Posts Tagged backhoe

Building a Barn

Whew, it's been a while since I've updated, hasn't it? Well, I'll try to fill you in on what's been going on in this here post! :)

Dad started his vacation last week (He's off for the entire month of September!) and we have been busy working on building a goat / storage barn thing ever since. We're building it over behind Woofie's dog pen (currently inhabited by the goats), but before we could do that, we had to take half the fence down on the dog pen (putting up a temporary fence in the middle to separate it and to be able to keep the goats in the pen still) and dig out a stump that was in the way so we could start building!

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Dad bought an electric concrete mixer so we wouldn't have to mix all that concrete by hand (and let me tell you it makes it much easier!! And quicker!). After squaring everything up and all that, Levi and Dad dug the 6 holes that we needed to be able to put up the 6 posts (6×6's that were 16 feet tall!!), which we did yesterday, and also braced them all and poured the holes full of concrete!

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While the concrete was drying yesterday, Levi and I both got to write in the concrete! :D My 6 on the 16 didn't quite turn out like I wanted it too, lol! Writing in concrete is fun ~ and whatever you wrote will always be there later!

With all the braces on the posts, it makes it like a maze to get through! Especially when we were trying to weave the concrete mixer in and out, and also the wheel barrow full of 3 bags of concrete! Definitely a challenge not to hit the braces!

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I'll try to keep you updated on the progress of the building, maybe I can write up a post in the evenings here and there when I'm not too absolutely exhausted! :P Yesterday evening I felt like I was covered in concrete dust from all the concrete we were mixing up! LOL!

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June… already?

I can't hardly believe that it is already the beginning of June! Why, it seems like just last month was the beginning of the new year, and here we are already in the quite warm month of June. It is so true what James said in chapter 4 about our life!

For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.

For the last couple of days I've had what's known as "blogger's block" I wanted to write something on here, but I sure couldn't think of anything to write. :P It's annoying whenever that happens. So, anyone, feel free to give me any ideas you might have for something to post on in case I could use it for my next bout of Blogger's Block! :biggrin:

The system I have worked out with the animals is going pretty smoothly. I can't let either of the roosters out with the hens (excepting Jacob if we happen to go out to town or somewhere) because their backs are still healing from the rooster's sharp toenails. So during the day, Danny stays in the Dog Pen (usually with Jack) while Jacob spends his time either in the Rooster Pen, duck pen, or turkey building – I rotate him in different places… well, actually I rotate both of the roosters so they're not constantly in the same position every day.

And then Danny… I have to put him in the Rooster Cages (otherwise known as "Death Row") in the Rooster Pen at night because he won't leave the guineas alone. You know, he gets them down like a hen, only instead of grabbing neck feathers, he goes for their skin neck – since they don't have any feathers on their neck. :rolleyes: Crazy rooster!

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The raised beds, which, by the way, are flourishing nicely. We have cages around the tomatoe plants and string around the peas (and they're already latching on to the string!). The barn roof looks ten times better without the tarp draped over the side, though I am beginning to miss the friendly little squirrel who had it's nest under the tarp… when I was sitting up stairs I used to be able to hear it skitter across the roof to get to it's nest! :D

And, our newest "flower garden" which I have named "The Rock Garden" because of the very large and obvious rocks that we have lined the outside with. The hole was dug with the backhoe, and while digging we came across some very large rocks that were hidden under there, and the rest of the large rocks we retrieved from our old camping site out in the woods. Anyway, we planted a yellow and orange Lily in there, some purple Carnations and two Shasta Daisy's. :)

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Levi operating the backhoe (and he does a very good job at it, too!), the orange Lily, and Gabriel's new favorite shady resting place. Whenever you can't find the dog, just look down in the barnyard, and that's probably where he is. It's a good thing we didn't put all that fence around the barnyard in order to keep that dog out, because if we had, it wouldn't be working… he goes right under that chicken wire! :D

But he loves to be with his animals! I am so glad with the way he has turned out. I never thought I'd be able to trust him with the animals, especially by himself, but he doesn't hurt them and doesn't bother anything unless there's a fight going on that he breaks up. He's such a good farm dog!

Oh, and before I finish this up, I thought ya'll would enjoy seeing the new Scripture Tags I've made. Feel free to grab them and use them on your own blog, if you want. Preferably if you'd save them to your computer & upload them to your blog… but either way. :D

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A Good Day's Work

Today was such a beautiful day outside, except for the strong winds we were having, and I believe the temperature was up in the 60's though with all that wind it didn't quite feel like it! It was what I call "light-jacket" weather. :) This morning we put together a raised bed for our gardening purposes.

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It only took about 2 and a half hours or maybe a bit more to put it together, and it really looks good!! Then we lined the sides with black plastic so the wood wouldn't rot (I believe that's why we did it :P ), and later we filled it with dirt, or rather, mud. Well, it's mud at the moment, I'm sure it'll dry out sometime!

Meanwhile… … … I was taking pictures… like normal :D I took a lot of them, so I'll try to choose carefully which ones I want to post!

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It is so hard to get a good picture of a moving guinea… especially a head shot! I'm surprised that most of the ones I took turned out, but they did! :) Oh, by the way, the rooster is Jacob, the first guinea is Jesse, and the last one is Adam.

Counting all the pictures I took today, the total comes up to 188 (100 for the first set of pictures, 88 for the 2nd), so I'm having a bit of a hard time trying to figure out which ones to use! :)

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Then we started digging on the pond.. well, to be more specific, Levi started digging on the pond. :D The way we had it working was that Levi would scoop out a bucketful with the backhoe and drop it in the tractor's bucket (Dad was driving that) and then Dad would take his bucketful up to the raised bed and drop it in.

holding-crawlfishI was standing by the raised bed with Mom after Dad put some more mud in and I happened to notice this leg thingy sticking out of the mud.. I showed it to Mom and she (wearing gloves, of course) pulled the thing out. It was a crawlfish all balled up and it sure looked dead. I wanted to see whether it was alive or not, so I took it down to the water tank in the barnyard and washed it off and put it in a bowl of water.
Sure enough, it started to move around, so I ran up and got my camera! :) He was a rather shy little thing.. he didn't even try to use his pinchers on me!

I think our raised bed turned out nicely.. it certainly should make gardening more interesting! :D

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Gabriel's New House

I don't think I've mentioned the new dog box Dad's been making for Gabriel. Well, we got it finished yesterday, and we can't rightly call it a 'dog box' anymore. It's now being called the 'dog house' because it is sooo big! Gabriel really likes it, too. It would have worked great for a clubhouse if Levi and I had been smaller. :)

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Here was the frame of it. Dad and Levi had started building it the other day when it was raining, by putting it together in the building. But after it quit raining, they moved it outside where they could finish it.

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This shows it boxed in, and shows the rafters. The whole house is insulated, all the sides and the top. After building our building roof, this little tiny roof wasn't any trouble at all… LOL. Mom painted the house white, and I think finally got 3 coats on it before we moved it!

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This should give you an idea how big it is inside. Very roomy! :) It fits his big dog bed, me, Mom, Levi, and the dog with still lots of room to spare. (We tried it last night!!)

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Here's Gabriel, chewing on a scrap of wood. This picture turned out perfect, I love his playful looking puppy face! He was dragging the scraps around everywhere and chewing them. Then he went and laid down on top of our stack of plywood!!

moving

We had to move it with the backhoe, since it was so heavy there was no other way we could get it up to his pen. Once we got it on the backhoe forks, I had to watch the roof and make sure it didn't slide back against the forks and bend all the metal roofing up! It was a very slow process of getting it up to his pen, but we finally made it with the dog house completely intact.
Then we had to position it right before we could take it off the forks, and since we couldn't hardly move it except with the crowbar, we had to get it as close as possible to the fence and the other opening we had in the fence for the other dog box. Whew!

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Here's the dog house in place. You can see his other dog box off to the left. Look how tiny it is compared to his new one! :D

My brother, Levi, has started a blog and called it Diligently Seeking! He told me I shouldn't post about it since he only had one post up so far, but I figured I would go ahead and let y'all know about it anyway. Check it out and drop him a comment, if you want!! :)

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A busy day, and a new book!

Well, today has been pretty busy. Mom and I cleaned the house (well, the most part of it) while Dad and Levi went digging with the backhoe again, in the field this time.

Meanwhile, when Mom and I went outside to let Gabriel out for a while, we found out he likes water. :) This will be the first dog we've had the actually likes water, so we're going to have some fun.. LOL

He loves getting sprayed with the water hose. He barks his head off, but he's wagging his tail at the same time. I got him soaked down to the skin today, and he had a blast. It gave him more energy to run around and play, too.

And then, I got my new book that Mom ordered for me in the mail. It's called "Raising Maidens of Virtue: A Study of Feminine Loveliness for Mothers and Daughters" :D I've been waiting eagerly for it to get here, so I got to read bits and pieces of it today. It seems very good, and includes a lot of Scripture in it, as well as studies at the end of each chapter. I can't wait to really dive into it. :D I imagine it will be a long study, but a good one. I'm really excited that it finally came though!

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Digging Stumps

Mom and I were going to start working on my vest today, but instead we went outside and dug up the two big stumps in the backyard.


This is the big stump, and the hole it left..


Levi standing beside the stump he dug out.


Gabe being bored in his pen. :)


Levi operating the backhoe.

So yep, we had quite an interesting day. :) Then Dad came home early, helped fill in the big hole and went to digging out the big dirt pile in the front of the house, to move it to the old footers. I'll have to get some pictures of that for you too! The dirt pile is almost gone, using that backhoe. If we'd have tried to use the green tractor, it would've taken a very long time!

So, hopefully, we'll get to sewing tomorrow! :D

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