Ag/Wood Shop

The shop foundation is poured, insulted and back-filled due to some long work days of Bill.

We recently got the containers delivered. These are going to be the sides of the shop with a space between the two which will get framed out. Roof trusses will span the empty area between and overhand the containers to create a building.

It was pretty unnerving as the semi had to back down a portion of the driveway, back past the barn and continue down the shop road.

I've been canning and jamming.

We are also now official TV free!

Buttresses II

These were the concrete buttresses at the beginning of the day on the Sunday of Memorial Day.

Bill and I got down into the holes and pulled the nails from the top level of the forms and manually removed the braces and the top level. We tried to pull the bottom level out with the truck on a come-along but our 2000 lbs come along broke. So we went with the tractor - as was the initial plan along - we just tried to cheat by using the truck. This spring we bought a set of hayforks; what a useful tool. In this photo, you see the hayforks along side the concrete. Using a massive, heavy-duty logging/towing chain, we attach the fork to the lower form. Work it loose slowly and then heave it out.

The holes were dug narrowly because we need to minimalize soil displacement as much as possible to not diminsh the structural integrity of the current walls. Frankly, we are worried that removing more soil than this could result in further structural loss of the walls.

Top level is gone - Bill is attaching the logging chain

This photo shows how embedded this form is

Sparky pulls out the form in no time flat

(Yes, our tractor's name is Sparky)

No more forms -

of the 12 lower ones; we only have 1 that requires significant repair;

they all came out clean and ready for re-use

Me - at the end of the day. Having the time of my life.

Concrete - a week later than expected

The excavation didn't go quite as expected last week (rocky rocky rocky soil) and required a lot more hand work by Bill. He had to further hand-dig out the 4 sections to set up the forms.

Saturday of Memorial Day brought 5.5 yards of concrete.

Bill is one hell of a carpenter, but concrete is h-e-a-v-y and has lots of mass. Unless you deal with concrete every day, you tend to underestimate it's strength.

We had a couple of blow outs. Look at the right corner - the concrete split the corner out.

This form split on the left side.

Overall, we had just barely enough - even though Bill ordered extra - to make it to the top of the forms. We had to do some "concrete rearranging" - i.e. also known as shoveling from one form into a wheel barrow and transferring to a different one that is low.

A finished form full of concrete

I was asleep by 8:30 that night. It was still light outside.

Slope Stabilization

On Sunday, 3/13, we got the seed down along with about 500 sq yards of erosion mat. Whoa, that is hard work - much harder than I expected! I thought it would simply roll out and we'd tack it down and call it a day. Not so! We arrived at the farm at about 8:30 am so the soil was frozen. As the day warmed up, the soil melted slowly. At first it was just a little softness on the top, which made it slippery when working on a 45% slope!

There is seed in there - we used a Slope Stabilization mix from JFNew

Bill putting spreading the seed with a belly seed spreader

Rolling the erosion mat down the hill

We only got about a 1/3 done

Silt fence at the bottom

The installation, which involves hammering stabilization "pins" (5" steel dual-tines which will rust) every yard or so. I kept sliding down the slope. Bill was able to stay put on the middle of the slope but my feet would just slide down and I would end up sliding down the mud. It was warm out and it was fun to get really, really filthy.

It begins for real

Bill has turned his steely-eyed attention to the farm with a vengeance!

Last week our little farm saw the excavator who prepared the new home site and trucked the soil to the new workshop area as well as trenching the driveway.

We also had an electrician remove our overhead lines and bury them in the driveway trench. New 220 service to the barn. New panel in the small house. The rural electric coop also came out to reconnect our service.

Additionally, a concrete truck with 4 yards of concrete. Got the footings poured, reinforced the culvert and the hoghouse. We did not get the buttresses done.

As we pulled out of the driveway on Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. - it started to snow. We finished with no time to spare.

We have a future home site!

Small house with cleared future home site on the right

New homesite tucks into the bluff - we hit stone

Excavating the driveway to bury the electrical lines

Concrete truck

Poured excess concrete on the high side of the culvert to control some erosion

Additional extra concrete was poured around the stone foundation of the hoghouse - this area occasionally has high water (isn't it funny that I have never noticed that bad paint job until I looked at this photo?)

Trenching the driveway

Trench for the electric

Scenic Rivers arrives (our electric co-op). They reconnected our electric service to our new box and panel

New service

No more overhead lines!

The next morning it looked like this -

More Barn photos

The frames are built and just waiting for the expeditor to finish (by that I mean start) so he can dig the large holes for the barn buttresses. Hopefully he will be out the week of 11/29.

Here I am jackhammering (I found this and a lot of other photos on Bill's camera), taken in July. Working on that barn makes me happy!

Barn Progress Photos

Lally column holding up the floor

3 columns. By jacking up the floor, Bill was able to install a new header over the window

New header





When cleaning off some stone, Bill found initials in a stone



D.D. 1909


Lally Column in the middle of the feedlot door - half of this door is going to be covered by the new buttress

Interior, along the back wall. This will be framed and concrete poured between the framing and the old stone.