January, The Quietest Month of the Year (NOT)

 

The month of January, the darkest, coldest, snowiest month of the year.  It's a month were snuggling up on the sofa with a soft blanket, a pair of woolly socks, a warm drink, and a good book is expected, nay, required.  By the end of January, a firm and familiar bond has been formed with your snow shovel. Each time you use it you wonder if this will be it's last season, or if you should treat yourself to a new one at the hardware store. After all, they're on clearance now next to the flower seeds.  Your woolen mittens are stiff and now perfectly formed and felted to the shape of your hand. You've completely given up on not having hat hair, and your chore coat, and your very pores perpetually smell of ode to diesel from tractor exhaust. You've developed milk maid's shoulders from hauling warm water to the livestock, and have mastered the art of 'going to your happy place' while preforming them 3 times a day, while being serenaded by the howling, biting winds.

But not this year, not this year.

We have been utterly blessed with fantastic weather this year. We are drastically low on precipitation, which is going to be a problem come Spring if we don't make it up soon. But the temperatures have been very, very nice.  We've been frigid, but then we bounce up into the 50s.  We drop again to have one or two days that never break freezing, but then we pop back into the 40s, or even 60s for a couple of days.  It's made it impossible to fall into the annual Winter funk.  How can you possibly waste a sunny 55 degree day INSIDE?  You can't.  You spend the little cold days inside planning and plotting projects for the nice days.  On the nice days, you work yourself silly before the cold sets in again.

The first couple of days of January were ridiculously cold. Our high temperatures were 9'F(-13'C) and 16'F(-9'C), respectively. Add the wind to that and it was a classic inside pair of days.  I used to to work in the sewing room.  A lot of odds and ends in the repair basket were tackled, but most importantly, I finished the Sewing double!  I have put this off for months.  The original pique knit, which was recommended, was far too stretchy. As you stuffed it, it overstuffed to beyond your measurements and was still too soft for its intended purpose.  To counter that, I changed to a heavy duty cotton duck and added a little to the seam allowances to make up for the total lack of stretch. Once that was complete, I glued heavy cardboard disks to the neck and arms ends to give it structure, slipped it over the base and stuffed it as tightly as I could while still matching the form and measurements.  It came out spot on!  Then I adjusted it to the correct standing height. It is now ready to help drape bodices, and hem skirts.  I'm glad I tackled this project, but I'm VERY glad it's DONE.

I knew I then had two days in the upper 40s and mid 50s.  Laundry was hung outside on the line, one day of clothing and the second 100 ft of sheets to be stripped for rugs on Fergus. It was during one of these hanging sessions that I got a bee in my bonnet.  Fergus was currently, temporarily, inhabiting the space under the window in the upstairs (main floor/ground floor) library due to the weather when we moved him from the garage and into the house, and due to his hulking size and considerable weight. Where on earth was I going to put him on the lower level where his sister, Nessie was residing.  I wasn't happy with her location to start with, I couldn't shove Fergus down there too and be happy. So now where am I going to put the two of them where I would be happy?

There was room on the lower level, large windows, but it always feels apart from the house to me and oppressive, even with the brightest daylight lamps blazing.  I live and work on the main floor. But where to put them both where they could both be used AND out of the way?  As I stood and worked on a rug on Fergus, it came to me.  I would relocate the library and make the library the weaving studio, or as Doc calls it, The Loomy Bin. 

I dropped what I was doing on Fergus, and grabbed my tape measure and ran it across the top of one of the bookcases, and then down the stairs I went to measure the wall behind Nessie and under the windows.  THEY'D FIT!  Then I measured Nessie and went back upstairs to measure under the window. Nessie was lower and would go under the window, while Fergus would go into a corner.  SHE WOULD FIT TOO!

I put the rug supplies to the side and immediately started taking things off the walls and carrying them downstairs. The walls would need painting.  I was shocked at how faded the paint was after only 7 years and protected by UV windows. I cleaned and moved stack after stack of books, then slid the heavy wood shelves to the basement and set the whole library up downstairs.  There were only hours before a cold front was coming through and there was no way I could move Nessie alone, she was far too heavy and bulky.  I folded her up, and made her as skinny as possible and I built an extension for a dolly to hold her.  Doc helped me load her up and get her to the trailer where we drove her up and around the house to the main level, then wheeled her to the front door where she had to be lifted up the stairs and into the house. She was officially in the Loomy Bin.  

It could get cold and miserable now. And it did.

I actually had a spare gallon of paint I loved from another project and spent a whole day painting the studio. The second day I put the room back together and decorated.  Yes, it was that fast.  It's set up exactly right. It's comfortable. It's soothing. It's functional, and lets me be accessible to the whole level of the house I use. And all of my weaving items are in the same room, not spread all over the house, hither and yon. I can close the door and turn up my podcasts or youtube videos and the dog can still see me (glass door), but I don't disturb the rest of the house with 'slide, klunk, swish, klunk'.

I can now keep an eye on dinner (or cookies) and work on a few rows.  I can work and the dog doesn't feel abandoned.  It's lovely. (There are still a couple of empty spots on the walls for certificates still in the mail. I am making a rail to hold my shuttles within reach, and an adjustable work lamp would be a great idea.)

As long as I had the roller, pan, and ladder out, I decided I may as well paint the dinged wall in the kitchen, which turned out to also be horribly faded despite having NO direct sunlight on it EVER.  Sad testimony for this brand of paint. (Suzie helped me paint the kitchen. Yes, my brilliant beagle turned headfirst into a wall.)

The weather warmed again and I put into motion the next outdoor project, as long as the laundry was flapping away on the line again.  I wanted a hoop house for the garden.  I had it slated for later in the Spring, but why waste those warm days, eh?  This would be a place to keep plants earlier and later in the growing season, once they out grew the proper greenhouse.  Irrigation lines needed pulled and cattle panels and T-posts needed removed to make room for the new structure.  I knew what I wanted, but only a little about HOW I wanted to do it.  There were some bumps in the road over a two week span, including some snow, some misfitting pipes, a dead can of paint, poorly manufactured parts, PVC cement failure and not being able to find the right size T-posts. But so far I have a bare frame.  She won't be DONE in January, but she's on her way.

Of course some things had to give way for the hoop house.  The up-cycled bean arch I just put up this fall felt in the way, so down it came.  And with those two rows gone, I could expand the blackberry row another 20 feet, deal.  As long as I was building longer rows in that direction I could add 10 feet to the hyperactive grape vine row, deal.  Oh, and as long as I was out there, the horseradish was not only too close to the hoop house now, but would also be too shaded.  It needed moved.  

Have you ever had to move a 5 year old mother horseradish plant? She was HUGE, 24 inches across and I dug down another 15 inches before I started cutting off the rhizomes, which were almost 2 inches across in some instances.  I broke off some larger ones and tossed them aside and moved mother to a new spot, then dug up two of her daughters and put them in the same row.  I know full well that each broken rhizome left in the ground is a potential new plant this spring. I will be overwhelmed with the spicy condiment, but it is welcome.

I brought in the pungent stick 2 inches across and 20 inches long.  I diced it into manageable pieces, and slipped them into a quart jar along with 1/4t of salt, 6 T water, and 3T of white vinegar and then carried it and my immersion blender to the front porch.  This is NOT a job for INSIDE the house. Holding the jar away from my face and pointed away from me I let the stick blender do its job.  I shook off the blender and capped the jar for 15 minutes before transferring it to a pint jar.  Not a bad haul.  Nothing like a fresh batch of the good stuff for February.

I installed a set of shelves in the sewing room to hold materials for the rug loom, since that's where they'll be cut .  I just took the first warp winding worth of rugs of Fergus.  I actually ran out of room on the take-up beam before I ran out of warm. I manage 12 rugs, with probably two left on the loom. When this warp runs out I'll order new heddles for Fergus, install them, and thread him up again.  It's nice to have a project that doesn't require a great deal of brain power for break times.  (Unlike the projects on Nessie, which require so much attention, the radio can't even be on.)

The hens and alpaca are happy and very much enjoying the warmer winter. Days are spent lounging in the warm sunshine and searching the poo piles for bugs and wayward seeds in the straw and dropped hay.

In closing, the only thing special that came out of the kitchen during this month long work-a-thon was a triple twisted cinnamon flake roll from scratch, 100% whole wheat.  I think it made up for the couple of night's that dinner was soup and cold sandwiches.

November -

 Well another month gone by. ( Forgot to hit publish on this post. Sorry about that.)

Suzie is still a little dream.  She has high anxiety problem.  And who can blame her, she was bounced around from home to home and lived at the veterinary surgery for months.  So every morning, she takes a doggie Prozac, hidden in a marshmallow (she's figured out liver treats, cheese, bread, etc so marshies it is), then she gets her enzyme doggie bone that cleans her teeth every morning.

Her leg is healed.  

Her ears are healed.

She's still a nut and VERY routine orientated.  Which is fine by us.

She has her own group of followers on Twitter (@WthrLdy) as Coding With Beagles - she's such a helper when it comes to computer and other house tasks.

Our weather has been fantastic, considering what it could be.  We could use precipitation, but the temperature has been in the 50s and 60s, and the sun has been a near constant companion.

The alpacas are packing on their winter fleeces, so SOMETHING much be in our future.  So far we've managed a quick passing snowstorm, but then hit 70 the next two days.  Then we had a beautiful, albeit, annoying, ice storm.  Then we had more heat.

The hens are doing their thing.  The teenagers, not knowing any better, are still laying away.  So we still have 6-10 eggs a day, which is wonderful with the holiday baking season looming.

I sold two of my antique typewriter and worked my way down to owning just one.  Then I found another I just HAD to bring home, clean up, repair and refinish.  Ya.  It's amazing.  She works like a dream, sounds fantastic, and suits me to a T.

 She was one hot mess.

But now...

While working on ANOTHER project I opened up a high, high kitchen cupboard and found, not the item I was looking for, but rather a set of dishes I though I had gotten rid of 6 years ago.  Wondering if I had just cleaned and sorted all the upper cupboards and DIDN"T get around to getting rid of them, I opened all the upper niches. Yup, more dishes.  All in all 8 sets of dishes in all the cupboards combined.  That included our daily use dishes and our wedding china.  OK, that had to change.  Every time we moved, it seems I changed up the dishes to suit the locale.  Kind of like the throw pillows of the kitchen.  

Well that had to stop.

I put of plain dishes aside for the boy to take with him some day.  Put the wedding china away.  And the daily dishes and the Franciscan apples could stay, everything else had to go!

Friends, neighbors, Goodwill.....and finally the Etsy shop for the pricier odds and ends that might a hole in someone else's collection.

All in all it was a busy month.  A good month.

Mittens, Mittens, Who's Got The Mittens?

Otherwise known as "The Winter That Refuses To Die."

It's the third of March, and we are still deep in winter.  We shouldn't be. We SHOULD be in the forties, with pop up days in the 50s and 60s.  Of late our highs have been in the teens, with wind chills in the negative teens and 20s.

Isn't this mug adorable?!  It reminds
me of those S'Mores Christmas
ornaments.  What looks like a
coaster isn't, it's part of the mug.  It IS
a "chocolate square and graham cracker".

And SNOW.  Oh mercy, SNOW!  We normally manage, on average, about 25 inches of snow over the winter.  We are creeping up on 55 inches.  When the snow comes, it's not messing around.  We've been gifted with howling winds, ice, and 8 to 10 inches of snow at a go.  The drifting has been ridiculous, and necessitates Doc taking the snowblower to the yard and cutting paths from the plowed driveway to the chicken house and the barn through 2 foot drifts, so that we can more easily haul water, and walk.

The alpacas and chicken are being real sporting about the matter.  The alpacas can't read, so they don't know what month it is.  They are a tad annoyed that I have closed the gate to the drift laden pasture.  It's not that they could get out of the pasture.  The problem was they were finding ways from the corral INTO the pasture and then couldn't remember where the pass was to get back INTO the corral.  This forced me into my ranch bunny suit, to chase down giant furry rabbits, while my own movements were limited to something that looked like Frankenstein's revenge.  So confinement to the barn and corral it is.  They stood and looked at for a time. I'm quite sure they were discussing, between each other, what on earth this new construct was.  Sterling, of course, had to spend some time licking it.

The chickens, while they cannot read, know it is supposed to be Spring.  They can tell by the ever increasing number of hours of daylight they are exposed to.  This increases their need to lay eggs.  So while the sun isn't warming us, or them, they are popping out eggs right on schedule.  Even Mirida is finally laying.  The cold is hard on all of them.  But with the walls keeping them from the wind and warm meals twice a day, they'll be fine.

Freya was all ready for her photo shoot, when Princess pulled a photo-bomb.
I love the annoyed look on Freya.

As for the ranch, projects are at a standstill due to the weather.  The bees are on order and will be in at the end of April.  The guest bathroom remodel in the house is finally finished, but the ceiling in the lower level still needs repaired.  Much beyond that even the seed starting is at a standstill.   Every nook and every cranny has been cleaned and sorted, organized and purged.  Spring weather needs to come soon as I (and all my friends) have run out of things to clean and sort.

So that leaves me with writing and knitting.

Not only are three books in various stages of production and disarray, but now there is a forth in the mix.

As for the knitting, it's been going gang busters.  All manner of shawls, hats, and scarves have been managed since Christmas. 
For Valentines Day I made Doc a Tardis decorative scarf.
Then I got it in my head to make a pair of mittens for myself.  Everything on the market has too long of a space for the fingers and are too wide.  OR they do fit, but are dainty useless decorative things.

I found an easy pattern on Ravelry.com, but even with sticking to the pattern and the gauge they were giant floppy things.  The basics of the pattern were sound, but the sizing was off.  As I knit Portuguese style, purling is ridiculously fast, so the pattern also had to be re-written for that account.

Then I change the thickness of the yarn and it needed re-written for that account.

I eventually got it to where I wanted it and went to work.  I recently found out that I can now use some of the new, modern super washed wool yarns.  Not all of them, so it's still trial and error, but it's a start.  The pair was still a little too large. This led me to decide to Thrum them with an alpaca and silk lining.  I used a rug hooking needle to insert the afterthought thrums in each mitten.  They are magnificently warm, but smell to high heaven of wet dog.  I'm not sure I'll be wearing them.

The second pair was a super bulky yarn, so again the pattern needed tweaked.  The yarn is soft and wonderful, but had some weak spots in it that needed trimmed out. There was very little twist in places, and was little more than weak top/roving.  That was annoying.  This pair came out exactly the right size.  The yarn, however, has a tendency to loose strands of hair like bits. I am hoping this will stop with multiple wearings as little white hairs float around the car, get stuck to your nose, and generally attach themselves to pretty much everything.

The latest blast from the polar region had me knitting a third pair.  These are a thinner yarn, and I certainly wouldn't wear them in the deep cold, but to take the edge off, they're perfect.  The size is perfect, and the pair only took about 5 hours.  I like the yarn, even if the colorway didn't match through the ball.  One is a deep dark blue, the other a dirty medium blue.

I honestly cannot look at more yarn or my needles any more.  They've been put away for now.  Come ON SPRING!

Next is a temperature scarf.  I have all the yarns set up and ready for a spate of boredom later!

Knit, Knit, Purl. Knit, Knit, Brrrrrr.

The Arctic chill has come and gone.  We were on the western edge and our windchill made it down to -27 degrees.  The actual temperature was -9.  It honestly wasn't so bad.  We've been far worse, for far longer.  All the animals have places out of the wind, so it's not a factor for them.  It doesn't matter how cold or windy it gets.  They still want fed and watered twice a day.

The unfortunate human has to pick through the racks of drying winter clothes to find all the correct layers and then fight to get them on.  This is about the time you remember you forgot the warm chicken breakfast up on the stove, so the boots have to come off and you have to fight the stiff legged coverall legs up and down the steps and then wrestle the boots back on.  All this has to be done before you start to get hot.  Too late.  Unlock the door, and then remember you haven't turned off the alarm yet, which cannot be done with bulky gloves on.  Off come the gloves, and you dig into a deep pocket for your cell phone.  Sigh.  It's up on the coffee table.  Off come the boots, up the stairs, down the stairs, boots back on, alarm off, gloves on, and NOW you can trudge out to the workshop.  There, two 5 gallon buckets are filled with steaming water from the sink, the chicken bucket is filled with feed and scratch, and everything is balanced on the buckets.

The lower level takes on the look of a camp laundry, or the outerwear
section of Tractor Supply about October and stays that way until the
beginning of March.

Happy with their breakfast of chicken feed and warm
mixed veggies.

The trip to the hen house is downhill, but in the full blast of the wind.  The open area is notorious for ice and the journey must be taken carefully, made easier by the new lower center of gravity of carrying about 65 pounds of water.  The hens can hear you coming.  What was a quiet island in the field, now fills with the excited chatter of two dozen birds happy to hear your boots crunching through the ice topped snow.  When the door is opened, hopeful beady eyes look past you at the bleak landscape and then lock eyes with you.  They understand they aren't going outside today.  The ice has to be broken on their heated water dish.  It's too cold for the element to keep up.  The hens gather along the trough and you oblige and fill it high with feed and warm veggies.  Satisfied, they ignore you as you turn to leave, locking the door behind you.

"You're late." "We've had to amuse ourselves."

Next are the alpacas.  Warm and snug in their own vicuna coats, made all the better by their fleece lined winter coats, they wait, annoyed that they are taken second in line to the feathered blobs.  No matter when you go out to feed them, you're late.  Every feeding is treated like they haven't seen food for days and days.  Everyone has their favorite dish, but somehow Angus feels everyone is getting better food than he is and must sample from each and every one of them.  Growls and spitting follow, but it's all show.  Everyone lets the little guy in, and they know he'll move on after a mouthful.    Ice is broken, water is topped off, hay is thrown, and feed buckets are nibbled upon.

Our hearty human warrior, treads the whole path in reverse to make sure doors and gates are closed and locked and to put now empty buckets away, noting anything that needs accomplished outside during the day.  Upon entering the house, off come the countless layers of winter gear.  The whole routine is repeated about an hour before sunset.

It honestly isn't hard, too much time, or taxing, but adding the winter gear makes it suck more energy from you, and I swear it would take less time to manage to get ready for a space walk.

I usually have first breakfast before I go out to the barn in the morning.  When I get in I work on my Norwegian for a while, then it's time for second breakfast.  Yes, it's a real thing.  Not just for adventure seeking Hobbits.  You have a very small something - a piece of fruit, toast, or a yogurt; just too keep your growling stomach from freaking out the animals, and to keep you from eating one of them.  Then later, you have a real breakfast- cereal, grits, eggs, or the like.

If I'm not leaving the ranch for the day, this is where all the other adventures of the Ranch come into play; projects (I'm almost done with the bathroom remodel), art, Ranch management books, housework, planning notes, writing, or KNITTING!

I've been doing it a long time, but have had lapses in activity levels when we lived in warmer climates, and when I was constantly chasing a child around and juggling home schooling.  Now I can be found spending quiet downtime before bed, or the later half of my lunch break, perched on the sofa, my toes hooked on the edge of the coffee table tackling some new found pattern.

The 7000 stitch wrap. Done in Aran
weight yarn and #3 needles.

The Bubble Bauble Hat.  A
quick 5 hour knit on #8 Circs,
and with Pantone colorway skeins.

Go into any yarn or knitting shop and you will find a sign that says, "Knitting, it's cheaper than therapy."  Some days I wonder if it's the knitting that is driving me to insanity.  I recently finished a project that took a couple hours a night over the course of a month.  It's over 7000 stitches.  By the end of it I was sick of looking at the yarn, sick of counting, and ready to lock my needles away until next winter.  I took a two day break, found a new skein of yarn I LOVED and couldn't wait to tackle and I was off and running again.

I am a member of Ravelry, which just about every fiber artist knows about.  I've been on there for years, and after all this time JUST found the filing cabinet!  I had no idea I could track my yarns and needles!  How handy when you're out shopping to make sure you don't buy duplicates or if you come across a sale and only want to fill in the holes of your supply.  Since The Boy needed to go to Omaha for an exam, I visited a local shop, The Wooly Mammoth Yarn shop, as they carry my most favorite needles in the WHOLE WORLD, the Kollage Square needles.  She is discontinuing them, so I used my Ravelry account to identify the missing needles in my basket and stocked up!

Well of course I had to get my things on there.  I am a huge fan of organization.  Upon opening my basket, I realized I wasn't at all organized in this aspect of my hobby.  Everything had to be sorted and put in its proper place.  Certainly I could work faster if things were in their place!

The previously piled, junk cabinet, freshly cleaned, a new shelf and cubes added
for yarn sorting.  The new Knitting cabinet.  It's like having your own yarn shop
in the house.

I'm a Portuguese knitter, which means I use a pin on my shoulder to keep my tension and only have to move my left thumb to move the yarn.  It is much easier on my work tired hands.  If you suffer from arthritis or have trouble keeping your tension, I highly recommend it.  I use a magnetic pin/hook which I purchased from a great jewelry artist on etsy, who makes them from upcycled vintage broaches.

What's currently on the needles.  I wanted a nice looking utility hat
for around the Ranch.  It's a brushed cotton that, surprise, self stripes!  My
knitting pin is resting on top, waiting for me to stop typing for the night.

SOTS (State of The Station) Update

I suppose if we can have a State of the Union Address, the least I can do is sit down and update any one reading this about what all is going on around the Station.  Even though we are in the very heart of a Plains winter, things have not slowed down here.  Projects have been piling up, some are kind weather dependent, others can be planned, plotted, purchased, and even completed indoors, during the most wicked of weather.

Freyer vs the Snow - He plays the snow is lava.

As you remember, shortly before Christmas,  contractors were able to take full advantage of one not too horrible day, and managed to assemble the shed in the pasture. And then came the snow and the cold, the bitter cold, for weeks.  The camel colored blob stared back at me every time I looked out over the pasture, it's giant mouth agape.  We just had to have a nice day, or two, and get that beast painted.  Surely we would thaw a little bit in January?

As I poured daily over weather models, watching wave after wave of arctic air descend from the North or moisture laden air sweep from the Pacific Northwest.  I re-evaluated my list of projects to those that could be tackled inside.  The walls of the livestock barn needed built up and kick boards installed.  I could do that inside, unheated, but still inside.  I called up my local mom and pop lumberyard. While I waited for delivery, I decided to walk the orchard and do the winter clean up and pruning. Two hours later, I had a pile of plywood in the workshop driveway.  How's that for service?

Sadly, the driveway isn't where I was working.  All 22 sheets of plywood had to be dragged to the livestock barn before the next snow.  Sigh.  Did you know that a sheet of 3/4 inch ply weighs 70 pounds?  My flock of supervisors were of no help what-so-ever, but offered a number of suggestions.

A long, very long, extension cord from the workshop and a pair of saw horses, and a circular saw made quick work of the wall panels, and a portable power supply gave me the ability to run the drill with a screw bit to get the walls up.  Our cordless screwdriver just wasn't up to the task.  It took three full days, but the walls in the stall area are up.

The next day, which was a little warmer, coming in at 32 degrees, was filled to building the frames for the corral fence that are under the barn porches.  My fence guy wasn't comfortable doing it.  He just couldn't see what I was describing, so I said I would tackle it myself.  The second day of this project was still 32 degrees, but the wind was starting to howl.  The final boards went up and the confused birds in the corral couldn't figure out how to get back out and had to be shown the door.

The birds were lucky to get out for a few days and wander around, because the next day brought a blizzard.  What a mess.  It started just before sunrise but didn't really get going until morning.  Almost everything was closed. Every enforcement official was begging people to stay off the road, so naturally Doc's job was open for business.  He made it to the University, where classes were in full swing, but there was no way he was going to make it back home, uphill, down country roads, where snow plows weren't even risking going out.  Doc got to spend his night the dorm with The Boy (with full University permission.), which meant I got to plow snow all the next day and try to explain to the chickens why they couldn't come out to play.


The snow quickly melted away, and they contractors came (finally) to install the gutters on the livestock barn. While they worked outside, I worked inside on the lights.  Yes, lights. No, the livestock barn doesn't have power.  I found LED shop lights that put out an insane amount of light, can be hooked together in series, and run off the portable power supply! BOOM, let there be light.

The temperature was teasing me with warmer weather.  I wanted to paint the shed so badly, but the temperature just wasn't reaching the 50 degrees, without howling winds, that I prefer to paint in. But models suggested it was coming.  (But I've seen THAT before.)  I decided that the shed would have to wait, but the barn square that was going on it didn't need to, but for that, I needed a nice piece of 2x2foot plywood.  A trip to the Big Orange Box was necessary.  As long as I was there I decided to grab the paint for the shed.  It was there I noticed that the new paint only needed 35 degrees for 4 hours straight to cure!  Well that opened up a whole new world of possibilities!  But first the barn square.

A simple bold pattern using the colors already around the farm that can be easily seen from the road.  I tweaked a pattern that I saw on a small decorative cutting board in the Mennonite thrift shop and added a few touches of my own.

Temperatures continued to tease.  We were hitting 40 far too late in the day, so the next project was up to bat.  The kick boards in the barn.  Doc had to help me with this one.  Five 70 pound sheets of wood needed to get down to the pasture.  He helped me get them into position until I could get two support screws into them to hold them up.  When this was finished, I was left with finished walls 4 feet high and walls and studs above that.  I COULD just paint it all and call it a day, but the thought of painting all those exposed 2x4s was sickening.  For 5 sheets of half inch plywood and some elbow grease, I could have easy to paint walls.  And as long as I was ordering plywood for the rest of the shed, why not order the plywood for the rest of the inside of the livestock barn.  A quick cell phone call to Mom and Pop Lumber, and two hours later, another large stack of plywood.  But this time I was home and he drove right up to the barn to dump it.  I only had to pull it 10 feet to a dry interior.

This time my helpmate was at work, but I wasn't going to let a 35 degree morning, albeit windy, go to waste.  There was no way I was going to be able to control full sheets of plywood in 25mph winds, AND be able to lift them, hold them, and secure them 4 feet off the ground alone.  I decided to cut them as close to in half as the stud spacing would allow and take them down the hill in smaller pieces.  It took a ridiculous number of trips up and down the hill, and a silly amount of swearing, but the final pieces of wall were up by lunch.

Well by lunch it was 45 degrees and would stay at least that until hours after sundown.  Again I tromped up the hill and returned with my ladder, rollers, and can of bright Lapis Lazuli paint (think dark, bright chickory flower blue).  Each of the three coats was interrupted by me having to break up fights between Andy and Wookie, but eventually the interior was complete.

The next day started out warmer and was a designated shed painting day!  The textured, grooved wood proved to be a royal pain to paint and about an hour into the project of the day, my body was screaming from days of long hard work.  This day was the last in a while that I could paint, so I pushed through and kept painting.  The day allowed for three solid coats of storm paint in Dark Truffle brown.  The only downside was that I was unable to reach the top 12 inches of trim work on the downhill side. Being trim, I couldn't paint that area with the small roller.  Disheartened, I decided to mount the new quilt square and call it a day.  (I did call the neighbors on that side of the shed and apologize for the unfinished top, and assured them it would be painted as soon as we hit 40 degrees and either Doc was home to hold the taller ladder for me or my arms grew 6 inches, whichever came first.)

Three days later, Doc was indeed home, took the long ladder down the hill for me and held it until I could paint the tiny area that was still tan.  As long as he was being handy, I had him drag the ladder into the corral and hold it for me as I installed the screech owl house.  Yup that's right, a screech owl house.  Why not?

This amazing little house quickly became my project nemesis.  Hang a bird house, easy right?  Sure, 10 feet up.  No problem.  I have a ladder.  The post it goes on is on a slope, so just lean the flattened ladder on the hill against the post and hold onto it with one hand, lift the bird house up with another, hold the top hinge door open to access the screw holes with another, hold the bolts with another, and then simply grab the drill to secure it to the post.  What you don't have 5 hands?  Ya, me either.  Once your kid is out of pre-school, all those extra, invisible mommy hands magically disappear, unless you have more toddlers in the house.

I finally came up with a plan about 3am one day.  I would hang a large head roofing nail to the post.  Attach a sawtooth picture hanging bracket on the back of the owl house, and use long pieces of painter's tape to hold the top hinged door open to access the mounting holes.  With Doc holding the ladder, I hung the house on the nail, pre-drilled the holes for the bolts and mounted the house and tossed in handfuls of bedding.  PHEW.  We mounted a perch post and called it a day.


I still have plenty of projects lined up, but the light is on at the end of the tunnel.

The wood in the corral still needs painted, as do all the wood walls in the livestock barn.
I need to finished the wood walls in the non-stall area of the livestock barn.
Dirt and gravel needs added to the corral and shed area.
Sand and gravel needs added to the stall area.
The stall walls need (ordered) and assembled with a LOT of wood pieces.
Rubber floor mats need (ordered) and installed.
The electric fence needs installed, all 7 wires and the control box needs mounted.
The rain barrels need installed and their lids built and painted.
The chicken coop needs a fresh coat of paint as does the concrete on the house and the posts on the deck.
All the fun stuff for critters needs installed, stock tanks, tools, feeders, bins, etc.

As if my list wasn't long enough, I also decided that raised bed planters are the way to go.  Sure why not?


Chicken Update

OH, remember how I said Andy and Wookie were fighting?  Boy, oh Boy were they ever.  Wookie is about half again as large as Andy, big boy. He was in the spa for almost 3 weeks while he rested his twisted ankle from a hen chase down the hill.  Doc and I were headed into town and I decided to toss Wookie back in the coop before we left.  BAD IDEA.  He had been gone so long that he and Andy were no longer tolerant buddies (father and son).  A battle for the Alpha rooster happened
while we were gone.  When we returned, the run was splattered with blood and the coop looked like a scene from a horror film, a dark mass cowering under the nesting box.  I thought it was Wookie, daddy having put him in his place.  To my surprise, it was Andy.  His giant comb a target for an angry, hyper, hormonal child.  A week in the spa for Andy, but he would not return to the coop.  Even when free-ranging they steered clear of each other. So he lived in the workshop with Cirrus, who was molting.  This past week they noticed each other again.  One fight I broke up was so full on that Andy broke off a spur.  Wookie had to go.  He now lives on another acreage with two hens of his own.  I will miss Wookie, he was gorgeous, and sweet, snugly, and a good protector, but peace in the coop is important.  Andy is again king of the coop.

The Icelandics are crazy.  They all have their coop names now.  We have Freya, and Freyer, Delmar and Inar, and finally Ari and Astrid.  They all sleep outside in the run, even when the temperature drops to the -20's. Amazing.  They are fast, skittish, smart, and very inquisitive and vocal.

Top L to R Merriweather, Freya, Astrid, Freyer, Inar
Bottom Ari, Delmar