Convince him to move from the mostly evergreen Colorado mountains to Iowa with it’s beautiful, giant deciduous trees. . . hehehehe!

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So what are we up to.  Bits of everything.  There is some more siding on the corn crib.  The section from between the corners and the doors on the West end has been filled in.  I’d like to fill in the last bit above the doors and get a few more courses up on the East end as well.  We also burned quite a bit of barn roof in our trusty fire pit.  It is littered with nails.  I’d like to get one of those magnetic sweepers and see just how much is in there.  We still have a little bit of roof, and the back wall of the barn to clean up.  Whatever wood I saved is started to get tucked under what remains of the barn.

We have been going pretty gung-ho on the house in town.  Just after we finished the kitchen, the dishwasher sprung a leak.  And you guessed it, removing a floor and a layer of plywood before replacing it with hardwood flooring did bring the floor height up about 1/4″.  Exactly how much room it takes to remove the dishwasher.  We ended up removing a untrimmed piece of laminate from the front edge of the couters and cut out the offending overhang of the counter to get the old one out.  Reagan happened to be in Des Moines and found a Kitchenaid dishwasher at the Habitat for Humanity store for $200.  Our dishes have never been this clean.  I love the thing.  It does hold a little less, but it’s solid stainless inside.

The bathroom and kitchen got all the walls textured and painted.  I even hung up curtains while Reagan was out for the weekend.  The back entry still needs to be done, and a little bit around the front door.  Then moulding, everywhere.  We are running out of to-do items here.

I have used the super nice weekend weather to get out for some bike rides.  You might say late season rides, I’m calling it early season rides.  In November and December, we start packing in miles on the trainer so we hit the Spring-fresh roads with speed.  I’m just getting a head start on my base mileage right now. There is always an upper body workout to be done, with all these leaves on the ground.  Oh, I rode to the farm the other night, and found carrots.  I had forgot about them.  I pulled one up about 6″ long, with a little left in the ground, and it must have been 2″ wide.  Free snack!  Super sweet and wonderful.

We finally figured out what Two Barn Farm is for.  Iowa has a new LLC registered, and we have been getting ready.  In fact our first prototype was created last night, and made this morning.  There is a fine line between a hobby and obsession.  Some hobbies turn obsessive, some obsessions turn into hobbies.  Which ever way it is, that’s usually a good sign of drive and passion.  More to come!

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Here are two pictures showing how far we got adding things like siding, doors, windows.

Wow, it’s starting to look like something.

OK, here’s the scoop.  For nearly two years, I have left a few minor hand tools in the corn crib.  Each summer, the generator is there.  I even left my compressor there most of this summer.  Two weekends ago, we added a wall, and a door, and a lock.  I finished this up Tuesday night, and thought to myself that I would be back by Saturday.  I have a locked door, I should leave all my tools here.  So, I tucked them all away in the side room.

I show up Saturday, and guess what.  No tools.  Some complete waste climbed up and over the plywood, to get over the door.  I know this, as a pair of loose boards used as blocking to keep the door frame square was kicked out.  Once inside, they unlocked the door and carried everything out.

The list so far is: Craftsman pneumatic framing nailgun, Craftsman 12″ compound miter saw, 2500 nails, gas weedeater, the large propane heater, a sawzall, a Mccullough chainsaw, a few random tools, some nice plumbing goods, and hundreds of feet of electrical wiring.  Thankfully, they left the compressor and generator, which are now at my house.

According to the Sheriff, we are about the 5th place “in the area” with small tools missing.  Since they were checking into every single box in the shed, they must have not realized that their shoes were making perfect footprints in the dirt.  The Sheriffs loved this and even came back to take extra pictures.  We even had good tire tracks.

Afterward, I added a little more plywood to cover the entrance point, and we have locks everywhere else.  Since I am a tech geek, and we just got power, it didn’t take long for a trio of hidden webcams making a live Internet feed to a motion activated recording system.  I did pass on my brother in-laws idea of having power saws turn on and fly at the door.  So, if whatever asshat comes back to look around again, make sure you smile.  If you are stupid enough to come back, I might let loose the saw wielding robot, aka Robot Wars style down there.

Anyhow.  I’ll probably go get a new nail gun, and NAILS (you jerk) and see if we can finish up some of the siding before it gets too cold down there (due to same jerk who stole the heater)

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And the meter starts at zero, I want to go plug something in.

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