Busy times! The "other house", as we call it, is done. I find photos daunting to upload here and to photobucket. Facebook seems to be the way to go but I'll put a few on here just to appease myself, and maybe you, if you care to see them.
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| 2nd bedroom |
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| Master bedroom |
The house seemed to take forever. I won't say we bit off more than we can chew, it turned out lovely and we are very pleased. The garage still has a bunch of stuff in it that needs to be moved out but the trailer needs to be taken to the dump across town first! There are also a bunch of telephone poles left from when they hacked down the old shop. I cringe when I think of why anyone would do such a thing!!! It wasn't very old! It was a pole barn style. Telephone poles were set in the ground, concrete slab poured around. Stringers of lumber (likely 2x4's) were attached horizontally and metal siding attached to that. They just took down the metal, lumber and took a skill saw to the telephone poles leaving a concrete slab and probably lowering the worth of the property by several thousand dollars! The problem is that the telephone poles are inside of the slab portion. New poles could be set to the outside, new concrete could be poured to fill in the gap and a new shop could be erected again but why someone would do such a thing is just a...well, it's criminal. Perhaps that was the intention. Given that this house was a foreclosure, maybe the prior residents figured they could make a buck off the metal. Who knows the why's, but it's a shame nonetheless. We are not going to put up a shop, maybe if we were ever going to sell it (which potentially some day down the road) but at least the concrete is there is someone ever wanted to and that right there is worth a small fortune!
The weather has been on again off again cold. Last week I got the carpets cleaned in the house. It turned bitter on that Tuesday. We had the propane guy out on Monday to check the lines. The tank is owned but no company will fill it unless they have inspected everything. Everything checked out. It was cool in the house Tuesday despite it being below freezing but it wasn't bad. I set the furnace to 50 so I could be sure the pipes wouldn't freeze and we didn't get back to the house until the weekend. The furnace hadn't worked all week!!! That could have been a disaster, let me tell you! We know! When we first bought the house and had a plumbing inspector out there he turned on the water and due to frozen pipes at some point before the bank had the house winterized, water spewed from the downstairs bathroom pipes into the bathroom. Ahhhh, the joys of that! A bunch of drywall was removed ASAP to prevent mold.
It's move in ready now and I am glad to be finished. We have things left undone here at our own house having spent every waking minute of the weekends at the other. Winter is quickly approaching and we're down to about 2 weeks left on our wood supply! We have piglets in with the sow and gilt that have to be moved otherwise they will take a year to get to process weight. Lucky we have a pen and pasture for them made up already, and technically we have a shelter we could move in for them but that's just a temporary solution as it's only big enough for one 250 lb. pig and will NOT be big enough for 3 100 pounders. So, we gotta get them something bigger. Which isn't a big deal, that's there the "other houses" telephone poles come in handy. We can drop 4 into the ground, run some stringers top and bottom, attach some rafters and side and roof the whole thing within a couple of hours likely. Anything more than a 3 sided shelter that faces south or east isn't necessary. They do just fine with a lot of good bedding and each other for warmth. The pigs, thus far, have been about the simplest thing to raise!
We'll be borrowing a boar from our neighbor starting Thanksgiving weekend. We sent our own off back in August. No point in keeping one when we can borrow and it helps the both of us out technically. Payment is a barter in piglets and keeping two productive sows is a lot better on the pocket book than a boar and a sow!
This mornings it's overcast drizzly and "cold". It's hovering around 32/33 degrees. I've already been out to do chores but I am telling you, after 4 years of collecting the right type of clothing (none of it is cheap!), I have finally put together the right gear to keep me warm in even negative wind chills. I would trust this gear at -20! As it was, just the insulated overalls, boots and a hat were enough, I shed my jacket pretty early on. I expect within a few weeks I'll have become used to the cold and for a while, anyway, may go back to jeans and a jacket. It's funny how one becomes acclimated to the cold, really truly you do and even in 32 degrees (if the sun is shining), I can be out in a cotton short sleeve t and still sweat...if I'm working =)
Anyway, I feel like our own place has been neglected so. We did get a new roof on in Sept. thank goodness but there is still other damage to the house that needs to be addressed after the first of the year and the shop will need a new roof. The next order of business though, speaking of the shop, is to get that sucker organized. I am telling you, it's a wreck!!!
As for Thanksgiving, after the amount of time we've been away working on the house, I really feel like just locking the doors, so to speak, putting on a turkey and having some nice quiet family time. Though, nothing is ever really "quiet" around here, so to speak. It looks like part of Thanksgiving weekend may be about the only decent weekend left before winter really starts to set in and if we have to pull anything out of that shop, it will have to be done when it's not snowing, freezing rain, windy, etc. etc.
Over the summer I saw an ad for plywood for sale. We made sure it didn't fall off the back of a truck somewhere - ha ha - and bought 30-40 sheets at a fraction the cost of new. I can't remember how many Jeremiah said he needed for the shop but the intention is to put it half way up on the walls, 8 foot full sheets I guess, we bought excess to do the milk barn. I am sure he'd eventually like to heat the shop but we definitely need walls to hang stuff from better! My milk barn skeleton still sits. The electric box is in, metal roof is on but that was about as far as that went! We do have the metal for the sides, another used purchase we made. Actually we bought quite a bit of that metal too! It came off someone elses barn that was re-skinned after a hail storm paid for entirely by their insurance. The pieces we got must have been on the non-prevailing side because there are no dings in it.
Always something to work on. The lean-to shelters are over 40 years old and were the first things erected on this property by the original owner who, admittedly, had never built a thing in his life. He actually did a good job, obviously! They're still standing 40 years later! The only issue is that the poles that are the main supports are rotting at ground level which is bound to happen and so they've got to be deconstructed and re-erected. There are some things that could be done differently. They don't need to be nearly as tall as they are, even for larger livestock like horses which they used to have. Keeping roofs as low as possible keeps more heat in though the height has been nice for maximizing space for square bales when we were still putting those up. This year we went entirely with big round and we just use the tractor to slide one right into the adjoining "stall" on the lean-tos since they are all split in 2 with an adjoining pen. It makes feeding a lot easier as I can get to the feeders without actually having to go into the pens with the animals and the feeders and animals stay under cover.
We like to build with the intention of someday selling which may or may not ever happen but even in 40 years, shelters that are usable for more than just goats or smaller livestock is pretty important in our opinion and that means height and size need to be taken in to consideration so the sizes will likely stay the same. I have really liked having moveable short squaty shelters for the pigs and a chicken coop is a chicken coop is a chicken coop Any pig shelter is likely to work well for goats too so that's a double bonus. =)
Anyhow, there are some pressing matters I need to get to around this house, I suppose. The laundry is never ending, I see painting I want to get done and we have friends coming in from Alaska in December for Christmas that I have vowed to myself to have at least the hall bathroom and laundry room repainted for. Not that they care, but I do! In over 4 years I have admitted done very little to make this place a home for us which is pretty sad to think about!
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