West wall and doors The greenhouse build continues. We have made some serious progress since our last post. We have created a door of windows and a door of door. We wanted a way to get the bulk water tanks in and out as well as a way to have tractor bucket access when we need to clean out or add soil, etc. I imagined two swinging barn doors that followed the roof angle. I also needed a regular entry door on this side of the greenhouse as the opposite side will be fenced in. This is the southwest wall, so blocking the sun is a terrible concern. We needed access for the tractor and we also needed a wall of windows to let the light in. I believe in the end we have designed something unique and functional. I must admit that I am not in love with the window up top on an angle, but it fit so well on the table I felt compelled. I suppose it will remain assuming there are no major leaks around it. Side doors open giving us an 8 foot openning which will allow for the moving of dirt and water tanks. Below We have a side by side photo of the West wall before and after. The first photo is the west wall from the outside when we were initially building. Given I planned to do windows later in the project, we needed a support wall to get both sections of roof built. The right side is this West wall rebuilt with a window. Two of the rafters were moved to the outside and run the entire height to support the wall ends. The center two were cut out and put aside. The window was framed, then the carrier beams were set atop to measure the space above. We cut the old rafters down and toenailed them into place. I snapped the picture and then left for the overnight shift. Sarah has since covered the top half of the west wall with roofing plastic. I was initially planning another window above this one, but Sarah was concerned with the extra framing blocking out even more winter sun, so we opted to simply place the studs and cover in plastic. As we looked at the design of the window-door, I was concerned about the first foot of the side wall. The front pony wall is four feet. With the far end of the door reaching a height of 8 feet, I had some concern about having enough hinges spaced out correctly. we moved the door out enough to add the window in the above picture. The hole under it will eventually have the gutter collection pipe and garden/animal water lines. Moving the door 18 inches to the left gave the right side of the door an additional foot and one more hinge. Sarah has also begun the window trim. Next post should have trim and siding. We are excited to get this build completed prior to frost setting in. Exciting stages to be completed: Trim outside of windows and doors. Build the back door possibly a french door, one big door, or a sliding barn door...tbd. Add snow load straps to back wall 2x4's that run horizontally accross the legnth of the back wall to keep studs from bowing due to heavy snow. wood side the exterior back Front steps for west door. Probably rocks Insulate roof line roofing windows doors cover interior walls with plastic sheeting Build platform for heatsink barrels 8-12, 55-gal black drums will be filled with water and stacked two or three high to cover the back wall Move the IBC totes inside and build a frame to support two stacked containers. Pipe the gutters into the totes Cut front rafters down to accept gutter Mount gutter and downspout Run waterlines out to paddock water troughs. Cut chimney pipe hole Build 55 gallon barrel stove and run chimney pipe out back wall or through roof Install vent fan Wire in a few outlets and lights Cut hole for wind turbine mounting pipe Install wind turbine and all its components turbine control board inverter batteries/charge control As you can see, we are almost done. Just a small list of incidental missions to complete. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, once the greenhouse is complete, we will begin an 8x10 shed on the back with a walkway. I believe I have explained in a previous post that the turbine components will be mounted in the hallway to protect them from the high moisture levels in the greenhouse and fish shed.

Homemade oil drum BBQ Welcome back to the Farm Life Farm Blog. It has been a while. Well I did just publish a greenhouse post, but prior to that I took a month-long hyatis. From the blog, not from the work. I have a friend and she has two boys; well men now. Ten years ago, her eldest took a welding class. We see our children grow and know that it will be hard to find quality time as they develop their independance. You cannot read your 19 year old son a bed time story. So she happened across half an oil tank, found a way to get it in an SUV, and brought it home so they could build a grill together. As the years past, it became more of a family joke than project. They could not devise a lid or find time to get together and work on it. Then one day she asked me if I had a welder and could help get the project done. We set a date and got together. I must admit that I have no technical training and did not aprentice or go to trade school. I have just tried things and read a lot. Youtube has helped a bit too. Her eldest son is an engineer. As we began the grill project, the eldest was writing things down and measuring other things and asking me technical questions. Unfortunately my answers remained a constant, "I dunno, we will see what works", which was met with mild consternation. I might have made it 20 minutes before asking, "are you an engineer?" I slowly backed away and took care of ancillary duties like cutting and grinding to get the pieces ready for welding. The brothers tackled the actual welding and designing. About 6 hours in, the boys were frustrated and I was tired. The welder overheated and we called it a day. I left all the gear there and they attacked it again a few days later. They had the back and sides on the day I was there and focused on the lid. Aparently they had a good day until they thought it was done: the lid did not close correctly. It was later relayed to me that the engineer commented that there might be legitamicy to the way I work. My next free day I returned and showed the younger son what they had done wrong and we got everything lined up nice and secured all the pieces with welds. What were we working with? A 40 year old Lincoln Mig Weld-pac 120v Half an oil tank Two 55 gallon maple syrup drums One tailgate from an 2004ish Chevy truck Inside the box I had cut the grate from a rock sorting machine to hold the charcoal or wood with two levels in there to choose how close to your food the heat is. We cut 2 inch flat steel to support the grill grates whch are stainless steel fish net. The flat top is a great addition. We added enough supports that all the grates and the flattop can be moved around based on heat or convenience. The lid handle is a piece of Maple tree that had a perfect natural curve.Sanding and painting has happened since I have been there. The vision has been realized and the family is happy with the results and mom is slowly seasoning the new paint with small fires in the grill.

Nothing exciting to report. Sarah remains at Scout camp. Phoebe and Harper are there with her. I continue through my busy work summer, and Colt is home caring for the farm.

2002 Gator 6x4 Gas It does not look like much, but it she is a beast! Three years ago, Sarah's father showed up with a wheeled horse ride on lawnmower and this gator. They came from the Abby where he has served as their mechanic for the last 45 years. At the time, we were not in a good place. We had recently moved to the farm but still owned our house and were desperate for a sale to happen. I had recently been relieved of the misery I called a career at Trinity EMS. Sarah had more recently walked off the job at Trinity. Living off savings and cashed-in retirement plans, two more projects were not needed, wanted, or tolerable. We had also recently been refused by dad when we asked for money. Now I was resentful that not only could he not help with our mortgage, he was bringing me other peoples problems. I only mention this to explain the next sentence: The two items would sit on the side of the drive for a year while I resented their presence. (that would not have made any sense without the preceding paragraph) With time, I did begin to imagine how useful the gator would be and finally asked dad to get it running or at least guide me on what needs to be done. Let me throw in that over the twenty years the abby had it, he continually cut out "unnecessary" components that were causing electrical issues. He did find time to help on a day we were knee deep in another project. He did get it running and then informed me that it runs fine. The issue is the batery will not stay charged and then stormed off. The next day it would not start of course, but I now had it in my mind to be grateful for the gift and get the damn thing in service or get rid of it. I started with the basic tune up, a new battery, and fresh fuel. I cleaned the grime off and lubed every nipple, adjusted the drive chains and belts. That was it. We began driving it and hauling muck and dirt and rocks and firewood and tools for projects and drove to the bus stop and so on. The only issue was that nobody drove it often enough to keep the battery charged. He had convinced them that there was a catastrophic electrical problem so he would not have to continually maintain this old machine. Firetrucks are kept in service 20-30yrs. A gator should not be in service longer. I did the absolute least amount of maintenance possible. Annual oil changes and semi-annual air filter cleaning. One day I turned the key and it made a weird noise. A gear in the engine stripped. The engine was dead, no compression, no nothing but a spinning sound when you turned the key. After a year and a half of using this thing daily, it became a necessity. I had spent a few weeks of diagnosing and trying different things, not wanting to admit the blown engine. I finally pulled out the compression tester and found not enough in cylinder 1. This led me to the long search for a replacement. Let me tell you almost nothing is made the way it used to be. The gator was designed to handle more than anything in its class of mini truck. Golf carts looked the same but would be crushed by the weight the gator 6x4 can carry. The Club car would be buried and stuck in the mud and terrain the 6x4 can traverse. Everything that is currently produced that meet the same weight abilities, like the Toro Workman or the Bobcat Utility Vehicle start at $20,000.00. That is a lot of zeros. With maintenance, that works out to $1200ish a year for 20 years. There is myriad additional reasons why new is not better. Computer controls is the biggest one. I found only a handful of 6x4's nationwide and all were more than a 6 hour drive. Those that did not run were all around $5k. If it ran, they were $8-15k. None of which was feasible at the time. Then the dream. The ultimate in off road capability. The most payload carrying and the most wheels. A full roll bar/brush guard/wall-knocker-downer. The Military John Deer Gator 6x4 diesel. For only $12, 500, I'd consider it a deal at twice the price. Still at half the price, I could not afford it. Also, there appears to be only one guy in CA that gets them from the military to resell. The only option remaining was to rebuild the engine we had. I did also look at rebuilt engines that were $2500 plus a $1k core deposit. We could send our engine in and have it rebuilt which would have eliminated the core charge but increased the turn around time by triple. The final option was to find someone local to rebuild it. That is what I did for $2k. Lucky Red's Mobile Mechanic is a young man now in Simsbury. He fled CA and somehow ended up in CT. Not the first time I have seen this. I suppose going any further would be detrimental to one's overall health. Well he was willing and able to rebuild the engine. A couple weeks later it was done. Back in service. This gator came with the full cab, doors, cabin heater, and windshield wiper. 25 years later, the doors are gone, Dad had bypassed the cabin heater, and most of the cab mounting brackets had rotted. After we got it, Phoebe had crashed and knocked the front windshield out which I replaced "temporarily" with a sheet of plexiglass. The brake foot pedal cable snapped and I removed the hood to attempt repair...we use the parking brake handle to this very day. The hood went on and off over the course of several months and eventually broke. Least of my concerns. The bed had also rotted over the last few years. Now that the machine was running, I figured it was time to reattach the cab to the gator. About a week earlier, Red had used our welder to fix Nana's truck bumper. I had been terrified of this machine. I thought it was 240v and had no idea how to weld. One of the things I had asked Red to repair was the fender on our 12 foot trailer. Having watched him weld the truck and how to set our little welder, and a few youtube welding videos later, I felt capable to do the welding. I also was realizing I did not have the money to pay for his services so I was going to have to weld the fenders. Prepping Trailer for new fenders From what I have learned, clean surfaces are the most important step. Everything was rotty and rusty. You can see the wire cone on the angle grinder. I used this the most but did need to use a cutting wheel to cut off the rotten edges and the grinding wheel for the really rusty spots. The next step is to clamp everything together which I did not do. Holding the fender in place does not guarantee a close fit. It also leads to fingers getting burned which is not an enjoyable experience. I do wish I had taken more pictures during the process; before I painted them. I would like to showcase how terrible my welds look. They hold, but not pretty at all. Still it holds and did boost my confidence. Many people that know me might claim additional confidence is completely unnecessary...possibly detrimental to the world's safety. Given I am now a master welder, tackling the gator cab would be easy. It actually was not all that hard however time consuming. The cab connected at 6 points. Arrows show where cab connects to Gator In the picture, I added arrows showing where the cab originally connected. Brackets were welded to the gator frame and the cab bolted onto the brackets. There are two additional attachment points under the windshield which screwed through the dashboard. As I type and think, I realize that I never really looked at the rear attachment points. There might be more work to do. The two brackets under the windshield are in tact but the screws have rattled out from the dancing the disconnected cab had been doing over the previous several months. Meanwhile the connections at the footwell and in the corners above the dash were completely gone. I wanted to keep the corner attachments as far to the outside as possible. Some day I will get better at taking pictures for the blog. The original corner points were on the inside and connected to a bracket welded onto the outside of the frame I have the arrow connotating. The best spot I could find was the outside right where the arrow is pointing. It did sadden me to grind off original paint that was actually in tact. Just below to the left is a close up of the weld and piece of angle iron I used. Again, sorry I did not get a picture prior to painting. Still you can see that the weld is not terrible and it deffinately holds. I did this on both sides. In an effort to keep the work from rusting, I did spray everything right away with primer. Next was the footwell mounting points. I had some 1.5in slotted angle iron that would reach, so I cut two lengths of the metal to weld onto the footwell and then welded the cab corner to the new bracket. The driver side worked but the right side rattled free. Given there were holes in both, I threw a bolt in it and called it a day. There really wasn't enough metal on the cab corner to weld to. It was actually just burning through, hence the hole. The Picture below is of the right side before it broke free. The weld held for a couple days, but when it gave way, it was apparent that there was not enough metal. The welding was done during the engine break in period, which was explained to Harper whom took it on as her personal mission to get the gator through the break in period. She did not quite understand the decimal point in the engine hour counter and thought she had achieved mission success at 50.3 instead of 53.0. Only one or two full throttle rides before I caught her error. Anyway, she achieved her goal and had shifted from mission-oriented plan-of-action to Joyriding. She had made several trips up and down the driveway when it stopped. Harper ran the gator dry. After screaming at her for not checking the machine before she went joy driving, I made her find gas, carry it down, and fill the gator up. It then ran like crap and was bogging down and shutting off. after a hole lot of diagnosing and trying, I finally came to the realization that the fuel pump was probably cooked. Most likely, after 25 years, running dry was the final nail. Replacement china made pumps were $21-$57 on ebay and amazon with a 2-3 day delivery time. Unfortunately for our checkbook, I really needed to know if this was the issue. After so much time and money to get it motoring again, I really did not want to deal with some new major issue. Time was pressing and driving all the way to Torrington was not enticing. I bit the bullet and went to Litchfield NAPA. They had a universal pump for $115.00 and 3/8 low pressure fuel line for $8.50/foot They did not have any low pressure 5/16. So it was 3 feet of injection hose for $16/foot. So $125 later, I had what I needed to get it going. I replaced all the fuel lines from the tank to the carb. The old line was terrible; all dry rotted. There is a chance that it had hairline cracks and was sucking air into the fuel system. The new pump matched the mounting holes from the old and I replaced all the spring clamps with worm drive hose clamps. After getting the two auxiliary fuel filters filled with fuel, it ran well. I let it idle till it was hot, drove it around with some bogging, shut it down for five minutes, fired it up and drove around another five minutes with a bit of bogging but no shut down. I asked Colt to drive it today and report back to me how it is doing...I hope for a positive review.

Colt Having children is like shooting craps. So much of it is pure chance. Will they turn into useful, respectable humans? Will they be total shit bags or druggies? We don't know looking forward. There may be signs, but you cannot know for sure until you know for sure. This summer has turned into a lonely one. Sarah has taken on a role at the Scout Camp Workoeman. With all three kids active in scouts, we had to find a way to pay their way through all the summer camps and merit badge days. We simply cannot afford to pay for it with money. The camp needed a health director and Sarah stepped up to take on the arduous job. Working at the camp allows all three kids to attend all the camps they want and she also receives a small stipend. Having taken over, she gutted their health lodge and turned it into an actual health lodge complete with exam chairs and hospital beds. The one thing she could not fully get a handle on is other healthcare professionals to share in the actual on duty work. With little help, she has committed to staffing the health lodge herself. This has pulled her away from the farm entirely. Though I type "we" in the greenhouse posts, it is really me. Other maintenance duties have fallen on me as well as housework and food prep. All while working actual full time hours. I am not complaining; merely explaining. Sarah is doing a great thing for our children and the thousands of kids that attend the camp. I fully supported her commitment when it was presented in the early spring, and I remain fully behind it, however, I am tired and soar. Meanwhile, these first few weeks, Colt has been home. Though he does not get everything right or choose the most efficient methods for completing the task, he gets things done. He does not complain at all about having to help, and I can count on him. Yesterday, Colt handled all the chores so I could do oil changes on the gator and Tacoma. Of course there were complications and the gator turned into a much bigger job. Still, Colt did the garden, the horses, all the other animals, and helped his sister with some stuff. I really am impressed with how hard working Colt is. On the topic of the Gator, hopefully Colt will find it runs well. He is actually home alone today. This is such a rare thing...Nana went on a vacation.

Back Door Framing Yesterday, I had a few hours to work on the greenhouse. I focused on the back door hole framing. This will be a wood door seperating the greenhouse from the fish shed. There will be a hallway running along the back wall going to the shed. So walk out the back door, hard left turn, 3-5ft of hallway openning to the fish shed. I intend to build the west side wall and then start the framing for the shed. We will get there. That giant openning had to get smaller. Not only because I did not want to do french doors, but to support the back wall. That space is three studs worth of support. I had added two 2x10's as the initial carrier beam. That still left the space over 8 feet tall and we do not need a door that big. Also, the more carrier beam, the more solid a structure we will have. Thinking about the door we are going to make, I imagined a standard door that swings into the hallway to the east. Right hand pushes door open and then you turn left. Now, as I type, I wonder if a sliding barn door would be a better option. Maybe I will build the walkway and shed frame before the door. I did consider a french door, keeping the doorway wide, but then we would need to either fold the left door flat against the wall so we can walk by. This is possible but wont be perfect. In the end, I framed the doorway to accept a door that would fit the width of the hallway. Now the more I consider this, I think a sliding barn style door will work the best. The doorway is now 38 inches wide and 6ft 6inches tall. The point of the hallway is not just to walk to the shed. I intend to mount all the wind turbine equipment in the hallway. The electronics will not do well in a hot, moist environment. Once we do get fish, the shed will be cool, but also be a high moisture environment. With a door at each end of the hallway, and well insulated with foam, it should stay cool and dry. We will leave the doors open during the coldest parts of the winter to ensure nothing freezes. The wood for the carrier and jack beams are white oak. I did not intend to use such a hard wood for this, however the log on top of all the pine with the punky side up was not pine, but it was easy to grab with the forks. I suppose extra strength is not a bad thing. Being oak, I had to predrill every hole. That was tiring but rewarding. With the additional shoring, the last bit of wiggle in the back wall is gone. It is probably going to be a while until I get back to the greenhouse. On ambulance duty today, teaching tomorrow through Friday, helping a friend build a bbq grill on Saturday, and a safesitter class on Sunday. Monday Scrap-Metal-Frank asked that I bring our tractor to his house and level out wood chip piles. Tuesday I am on ambulance duty again and then teach wed-friday. Long story short, its gonna be a while.

East side wall, doorway platform, and stairs I have never made stairs before. Phoebe hadn't either. Together we got them done. Sturdy and almost level. the step height is a bit narrow for my liking, but they do work and have even spacing. It is a nice flow going from the door, turning, and decending the stairs. We had a stack of planks out back. I cut them for the barn I thought we were building first. Going back to the mill, as I looked for a good log, I noticed the stack of planks, loaded the forks. Strong Oak planks should outlast the white pine frame. We also had to figure out which windows would fit. The window on the far right is one of the leftovers from the front wall. I do have a slight concern about mounting a vertical window horizontally, however this is our build, it will be a super moist environment, and a bit of leakage is probably going to be ok. If we find it is leaking into the sash in the future, we will remove it and find a better option. At this time, it was the only window that would fit in the space and it looks good so, fingers crossed. The framing process for the windows was a repeat of the front wall. We do not need as much support framing on the side walls as they are not weight bearing. Sure the side wall framing will help tie the front and rear together and add overall structural support, still they are not carrying the weight of the roof like the front wall is. The next step will be back to the mill. I am teaching a CPR class as I type. I have really begun to like the videos...I did use the last of our 2x6's yesterday framing the windows. On the left side of the above picture, you can see the back section of the side wall (far left). We do have two 65 in tall windows that I intend to add to the tall wall. Given that that is a load bearing wall, a great deal of framing will be required. We have a couple of big white pines out back that will be the next batch of 2x6 for the east wall, 2x4's for the west wall, and 1 inch thick planks for the siding and trim. Given we will be making two large doors that swing out on the west side, I will be using 2x4 to reduce overall weight. I am imagining each door will be 4 feet wide and 5 feet tall. The left door will have a walk through door in it. I am excited to create the west wall doors. I can see the end of this project. Yesterday Sarah commented how it is really coming together. How she can see the finished product, and put herself in there, picking oranges while the snow is flying sideways. Our next post will hopefully show the beginning of the tractor door we will be building into the west wall.

Welcome back to the Farm Life Farm Blog. As we continue to work on the greenhouse with every free moment, the progress is apparent. I cannot believe how long its been since I worked on a post. The persistent problem remains to be energy. At the end of a workday, whether teaching or building, I don't have the energy to type. Front face has windows...yes they open from the outside The last post ended with the completion of the flat roof deck. We have since covered it with corregated metal roofing and flashing on the facia. Closeup of the flashing does not look great, but the wrinkles make it pop from a distance, especially early in the summer morning sun. This was a fairly easy part of the build. I must admit that the slight pitch did mess with my balance of the hours I was up there. Prior to the flashing, we installed wall connector flashing for the polycarbonate roofing. I have included an image below right, but it is a clear plastic thing so it does not look like much. I also tried having AI darken the image but what it created looked much like a fleshlight and ...anyway. So this is a 4 foot long piece. The back edge is a lip that I screwed into the facia board. The front edge is a 6 inch wide strip of the corrugated roofing. The roofing panels then sit on under the 6 in strip ensuring water keeps running away from the facia. we then used a single sheet of flashing, under the flat roof metal and over the wall connector flashing. This is a stage you want to take a moment and plan. every piece of the roof has to lock into the next piece and ensure that water will flow, while also ensuring that wind cannot blow the rain and snow back into the roof structure. Get the roof wrong now, and you will be fixing leaks forever. All the roofing was a four day process for us. At the end, we are pleased with the roof and think it looks pretty good, just uneven enough for Sarah and I to like it, but not so far off that it looks like it will collapse. If you remember our sawmill shelter; we built that to appear it is falling over. Sarah went to camp while I began the front windows. Probably best as this was a trial and Windows in place before leveling. error to find what would fit equally. It is certainly an idiosynctoy, but things need to be equal bilatteraly but not level or plum. The four outside windows are all the same and I did have two others I intended to add to this wall. It dawned on me as I began the windows, that the support structure for the windows was gonna take more space and wood than I expected. window framing close-up Window Framing Image The header and Sill plate were an issue as I would have liked a 10 inch header, however there was not enough room. Had I really known what I was doing, I would have measured the windows first and built the front wall one foot taller to allow for more support wood, however, the 6in header is sufficient to carry the load. The King studs and Jack studs were a bigger issue for me. As you can see in the framing image below, each window requires a king stud to carrier the roof weight and two jack studs to support the header. Therefore, every two windows has eight inches of solid wood between them. That is a total of 40 inches of sun-blocking wood over the 15 feet of front wall. During the winter, the first three hours of sunlight will be shining though these windows. Time will tell how detrimental this wood will be. I do admit, that less sunlight will be better than a building collapse. I was going to use a fifth of theses windows, but I could not get it to fit evenly without ripping boards down, which would have been an additional couple inches of wood. The center window is 3 and a half inches wider than the other four and fit beautifully. The east wall is our next mission. The west wall will have a double door so we can get the water tanks and the tractor bucket in in the future. We will also be adding a walk-through door into the "tractor doors". That is gonna be a challenge, so I am starting with the east wall and the walkway inside. Quite frankly, I am tired with climbing in and out and thought stairs would be nice. Pony Support Wall I began with the Pony wall that runs the span and is as tall as the roofing is, about 20 inches. I did the pony wall in two sections for my own convenience and due to the length of 2x6's I had. They were about four inches too short even after cutting them. The door was my next challenge. I needed the pony wall to be able to figure out where the door would fit. This is the only place along the wall the doors I have . would fit. This one is a storm door. I will install the glass once I am fairly certain I wont break it bringing wood in and out. Once the door was framed and swinging free, I started on the platform/walkway. You can clearly see the framing for the doorway platform in the image to the right. I started with that and then added a support board from the back doorway to the east door platform. With the platform being 30 inches long and the back doorway being 46 inches, this support board angles in toward the platform. Each floor joist is cut on the angle and will sit on top of the support boards. The walkway is also set about 6 inches lower than the east platform. The stairs will extend from the Walkway and Platform Framing. walkway where it meets the platform. We will then walk in the door, turn hard right, step onto the walkway, hard left onto the stairs. This is as far as we have gotten and are quite pleased with our progress. The platform will start our next post.

Our First Garden Soil Customer plants potatoes in landscape fabric "buckets" We have been composting our farm manure and detritus for five years. It is ready to bring new life to your yard and garden. This is a mix of the following: Rabbit Manure Chicken manure and bedding Horse Manure Sheep Manure Duck manure and Bedding All the uneaten hay Yard leaves clippings and rakings Our children practiced their backhoe skills for the past several years mixing the pile.

At Farm Life Farm, we strive to coast more and flap less. The farm life is hard and expensive. We are constantly trying to recreate the wheel and make a better mouse trap. I have seen some really neat mowers made for trimming around field fence. They are expensive and not anywhere near our budget. Thinking about our options, I thought, maybe, we can just rotate the guard 180° and run the guard along the fence, under the electric. Oh yeah, I should mention the reason this is a thing: Pigs and sheep and goats are escape artists. The grass is always greener on the other side. As such, they will all try to get out. In an effort to keep them in, we have an electric wire running about 6 inches off the ground to keep the critters inside. We also run a wire along the top to keep predators out. Though we do have the Parmak Fieldmaster3 powering the line, field grass does cause an issue. On dry days, the grass and weeds touching the fence causes a negligible drop in power; maybe .2 or .5 volts. This is completely acceptable. However, in the morning with dew or during rainy weather, the moisture makes the grass a true conductor. One or two sprigs touching is not a problem, but when a thousand feet of fencing is overgrown, you are gonna lose your voltage. Not only will this cause the fence to not shock your animals, it also means tons of power is being sent to the ground and wasted. For that reason, clearing the fence line becomes one of the myriad tasks that must be performed. We have several trimmers. A Shindaiwa for Nana, and two Stihl Commercial style trimmers. We keep either a saw blade or a dual-chain-head on one of them and string on the other. The brush trimmer does not have a guard, so the string trimmer was the one. As I approached, I realized that the shaft was straight, not curved like the Shindaiwa. My simple idea of loosening the clamp and rotating the guard was not an option. The guard on this thing is screwed onto a flat plate that is cast as part of the shaft. I had to get much more creative. In the picture to the right, you can see the cast mounting plate. Another detail I had overlooked was the line cutter on the guard...little black thing on the right side of the guard under the string. Being flipped around, the cutter would not cut. I grabbed the angle grinder and sharpened the "other" side of the cutter. Next step was to figure out how to get the guard to stay in place. I grabbed a hole saw smaller than the base of the shaft and cut out a circle. Then, with the Dremel tool, I carved the plastic until it snapped on. The square plate on top was under the plastic that I cut out when the guard was in its original position. The two metal arms are actually two of the male prongs from an old 240volt dryer plug. They were thick and strong and the bends were a perfect match. In the picture below, you can see the head lock hole has the plastic locked onto it. You can also see that the bolts up top in the picture to the left are not individual bolts, but a U-bolt from a satellite antenna pole. The u-bolt strap is in place, then an extra thick washer (spacer) on each side, then the arms, and finally that square metal plate. As I tightened the clamp nuts, the u-bolt strap bent to conform to the shaft. Drilling through the shaft was clearly not an option. I would have needed to tap the metal and then grind down screws so the tips would not hit the spinning head. I was not willing to invest that much time, however the angle of the tube made it impossible to clamp anything to the shaft. I began tinkering with a few different brackets and other ideas, I tried the u-bolt with a pretty good fit. As I tightened the nuts, it pulled everything together. After taking it all apart, I put the hold down arms on the drill press and made bolt holes, The top already had holes in it. The left lower bolt would not fit any other way than from the bottom. The right side is a self tapping screw. The one failure I have with this mod is the string length. The old mounting location added about two more inches distance from the head to the cutter. Now the string is 4 inches instead of 6. Not the biggest deal and with how thick the grass is, a shorter string should cut better. Not having to carefully gauge our distance from the fence saves a great deal of time. Not having the string catch on the field fence will save us money on string and save the time we used to spend on bending fence wire back into normal position. No longer having the fence grab your string and jerk you back: Priceless. close up view of the u-bolt holding our front guard together. I cannot stress that last point enough...If you have never trimmed field fence, you cannot fathom the frustration and physical pain one feels every time that string grabs on the fence. It just might be one of the truly miserable experiences a farmer can have.

There is fantastic news on the farm! We have made progress on the greenhouse. King Beam is in place Over the winter of 2024-25, we began planning a greenhouse on the hill. Sunlight all day on a fairly flat piece of our ridgeline. We looked at all kinds of possibilities. Prefabricated, hoop house, PVC structure, Walipini's, etc. In the end we decided on a wood frame Walipini. The Walipini is a north American Native idea that date's back possibly thousands of years. We began excavating down below the frost line but only made it about 2 and a half feet before hitting ledge. So we have settled on a semi-walipini. We then milled 8 inch square beams for the foundation. With the west wall the highest from ground, we needed to support that side, so we drilled into the ledge and hammered in re-bar, set cement blocks and filled them with concrete, while also bonding it to the rock underneath. With the corner posts set, we could set the beams. Beams set and pinned together, it was time to build some walls. The walls are ten feet tall and the studs are ruff sawn 2x6 white oak. We built the two side walls first. The side walls are 6 feet long. The back wall is 16 feet long and we could not manage one solid wall so we built three, about five feet long, which we were able to manuver; we put them in place and lagged them to the beams and each other. The side walls went up and were tied together with the back wall. Everything was going great. The next step was a king (or carrier) beam. Having more knowledge or better planning, we probably would have made the footprint just under 15 feet so we could have milled a solid king beam. Oh, by the way, this is the beam that spans the distance between the two side walls to support the roof. This obviously needs to be very strong as it holds the walls together and the roof up. Add snow like we had this past winter and we are talking thousands of pounds. So we took four of the oak planks, and cut them down with opposing overlaps and laminated them together with structural lag screws and wood gl. This beam took several days to build and would turn into the bane of my existence. In later pictures you will see a board about half way down the front of the side walls holding the side walls together. We did not do this last summer. We added two boards, to the front of the side walls, on an angle and used the tractor to pull the beam up the ramps. It worked great until the beam reached the precipice. In the picture of the beam, you can see where the ramps terminate. I suppose if we had screwed the ramps in above the top plate, we might not have had an issue, but I did not think of that until now. Side ramps and front brace So we would pull it up the ramps and right at the top it would catch and then spring off and come crashing down. We did this five separate times. The final attempt, the beam actually pulled the foundation off the supports and the beam landed under the foundation. We put the project on hold while we came up with a new plan. We talked and thought and thought and talked all fall and winter. Do we rent a telle-handler or some other equipment? Do we buy a manufactured carrier beam? In the end the solution we could afford was to ask for help. We put out a text asking our friends and family to join us to get this damn beam in place. All our friends and some of my family showed up. With a couple people that actually have building experience and the rest having above average intelligence, a plan was formed quickly and activated. A top plate was added and some bracing as well as the board across the front. With people below the beam supporting its ascent and one person up top at each end, Sarah motored the beam up the ramps one last time. With two of us up top with pry bars, and that front brace holding the walls together, that beam fell right into place. I must admit I was giddy as a schoolgirl to see that beam in place. With handshakes and well wishing, the crew went to sup. We had made mac & cheese, smoked home cured ham, smoked leg of lamb, potato salad, corn salsa, and hot dogs for the kids. We also made sure to accomplish our mission prior to feeding the troops. And with that, we were back in action. A dream returned. The feeling of anguish and failure evaporated in the hot spring sun. Since then, I had a week off and was able to really focus on the build. Next up was a few more corner support boards and then We went to work on rafters. We attacked the slant roof rafters first. At 13ft 4 inches, I was concerned about having enough timber. We were in fact four short. Off to the log pile where we found one large white pine and a smaller oak log that were long enough. Unfortunately, we haul most logs with a 12 foot trailer causing us to cut them at 12 feet. We chose the pine as I was soar and did not want to lug around more oak. Birdsmouth cut to sit on the front wall We moved that log onto the mill and achieved success. Five, 2x6x14 foot boards. A very slow tractor ride up the hill and onto the work table. We notched them out and started moving them into position. 16 inches on center. We pinned them in place with 10 inch structural screws, "toenailed" with 3.5 inch deckmate screws, and blocked at the half way mark and the terminal end. You can see the double rafter at the left side. That was purely a math error. We could have gone with 24" on center, Plumb cut with a toe to make it easier to mount them. Think smart kids but I wanted the extra support of 16" and did not account for some of the boards being thicker than others when we laid them out. When we got to the far end we were at 20" so we decided to add an extra. Later on, we will add hurricane straps to each rafter. In the picture to the right you can see the "toe" I left on. With the slant roof complete, we began working on the flat roof rafters. The roof is a 5 degree drop; just enough to shed water. We want a snow load in the winter as it does insulate. We also want to add solar panels to the roof at some point in the future and a mostly flat roof will be easier given it slants down to the north, away from the sun. If we did a standard pitch roof, we could not put solar panels up there. The flat roof rafters are 2x10 white pine, with 1 inch pine boards over the rafters. The steel roofing will go over that. With the sturdy base and the riser strips the steel will be strong enough for walking. At some point in the future, we might remove the corrugated roofing, add a railing, mount the solar panels off the side, and make a lookout...it is an amazing view. We will end this here and publish the post. The saga will continue in future posts. A view of the underside of the flat roof half built Flat roof fully planked. ends will be cut flush eventually

Warning: This post will describe Slaughter in graphic detail. If you do not want to know how your food gets to the table, pass this post. Another Pig hits the refrigerator. One of our last two remaining Kune Kune's has been processed. Last Friday I put it down with a distant shot from our Mini 14. I have discussed how pistol ammo has failed to penetrate past their fat layer. Kune's are lard pigs and have a thick fibrous fatty layer around their ears and the top of their heads. The Jowl is a light, fluffy fat that should not be a problem, however, with a hollow point 9mm, it mushrooms and deflects. This time the bullet did deflect and ended in the right shoulder. This does bother me as damaging meat hurts my soul. I will say, the animal was dead before it hit the ground and with little tiny legs, that is not much time. That part makes me feel better. After butchering, I found there was very little brain left. I definitely had a "where'd it go" Moment The bullet was a 5.56 55 grain Hollow point. Fired from a Ruger Mini-14. I aim for the ear. It was feeding time and separating this hog from the rest would have been difficult and frustrating, so I threw the grain and then tried to line up the shot. After several minutes, I had a clear sight line and sent it. The animal dropped immediately. 5.56 bullet Now there are several ways to dispatch an animal. Professional slaughterhouses use a bolt gun. That alone does seem like a humane practice. Put the lights out then cut the carotid. When you put this together with the rest of the slaughterhouse process, it quickly loses its humanity. Pigs go in by the tractor trailer load. They are not fed, stay corralled on cement pads and then are forced through the chutes to a dark and dank kill room, pushed along with the sharp poke of the electric cattle prod. Cortisol and adrenaline levels skyrocket. The oldest method is to hold down the animal and cut its carotid artery. This presents several issues. For this particular animal, the biggest problem is finding the carotid. with 7 inch thick jowls that wrap around and down the neck, it is very difficult to tell where the cheek ends and the shoulder begins. We don't want to damage any more meat than absolutely necessary. A perfect shot wastes no meat and I do prefer to shoot them first. We have a customer that comes out from a city for Lamb. For religious reasons, they must kill the animal themselves and use a knife at the neck to do it. For this process, we coral the animal that morning or the night before. Then catch it, drag it out to a convenient area, hog tie the animal, then hold it down and put it down. Then we put it in their big cooler and toss it in the their honda. Maybe it is all a fallacy, but I do believe that having the animal calm and relaxed before lights out is just a better choice. We all know that there are cultures that prefer to beat their food to death, believing that it is the most tender meat can be with the best flavor. That idea does not sit well with me. Most of the time, I get a clean shot through the brain. Just behind the ear is the best target. When you hit this target, the brainstem gets destroyed and the spinal cord connection is severed. Instant death with the least amount of pain or awareness. Cutting the carotid is still best practice as this will get the most blood out in the fastest possible way. This time, the bullet went in the left side of the skull. The cavitation turned the brain matter into a smoothie. Half the copper jacket lodged in the right side of the skull and the rest of the bullet took a hard right turn and landed in the right shoulder. I still have not created a dunk tank for a whole pig, and torching the hair off is an arduous task. Once again, I chose to skin the beast. Not the easiest process as the skin is directly attached to the fatty layer. Skinning is the longest part of the slaughter process. Once that is accomplished, getting the organs out goes pretty fast. I managed to protect the heart and lungs right up until I sawed the carcass in half. During that process, I cut the heart and destroyed the pericardial sack. I got curious during the slaughtering and thought I would try sawing the carcass in half and then taking the heart and lungs out of the animal. I theorized that I would be able to see in there better and would not have to contort and blindly reach. While I was correct that it became easy to get the heart and lungs out, I did not factor in how close the saw blade would be to the heart. This would not matter to any butchers as very few are placing a heart in the display case, but mixing them into the sausage grind. In our case, I promised this heart to my EMT class. I do have two sheep hearts still in the sac, so we can still see the sack in class. I was also hopeful to get the trachea all the way from the vocal cords, still connected and undamaged, to the lungs. I like to intubate and then let the students "bag the patient". The bullet destroyed the larynx but the lungs and trachea do appear in tact. This pig hung in the cooler for three full days and was butchered on the fourth. Butchery did not go perfectly. I normally view a you tube video from Bon Aptetit which shows and explains everything very well. If you are interested to see the process, here is the best video I have found. Scott Rae and the Bearded Butchers videos are also very well done. chose to skip it this time and ended up cutting the picnics too short and forgot to cut the ribs off. I am actually rather interested in eating the ribs after they cook with the picnic. In an earlier post, "Another hog hits the freezer, I discussed separating the guanciale from the skull. When it came time to saw the carcass in half, I did so prior to removing the head. It wasn't until the saw got to the neck that I realized this. I gave a shrug and left the head attached to the right half. This did make carrying it into the cooler and then up to the house on butcher day. that thing was heavy. Once I got to butcher day, I did sever the head and set it aside until the rest was done. I separated the leaf lard and packaged it in two-pound packs. In the past I have had people ask about leaf lard for their baking. I had always just threw it in the vat with all the fat. Then I had several people request leaf lard. Now we have it. Along with the leaf lard is another 40 quarts worth of trimmed fat that will become soap. As far as the waste trimmings; dog food. The bullet-effected picnic and all the blood clots and the tongue and anything that I did not want to eat will be the next batch of dog food.