Catch up

Retraining

We had some issues over the weekend. Mouse had decided to move up the food chain and surpass me as his own boss. It's great fun, no one to listen to and you can chase all the sheep whenever and wherever you want!!  This necessitated a regression to the harness. Mouse did not like this and did not want to listen or lay down. I spent 1.5 hours making him lay and stay. He hated it!  I finally started stepping on the leash to force mouse to lay down. He has been much better this week and every day we are making him stay and lay down. He has to stay until released, even in the barn with animals present.  It is sinking in that he is not going to advance in the pack and may not even be the boss!  A hard lesson in reality.

Just lay "down"

Sunday I decided we needed a drainage ditch along the front of the machine shop. I dug a trench with the tractor and a pick axe. The bucket would not work on the compacted soil so I had to work it loose with a handheld pick axe then scoop it up with my tractor bucket. Luckily, I had a dump truck pile of gravel waiting to be used. So once I was ready I just drove over and scooped it up for my trench.  It started to rain so I was losing traction and only able to scoop up about half a bucket even in four wheel drive.  A serious lack of efficiency was occurring. I switched from low gear to high gear and then buckled my seat belt tight and hit the gas!!  I just ran the tractor as fast as I could in two wheel drive into the pile of gravel. The pile stopped me every time. It was a pretty sudden stop but I got a full bucket every time!   It was three times faster than going slow.  I finished up the last three loads in the rain. I used most of the gravel pile and am now going to have to order more.  

Machine shop rain drainage ditch

Ditch full of gravel for water runoff purposes, no more gooey entrance

We had another leak in our water supply.  Annmarie and I have known for months there was a leak, but we could not figure out where it was located.  Our home water pressure drops dramatically when there is a leak.  We have not had hot water in the bathroom sink for months.  If you wanted hot water you had to turn on the tub water then the bathroom sink.  It finally surfaced down by the pump.  It that same area that has been fixed multiple times.  This time we called the better plumbing company and they had the entire leak dug up, fixed and buried again, plus they used gravel from my pile to make a stable bed for the pipe in three hours with it raining!  They brought a little backhoe and just got it done!  We had a long conversation about the multiple repairs and things that could not be repaired.  It sounds like we are going to have to dig up the entire line and replace everything with pex pipe to make sure it is done correctly and as a single unit with no weak spots.  This is not a surprise to us.