Vine trellis updated.

Trumpet vine trellis revision #2.

Second hay bay almost cleared out.

 Spent the last week playing catch up.  A large part of the weekend was spent cleaning up the house.  I did hook the mower up to the tractor and spent one day mowing the driveway and out front near the road.  It looks much better now.  The cheat grass just keeps coming back.  Sometimes I think the mowing is selectively growing short cheat grass.  I did score with some used lumber.  A friend of ours is a contractor and he is trying to empty out his shop.  I snagged bits and pieces of wood and a couple of sheets of plywood. 

Mr. President, (hired help, Reagan) has been cleaning the barn on the occasional day I am working.  He is getting there.  We emptied out the end of the barn where the last large pile was hiding out.  Again, I would like to offer up a small sacrifice to the tractor gods.  One god is simply not enough to cover just how helpful the tractor has been.  We used it to yard out the debris.  Hooked onto it with a chain and piled on the small stuff and out the door it went.  It took us an hour to empty it out.  Would have taken six hours to do it by hand.  It was some heavy stuff.  I am continuously amazed by how much faster tasks get finished. 

I went out and mowed the ram pasture today.  After that was done, I went out and mowed the loop around the upper pasture.  It takes almost an hour to get around the whole thing.  I saw three baby deer.  A single and a set of twins, jumped up right next to the tractor and ran away.  I saw the momma for the twins so I knew the babies were around somewhere.  I never saw the mother for the single baby.  Rodents by the dozens!!  I was amazed by the little things crawling all over the ground as I drove by or mowed over them.  The mower didn't hurt them and unfortunately no owls or hawks were nearby.

Zeke helping out, L shaped storage room.

 This was the last load of flooring to be hauled out.  We just stacked it up and then I grabbed it with a chain and pulled it out.  Mr. President will get the floor scraped and the rest of the barn cleaned out tomorrow.  The rest of the week is going to be dedicated to tearing down the hog enclosure.  I need the lumber to start in on the roof.  I tried to knock the boards loose, over the weekend, with the tractor but it was breaking about half the boards.  I quite messing with them.  We will try the old fashioned way and see how many can be salvaged.

The trumpet vine trellis had been needing some work.  I had put it off last year, but it could not wait.  I trimmed out all the dead vine and we added three new 4x4 posts.  I created a box in front of the long window, down low and up high.  I was short a 16 foot pressure treated board.  The only ones I had that long were green.  The rest of the trellis is orange/brown in color.  Now, I have to find one the right color.  It turned out pretty good.  I have a few more supports to add, and I want to tie some rope around the branches and pull them down and away from the house to force them to grow on the trellis.  Annmarie was trying to move a branch and broke it off.  The new branches are very fragile.  So she suggested we try and root it.  I took it up to the breeze porch and planted it in some soil.  I hope it takes, as I like this large flower vine.  It is an added bonus that the plant is over 50 years old.  We don't want it to die. 

One more piece of metal to remove and it will be time to add the window.