So, the biggest news is, the deck at the house is done.  Well, close enough.  There are 2 boards missing.  1 is a little piece of trim,

No Comments »

May was kinda busy here, but some of it was non-eventful for the farm.  Some of it was awesome.
I tilled and cleaned out the garden beds and planted seeds.  With such a cool and wet Spring, not many of them came up.  I ended up re-seeding the spinach, lettace, and double up on some peas.  The onions seem to be doing fine.  We got a bundle of leftover strawberries that seem to have mostly taken root.  We also have potatoes and a double row of sunflowers coming up.    Besides that, I have a garage and basement full of tomatoes, peppers, lavender, various herbs, and probably a few other things getting ready to transplant.

I’ve been saying that this Spring would be exciting for the corn crib.  There were a lot of structural things, demolition, and odds and ends that needed to be done that didn’t provide much eye appeal.  Several projects have been waiting on hold for Spring, which would make a lot of visual changes.  But, there was a requirement…

The house in town had 2 sets of concrete precast stairs.  Both were getting quite askew and cracked, not to mention the lovely astroturf covering the front stairs.  These had to be replaced before doing serios work at the farm.  3 days with a jackhammer, and these were gone.  Reagan’s dad, Steve, came out and helped frame out a new pair of stairs, that were connected with a wrap-around deck effect.  The deck does not provide much for sitting chairs out on, but make a great bench for plants, sitting down on them with the neighbors, or melting on to after a good bike ride.

Three weekends later, it is nearly complete.  There will be a little raised bench near the front door, and there are a few more pieces of decking to get laid out.

Back to the farm….

I have done small bits of work on the stairs over the past month.  These are nearly completed.  There are a few riser panels to cut and install, and a few last treads to nail down.  We tend to buy local, getting supplies from Tri-County Lumber and Ace, but I love checking out the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in Des Moines.  I had to take the truck into town, and thought I could finally find a missing door.  No luck there, nor in the last several trips.  I know the original door we found there was sold at Lowe’s, so I swung by to see what the damage would be.  $228 each.  But wait a tic, there is a sticker on the one I’m holding for $150 clearance.  I pay closer attention…the left handed, 36″, full glass doors are $91.20/ea?!?!  The right handed doors were still $228, but the lefts were $91.  I loaded up the last two they had and checked out.  One of these finished out the set of faux-french doors between the inner crib and greenhouse, and the other would seperate the greenhouse from the outdoors.

Finally, the South side is starting to look like something.  You might also notice the coupla window, which was the passageway for the pigeon family.  It is now plywood backed and bird free.  It took getting a 2nd floor laid down to reach this window from the inside.

What’s next?  4 windows facing west over the main door, a finished staircase, proper windows on the South side with additional siding.  We did have some visitors over recently who seemed to love the progress.

The barn lives on!  I’ve also managed to figure out how we’ll start tackling the rest of the barn remains.  Our good friend Kevin Wilbeck, who owns Camp Coyote, did visit the barn carcass with the proper tools.  He dug out 5 sections of curved beams, maybe 5-6′ long to make a roof over a kiosk at his campground.  I’m thinking of doing something similar to shelter our main door.

Full size pics of the deck and farm HERE

No Comments »