catch up

I have been busy and the house had plague over the weekend while I was at work, so here I am catching up.  I started back inside the house.  Annmarie wants me to empty out the downstairs bedroom (soon to be a library and TV/game room/craft room).  I had been storing boxes for burning from the ceiling, then I started adding all burnables.  It took me almost 2 hours to cart out all the burnables and torch them.  There was quite a bit of stuff.  Probably should have stored it elsewhere.  So now I am moving all my tools out and ripping up the old carpet.  Once I get it empty I will work on taking off the wallpaper trim at the ceiling line, then pull wire to electrical outlets, patch sheetrock, texture, prime, paint, wire outlets, wire in light, move all bookcases and huge entertainment center into room.  Easy peasy.  Still working on the fence.

 Here is the corner.  I used pieces of our old rope bed (medieval camping) for the support bars and stabilizer.  The tighteners are pieces of an old baby playpen I found out in the old hen house.  Someone had taken it apart and kept the wood scrap pieces.   I burned and threw away dump trucks worth of stuff in the last several years cleaning up.  Every once in a while, I remember something I might have been able to use again, but would I have ever been able to find it?  It is amazing how much stuff can be accumulated in, at least, 70 years.

I did actually do some fencing yesterday.  I should say I did more fencing.  Sometime it seems like all I do is fencing.  I worked on building supports across the creek so I can span the front creek with a fence.  It is painful to build a fence that crosses water.  I would recommend avoiding it if at all possible.

Yes, there really is water there.  The front creek is really about 4 feet across right now and about 8-10 inches deep.  That is a fine crop of cheat grass and weeds with a little bit of oat grass thrown in.  We have had a ton of rain.  Far more than is normal for us and it shows.  Eventually, I will have to go at this with a weed eater.  I will stick to this side of the fence as I am hoping that the sheep will eat the other side.  If I ever get it done, so they can be turned loose inside.  The little bridge you see is for the propane guy.  Our propane tank is just to the right of that large tree.  The bridge had floated down the creek a few years prior to us coming back and he was having to wade across the creek.  He was very grateful when I found the bridge downstream and brought it back.

It doesn't look like a lot, but it took me over two hours.  It is amazing how much time it takes to set the posts level, measure, cut, install and do everything that needs to be done.  Luckily, I had found some old lumber on the property, it was stashed in various locations around the farm.  The great thing about this lumber is I found it in 16-20 foot lengths.  That is a custom length nowadays.  You can still find 16 footers, but a 20 footer board is far harder to find and you pay out the nose for one.  I use the long boards to span the creek, then I will tie the two inner most poles together with wire and a tightening board (loop the wire in a circle, stick the board through the center and start twisting the board, end to end, to tighten the wire on itself).  That stiffens the whole thing and I can then hang hog wire panels from the overhead board.  I cut the panels to the outline of the bank so that the fence goes all the way to the water.  It is working well for me in the other areas I have done this in.

We let the new momma sheep go back to the herd yesterday. I went over to the edge of the barn lot to take a picture of the herd and everyone ran over to see if I had any corn.  They love chicken scratch (wheat and cracked corn).  This is our little sheep herd.  Everyone is present, Hershey, our very first live baby is on the far left.  He still has his baby coat.  He will eventually grow out of the fuzzy look.