Pine Tree Removal

We recently took out a pine tree, another bug-killed knobcone pine. It had been dead since spring and was leaning over the trailer pretty far.

As the fall rain and wind commenced, the tree started leaning more and more. It was getting to where I was losing sleep worrying about the thing falling, so finally decided to take it out.

The felling job was a bit of a surgical procedure. Because it was leaning over the trailer, we couldn't just cut it down the way it stood. So we used a come along and winched the tree away from the trailer as it was being cut and while falling over, and also wedged the cut to get the tree to not fall on any of our stuff.

It fell perfectly alongside the trailer and missed the solar equipment, the new pier foundation, and our generator that were in the vicinity.

The bad part: the old dead pine fell onto an oak I had marked as a KEEP tree. The tree will live probably, but the pine split it kind of in half and knocked some branches out. Perhaps when next spring comes that opened canopy will encourage new growth?

Cordwood Shed Build: Floor Pour (part 6)

The shed project has been seeing some seriously slow progress, but is still coming along. The last rainstorm dumped water into the bottom, and I had to do some drainage above the shed in the driveway area to keep the inside from being soaked.

Rain gutters will help with the remaining part of the problem. I think I have decided to build a small covered front porch, too.

Rain pouring into shed. This was before the driveway drainage project.

Everything inside the shed is wet!

Draining water off behind the shed into the pasture.

Water bars in the driveway, have needed to do this for a long time anyway. Before this, the water ran straight down the driveway...and into the shed.

Plugged the holes between the rafters and caulking the cracks. Had to do this before putting a rain gutter on.

Peeling poles for the porch.

Cement mixer. For the floor, finally!! It's taken me awhile but yes, I am pouring a slab. Hand mixing fourty something bags of cement didn't sound too fun to me.

Pouring the first couple inches of floor. Using the first half of the concrete to level out everything inside the shed, to the best of my ability.

The cement mixer and a helper are a total lifesaver here! I can't even lift an 80lb bag of cement right now, have gotten a little bit too pregnant for that.

The end result is a little too watery, we made a mistake by washing out the cement mixer before moving it out of the way... the result was a fair bit of excess water in the mix. I am really hoping this doesn't crack the slab. Rebar on top of this portion and another layer of concrete are in the works.

Because of the extra layer of concrete going in, I didn't worry over much about total perfection. In truth I probably won't have a coronary if the end result isn't totally level, I'm doing my best though.

Fall Home and Farm Projects

Fall is here, and it's beautiful! The first rain came early for this area, there is much less dust around this week. The weather is cool enough to work throughout the day again, and there are lots of things to get done around the place.

Here's a partial rundown of the fall happenings. I say partial because there are finished projects without pictures, ones not worth mentioning, that sort of thing.

I stuffed everything for the shed inside the shed last week before the rain storm. I threw temporary plywood walls on, not enough plywood to cover it all but it helps keep the weather out of the shed. The walls will have to come back off anyhow, the whole shed needs Tyvek before any siding or sheathing are put on.

Working on the 16' x16' pier foundation out behind the trailer. Getting the stash of concrete used up before the rain. Almost halfway done with the piers now.

Feeding out the meat turkeys, they are getting big! I also locked up the wandering breeding toms, and they get to live in a covered pen for the winter. I was sick of them chasing the dogs and pooping on everything and fighting with the roosters. When the meat turkeys are gone, the horde of breeding hens will go in that pen. They're running loose around the cow paddock at present.

I'm going to need the cow pen back soon, it's almost time to bring the heifer home for calving. I anticipate quite a bit of trouble moving her this time, those Highland horns of hers don't mesh so well with our ancient straight load horse trailer...

Trying to fix the one remaining leak in the trailer roof. Roof repair is an annual event with this stupid thing, but the situaton is vastly improved since I bought this thing.

Here's a skylight I made out of the hole in the roof where the old swamp cooler was torn out. No leaks anywhere near it after a year and a half, surprisingly!!

The back of the trailer where the wood stove is. The cement backer board and tiles have been here since the stove was put in, but they were unsecured for a couple of winters.

I replaced three broken tiles (but left the busted one directly under the stove in place) and put mortar (not grout) between all the spaces and around where the stove install is. I am not sure how well mortar will work out in place of grout, but anything is better than the previously unsecured tiles. I was sick of breaking tiles, and not being able to get the dirt out from under and around the tiles and backer board spaces. It was a dusty, gross mess so I tried to fix that problem.

There are still some more things to do, like finish fixing the ruts in the immediate driveway area and recovering the firewood hoop house with new tarp. The wind blew off the old covering, and I want to keep the firewood relatively dry.

Firewood has been getting split up slowly, and is getting stacked as I go. No shortage of firewood around here, that's for sure.