Executive Decision.

Soon to be jugs (creches) (pens for newborns and mommas).

 I made an executive decision this morning, NO Roofing today!  After yesterday I was not in a mood to crawl up on a roof and deal with hot metal.  I even put on a long sleeve shirt prior to going out with the good intention of actually roofing.  Once out in the heat, I just could not make myself crawl up on the roof.  I didn't really want to do anything, but that won't help me get finished.

So we went over and loaded up the tin onto the trailer.  The tin pieces off the granary are 15 feet long and the tin off the hog enclosure are 12 feet long.  I did the math and to cover the lower barn roof I have enough tin to cover 42 feet (2/3 of the lower roof).  More than I had anticipated initially.  Enough to make a good run at it and know how much more I will need to buy.

Storage bins for buckets and feeders

 When we were loading up the tin it dawned on me I could use the old concrete forms as flooring in the barn where I wanted to add the jugs.  So Mr. President and I dug around inside the granary.  We found another old window, some fancy wheel gear thing (cool decoration for barn) and some two sided wooden things (not sure what they were used for).  Only about 1/3 of the concrete forms were useable for our purposes.  Most of them were coated in oil (it keeps the concrete from sticking to them) and I don't want the sheep laying on them.  We were able to get enough to use as flooring for six jugs.  Plenty for our purposes in the future.  We will build all six now, but in reality we probably only need three currently, the others are for herd growth.  I can even add two more if needed.

New two story storage area, in process.

We used the L-shaped things we found in the granary to make a couple of storage bins for feeders, buckets, water buckets and various other containers we seem to use in the barn.  I made two separate containers after adding a new floor to the area.  I went out and salvaged about 8 buckets from the old lamb shed.  They will need to be soaked and scrubbed out first, but after that good as new.

Annmarie wanted me to tear out the jugs in the lamb shed and use all the wood in the barn.  It was not coming out easily or intact so I salvaged all the doors with attached hinges.  The only problem with that is the doors are various widths!  So I am making the jugs one at a time to fit each door.  It took me a while to get a design that was sturdy enough.  I thought I was going to have to add a beam that ran from the floor to the overhead walkway, but managed to stiffen the sides by using 2x6 boards and adding a 2x4 kickboard under the doors.  I only have one wall up so it isn't real easy to see where I am headed yet.  This is one of the "Big Three" projects for the summer (Fix barn roof, build jugs, build feeders).  So I will work on it early next week again.

This is an old granary with the inside cut out, it is L-shaped.  The horizontal board you see inside the room is going to be a support for the floor.  I am going to make two rooms out of this so we have more storage area.  Most likely, this will be an area for storing some left over lumber.  The hay rooms have lumber in both of them.  I just remembered that I will probably be picking up hay on Monday, not doing anything else.  I had totally forgotten about it. 
I love my impact drill!  It is the only reason I can drive any screw in the barn.  The wood is so hard there is no way I can make any headway with a normal drill.  The last few days it has been getting very warm when I use it for longer than 15 minutes.  Well today I smelt something burning and it was getting so hot I could not hardly hold it with leather gloves on my hands.  I actually had to give it a rest every few minutes so I could continue to use it.  This does not bode well for the life of this handy device.  The worst part is it is brand new last year.  I have used it to death.