Bruce's Journal

[Latestarter]

Man Bruce... that's a pretty big barn you got there! About time you started getting some real farm animals to put it to use! My fencing fun hasn't begun just yet but it's not to far in the future. I feel for ya!

 

[babsbag]

My soil is rock with a little dirt thrown in just to tease me. Its holding capacity for water is zip, zero, ziltch, which makes my orchard a challenge to water.

I need to go and look at these corral panels.

 

[Bruce]

I have to get my husband to help me do fencing because I am really good at finding rocks. He seems to be able to at least dodge them well enough to get a t-post in! We have weird soil here too, it's almost like clay. And loves to turn to mud. So we have a lot of muddy rocks... Yay us.

Same here! Digging that hole for the 6" post I think I was slamming a stone down and compacting the clay even more than usual. Finally got to where I couldn't make any progress and got out the breaker bar and 3.5' rebar with a point on the end. Finally worked around a rock that was flat and about 8" in diameter. Then I had to use the rebar to loosen up the stuff in the bottom of the hole to make more progress. By the time I finally got the hole deep enough, it was a bit too deep. Put that flat rock on the bottom then the post was 5' out of the ground.

There is clay mud with alpaca prints in it just outside their door, and yep , kinda slimy after a rain.

 

[Baymule]

I feel for your DD1. While I don't have migraines, I have chemical sensitivities that mess me up. I totally understand about the laundry STINK products. A whiff of those and my face feels like it's on fire. I'll say this, having this problem sure makes us lead a chemical free life and we're probably healthier for it. I guess you've tried everything for DD1's migraines, what a terrible thing for her.

 

[Bruce]

Yep, lots of different drugs, acupuncture, even Botox. She is on Candesartan now and that seems to be helping keep the episodic "add on" migraines down. Does nothing for the base migraine though.

 

[Bruce]

Man Bruce... that's a pretty big barn you got there! About time you started getting some real farm animals to put it to use! My fencing fun hasn't begun just yet but it's not to far in the future. I feel for ya!

Big
And very old
And not in the best of shape

There are 5 bents in the original barn.

1. The north one is the workshop
2. The next one south is FULL of stuff ripped out of the north building of the house when it was rebuilt 3 years ago. It is my "I need a piece of wood" pile. Or I need a door. Or ...
3. The middle one is inaccessible unless you scale a wall from a bent on either side of it. Structurally it appears there was originally a door to the outside. PROBABLY that is where the cows lived in the 1800's. And apparently cows were a lot smaller then, the door framing isn't more than 3' or so wide. Why someone closed it is beyond me, it is covered over on the outside with vertical board covered with horizontal shiplap, the stuff that was popular in the early 1900s. Has it REALLY been closed off for nearly 100 years?? Nothing in that bent but stuff tossed there by prior owners. I did clear out the metal a couple of months ago and took it to the scrap place. Got about $4. The copper pipe was worth a lot more
4. The next one south is the drive bay. My 33 bales of hay for the alpacas, dump cart, garden tractor and blower for the tractor live there
5. The south one is just a mess of dirt and rocks. Originally it would have been the hay mow (rhymes with cow). No overhead trolley so they must have pitched it off the wagons.

 

[Mini Horses]

Well, still a big barn!!

No suggestions for migraines that haven't already been said.

Soil -- WOW, I am so, so lucky. Great soil, then sand, no rock!
The largest rocks I have are out of my Pennsylvania hay -- pd for by the pound. I swear they throw it in there
By the way, I really like the brown/white alpaca.

 

[Bruce]

I'll tell Laddie you like him

Truthfully, Teddie is a better animal. He has a flat back where Laddie seems a bit humped. And Teddy's teeth (front anyway, haven't see the rear ones) look like he went to the orthodontist. I'm still trying to figure out if Laddie is missing one or if it is just way forward and low. I think Kelly said Teddy's fiber is better as well. I will find out when they are sheared next summer.

Shall I mention that a lot of the barn sills are missing and that I stuck 600 roofing screws in the roof of the shed part this summer to cut down on the leaks? It is in better shape than when we bought the place. 2 rafters replaced (one was braced to the ground below when the prior owners bought the place in 1999 and they did NOTHING about it. Yet they had money to put in a pool, have horses, etc), the sill on the west side of the original barn (shed added probably in the earlier part of the 1900s) was cracked about 15' in from the SW corner and the corner was dropped about 18". This must have happened a LONG time ago since the repair guys had to take some of the shiplap off because it was keeping them from raising the corner to level. They scarfed in a replacement piece and did the same on the top plate. I'm sure as the SW corner sank (no decent support under the corner post! SHAMEFUL) it pulled down on both the plate and sill until they cracked. All the new looking stuff in the middle are temporary supports they had to make to hold things up while they did the repairs.

 

[Mike CHS]

I need to post a picture of the lean-to to on my shed where they put two of three legs on top of cinder blocks instead of in the ground.

 

[Bruce]

They won't rot if they aren't in the ground

Maybe they only had one long post and didn't want to cut it off, too wasteful.