Shade!

I spent most of the morning refrigerator shopping for a rental property.  Ugh.  It's part of doing business, but those fridges are expensive!  After all is said and done, I will be out $2000 for a simple fridge replacement!  Mind-boggling.

My sister called this morning, and my nieces wanted to know if they could come out to the farm.  Yes, yes, absolutely...as soon as I get there!  Well, I didn't get there until noon due to the fridge shopping.

But we had one goal:  build a shade shelter for the pigs!

Currently, the ONLY shade that they have outside is from the automatic feeder and the automatic waterer, and it's kind of funny, but they use both!  With the very short waterer, the pigs actually fight over the shade sometimes!  They all want to be in it!

The pigs literally fight for that space on the right!  The only shade out in the pasture!

Sometimes there just isn't enough room!  Two are in the sun, three are in the shade!

We haven't had an overly unbearable hot day yet, but I know they are coming.  And I know the pigs will need that shade.

So the plan was simple:  find items already on the farm, and use them for the new shelter!  Yes, that's right, the sum total of the project was to be $0.  I am happy to report that we had a huge success with that!

For the roof, I took down fiberglass panels off of a lean-to structure on the east side of the machine shed.  They are ugly, don't match, and really provide nothing for the building outside of a wind-break and water-block.  But I never did care for them.  I wanted them gone from Day One.  So down they came.  For the screws, I re-used stainless steel screws I had removed from a wooden fence.  For the roof screws, I re-used the screws that held these fiberglass panels up.  And for the legs, I used wood taken down from a fence!  Seriously, this project cost $0 but will be super useful to the pigs!

The added fiberglass panels make this building so ugly.

You don't really realize just how big this building is until you see a human next to it!  It's SO tall!

Well, today was the day!  And after the panels were removed, I found a lovely frame that would be a perfect size for the shelter itself!  Even better!

The girls dismantled half of this frame so that we could use the rest!

The front frame was held on by a chain attached to the back.  Just crazy.

The chains stretched from front to back.

My nieces had shown up by now, and after visiting with the pigs, they were eager to help out.  I LOVE that these girls are all about helping.  The phones are gone, the media is gone, and it's just conversation and work.  Evie had a speech appointment today, so the two older nieces stayed behind to help.  And help they did!

Divas on a farm!

Both learned how to use a power tool.  They used the impact drill, the regular drill, and even backed out stripped screws with Vise-grip pliers.  They then volunteered to carry the fiberglass panels clear across the property and did a perfect job with that!  They then helped carry the very heavy frame across the property.  They were all about this project!

Kiayla using Vise-grip pliers to remove a stripped screw.

The girls carried four of these fiberglass panels across the property.

Micaiah taking a break and giving her sister a chance.  Mic had just removed screws with an impact drill.

I plan to eventually remove the other half, too.  The lean-to just looks better without them.

It was a good old-fashioned family work day.  And the weather was perfect, although this afternoon the winds were atrocious!  Steady winds around 25-30 MPH!

Life is good.

But the shelter started taking shape.

And at the end of the afternoon, the girls had a beautiful hog shelter that provided PLENTY of shade for the pigs.  I think it's going to be a ton of use.  The pigs have only lightly checked it out so far, but there is no doubt in my mind that this is going to be the sleeping area outside.  Even for us, once you went underneath it, the wind stopped, and the temperature changed quite a bit!  I mean, those winds were crazy today!  Just getting out of them changed so much!

The finished shade shelter!  The girls did a great job!  And look at all of that shade!  Total cost was $0.

First we tried it out.  Perfect shade!

The pigs had to come over to see what we just built.  The left one is already starting to lay down.

That was the project for the day!  So I was happy to call it a day after that.  We were wind-beaten, and we got done what we set out to get done.

All in all, a good day.  Kiayla was able to visit with her Kiayla, and the girls were able to get a fun day on the farm.  Ganon chased (and caught) the chickens, the girls played with pregnant Callie, Micaiah chased pigs around the pasture (literally like tag), and Evie got her pants covered in mud and snout yuckiness (much to her dismay).

Kiayla and Kiayla!  Her little runt is growing!

The girls being silly and eating with the pigs.

Ganon leading the pack.  He chased down animals (and ate poop) all day.

This is what a farm is all about!