For some strange reason, Reagan and I have been craving Mexican food the lasr week or so. After work on Friday night, it was off for another big city escape. This time we went to neighboring Perry. Downtown we found Case De Oro which had a impressive menu, great service, and even though the margarita was a little watered down by Sweet and Sour mix, it was tasty and had quality ingredients. I still miss the Cactus Grill in Colorado.
We walked around for a little bit, as we once saw a sign for a bike shop at the Highland Elk. Then we realized, it was in another section of town once we checked for the address. We finished up by hitting the Hi-vee grocery store. It does have a better selection than our Fareway, and it’s open on Sundays. Mason found his ‘Fruit 9 from Outer Space’. 10 bonus points to the person that understands that reference. For everyone else, it is a Pomegranate that we cut into the next day.

I keep checking out the window on the drive home. I was seeing quite a few stars. When I looked as far up as I could, there were more. I know being in the country, and away from city lights cures the light pollution problem. This was a clear night, and we had not really stopped and looked yet. We swung off the road and over to Two Barn Farm. We walked away from the car, and looked around in the dark for a minute before really looking up. WOW!!!
I have never seem the sky so clearly. Reagan, who wasn’t the most thrilled to be going out, was floored when she looked up and saw our own Milky Way first thing. It was so bright and clear, and there were many details visible. There really were too many stars to find constallations. We even saw one shooting star. After a good 10-15 minutes of stargazing, we finally went home. Hey you, support Dark Sky

Saturday was work day. The bathroom got prepped for a new floor, the living room found it’s original hardwood floor, and there was quite a bit of clean-up inside and in the garage. Reagan hung a new dining room light, while I ducked away for a quick spin out of the county and back on the Raccoon River Valley Trail. Since then, the bathroom is seeing new tile.

Sunday morning brought the next piece of excitement for the farm. A Swisher trailmower. It’s one of those towable mower decks, with it’s own engine. You can hook it up behind an ATV, a tractor, or even next to a tractor. The arm lets it offset if you already have a mower deck. This way, you can mow double your normal width. We bought this used from someone on Craigslist near Linden. Later in the afternoon, I got this hooked up and mowing felt like progress for once. Each lap around the corn crib seemed wider than the lap before. It was actually clear-cutting our weed infested farm land too. I pushed back the growth back to all the original lines, and then some. Mowing the ditches was easy as well.

I filled up the truck with some of the junk that had been accumulating around the farm, such as parts from the old well. I also went to check out the barn a little more in depth and fixed up some of the doors. The haymow is still wonderful, but looks like a disco ball is shinning. The south edge of the peak seemed to been stripped of shingles during that little tornado. Yes, we did find some more damage, time for a new roof as we are missing a chunk of ours now.

We have two main goals before winter. The first is to get some concrete work done along the east end of the corn crib. This will seal the trenches off and give us a sill to build the end wall on. Hopefully we can do both ends in one pour. Having the forms in place would also give us a great opportunity to do the frost protection on all the concrete. Why dig the same hole twice? Getting the crib enclosed around the bottom is a big goal, and would be huge in getting a place to store things, and possibly run some heaters from now until spring to continue to do some weekend work.

The other task, is to start re-roofing the barn. The west side is the worst. I wonder, if we can get away with roofing half the barn? It is such a huge roof, it will cost some $$$. If we replace the west side first, the holes will be gone, and I bet we can salvage enough cedar shingles to patch the small holes on the east side. That could hold things dry until spring, and a few extra paychecks come in.

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