Sunday morning

Well today is suppose to be a day of rest, but when you have to race the weather to get stuff done there is no day of rest. Today we hope to get more fire wood split and stacked in the wood shed before the supposed rain starts.
Putting the stall and corral on hold for now. Dancer will be headed to the fair grounds in the morning to start her harness training. She will be there for a month approximately. This will give us time to get her new home finished before she returns. We have accomplished a lot, as you can see in the previous posts from Don. I will be taking more pictures of what we have done and add them later. I introduced her to her new home yesterday. She wasn't to excited at first, but I think she will take to it later when the rains really start.
I can say that homesteading is a full time job. There is always something that needs to be done, whether inside the house or outside. I still have tomatoes that are ripe on the vine and need canning, and cucumbers that need to be picked. I want to see how long the cucumbers will last in side the greenhouse. This is the first winter we have had the greenhouse and it is an experiment in progress. Will see what can be grown this winter for fresh veges.
The day is waisting, need to get started with chores. Going to take Dancer for a walk before I really get started.

THE ROOF IS IN PLACE

Wow, the roof is finally in place, except for the flashing along the front, and looks great! We have also gotten most of the back covered except down at the bottom where we plan on putting pressure treated wood to stop rot damage.

Getting much closer to being done and it feels great!

The back is on except for the pressure treated wood at the base of the wall.

One more piece added to the back on the side of the stall. Two pieces added to the bottom along with pressure treated wood and a small piece at the very rear top to finish that side.

ROOF IS ALMOST IN PLACE

Janice and I gave up going to a fiber workshop at our friend's home today, in order to try to get stuff done before the rain. We made excellent progress.

I think it was worth it as the roof is almost in place. A little more plywood at the front of the rafters, then roofing felt and steel. 

Just for perspective you can see the orange eight foot ladder leaning against the back of the building or compare the tractor.

This angle shows the access I was able to make down this side of the barn.

Another view of the access.

This view shows the back and side of the building, very exciting to see it this far.

This shows the access from the bottom, if you look close, I'm the little blue thing up on the driveway.

TAKING A WHILE, BUT LOOKING GOOD

The stall/hay storage is taking a while but looks better with everything we do. We currently have all of the rafters in place, and are almost ready to start sheathing with plywood. First we need to put a fascia board on the back of the rafters and trim the front ends even and put a fascia board in front also. These will also be used for screwing down the plywood and steel for the roof.

Uht, Oh, Busted, she caught me working!

Got the tractor in back of the building in order to lift the plywood with the loader bucket.

I bet you thought Janice only took pictures, well this is proof she's worked on this just as hard if not harder than I have.

This is the building looking dead center, both support posts lined up.

WE ARE MAKING MORE PROGRESS ON THE BARN

Me, I'm just the hired hand!!!

Here's the brains of the outfit!

Here's the boss of the outfit!!!

Well Emil and Martha came up for the last few days and the weather has been cooperative so we have been getting a lot done on the stall / hay storage. We now have all of the banding to screw the plywood siding to up all of the way around the barn except the drop on the front of the stall. Today we got all of the rafters cut and the blocking to go between the rafters in the front and back. This was also along with playing some Pinochle in the evenings. We really like those games a lot as they are so much fun.

Making progress

Well the weather finally broke enough for us to get some work done on the corral and barn. As you can see we got all the bracing done on the fence. All that is left now is to put the wire up and the gates.

It is starting to look promising for a nice place to put Dancer.

Below, you can barely see the cornor stakes for the barn.

The stakes can be seen a bit better in this picture.

Yeah, got the post holes dug and the posts placed. The posts were very heavy but with the help of the tractor we were able to get them in.

Just another view.

and another view.

Here you can see Don using the tractor to install the first beam. He wouldn't let me help. He didn't want me to get hurt. I felt useless at this point.

So I decided to start taking pictures. I am really happy with the work we accomplished today.

Don worked really hard to get this first beam up.

It is getting closer.

Success.

All that is left now is to finish putting in the lag bolts to hold the beam in place.



A few more twists of the ratchet.

All right cinched down now.

OK the first beam is in place. It sure was nice to have a nice day to get so much done.

Tomorrow the front beam. This one is going to be a bit harder as it is going to have to go higher. Not looking forward to this one. Wish us luck.



Rain Again

The rain is not stopping and we can't seem to get any further on the corral and barn. I really hope it clears up on Thruday like predicted. Could use some nice days for building and wood cutting. It really sucks when you have a lot to do and can't seem to get anything accomplished.

I guess I will have to try to find other projects to do today in the house. I have a small pumpkin out of my garden this year, which for here is a big accomplishment. I am going to try to carve it. Hopefully. If it turns out I will take a picture and post it.

I also have a small storage area that needs to be cleaned up and reorganized. Maybe I will get started on that. I know that there is always something that needs to be done. I am not one to sit on my butt and do nothing, impossible for me.

Just looked outside and it is down pouring. At this rate the seasonal pond we have will be filled up in no time. We already have wild ducks coming in. I love to see them.

Hope everyone has a wonderful rainy day.

Home Made Noodles

I was trying to figure out what to fix for dinner when I discovered we had two sausage links in the fridge that needed to be used.

OK, what to fix with it.

Being German, I love noodles. So I decided to makes some homemade noodles to eat with the sausage. What could be better.

I dug through my cupboards and found some Shiitake mushroom slices that I had purchased some time ago. Hum, I thought. What if I take these and grind them up to a powder. Why not.

Then I thought, what about some of those wonderful tomatoes I just dried. Yep, that will work.

So I took a hand full of each and put them in my Vita Mix and ground them up to a powder.

This looks pretty good I thougt.

So I put four eggs in my mixer and added the mushroom and tomato mixture I had just made. It wasn't enough to make a dough, so I added some flour. I don't add salt because I add the salt to the water when I am cooking them.

Now that looks like noodle dough.

So I got out my doodle maker and started to roll the dough out into strips

Next I cut the noodles out and spread them on a clean sheet to partially dry.

They sure look good

Next I sliced up the sausage and put them slices in the boiling water and started adding the fresh home made noodles to cook.

Looks like dinner to me.

Took a little time but is easy to make and it tasted great. The mushrooms and tomato flour really added a lot of flavor to this dish.

Tomorrow

Tomatoes need canning and am going to try my hand at homemade poppers.

Have a great day.