Barn Safety

The morning started with me heading to Farm and Home Supply to pick up fencing pliers for the last line of fence to be installed today.  With that fence complete, the farmstead should be ready for pigs!  I was shocked to find the pliers were priced at $27!  Yikes!  But I needed a steeple puller to get the last cattle/hog panel off of the wooden posts, and this was the tool.

I swung by and picked Dad up, and we headed for the farm.  Once out there, my, oh, my we were shocked by the wind!  Dad's house was fairly calm.  Out here in the wild open, the winds were howling, and it was cooooooooooold!!!  Windchill of 43!  We both decided to tackle a different project today, albeit a very important one:  clearing the barn rafters of the wood stacked up there.

Ever since I saw the stack of wood, I knew it had to come down.  The weight was so much that it had actually collapsed the boards holding it up in one stall.  In another stall, the massive 4 x 4 oak beam had actually bent down.  And in yet another stall, the termites had eaten up one of the supporting posts that was holding up the wood above it.

The rafters were just full of heavy wood.  A view from the hayloft.

The VERY heavy wood.  Notice the bend in the massive boards holding it up.

I simply did not trust the barn to hold up the wood much longer, and the thought of the wood collapsing on me, a family member, or even pigs was just not a topic I wanted to think about.  But it was VERY possible.  And the more than 2000 pounds would quite possibly kill whomever was underneath.  No one in their right mind would likely lift up a small car by these rafters overhead, yet they would gradually stack a 40-pound beam up there.  And then another.  And then another.  Then a 25-pounder, then 20 10-pounders.  I mean, it's silly to put 2000 pounds up there!  But to put up 40 pounds 50 times...well...

There is probably a deep life lesson in there somewhere.  "Do not give the devil a foothold..."

But I digress.

So the plan was simple:  I would climb up on a ladder and feed the large wooden beams out to Dad down below who would then stack them up against another area of the barn.  Of course, these beams were no joke!  I LOVED finding the various pieces up there (so many good ones!), but over time, that wore on the body!  We had to take a few breaks.

I was eager to get these boards down for projects...but the story doesn't end on a good note.  :(

Methodically stacking the wood.  I will probably sell these.  Some termite damage gave these boards character, but these can be planed.  Others were absolutely eaten through.  The weight of the board was a telltale giveaway!

I was bummed to find that much of the wood was destroyed by termites.  They had worked their way up a post and into this wood.  I mean, they ate through ALL of it post from the ground up.  Most unfortunate!


The stacker of this wood had good intentions.  "I will use it someday."  Unfortunately, that day never came, and the wood provided a home for termites.

Stall Three is clear!  No danger here anymore!

Some awesome pieces of oak came down!

I am most excited about these live slabs of oak!  I am picturing a kitchen table with the two middles cut and joined together the live edge on the outside?!

So much wood came down from the rafters!  The barn will probably blow away now!  I would guess around 2000 pounds total.

Also of importance today:  I learned that I have a very big skunk problem.  Probably bigger than even I realize.  I had noticed when cleaning the stalls that I had large sink holes in the stalls.  Stall one also had an ever-so-faint smell of skunk anytime you walked by it.  But it was so faint that it almost felt like a skunk had been there several hours ago maybe.

Well, I filled in these holes YESTERDAY.  And this morning when I showed up, the HOLES ARE BACK!!!  An animal had dug them out in one night!!!  It's not a water leak at all!  Coupled with the skunk smell, we put two and two together.  I HAVE SKUNKS!!!  And I have these holes literally all around the barn.  So I likely have a major skunk problem.  I'll have to trap them one-by-one.  But I'm not keeping them!

Massive holes leading to underneath the concrete foundation.  These were the deepest in this section of the barn, but they are actually all throughout the barn (three different stalls).

We broke for lunch, and on the drive to Dad's house, we stopped to watch a bald eagle sitting on top of a dead deer in a field.  He was having his own lunch, and even the buzzards knew to respect Freedom.  Of course, I tried to get as close as I could for a picture, but she flew off before I could get too close.  SO beautiful and massive, though!  I have lived in the city for several years now and never seen a bald eagle there.  I'm in the country for just seven days and was treated to a front-row seat!  So fun!

A beautiful bald eagle eating a deer carcass with buzzards eagerly waiting for him to leave.

Once back at the farmstead, we decided to tackle the fence.  It was still windy, but we were up for the job.  But first, I needed to fence off the wooden posts from the front of the house.  Of course, being my father's son, I decided to not open up the $27 pliers quite yet.  I decided to try a prybar and hammer to get them off.  I am happy to report that that worked fantastic!  It was a bit of work getting them all out, but the work was methodical and progressive!  We were closer to getting the fence down every steeple that came down.

It just opened up the front yard so much.  I LOVE IT.  The old, rusty fence is now down, and it looks beautiful!  Not only do you have a nice view of the property when you pull up, but the better view is when you are at the house and looking out!  You have unrestricted views of the landscape around you.

The house looks SOOOOOO much better without the old, rusty cattle/hog panel fence.

The front yard no longer feels constrictive!  Of course, those wood posts will go, too...at a later time.

I decided to clean up the entire front yard which included taking down messy trees/bushes.  These had grown up into the fence, and I just wanted a clean look.  It would be easier to mow, and it would just look better all around.  And that's when we saw my mom pull up!  I pointed out the van to Dad, and he said, "What is she doing here'?!  ha!  She is my biggest fan, and she wanted to pitch in!  We had a good laugh when she hopped out of the van.  "I had some vacation time to use..."  ha!

The house hidden behind a mess of bushes.  The fence panel went right through this mess.

Mom and Dad lopped all these off!  SO MUCH cleaner!

You can see the house now!

The rest will be taken down with a chainsaw.  Easier to mow!

So she went right to work on the lopping of the branches.  I dragged the 16-foot panels down to the pasture to be erected for the fence, and Dad hauled the branches over to the burn pile which has now been going for four days straight.  Side note:  Those hog panels are HEAVY!!!  I tried to drag two over, and I felt the burn in my knees!  I quickly left one behind!

I LOVE the open view now!

Around 3:00 P.M., I had a gentleman show up to check out the small grain bin.  It's old, rusty, and really doesn't serve much purpose, so I just want it gone to clean up the farm a bit.  It looks like it's been there for 60 years at least.  But it just simply has no function.  And it's too rusty to do much with.  So I contacted a scrapper and said it's yours!  He said he would take the job but wouldn't get to it until next week.

It's kind of neat.  But it serves no purpose.  And it's rusted out on several panels.  It's just time to go.  I am keeping the wash bucket on top, though!!!

I sent some metal scrap with him from out of the barn to thank him for coming out.  I also offered him all of the very heavy iron in the southwest pasture.  I could probably get $30-40 for it, but it's just not worth the time and effort to haul it into town.  If I threw another guy on it, I could focus my energy elsewhere.

I gave this scrap metal to him for free.

I was eager to get that fence up, though!  I had calculated that I needed 8 T-posts and 8 panels.  All of that is very doable!  But the more I looked at the project, the more Dad recommended doing my dream right THE FIRST TIME.  Which means not just running a line of fence over from the west side to the barn, but rather, to extend the west fence down to the southern edge of my property, then cut east, then cut north.  This would require several more panels, and I might have to purchase 4-5 to make it happen, but it would prevent us from building fence twice.  It's a wise recommendation, but it may delay getting pigs.

What to do, what to do...

AND THEN...

"Riiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiing."  I pulled my phone out of my pocket.  It was Crew Scheduling.  You see, I am doing all of this work this week while being on-call!  I answered.  "How quick can you be at the airport"?  And just like that, I feverishly rushed around as I had to bolt.  We quickly emptied my truck of the brush, I took a few quick pictures, told my parents thanks, and then I headed for work.

I've had a few solid days of not being called in, so I can't complain too much.  The call came in at 3:16, and I was off the property around 3:25.

On the drive home to pick up my uniform, I made a phone call that I had been putting off for a couple of days.  You see, I type in "pigs" into craigslist every few days to keep an eye on feeder pigs, and that pulls up some interesting posts sometimes.  Well, one caught my eye either yesterday or two days ago.  But it was down towards St. Louis, and I didn't want to make a special trip just for it.

Well, now that I was heading to St. Louis...

I made the call.  "Hi, I was just seeing if you still had your livestock rack for sale."  "Yes, sir, I do."  "Ok, well, I won't be able to come check it out until Sunday afternoon when I get back from a trip.  But I will go ahead and drive my truck down just in case.  By all means, I understand that cash speaks, and if you can sell it before then, I respect you for doing so.  But if you still have it on Sunday, I will come take it off your hands."  "Well, I don't think it will sell before then, because I am out of town until Sunday myself."

And just like that, a plan was coming together.  You see, just two weeks ago, Dad and I had spent two days building our own livestock rack out of wood.  You might remember those posts.  It was pretty extensive work, and the racks turned out AWESOME.  But it wasn't lost on me that these racks were made exclusively for my pick-up.  If I purchased another one, then they would no longer fit.  So I had a goal of picking up a good set in the next five years if I could find one reasonably-priced.  The problem is that no one sells these things!  Most people use trailers...or have no need to own one at all!  These racks are a rare find in central Illinois.

So I figured I would put it on my 5-year wish list...if this endeavor was going to be long-term.

And then, BOOM, two weeks after we built ours, I see a set at a price that I couldn't refuse.  A few hundred dollars less than what I was probably willing to pay down the road.

And then another call came in.  "Hi, we are actually not going to need you tonight for the flight.  You don't have to come down tonight."  And with that, my evening opened up.  I contacted the owner of the livestock rack, asked if he would have anyone to meet me tonight, and he said no, but that I could leave the money outside his house if I could load it myself.  ha!

What could possibly be hard about loading this myself, right?!

Well, I enjoyed a nice drive into beautiful, VERY hilly country south of St. Louis.  And I came upon the livestock rack just laying out in this guy's yard on a very beautiful property at the top of a hill.  The hills all around were just riddled with new developments (an eyesore).  It makes me appreciate the country all the more.  This probably used to be a beautiful country property, but urban sprawl had taken over.

As far as lifting the livestock rack into my truck by myself at night?  Ummmm, about that.  Let's just say I got it...eventually.

But I LOVE the rack.  It's NOT AT ALL what I had planned.  It's NOT AT ALL what I was looking for.  It's not even the type that I need (it's HUGE and for cows, too!).  It's beyond overkill.  But what it does is open up opportunities.  I plan to possibly hang it from rafters in my machine shed for ease of backing up to it.  Maybe hang chains down from them?

But it's a beauty.  It has swinging gates on the back that swing both in and out.  It is TALL!  It has small gaps down low for pigs, big gaps up high for cows.  And it's made for an 8-foot truck bed.  It's kind of a perfect fit to a wish!  And what is more, it's colored to match Grandpa's old truck!  That was kind of a neat touch.  It's a nice maroon to go with the old legend.

Pigs, cows, sheep, goats, you name it!  A perfect fit...and color!

It's about twice the height that I need it!  But it should give me years of use!

It has a ton of wind resistance down the Interstate (did I say it's HUGE?!), but I won't be on the Interstates back home when I will be using it.  So a huge thanks to Pa for helping build the homemade wooden racks!  Maybe we should use them for the first grab of pigs?!  But when we haul the 250-pound porkers in, I think this is the way to go.

I might even be able to sell the homemade racks for close to what I have into this new rack.

Another successful day!  The barn is now safe.  It still needs some support structures installed to give it added rigidity, but at least a 2000-pound wood collapse won't happen on a niece or nephew.  The front yard is BEAUTIFUL and open to vast views of the open landscape.  And the piggies now have a long-term way home and out to market.

Baby steps!  But steps in the right direction!

Also in exciting news, spring is OFFICIALLY here!  My girls are producing!!!  I just can't wait to get them out to the new property.  They will be in heaven.

I picked 54 eggs today!