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.

Cordwood Shed Build (part 5)

Last week I was trying to get the cordwood wall finished up and the new to me window framed in.. Progress is unbelievably slow but I'm working mostly by myself. This is not exactly a one man job, cordwood requires friends.

Progess on the wall.....slow as always!

Got the window all framed in. I still need to finish caulking and put the vinyl stripping on the edges, but it's in! I used some really ugly brown caulking on part of this hanging project because I had run out of the white color caulk. It is going to have to be removed and re-caulked because it's absolutely hideous with this white vinyl.

Getting soooooo close to done with this wall. I added a green Mason jar....because I can, that's why. I mean Hell, they are called Mason jars, right? You can't go wrong with this one!!

Fortunately, if the jar cracks it won't effect the structural integrity of the wall, and if it cracks badly I can easily replace it with a piece if wood. No worries here!

My ugly construction mess. I was putting the tools away as I went, but every time I put something away I would need it again!

Getting all ready for more Mason jar masonry....

The salvage door I bought along with the window. Floor needs pouring before this piece is insalled.

Getting the jars all mortared in....

Looking pretty cool! And I am almost done with this stupid wall!!

Ya know....if I had the rest of my life to finish building this, and alot of buddies to help I might do more of this cordwood stuff. As in an entire house!

It is a TON of work and it takes forever. It is labor intensive and back breaking. But it's turned out really, really cool looking. The structural integrity of this is also good, the wall was 'earthquake tested' and flexes really well without cracking at all. Yay!!

Just about there!!

I plugged up the holes at the bottom of the loft with correctly sized 2x4 lengths. I also took the opportunity to use a few screws and secure the cordwood wall to the loft framing. There was no real need, but it makes me feel better knowing the wall is just a little bit more anchored.

I still have a couple more pieces to add, I ran out of mortar this morning. After that, I'm going to hang a 2x6 header on top of the loft joists to kind of protect the top of the wall from water, and also as a footing for the siding that is going to make up the loft area walls.

This job is going to need some chinking where my mortar mix was too wet or the pointing was bad or a piece of wood shifted with wet mortar, but I consider that to be finish work that comes later down the road.

Floor and walls first, we'll worry about sealing and insulating and all that fun stuff later. I'm not looking forward to hand pouring a cement floor but that's the next step and needs to be done soon. Earthen floors sound romantic and all, but I don't want to live in the dirt any more than I do already.

Goat Milk Butter

Here is how to make butter, from either cow or goat cream. No special equipment is needed for this, just a little patience.

I am using goat cream for this batch. The cream has been skimmed off the top of the milk and stored in the freezer until I get enough to make something out of it. Goat cream separates off the milk only after it has been sitting in the refrigerator two days or more. There isn't quite as much cream as with cows' milk, but it's creamy enough to make butter from.




Here's the frozen cream. I filled the jar only about halfway to allow for good shaking.




I let the cream thaw, then start shaking the jar. Seriously, that's it!
Here's the beginning of the butter process.




When you make butter, it is important to realize that before the cream turns to butter, it makes whipped cream. If you get whipped cream instead of butter, keep shaking, you're almost there!

Here the cream is starting to peak, almost to whipped cream stage.






The cream can be difficult to shake, but this is why I only filled the jar halfway. Using the palm of one hand and tapping the lid as you shake promotes a churning action of sorts and makes the process go slightly faster.

After a few minutes of shaking whipped cream, it will start to feel slightly sloshy again. Keep shaking, it is starting to separate into butter.

In these pictures, the cream has separated to butter. Note the liquid and solids of different colors in the jar. The liquid darker stuff is buttermilk, and the white stuff is butter. Congratulations, you've made your own butter!




Here is the unstrained butter, with the buttermilk still in it. Straining off as much as the buttermilk as possible is important to keep the butter fresh. Rinsing the butter with ice water can help get all the buttermilk out.

If you wish, you can save your buttermilk for baking, pancakes, or animal feeding, ect. It's good stuff.




I use a coffee filter to strain the buttermilk out of the butter. You can also rinse the butter in ice water to help get the buttermilk out at this stage, but then you still have to strain the water out. I don't personally bother with rinsing my butter.




Then the butter is put back into a clean jar, and salt is added and stirred in at this point if you wish.

The butter stores in the refrigerator for a week or so, and much longer in the freezer.

Goat Milk Fudgesicles

This recipe is super easy and doesn't require much time to do. Unfortunately, it all got eaten before I took any pictures...

Feel free to add to this and make it to your liking! Banana flavor pudding,  vanilla with chocolate chips, the possibilities here are endless.
You can skim the cream off the milk first, or use it whole.

Fudgesicles:

Quart goat milk
Package of chocolate Jello pudding

Make the pudding according to directions on the box. You will have around a cup of extra milk, it is OK to add this to the pudding if you like.

Find containers to pour the mixture into, and sticks are also helpful. If no popsicle sticks are around maybe use kebab skewers or spoons for sticks, spoons work well.

Pour mix into containers, add spoon or stick, put in freezer. Eat any extra pudding you didn't use.

Freeze for 8 hours or until frozen through.  Enjoy!

Cordwood Shed Build (part 4)

I know I haven't posted much about the shed lately. I haven't forgotten or given up on the project, but haven't had a ton of time to work on it. Here's the latest and greatest with the shed project!




The window was framed in. It looks great, but doesn't sit quite straight because the main poles are warped.






Mixing mortar. I have found that for my mixture with 20% sawdust, much more water is needed than it says on the bag. The sawdust soaks up a bunch of water.

You don't want soupy or slurry mortar when it's mixed. It should be the consistency of a snowball when you grab and pack a handful together.




I have been using dishwashing gloves. WAY better than the rubber dipped gloves, and no more concrete burns on my hands. These have been a real lifesaver!








Progress on the wall has been slow and steady. One bit at a time...

My method and mortar mixture have both improved by a lot. Using finer sawdust instead of shavings is helping a lot, and I haven't seen any more cracks in my mortar work. My pointing work is improving little by little, too.






Another day's work. Gobble thinks he's helping, but really he is just getting underfoot and starting to irritate me.


I have purchased another salvage window for the big back wall of the shed, and a solid core door for the front. They should work great for this project.

There is more lumber on site. It's all ready to be used for framing, and I'll get to that and have at least the window framed in before I pour the flooring. I don't want the window being somehow broken just sitting around and would feel more comfortable with it out of the way .