Weekend Work

Saturday, I woke up early and ran to the feed mill to get there when it opened.  Whenever I do that, I get there when it is supposed to open, and Amos comes strolling out of his front door minutes later and walks to work.  Since we are renovating the barn, we have had to put some of our feed storage bins (metal trash cans) up in a loft --there just isn't room right now.  So this means that I go to the mill each week and buy less feed, rather than going every other week.  Upon returning home, I got the kiddos out of bed, showered, and made them egg sandwiches.  We went to the martial arts studio for Warrior Workout and a Flip Kicks class.  We're not actually flipping in that class, but getting some of the basics down first.  We returned home to find our good friend, Brad Stephens, already working on some of the electrical stuff in our barn.  He came out once before and got us started and we did quite a bit that we could do on our own, and were at the point where we needed an electrician.  While he worked, another friend stopped by with 3 baby goats!  No, these goats aren't for me to keep, but I volunteered to disbud and tattoo them, and show her how it's done.  She was very brave--as a new goat owner, I couldn't handle watching it!  I know she'll learn how to do it in no time!  Afterward, I went outside to see if I could be any help in the barn.  It turns out, a trip to Lowe's was in order.  I went and returned and found that I had picked up the wrong thing, despite a phone call home to make sure I got the right thing.  Disappointing, but not terribly so, since I spent an arm and a leg on the wrong thing, and this meant I'd get my limbs back.

 So, Sunday after church, Brad came back and he had picked up the right things we needed, while we returned the wrong stuff.  Look at that breaker box!  It's in my barn!  You may notice that one switch is on!!!  That switch goes to the line of plugs in the photo below.  This means that we have power to the barn, and no longer have to run an extension cord from the house!

There are 5 other breakers in the box.  They will go to other plugs and lights.  We still need to purchase the light fixtures.  So while there is a great deal more to get done, we have made some great progress!  The lines where fixtures will go have been run, and we are at a place where we can take a break from electrical work and prepare for concrete!  In addition to all the work going on at the barn, we also have a garden to prepare!  Below is a photo of that.  The dirt to the right of the garden in the photo is where we ran a water line to a frost free hydrant.  We installed a gate on the left side of the barn that the tractor can get through.  On the right side, we put up 6 dog kennel panels.  We want the fencing on that side of the garden to be removable so that when it comes time to cut and till the garden, we don't have to take down a stretched fence.  After all the hassle that it was to put up this fence, I think we may invest in a different method.  Perhaps cattle panels and clips of some sort.  That will come later.  We will also invest in a weed torch so that we can kill the weeds along the fences.  Why are we fencing out around the garden?  At night, our dogs hang out close to the barn, which is uphill from the garden, and the garden is not visible to them.  Deer like to hang out at the bottom of the hill then.  In fact, we had a neighbor put corn out near our garden to attract deer so he could take pictures of them!  Seriously!

The next photo is my attempt at showing the relationship between our house and barn, and the distance to the neighbors' barns.  They're pretty tough to see.  On the right side of the photo, there are some reddish spots.  Those are barn roofs, not flowering trees.  In the center, there are also redish spots--one a redbud tree and the other my husband's tractor.

This is a better photo of the neighbors' barns, across our fence/tree line.  I tried to keep our burn pile out of it, but some recently cut trees are sticking up in the bottom of the photo.  If we are able to get this farm, we'll take out the fence line between the properties, and likely move our chickens over to the tobacco barn, once it is cleaned and fixed up!  The tobacco barn is on the left in this photo, and closer to us.  The livestock barn is on the right and further away.  Putting the chickens at this distance will keep the chicken poop (and smell!) further away, give us more room for the chickens, and because they don't really need anything special for water (they'll drink out of a puddle before they go to clean fresh water that's been provided!) this will work!  It will be more of a trek to collect eggs, but we've found that having a good reason to go outside and get some fresh air and exercise is a good thing.  There will be more storage space for feed, and once the barn is kept secure, David's tractor and implements can be stored there, too!