for some time. The weather was cold, windy with snow fluries, I was cold all day, but determind to come home with some stock for the farm. I missed out on the chickens I wanted but got twelve pullets (females) black stars that supposedly had started laying and two geese mating (I hope) pair; goose and gander known here after as Frick and Frack( no I don't know who is who). The gander, the big one that hisses, is not impressed with me or anything else, he and his mate are in the barn tonight; they are making themselves at home by strutting about and making threating sounds if anyone comes into their part of the barn. The geese have water and some cracked corn to keep them overnight. Sunday I will let the geese out and see what happens. I may be running for safety when the gander gets loose :(

The hens are in the hen house with feed and water and one hen has already laid an egg, a double yolker.... I thought she was going to lay an egg by her behavior pecking at and arranging the hay in a nest. Sure enough there was an egg! I have to get to the feed store tomorrow and get some chicken gear; feeder, waterer, and some nutritional stuff so they can lay good eggs.

This place is beginning to look and sound like a farm now and in a short time smell like one too!

The auction was a marvel of sights and sounds; livestock of all description: hogs, horses, hens, dogs, calves, ducks, tools, farming equipment, lumber, household stuff including the kitchen sink. A great cornicopia of all the things needed in a rural society. There where hundreds of people there coming and going buying and selling at the various auction sites, there were at least four auctions going at the same time. There also were individual sellers as well as food stands; don't forget the snow fluries and cold and standing in the muck wishing you could take a break, but can't or you might miss the the item you wanted to bid on.

Being a community with Amish, Horse and buggy Mennonites and very conservative Christians as well has a host of characters that might have steped out of a ninetenth century scene complete with costumes and manners. This was a muck boot, mud splattered cross section of rural America. I loved every cold shivering minute standing shoulder to shoulder with farmers of all varieties and persuasions today. My body aches, I'm tired and I have been thankful in my prayers for such a wonderful day.

To top off the day I got to listen to my favorite radio program the Prarie home companion with Garison Keelor. I like sitting and listening to this program on radio, it is like an old friend my favorite part is the news from Lake Woebegon.

Well the birds should be on their roost with their heads tucked under a wing and I am headed for my bed also. What a day, what a week.....
I hope all will be well for the night; remember lots of things like chicken.....

Some photos to share with my readers

Like the dog, somedays the best place is close to the stove during the winter. Other times the outdoors seems to call one to come out and see the beauty that nature has wrought. Truly I feel blessed to be here and doing what I love.

Spring is just around the corner there are flowers peeking up through the sod, and some bushes show signs of life as they turn green and yellow. The cycle of life goes on...

Photos of the new cabinets are posted

These are the new cabinets for the kitchen. I think it improves the looks of the kitchen and it sure makes working in the kitchen better.

We have had some storms come through lately that were rather intense and tested my siding that I put up recently. At least I didn't have to pick up the siding pieces in my neighbors pasture; I did have to make some adjustments though. Sixty mile an hour winds can be awsome in the middle of the night with the radio announcer telling you to take precautions and stay away from windows!

The cat got another mouse yesturday and of course had to present me with the trophy, thanks cat....

In an act of faith I planted five trees, two peach, two apple, one cherry; let's hope they are happy and grow. I still have to select a spot to put my rubarb roots and two willow trees are waiting to be planted near the pond.

The other evening there were eight deer in my garden, very pretty, but they could destroy a garden in one night. I will have to come up with some sort of way to keep them out of the garden. Hmmm more thinking again, I sure am burning up the the ol' brain cells ;)

The Kitchen cabinets arrive

1. I thought over the expenditure for kitchen cabinets for some time. Folks who know me know I will agonize over spending money like ..... well, let's say I do too much think'n and fret'n. I went to a local cabinet company and they came out and measured and we discussed the possibilities.
   
   I could have saved money and finished and installed them myself, but in the end I decided that it was better to have a pro do it instead of my doing a poor job with good materials. I think they look great. Once I down load the photos I will post them and show them off.
   
   Twelve feet of counter space and six drawers, four double cabinets down and two cabinets up. I think it looks like it belongs to the house. Now I have to get the water line hooked up and the drain line also. That will take some work unless I wait until the electric service gets put in so I can use power tools Until the the sink is hooked up I'll wash the dishes in the sink using plastic dishpans and catch the drips under the sink with a bucket...love them buckets. I enjoy doing the dishes now because I can look out my kitchen windows and see the fields next to my house and two farms visible from my farm.
   
   I am waiting for the soil sample results that I sent to the county extension office. I am sure I will have to lime the fields and maybe spread some fertilizer and seed also. Another task will be to repair/replace the fencing where needed this is requiring even more thought. I will have to decide what kind of fence and that will depend on what kind of livestock I will have. Maybe it isn't the wood stove I smell burning maybe it is my brain cells heating up...
   
   Okay, so there will be a horse or two, two sheep, a calf maybe a cow or dairy goats. Hmmmm, looks like I will have to go with stock fence with electric fence to back it up. The chickens will free range so I only have to repair the hen house for them. It sure will be nice to have my own fresh eggs one day.
   
   I have been so busy lately; I got an electrician to come out and quote me a price on getting electric put in the house. The Rural Electric Coop has had their stake engineers out to the farm twice and they have staked where the poles should go. I sure hope all this works out. I have been siding the washroom or trying to put siding on the washroom. Seems that there are no level or plumb lines and I end up redoing things and snipping here and there to make it fit. I am still wondering how I am going to get the sofit to fit..... sigh.
   
   Dogs love riding in the truck now more than ever, cats are sassy and on the hunt, I am on a first name basis at the building supply stores, laundramat and bank; haven't heard from the mouse lately.

Telephone Saga Redux

The other day I was doing something that required some thought and I suddenly realized that the dogs were barking ??? I looked out the window and what to my eyes did appear but the vision of not one but two telephone trucks coming up the lane to my house!!!

Oh joy, stared, stunned at the vision of two men, two trucks and yes they where there to complete the installation of the telephone. Yes, it took two men to put one jack in the house, maybe that is why it costs so much....sigh

So I guess I can quit my bitch'n, complain'n and fuss'n about the telephone company ....nah
I am have'n to much fun with this, let's see what happens next....

It is so much fun to use the phone now that I don't have the cord going out the open window :)

It doesn't take much to make me happy I guess.

We had more snow and the weather was snowy cold and windy, I spent most of my time splitting wood and feeding the stoves. Recieved my seed order in the mail next will be the trees I ordered; then the chickens....

I have ordered a new door for the mud room; I sure hope it fits, if it doesn't it will mean a lot of work to make it fit.

I have a backhoe man coming to dig holes to test for the septic and another man coming to fix the metal roof, then there is the electric company, they are supposed to come and survey for the poles to bring in the electric line. Sheesh we are gett'n all modern now ain't we ?

Well nothing has happened yet so I am still using the oil lamps and biffy pot.

Life is good,

The telephone Saga

I have been trying to get a telephone put in to the farm house and there has been one miss communication after another or no communication. Seems there are a few people at the telephone company without communication with each other. They also don't know much about telephones in rural areas. Twice I was told I could not have a phone because I didn't have electricity!

Needless to say this mis-communication between the various offices and sub-units and contractors caused me a lot of frustration. If I wanted to talk to the telephone company I had to get in my truck and drive up the road about four miles till I got a clear signal and then call on my cell phone and hope that the call didn't get dropped by the cell phone company....arrrgh

Many appointments were made to come to the farm and check the line and finnish the job and no one showed up. Some of the appointments were down right lies. Grrrrr.

Lo and behold I came home from town one evening and there were trucks working on the the telephone line to the house. They put in four poles and a wire said they would be back with a splicer and left. The following day they came picked up their equipment and left. No line to the house just a tall hitching post right next to the barn.

Well, the following week I was back on the cell phone to Altell and got the run around almost daily. this went on for two weeks and then all of a sudden out of the clear blue this man shows up with an old telephone truck and says he is going to get the phone hooked up but needs to find the signal and he has to start about five miles away. He left and I didn't see him until the following afternoon. He got the signal to the pole at the barn and because he felt sorry for me he rigged a line from the pole to the house.

I hooked up my extension cord for my phone to this line laying on the ground through a temporary box the man attached to the house. The next day two men showed up with a trenching machine and buried the cable; they said the big deal was over grounding the telephone line, but the telephone poles were grounded. The shook their heads and buried line and hooked my extion line to the box on the outside of house; the line leads through an open window. They said they didn't do the inside work that Altell would take care of that.

That was over a week ago; I called yesturday about the completing the work and the customer rep. left me on hold for a while and when she came back she said that the schedualer was trying to reach the tech and that the job would be finnished by five pm. Guess what? The job is not finnished. I had to come in town and do some business so I will be on the phone again tomorrow and around and around we will go again at least for now I don't have to use my cell phone and drive miles up the road to use it.

Sure is a nice hitch'n post though.

Feeding the monster

The idea and premise is that heating with wood is a good thing; yes it is a renewable source of fuel, yes it does work and the thing is so do you...
I am fortunate that I can get wood, occassionaly, from a local pallet factory, the bits and pieces that are of no use to them. This is inexpensive and it comes by the dump truck load. The company when it has a truck load and gets to my name brings a dump truck to my farm and the man dumps the load of wood in one big pile. You would think that was a good thing right? Wellllll yes and no. There is wet wood, dry wood, wood to big for the stoves and one shouldn't leave it out in the open as it will get wet in the rain and snow; so what to do?

I and who ever I can con into helping has to sort the wood into piles tote, carry, lug, drag, lift groan, sweat and cuss this into stacks that can be covered with something like tarps to keep the rain off the wood. Then the daily feeding and pleading with the two iron monsters to keep enough heat in them to keep enough heat in me to do it over and over again. You see I heat and cook with wood, I also heat my wash water on the kitchen wood stove. So the tank has to filled by hand and is by a large kettle. Remembering to keep the tank on the kitchen stove filled is important as it takes a long time to heat the water if it should run dry; I might be slow but I do learn, from now on one pot or kettle out one pot or kettle in.

The kitchen stove requires regular feeding as it has a small fire box, if I am lucky I can get the fire to last a couple of hours; if not I have to start over making another fire again so the idea is not to let the fire go out. The gathering room stove is a huge rectangle boxy thing that can hold a lot of wood and I can get three four hours out of it; because I haven't learned to operate it well yet. So, there is this continual padding back and forth on cold days between the stove the wood stack inside and the wood stack outside and working outside splitting wood and lugging it inside to keep the house warm and .... you get the picture even on a good day or night there is something to do. I am learning, slowly, but I am learning how to do all this and get other things done also.

Yes, feeding the monster keeps you busy :) P.S. Cats are having the time of their life hunting the little mice; no comment from the mice....