My plan anymore is to spend as much time out at the farmstead as possible. Today's goal was simple: clean out the house of the demoed material, and burn the mess!
But not before a quick purchase of three burn barrels. I grabbed 'em for $10 apiece. That's my new "garbage man." I wanted to pick them up before burning to possibly do most of it inside the barrel.
Dad was meeting me out at the house this morning. Well, when I pulled up and walked up, I couldn't believe my eyes!!! I was staring at a MASSIVE pile of material OUT IN MY YARD ALREADY!!! WHAT?! How is this even possible?!
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| What I walked up to this morning. |
Dad said, "Your family is quite the help."
WHAT?!
It turns out that yesterday my extended family was in town and wanted to see the house. Well, once there, they said, "What can we do to help"? And with that, "all hands on deck" went to work. I literally had help from a six-year-old all the way up through my 80-year-old grandma! My aunt, uncle, aunt, uncle, grandma, mom, dad, sister-in-law, and nephew all pitched in!
And get this: It still took FOUR HOURS even with all of these hands to clean out the house of the demoed material!!! I can't even imagine how long that would've taken me alone...or with Dad. Unbelievable.
It's such a blessing to have the support and love of family behind me. I mean, they have nothing to gain from helping, yet they WANT to. They support me so much! They support this new endeavor so much!
What a tremendous blessing!!! And surprise! They left it all as a surprise for me to find this morning!!!
"You better take a look inside, too," said Dad.
Oh, what could it be?!
And as I walked in, it quickly became apparent exactly what had happened. Not only had my family helped clean out the demoed materials, but they also demoed themselves!!! The rest of the paneling in the house was removed. The kitchen had all of the paneling removed, as well as the upstairs bedroom that had both the drop ceiling and paneling. And they had hauled all of this out of the house, too!!!
Unbelievable!
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| The family brought all of this out as a surprise for me! |
I literally gained a couple of days from their help. I was caught off guard, too! I had planned on another gutting day, and now I didn't know what to do for today's project!
Well, the first thing to do was get rid of all of the materials outside. We had absolutely PERFECT burning weather. So I lit a fire and watched the 1970's paneling go up in smoke.
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| Starting to burn the big pile of mess. |
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| The fire was a beauty to behold! |
Dad then suggested that we work on the fence for the piggies. The weather was nearly perfect (a bit chilly) for working outside. This was a surprise, too, as the fence hasn't really been the priority. I need to get that house livable so that I can move in! But with the progress made from the family yesterday, we could now focus on a "desire" project. A "fun" project.
So why not do the fence and get some little pigs?
The plan/problem was simple: the fence had been raised up by the previous owner, likely in order to weed-whack underneath of it easily. So the problem is that the fence was 8-10 inches above the ground, enough for a small pig to get underneath. We literally had to re-fence the entire pasture (by dropping the fence down).
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| The very big fence problem. The fence is 10 inches above the ground. |
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| It's a great fence but just too high off the ground! |
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| The elevated fence. |
So that is what Dad and I did today. We loosened the wires on the fence, dropped it to the ground, and re-secured it with existing or new wires. It wasn't terribly hard work, but it took some time! We started on the northeast corner and worked our way south. Untwist one, two, three strands of baling wire, drop fence down, twist one, two, three strands of baling wire. Just time-consuming. But we worked steadily.
After we completed that east side, we decided we still had some daylight, so we tackled the north fence, too! It's all gotta be done, so we might as well do what we can when we can!
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| The fence is now pig-proof! Hopefully! |
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| Hopefully hog-proof! |
Occasionally we would take "work breaks" and start something else. (This is basically when you are just mentally done fencing for awhile and need to wander around and talk about something else). At one point in our study of the land, we found a cable that came down to the fence from the barn. The cable attached to an insulator on the fence, showing that it was used for the electric fence we saw remnants of all around the pasture. Well, we tracked the outdoor wire down to the breaker box inside the barn, and it looked like the previous owner actually used AC current to wire the fence! Surely not! So that distracted us a bit. This was a huge safety issue, so while Dad tackled that electric problem, I started to clean out the very messy stalls.
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| Dad working on the electrical while my new cat walks the hayloft. Perfection? |
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| The electrical set-up in the barn. Not pretty...but functional. |
The stalls were just full of junk. Over time they had become "catch-alls" for anything and everything. One stall had wood pieces that had fallen down from overhead. Another had various metal pieces intertwined in the dirt. That same stall had a huge mound of dirt that I can't figure out how it got there. But the pigs could easily come inside and walk up the mound and over the wall and get out. So that huge pile of dirt has to be spread out...but not before all kinds of items were pulled out of it. The third stall has all kinds of rotten hay sitting on top of rotten pallets.
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| The mound of dirt in stall two. A pig can climb up and jump over the fence! |
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| The barn stalls are just a mess of anything and everything. Notice the second stall and the slanted piece of wood. That slant follows the large pile of dirt. |
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| The mess in the first stall...fencing, rotten hay on top of rotten pallets. |
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| The mess in the third stall...wood that has fallen down from a collapsed beam overhead. |
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| The stalls all clean and ready for piggies! Being clean, this barn actually seems HUGE! Plenty of space! |
I also decided to child-proof the barn. Currently, there is a TON (probably literally) of old barnwood stacked on top of the horizontal beams in the barn. Some of it has collapsed and fallen into one stall. In another portion, it just hangs there with well over 1000 pounds of weight. I didn't like the idea of a barn collapse on a niece, nephew, myself, others, or a pig, so I decided to get the extensive weight out of the rafters.
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| While the barn is an awesome tool, it's going to need some attention. Notice the middle piece of wood. Actually, notice how there is NOT a middle piece of wood. The 4 x 4 post has been totally eaten away by termites. Obviously a new piece needs installed for structural issues. I found a couple of places that need "shored up" to keep the barn intact. But otherwise it's a great tool to have! |
The neat thing is that the wood is just neat. Some of this wood is so old it's hand-hewn. Others are hewn with a saw, but a primitive saw factory, and you can see the circular marks of the saw. The most intriguing boards were 20 feet long 2 x 6's that are tongue-and-groove. I can't even imagine what these would be used for. Surely this wouldn't be the exterior sheathing of my house?! I mean, these boards are HUGE...and incredibly heavy.
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| Pulling all of the old pieces out of wood out of the various stalls. The stalls were just full! |
I found a neat old slab piece of wood, too, complete with the bark. The barn stalls also gave up a couple of neat stories from years gone by. I found an oxen yoke (how old could this be?!), a couple of homemade milking stools, and a few homemade pig feeders. I even found a very useful handmade trough that I will definitely use for slop for the pigs!
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| Check out this sweet hog trough feeder! |
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| I found three homemade feeders buried in the dirt of stall two. |
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| Stacking the large and long pieces of wood up in the open area of the barn. I'm not sure where I am going to store all of this wood. I may just sell most of it! These are NICE pieces! |
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| So I might have a few "airy" cracks...the sun setting exposed all! |
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| That second piece is a natural slab of wood complete with bark. This would be so neat for a coffee table! |
After our little "work break" inside the barn, we went back to working on the fence. We were able to get both the north side and east side completely done. That's a huge step in the right direction! So in order to get pigs, we'll have to complete the west side of fence (dropping it down), build a fence from the west side over to the barn (it's currently cattle gates), clean up the barn some more, put the feeders into the pasture, and build a couple of waterers! It's still a lot of work, but it might be doable in less than two weeks?!
Dad says it's time to get pigs in the pasture! ha!
Speaking of pasture, this afternoon, I set fire to the pasture. Dad and I both had the same idea. The pasture was just messy. And the weather was perfect. So I lit a bunch of fires all over and let the fire do the rest. It was all over in less than 20 minutes. And, oh, how green this will be in just a couple of weeks! It cleared the thick old grass right up.
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| The easiest way to clean up pasture. |
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| Burning the very messy southwest portion of pasture. This was the dumping grounds. |
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| Finding junk in the pasture. |
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| Cleaning up this area would give me so much more pasture! But it's an absolute mess right now. |
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| The fire was out in less than 20 minutes. |
I burned the southwest side of the property, too, and found out what a mess I have there. This was a dumping grounds for the farm. I found an old metal trailer, huge old concrete steps, lots of old concrete pieces, huge field stones, and rusty metal bars. It's a mess. It just needs cleaned up with a front-loader and hauled off. But, of course, that sounds expensive. This is a very wet area of the pasture, and I would love to use it as a wallowing area for the pigs, but it's just a mess as it is. Everything needs cleaned up!
We worked the entire day, right up until sunset. And what a BEAUTIFUL location to watch sunsets. I mean, the entire time working today, you just realized what a great location this home is in. It's soooooooo peaceful out here. From the moment I walked up this morning, I could hear the cardinals getting excited for spring. They were happily singing. And in a goofy realization, I noticed that I am right underneath a "highway in the sky" for airlines. All day long, you could turn your head up and watch planes go from wherever they came from to wherever they're going. It's pretty neat. Right above my house! Needless to say, I turned my head up a LOT!
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| I burned a lot of wood from the barn today. Several pieces were rotten or chewed up by termites. So to the flames they went. Here is our pile after the day of burning...8 hours of fire by this point! |
All in all, a very successful day. The pasture is coming together. The list is still long for the pigs, but it's so much shorter now!
1. Drop west fence.
2. Build south fence.
3. Bring out feeders and place in pasture.
4. Build waterers.
5. Clean barn.
6. Get piggies!
7. Enjoy sunsets watching piggies.
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| This picture says it all. What a great location. |
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