The day started well enough. Reagan left early for the book sale at the local library, and ‘us men’ got to sleep in a little bit. We got up about the same time, and I made breakfast. Mason started to wonder toward his computer, and I interrupted him by saying “Saturday morning cartoons, let’s go.”
I actually have no idea what is on during a Saturday morning. We have had no TV feed for over 5 years now, no cable, no satellite dish. I do have a digital antenna hooked up to it, but only check local stations during bad weather alerts, the Olympics, and the president’s inauguration.

Besides having a DVD/Blu-ray collection, we also use Netflix. The streaming service is also quite nice, and we happen to get at it via a Roku device. We have done several entire TV series with it. This morning, we turned on Phineas and Ferb, which is a newer Disney cartoon. Funny, and every once in a while has a song that will stick in your skull for days.

After 30 minutes of that, I got the truck warmed up, grabbed some supplies and we headed to the farm again. I’ve had one goal lately, that I hardly work on. Now, this corn crib is solid. We have been standing in it with some high winds and there no movement. However, I do like to overbuild. The frame work of the front wall only exists where the bins used to be. The rest of it exists to hold up the siding. The goal was to create a beam that ran horizontally across the wall at 8′. This would tie the bins wall into the rest of the wall, and also tie the wall to the main support studs. By laminating a beam out of 2×6′s, and mounting it on the wall, it would be straight and well reinforced. I prototyped a few versions on a new table saw and figured out the best way to construct it. And in short time, this big support was mounted and I dang near tried a Spiderman impersonation to see if I could stand on it. At some point, I’m planning on adding beams that connect across to the balcony to the loft. While made of new lumber, I plan on wrapping them, hopefully out of old barn wood for that old barn look. I also got another item crossed off my list. Since the upper part of this wall existed to hold up siding, I was sister-studding some 2×4 studs around the top windows with 2×6′s to match up with the rest of the wall. I got the last 2 of these done also.

Then home, shower, grilled burgers. Tomorrow is Jefferson clean up day. Time to place bets on how long before your trash becomes someone’s treasure.

1 Comment »

Spring might have sprung. So far, we have seen 70 degrees here a few times. Trees are budding, and there are lots of birds around. Even the grass is green and growing. What’s all that add up to? Farm work.

Last year I found some old shingles and plugged up the holes in the shed roof. Those old cedar shakes are so brittle, that just as many holes opened back up over this last winter. It’s time for a proper roof. The plan is to strip off all the shingles, lay down plywood to cover the gaps between the existing boards, and shingle. It’s a big roof, the back half alone is 18×42. I didn’t quite dive into this yet, but got out there for some prep work.

The shed itself is pretty strong. There is no rotting, things seem straight, and there is nothing sketchy about it. The only weakness it has is the middle of the side walls. The post and beam framing goes up to 8′, and then the only thing above that is an overlapping seam of siding at 10′ I can push on the middle of this wall and getting some good flex out of it. Obviously the goal here is to strengthen that up. And if I was going to do that, I’d do it all around and make sure there were no weak spots. I decided to add studs all around the shed, and pretty much got it done in one afternoon. What amazed me, was that the shed was still straight. I only found 1/4″ of difference along the entire East, West and North walls, and I think that was because part of the foundation settled in one corner. Studs were fitted below each rafter, much like conventional framing. And I started on reinforcing that West wall. Just three 2×4′s took out half of the flex. Once finished, it should be rather solid.

I returned on Tuesday night, bringing the tractor back to it’s summer home. I quickly hooked up the rototiller to it, and got to work on the gardens. Another amazing thing, is that these strips were rather devoid of grass and weeds. They looked far better then how we left them last year. I tilled about 7 of the little plots we use and Mason helped clear out the grass over the strawberries and some sunflower remains. It got a little on the dim side, we we held off on any planting. Rain is in the forecast, so a quick trip out there for some seed planting might be called for today.

No Comments »