Posts Tagged ‘Wintervale’
Frame’s Up
The holiday celebration last weekend put my wood shed project on hold, and I have been hoping to reclaim some momentum ever since. I was thinking I could get back to it, right after we got home from the lake, but other tasks won out. The cross-beams, with posts attached, were left lying on the ground for almost two weeks while I contemplated how we would stand them upright to get them assembled, with a limited number of helping hands.
The old treated fence posts we chose to use are very heavy, and tied together, I figured it might be a problem to lift and hold in position. One solution we were considering was to use the bucket on the diesel tractor. I imagined we could strap them up to be held in position with the bucket. However, with just the two of us, I would be up on the tractor, and that would leave Cyndie alone to guide the heavy posts. For that reason, I allowed some days to pass, while I thought the plan through some more.
Yesterday, when I got home from the day-job, Cyndie offered to help me figure out if we could get it done. I began gathering tools and things, in preparation for the attempt… Of course, I would eventually need the ladder out there. As I was carrying it toward the site, it struck me that we could just lean the first set of posts against the ladder when we got them upright, if we were able to lift them with just the two of us.
Sure enough, we lifted it. Cyndie and I proceeded to manage the whole process with just the two of us, a ladder, and no tractor.
Sometimes the solution is so easy, you overlook it, until it eventually become so obvious, you can’t miss. Maybe, as I do more and more projects like this, the obvious solutions will get easier to recognize, and appear to me sooner.
Next step: rafters…
Horse Power
Yesterday, I was sitting in our kitchen, with Delilah at my feet, sprawled out on the cool of the tile, when I heard a new sound coming up the driveway. It was our neighbor from the CSA farm, arriving with a team of horses to cut hay. What a wonderful sight to see. I grabbed my camera and followed them down to the pasture, calling Cyndie on my cell phone as I walked. I knew she would really love to see this, and how much she wanted to learn how to drive his team of horses. She was over an hour away, but I could hear in her voice how interested she was in getting home as quickly as possible.
Delilah and I wandered the hills around the field, watching the action. My favorite part was how quiet the process is. The cutter is a sickle bar, and is powered by the forward motion of the rig being pulled by the horses. It was a truly bucolic scene.
Cyndie made it home just in time to get out and learn some details of the process, and watch him make the last few passes. Then, he gave her chance to do the driving, luckily, without needing to navigate a row or position the cutting blade. She’s a pretty quick study, and soon was directing them to make a couple of turns and urging them up the hill. One more skill that she fearlessly adds to her already amazing repertoire.
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Home Again
photo by Elysa Hays
We made an early exit from the balloon toss competition this year. Elysa snapped this photo, in which I am holding up the remnants of our water balloon. Cyndie made a perfectly good throw, but I messed up the catch. Somebody immediately hollered that it was a classic example of farmer’s hands, since I didn’t execute the soft catch required.
We endured some long traffic backups on the drive home yesterday, due to the heavy volume of holiday traffic. I plan to do some exploring in the future, for the possibility of using back roads to avoid the areas where a turn causes a log jam of vehicles to accumulate.
Our cats didn’t seem to hold a grudge against us for having left them alone, and immediately sought as much hands-on attention as we were willing to give. It appears we won’t have to worry about leaving them alone for a weekend.
We decided to give our attention to the labyrinth for the rest of the day. I used our old reel mower to cut the turf at the lowest setting, while Cyndie did some weed pulling and trimmed the long grass around the perimeter. Then I measured and marked the last of the areas where Cyndie wants to do some planting, along the axis where the entrance is located.
The essential steps that remain after that are, laying markers to establish all the lanes, and putting down some gravel or wood chips on the path. Optionally, we are still considering planting a tree near the middle, and we are hoping to do a bit more work dressing up the grounds immediately surrounding the labyrinth. Cyndie would like to make a bench out of found natural materials, to be located near the entrance, allowing for a moment of pause before embarking on the journey.
Something tells me there will be a permanent urge to continue to refine and enhance the whole thing. It will likely always be a growing and changing space, which will be a reflection of our growth and change with the passing of time.
New Slide
We are enjoying our annual Independence Day celebrations at the lake place. Cyndie’s brother brought up a new toy for the kids to try out on the hill from the cabin down to the lake: Turbo Chute. It works pretty well, but the kids end up kind of speechless at the bottom, not sure what they’ve just experienced. I figure they are liking it, because they climb the stairs repeatedly to try it again, and again.
A proclamation was read anointing Steve as “King Neptune” for a day, in honor of his incredible contributions toward the unending aqua fun available to the kids here.
It’s been a nice couple of days, taking a break from projects at Wintervale, but we will head home today in hopes of resuming work on our wood shed and the labyrinth, among other tasks waiting for attention at home.
This has been the longest that we have been away from the cats, so we are eager to see if they accept being left alone or not. It is nice to be able to get away and up to the refreshing coolness of the lake. We envision being able to have our kids take care of animals at Wintervale for future weekends that don’t involve the whole family being up here together at the same time, so we can enjoy some lake time. It is only two hours away from us, so we want to take advantage of it as often as we can.
Experiential Learning
I admit it, I have never done anything like trying to build a shed on my own. I’ve wanted a wood shed since we arrived last October, but with no experience, it took me all this time to get over the hurdle of just deciding to try.
In a search for what I wanted for a wood shed, I quickly and easily came upon images of styles that appealed to me. One of the sites even had a rudimentary sketch of a plan to build a simple version for low-cost, if you scrounge materials from what is available to you.
I decided to use the old fence posts that we have from the original fencing that we had removed last fall. Other pieces slowly seemed to appear and fill out my list of needs. The key piece I wanted to have was roof material that would be translucent, like corrugated panels I have seen on other roofs of this type of structure. I was finding that to be a difficult thing to scrounge. I didn’t do a lot of aggressive searching, which left me hoping something would just magically appear out of nowhere.
When that didn’t happen, I started to research what was available for purchase from building supply retailers. The first large entity I shopped at didn’t stock anything of the type, but one friendly customer service person spent time searching their records for something that would work. He came up with an option that wasn’t quite right, and would cost 10-times what I was interested in spending.
I find it funny how quickly after that, I fell into a mode of thinking this wouldn’t be the way to go. Then I got around to visiting the next building supply retailer in the region, just in case I was giving up too soon, and to my surprise, there in front of my eyes was the exact product I envisioned, stocked on the sales floor, and at an acceptable price. My hope was restored!
That left one last crucial step. I needed to commit to the location. It was a tough decision, but in the short time since clearing the ground at that spot, I have grown very happy with that choice.
There was nothing left to stop me from getting on with the cutting and hammering. I spent the weekend toiling away, trying to figure out what the essential steps were that need consideration, and then in what order it all needed to take place. I had a dream of being able to start and finish it all in a short span of days. By Sunday night, my accomplishments were: the ground was leveled, footings were located and leveled, and the vertical posts were attached to the horizontal beams, ready to be erected.
It’s not bad progress, for a first-ever attempt, but I had higher hopes. Things take the time they take, and I want to remember to be present and appreciate the variety of interruptions that inevitably pop up, even when they delay the project.
The delays actually provide a chance for earlier lessons to sink in, and time to consult with advisers on how I might choose to proceed with the next learning opportunity.
More Same
The end of June has arrived, and halfway through the year, we are getting blossoms on a tree here that smells like lilacs and reminds me a lot more of May than July. I don’t mean to sound like a broken record (it’s probably too late for that) but it is still too wet here to do much of anything we have in mind to do.
Yesterday, the work crew that is going to build our hay shed, tried a second time to get the corner posts installed. They are as anxious to get it done as we are to have it done, but I was surprised to see them here, since it did rain enough in the pre-dawn hours to give us a pretty good soaking.
Things have improved a little bit, and that is probably why they tried, because you don’t know unless you test it. The driveway loop firmed up enough to support the skid loader, so that work we did on it, by hand, appears to have paid off nicely.
When they started drilling a post hole, the first 20-plus inches down was dry and they were encouraged. That’s a lot better than it was the last time they tried. Unfortunately, that’s only about half the depth they are trying to reach. Beyond that, it turned to a thick pea soup consistency. Or maybe, cake batter. When they put a measuring tape down the hole, to check the depth, it just kept going, past the depth the hole had been drilled!
That’s not a very good foundation for the corner posts…
We’ll be waiting a while longer before proceeding with this project.
Berries Appearing
Looks like the raspberries are happy with the weather we’ve been having. The bushes are everywhere here.
Hey, Mary, we can have a contest to see who gets the most berries! Our problem will be that the raspberry bushes are spread across much of our acreage, not contained all in one location. I fear the birds will have had their way with them long before we get a chance to hunt them down and harvest.
We also noticed quite a sizable patch of wild strawberries growing in our pasture. I’m told they don’t bear large fruit, and won’t be as sweet as the cultivated ones that are sold in stores. We’d love to add them to our bounty, but I suspect it will be hard to beat the wild critters roaming the grounds, to getting them.
Last night, the frogs – or a frog – were/was so loud that it got almost obnoxious, so Cyndie stepped out the door to the deck and hollered at them/it and clapped her hands. Silence erupted, for a few minutes, anyway.
We have high hopes to get a lot done today, but rain may once again spoil our plans.
I expect the berries will all be just fine with that.
Managing Growth
We are in the last week of June now, and the growing things around here are finally at their fullest. If we are to maintain control of this property, we need to manage growth. Any areas that have not been mowed yet this year are now looking a lot like the pasture. It’s a shame we weren’t able to bring horses here soon enough for them to dine on our luscious grass. I can’t wait to see how different things will be once we get grazing horses to help keep the growing grass under control.
There are new trees growing everywhere. Unfortunately, many of them sprout in our walkway or in the landscape gardens around the house, where they don’t belong, or wouldn’t ultimately fit. Cyndie wanted to transplant the new babies. I guess she is still thinking in the mindset we had at our old home in the suburbs. Back there, we did everything we could to encourage new tree growth on our little corner lot.
Now we have so many new trees, it is mind-boggling.
I cleared out a space where I would like a new wood shed to be located. After cutting some grass and berry bushes at the edge, the area further in was almost all first or second year maple seedlings that were easier to pull out than cut down.
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It saddens me to take out any trees, but I am feeling encouraged by the incredible number of new trees sprouting without any assistance from us. It appears that it will be very easy to nurture expansion of the woods into any areas that we don’t end up assigning to other purposes.
We’re gonna want all the trees we can possibly add, if we keep experiencing losses like this year’s weather has been dishing out.
Hot Tamale
She finally did it. Cyndie made a decision on a truck for the ranch. We went back and forth over whether to get a new one that she would drive all the time, or a used one that would just be available when we need it for hauling or towing. She picked a used one.
We chose to keep our business local and worked with the Ford dealer in Ellsworth. After test driving a variety of trucks there, a few weeks ago, we paused the process to reconsider our plan. The folks at this dealership were great, and very patient with our creative (chaotic) method of shopping and deciding.
The second time we showed up, Cyndie asked to see the “most affordable” trucks they had, that matched our criteria. They said we could walk around to the back and look. These trucks were stored out of sight.
They weren’t bad looking, really. One had a scar on the carpet that appeared as if something toxic had been spilled. Another had the driver’s side mirror held on with layers of tape.
Cyndie bee-lined to the black one, I think because she still misses the old black Mustang she no longer owns. Next, she drove the silver one. Lastly, the red one, pretty much an exact color match to her current convertible.
The red truck drove better than all the rest, and was, by far, the best price.
When we got it home, we didn’t even drive up to the house, but put it right to work, parking on the hill of the pasture to pick up old fence posts to be moved.
Cyndie is thinking about calling it, “the Hot Tamale.”
Great Generosity
Much to my horror, I have become that guy who hangs on to a borrowed item way too long. It ends today.
Last fall, my sister’s husband, Tim, offered to let me try out his chainsaw to give me a reference for deciding what I wanted to buy. I hoped to do some wood cutting right away, before winter set in, and then get it right back to him.
In a blink, fall was gone, and I hadn’t done any cutting. I eventually found two convenient opportunities to try my hand at starting it, and doing some light work on small trees in our woods. I was pleased to have successfully started it on a cold winter day. The saw seemed the perfect size for me, but I had only tried to do the smallest of work with it at that point.
Then the days rolled off the calendar, and winter became spring. I checked in with my sister, to report that it hadn’t skipped my mind, that I felt bad I’d kept the chainsaw for so long, and that I wanted to get it back to Tim before he found a need to use it. I really didn’t want him to have to ask me to get it back. Mary assured me that he wouldn’t be needing it for a while, which provided some peace of mind for a few more weeks.
Now spring has turned to summer, and storms are throwing trees down, left and right. If ever there was a time to have possession of your own saw, it is now. Unfortunately, I still had Tim’s. Then, last weekend, we had a tree fall onto the road, down by our driveway. It was the perfect opportunity for me to give his saw one last trial run, and then return it. I boldly collected everything I thought I would need, and loaded it in our little trailer, driving the lawn tractor down to the road.
Then I promptly flooded the chainsaw engine and it failed to start.
A flooded small gas engine is one of my weaknesses.
I took the chainsaw back up to the shop and removed the spark plug to dry it, and revisited the manual and a couple of online sites for advice, and then gave it another try. Yep, flooded it again. They make it sound so easy. That’s the part that eats at me. Why can’t I figure it out? I gave up after a couple more failed attempts, and went down to finish the job with a hand saw. Cyndie had already stepped in to help, using a ratcheting cutter to trim all the branches up to the trunk.
After the multiple failures over the weekend, I wanted to prove to myself I could successfully start the saw again. Yesterday, after work, I fired it right up, first try, and it worked like a charm. I headed around to the back of the house where a dead tree stood within view of our bedroom window. For the first time in my life, I felled a standing tree. I’m proud to report that my first felling also happened to be a tree leaning the opposite direction from where I wanted it to fall.
It took an extra cut, when the height of my first one was too low, and then a little persuasion from a strap to swing it over and snap the “hinge,” but it landed right where I wanted. And, I didn’t nick the adjacent tree I was hoping to save.
A chainsaw like this one should work just fine for my needs here.
Thank you, Tim, for the generous gesture of offering the loan, delivering it to us here, and being patient with the long wait for me to return it.
We are ever so grateful for the encouragement and support from both my sister, Mary, and her husband, Tim!
Relative Something 