Saturday, Jan. 27 - The weather was the right mix and we were able to burn both the piles of trash trees and brush that I had built up over the last six months. It was quite a sight to light them up. I'd been afraid that they'd be wet inside and not burn well but my fears were ill founded and they went up nicely. Many friends came by to visit and toss a log on the fire for us. I'd only planned on burning one pile, but the burn rate was so fast that we ended up doing them both. The bed of coals lasted well past 10PM. That's when they had all burned down past the dangerous stage and I left to go home. Many thanks to Andy, Steven, Brittany, Steven's dad, Dustin, Calvin and Charles who came and helped especially. I'll post some pix as soon as I can.
We also managed to finish pulling the paneling and all the furring off of the living room walls. Most of it is burned, we added it to the fire. Lots of plaster patching to do, but that will come. We've a lot of work to do there, but it's nice to have it one notch farther along.
As for the barn floor, it needs to have the insulation laid down on it, then the wire, then the tubing. They hit a seam of rock while digging and brought in an air compressor to jack hammer the rock. Unfortunately they dumped the rock on my garden spot, but I'll be able to remove that to it's proper place with the backhoe I plan to rent at some point. I'll be doing the insulation this next weekend, if all goes well. After that will come the tubing and then they can pour.
I also need to get at the apple trees and do some pruning next weekend. This is the time of year for it (unless it's absolutely freezing wind chills then, which is unfortunately the forecast).
As the winter sun starts it's climb higher in the sky, the days get colder, so we'll see how it works out, but winter has definitely arrived here! Brrr! :)
Stay warm,
Doug
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
A new barn floor!
This is a short note, but a hopeful one. The warm weather we've been having has kept alive my drive to make improvements to the property through the winter. Today I met with a concrete contractor and we discussed a new floor in half of my barn. I want to use an area about 22' by 24' as a woodshop and "out of the weather" storage depot for house materials. I'm hoping I can buy things cheap while they're on sale, before I need them.
Percy says he can dig out the dirt that's there now, lay in 4" of rock and pour a 4" slab of concrete for me in the next week or two. I asked him if he'd bring in a Bobcat or what and he just grinned and said, "Do you know what a Chinese backhoe is?" I laughed because I knew there was a lot of shoveling ahead for his crew. It should be easy digging though, most of it's rotted cow and horse manure. I'm going to have him spread it in the "garden to be."
Once the floor's been laid I should be able to repair the rim joist on the north gable end of the barn (eaten away by weather) and perhaps even get that gable resided, if the weather holds warm like it has been. With a new floor, new joists, and new siding, we'll be ready for a garage door and really be going to town!
It was fun to bust out the old junky flooring and walls that had been put in there by someone. Much of it was oak that was a good bit rotted out. I managed to get a fire started (VERY carefully) in a small brush pile with a little gasoline. I tried kerosene first because it's safer to work with and it wouldn't light for some reason. I stacked on the junky boards from the old floor. Once they got going they burned really well. I ended up with a bed of coals about 18" high and 3' in diameter. It was so hot I couldn't get near it to push in the unburnt ends. I had to flip them in with a rake from a distance. Even though the day was in the 50's and rainy.
There were some old pine boughs from the other side of the house, down by the power pole. I decided to clear out that area a bit, but the pile was too big to lug so far by hand so I fired up Eloise and hooked a chain up and drug over a good sized load. I used the biggest limb I could find as a "bed" and piled the other limbs on top. Hooked up the chain and away she went. Eloise fired right up, no problem, btw.
I'm hoping to clear a good path to the power pole because at some point I want to bury the power lines into the house. I really don't like them hanging around. The power comes in from the back left side of the house and the phone/cable comes in the front left, so I will have some good experience with a trencher before I'm done. :)
The back line, the power cable, will be a bit tricky since there are a lot of rocks close to the surface there and getting the power line under ground might be a challenge. At worst I figure I'll just lay the cable on the rock and build a berm of earth over top of it to the right depth. If the cable can't go into the ground, the dirt can rise above it...
I still have about six posts to cut out of the barn. Someone installed some VERY sturdy posts to anchor the corners of box stalls, they're sunk into concrete, etc. I intend to just cut them at the top by the joists and flush with the dirt on the bottom. The footings can probably be jack hammered low enough to be buried under the slab. My concrete guy says they won't be a problem.
I've got a book on hot water heat for slabs. I want to try out the system on the barn/shop floor and see if I can work it right there. Even if the floor never gets super hot, being able to bring it from 30F to 60F will be a help on the feet in cold weather. My intention is to hook the loop up to some homemade solar collectors as an experiment. We'll see how well it works out. I'd like to hook it up to a solar electric powered circulation pump. That way it will only circulate when there's sunshine (heat) to be gathered. Not sure of the engineering math involved, but this is a great toy for a tinkerer. :)
Off to bed, a full day ahead tomorrow.
Doug
Percy says he can dig out the dirt that's there now, lay in 4" of rock and pour a 4" slab of concrete for me in the next week or two. I asked him if he'd bring in a Bobcat or what and he just grinned and said, "Do you know what a Chinese backhoe is?" I laughed because I knew there was a lot of shoveling ahead for his crew. It should be easy digging though, most of it's rotted cow and horse manure. I'm going to have him spread it in the "garden to be."
Once the floor's been laid I should be able to repair the rim joist on the north gable end of the barn (eaten away by weather) and perhaps even get that gable resided, if the weather holds warm like it has been. With a new floor, new joists, and new siding, we'll be ready for a garage door and really be going to town!
It was fun to bust out the old junky flooring and walls that had been put in there by someone. Much of it was oak that was a good bit rotted out. I managed to get a fire started (VERY carefully) in a small brush pile with a little gasoline. I tried kerosene first because it's safer to work with and it wouldn't light for some reason. I stacked on the junky boards from the old floor. Once they got going they burned really well. I ended up with a bed of coals about 18" high and 3' in diameter. It was so hot I couldn't get near it to push in the unburnt ends. I had to flip them in with a rake from a distance. Even though the day was in the 50's and rainy.
There were some old pine boughs from the other side of the house, down by the power pole. I decided to clear out that area a bit, but the pile was too big to lug so far by hand so I fired up Eloise and hooked a chain up and drug over a good sized load. I used the biggest limb I could find as a "bed" and piled the other limbs on top. Hooked up the chain and away she went. Eloise fired right up, no problem, btw.
I'm hoping to clear a good path to the power pole because at some point I want to bury the power lines into the house. I really don't like them hanging around. The power comes in from the back left side of the house and the phone/cable comes in the front left, so I will have some good experience with a trencher before I'm done. :)
The back line, the power cable, will be a bit tricky since there are a lot of rocks close to the surface there and getting the power line under ground might be a challenge. At worst I figure I'll just lay the cable on the rock and build a berm of earth over top of it to the right depth. If the cable can't go into the ground, the dirt can rise above it...
I still have about six posts to cut out of the barn. Someone installed some VERY sturdy posts to anchor the corners of box stalls, they're sunk into concrete, etc. I intend to just cut them at the top by the joists and flush with the dirt on the bottom. The footings can probably be jack hammered low enough to be buried under the slab. My concrete guy says they won't be a problem.
I've got a book on hot water heat for slabs. I want to try out the system on the barn/shop floor and see if I can work it right there. Even if the floor never gets super hot, being able to bring it from 30F to 60F will be a help on the feet in cold weather. My intention is to hook the loop up to some homemade solar collectors as an experiment. We'll see how well it works out. I'd like to hook it up to a solar electric powered circulation pump. That way it will only circulate when there's sunshine (heat) to be gathered. Not sure of the engineering math involved, but this is a great toy for a tinkerer. :)
Off to bed, a full day ahead tomorrow.
Doug
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