Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Bruce]

The socket racks fit in the wooden base cabinet drawers!

Rats, no new tool cabinet
When you are done there my workshop is a mess. I'm sure you'll have withdrawal if you stop organizing cold turkey.

On the other hand, DH may not have a problem with replacing the tools. I will wait and see.

Tell him if any new tools show up that you already have a matching one, you will return it and use the money to buy something for yourself.

He is afraid that those 50-90 mph winds would lift the panels and just rip them off.

You could try screwing them to the rafters
If the roofer gives you a quote for a metal roof will it be the same panels you can install yourself (saving a bundle in installation costs) or standing seam which you likely wouldn't be able to do yourself?

I agree that it would be a shame to put good money into something that will be torn down and replaced with a McMansion. Besides, weren't you talking about moving to TX and renting (on the sly) to one of the kids? They would want a decent roof wouldn't they?

With the fires being more frequent and more deadly, maybe people paying $2M for a house in fire prone areas is less likely.
Nah, what am I thinking. Everyone thinks "it" won't happen to them.

BTW, it would be interesting to know how many of the houses that burned in Paradise had wood shingle roofs. I know they are/were common in So. Cal. The house I grew up in always had a cedar shake roof. Those fires blow flammable roof to flammable roof burning the house to the ground but not touching other near by things. Someone I know on another forum posted a picture of her uncle's house. Or what was his house, nothing left. Nearby covered boat wasn't obviously damaged (in the picture) and the mailbox on a wooden post at the street was untouched.

Congrats on the new lamb! Hope Bubba is watching and learning.

 

[Wehner Homestead]

lamb has arrived! Very cute!!

 

[Baymule]

Congrats on the new lamb, she is a beauty. Aren't they just the cutest? And I guess Bubba will get more baby lamb lessons. Silly teenage brain dead dogs.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Baby animals are so cute, aren't they?

 

[Ridgetop]

Bubba seems to have calmed down a bit. I sat with him in the barn and praised him for looking at the baby while sitting or laying down. Later, he started growling at Rika when she stood between him and the lamb. I told him to knock it off and he looked at me for a minute then I heard him start growling again. I had a glass of water in my hand and threw it on his face, immediately scolding him for growling at Rika. He was shocked! I scolded him and he calmed down. Rika is 6 and I think Bubba at 3 is starting to want to be the boss now. It is natural, especially since he is a male and pretty dominant. She can still take him down, but there wasn't much room between me and pens and 2 fighting Anatolians knocking into you can be pretty upsetting. Ewegenie is a very sweet mom, and is getting very good about Bubba. The lamb keeps going into the pen with Lil Sweetie through the creep gate. Lil Sweetie is pretty gentle with her and probably won't get testy with other lambs until she has her own. I plan to close it up tomorrow just in case. I don't want any accidents with my first purebred Dorper ewe lamb!

No more lambs expected until November 28 and 29. Then all 3 of the other ewes are due. I am not so sure about Dorset Green. Not much udder, just the dangly empty udder left from last year. She had a single ewe lamb prematurely last year during the evacuation and it didn't make it. She isn't very big either. Both Dorset Yellow and Lil Sweetie are uddering up. Lil Sweetie is much larger than Ewegenie was, but still has 2 weeks to fill in her udder. Hopefully she will have twins. Dorset Yellow had twin ewe lambs last year but one did not survive. Again, all the trauma of the fire evacuation probably. She is huge though, and her udder is filling up although a bit lopsidedly. DH asked if she had mastitis and I said no, the other side will even out soon. I had a Suffolk ewe that freshened with mastitis in half her udder years ago, and she raised twins on just the one side!

I have been labeling the drawers, cabinets, and storage boxes in the Tool/Workshop. I have a few more things to put away and label, then remove the last few large items that were stored there that I don't want. I now have 4 empty drawers, a large empty overhead cabinet, and one large, deep, tall cabinet that currently holds my tall levels, T-squares, and long metal Skilsaw guides. I want to put another shelf in both the upper cabinet and lower cabinet. There is also lots of room on the shelves both in the milkshed and the Tool/workshop for more storage! Once it is done, I will send pictures.

What a great day! A healthy ewe lamb, the Tool/workshop almost finished, and I had good cards at Bridge today! Life os good.

 

[Baymule]

I have 2 ewes that look like they have a volleyball between their back legs for weeks before they lamb. If you didn’t know better you’d think they were milk goats! Take good care of that girl, she is foundation for your flock!

 

[Ridgetop]

Finally, I have finished the Tool/Workshop. Weeks of back breaking labor and sorting of tools, the great Socket Wars, Drill Bit Drama, and now I am finished. Well, except that DS1 is going to install the wire racks that will hold the mayonnaise jars full of assorted nails that I sorted out. I got a bunch of really good latching small containers at the Dollar Store for the screws etc. and they are in the cupboards, all labeled. I finally finished labeling everything. I quit typing up the labels on the computer and just wrote the labels out with a marker. It took too much time to do on the computer, plus I would often get sidetracked into checking up on all the BYH postings. LOL

Anyway, here are pictures of the finished Workshop.
The top left picture is facing the door which is in the right corner. The top of the metal shelf rack holds the batteries (white squares) for the solar chargers that DS1 installed. You can see the opening in the ceiling to the loft storage area. The next picture shows the rest of the shelves, then a small table saw/drillpress bench, then a metal work bench with drawers. Between the drill press workbench and the metal bench is a space where the shop vac lives. In the corner are the rolling Craftsman tool cabinets, and then the kitchen cabinets we got at Habitat and installed. The next pictures show the base and wall cabinets turning the corner, with a wooden worktop, more cabinets, and finally the space behind the door where we hang flat tools. The empty space between the white base cabinets and the oak ones, was originally designed to hold a small under counter fridge where we could keep water and the livestock meds. However, the solar power is not completely reliable, and so I decided to put the electrical parts tool box in that space. I can't take a chance on the power going off and the meds not being refrigerated. DS1 wants to build a work bench in the center of the room, but for now we are going to put our 3' x 6' folding table there to see what size work bench would work. The space looks huge right now, but there is only about 9' of width between the cabinets.

Inside the cabinets - everything is in plastic bins and labeled. All the cabinets are labeled too. Far right cabinet is the hardware cabinet - all the little plastic boxes are different sized screws, anchors, etc. which we used in our apartment renos and subsequent repairs. Can't throw them out since we still use them for all sorts of projects.

When I finished everything this afternoon, DS1 wanted to dock, vaccinate and weigh the lamb, so we did that. 12.5 lbs. at 1 week of age! And so sweet too! She just nestled up in our arms. Then her momma knocked the gate open and ran out to see why we had lambnapped her baby. Ewegenie got sidetracked by the large bales of irresistible alfalfa though, and paid no attention to what we were doing. I carried little Nameless back into the jug and momma ran in after me. DS1 caught her and I gave her a CDT vaccination. We will vaccinate all of them as they lamb, and then do the 2 rams. We used to do their vaccinations when we sheared, but figure we will just do them now as well. They were current back in may when I brought them home, but I am not sure exactly when they were vaccinated so might as well be sure.

Dorset Green is bagging more. Her udder has evened out. I noticed that Ewegenie got a fore udder about 2 days before lambing and I am going to check the other 3 and see if they do that too. It's easy to see them bagging from the rear, but the fore udder is harder to see. If it fills up just before lambing, that will be an easy sign of approaching lambing. I am afraid that Dorset yellow may not be going to lamb this year. She has almost no udder and does not look pregnant. On the other hand, she may only have one lamb. She lambed a week or so early last year due to the evacuation. The lamb was perfectly formed but did not survive. We were not home at the time and she lambed at the neighbor's.

So after finishing the Tool/Workshop, I dragged myself up to the house, finished 2 loads of laundry, and started my Christmas baking. I have 1 batch of Anise Bread cookies in the freezer, 1 batch each of Almond Crescents, and Jelly Center cookie dough in the freezer. I actually made a mistake on the Anise Bread. This is an old German recipe my family has made for 3 generations. It is a bar cookie that tastes like licorice (anise) and has candied fruit and chopped almonds in it. you have to beat 8 egg whites to firm peaks, add the sugar , flavoring and then beat the egg yolks and blend them in before adding the nuts and fruit. I FORGOT TO BLEND IN THE EGG YOLKS!

I remembered halfway through baking, too late to remove them and mix in the yolks, so I finished baking them. I tried them and guess what? They tasted fine. I cooled them, cut them, and put them in the freezer. No one in my family will ever know the difference! HeeHeeHee!

I also made 5 quart jars of pickled peaches for Christmas. They have to sit for at east a week before serving so we can't eat the on Thanksgiving. I didn't get them done in time, due to the Tool/Workshop.

Thawing my turkey now. DD1 has offered to do the Green Bean Casserole and Corn Pudding. I told her if she comes over at 8 am Wednesday she can bake pumpkin pies and make the Cranberry Orange Jello and Ginger Curry Sauce. I don't know if she can get here that early with the 3 grandchildren but we will see. Tomorrow I will extend the dining room table, iron the linens, and set the table. Wednesday afternoon I will run out and pick up the flowers for the centerpiece.

The day after Thanksgiving I will start my Christmas decorating. DS1 will take the truck and cdrive across the field to the large Connex to bring back all the Christmas decorations and the tree. Why does he drive the truck 400 feet you ask? Because the are so many decorations that the boxes and bins fill the truck bed! I do a lot of interior Christmas decorating. DH and DS1 have already been putting up the outside lights. DH loves his Christmas lights. He bought new ones this year, multicolored icicle lights for the house, and replaced some of the lights along the front fence. His goal is to run lights completely along the front fence line. He adds some more strings of lights each year, but before he can finish buying enough lights, some of the first strings go bad and he has to replace them. Now the new LED lights will only allow you to connect 3 or 4 strings together. That is not enough light string footage, so he sent DS1 to Lowes to get another extension cord so he can run more lights. Soon I will have to drive down the road to admire them. I don't understand why he does this since we are at the end of a private road and no one except one neighbor comes past our house. Only a couple people can actually see the house anyway. But DH loves his lights, and I love DH! The lights are very pretty even if we are the only people who see them.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 

[greybeard]

 

[RollingAcres]

Awww cute lamb! Congrats!
Glad the fire is moving away from you. My sister is far from the fire area but said the air quality is really bad.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Finally, I have finished the Tool/Workshop.

Wow! You must be proud -- and exhausted. How would you like to take a trip to Arkansas and organize my shop?

And will your DH do your Christmas lights akin to what Mr. @greybeard showed?