Peas and barn, work and play

Tim's been busy with his electrical work during the week, then coming home with more to do at home over the weekends. 

Ariel has been teaching gardening to the kindergartners of Whidbey and has gotten inspired to get started on our garden as well.

So far, we've put in 5 of each of 5 kinds of peas, with the plan of planting another set every few weeks to see just what week is the best time of year for starting peas. Hopefully we will have delicious snacks growing in our garden this summer and be a little closer to our goal of food self-sufficiency. 

On Friday, Tim came home from a long day and long week of work to Ariel bouncing and shoving handfuls of messy plans at him saying "We're going to build the barn tomorrow!" having decided on it while Tim was at work. We need a place to store things securely on the property, as well as a structure to attach our power sources to. 

Tim put together a great video of building the barn over the weekend (above).

Our shopping list consisted of one trip to Home Depot and two trips to the local hardware store (Hanson's) to get

     16 - 12' 2x4

     27 - 10' 2x4

     32 - 8' 2x4
     1 - 12' 2x6
     3 - 10' 4x4
     1 - 12' 4x4 (pressure treated)
     9 - 12x12x8 concrete pier blocks
     9 - adjustable 4x4 pier block post bases
     9 - 4x4 post cap/bases
     6 - 2'x12' corrugated metal utility roofing
     4 - 4'x8' oriented strand boards
For about $600

We used 8' boards to lay out about where we wanted our footings for the building, then used stakes and survey string and measuring tapes and levels to lay out a more precise guide. 

Tim also realized we were in dire need of a bale of straw to make the mud a little more pleasant and clean to work on. With hay spread all around, it started to feel like a barn even without floors and walls and a roof.

Once the blocks were carefully leveled and placed, we made up stilts for the building, nailing post caps and bases to the 16" pieces of pressure treated 4x4. The goal is to have enough room under the barn for the animals to be able to use the extra space for shelter and to try to help deter rats. Also, being elevated brings the floor of the barn up to near the same level as the bed of the truck for easy loading, or the level of the wheelbarrow for easy unloading. 

As the light faded, we started lining up the first runner 4x4s between posts. We set up the generator in the back of the truck to power lights and the air compressor for our nail gun.

By moon and lamp light, we made our goal of getting all the runners in place and attached a floor joist to either end to hold it all together until morning. 

With the hard work of shopping and leveling and squaring done on Saturday, Sunday flew by, framing the floors and decking over with OSB in no time.

We were delighted we found we'd made something actually square and level and flush and plumb; and after adding some cross bracing on those legs, also stable.

After lunch, the dog park, and one more trip to the hardware store to replace those 2x4's used for bracing the legs, We got busy raising the walls. Mom-Joy and Dad-Rich arrived just in time to take some pictures.

From the tops of our ladders, we worked together to add a pony wall to our framing and were ready to start on the roof by moonlight.

 We built the outer frame of the roof on driveway - grateful we decided to get all that gravel a few weeks ago - then slid it into place and added additional rafters.

 Feeling like the Monroe Brothers from Green Acres, we worked together off a ladder to screw down all the metal roofing sheets, with a tight squeeze to reach the second-to-last panel and a long way up a ladder from the outside to put that last piece on, but we got it done!

With roof in place, we called it a night. Hopefully the sun will hold out for a few days until we get the siding on.

Monday morning means back to work for Tim, but at least those days end at 4:30.

The bus and the fence

We've been continuing to settle into our bus, moving the tool box over for a mini-shop in the back of the bus, wiring and plumbing an electric sink connected to a 50 gallon water barrel outside, fitting a mini-fridge under the counter, adding counter space, finishing the LED up-lighting, and enjoying the new futon couch/bed. 

 

Tilly is working on her fellow animal relations, trying to remember goats and chickens are friends, not biting toys. She's had a dramatic and total haircut recently, leaving her looking more like a normal dog and less like her ridiculous Tilly-teddy bear self. She's been rather annoyed at all the time she has to spend waiting and watching on her leash while we are busy working on the property these days.

We are trying to get the fence up and finished so she can run free again (without making a b-line for the neighbors houses any more...) and after a weekend of hard work, we got through half of one side.

Ariel used the excavator to balance the 200 pound roll of fencing on the high point of the hill, ran around and tied it off to a tree, ran back around and used the excavator to push the roll a little farther up the hill, ran back around and tightened the lines to the tree, ran back around and removed the excavator, ran back around with the come-along and to hoist the roll up to the tree on the corner of the hill and vertical with a line through the center to hold it while unrolling enough to reach back down to the gate. Once that was finally done, it was enough for a day and we went back to work on it over the weekend. Tim's first course of action was to make a path up the hill with a few buckets of gravel so the trip around between the top and bottom of the hill was a little more direct.

As we started putting in t-posts and stretching the fence to conform to the land, there were some doubts our scheme would work, but we pressed on and soon had the start of a good-looking fence! (At least from across the road.)

Together, we unrolled the fence the rest of the way to the corner, leveling land and clearing brush as we went.

By dark we'd gotten the hang of fence building; pounding in t-posts, clipping the fence on, stretching the fence to conform. We also managed to keep our trips to the farm supply store to three for the day.

Now just to do that 7 more times and we'll be done! The plan is to have a fence with gates around the perimeter of the front third or so of the property to keep the animals out of the wetlands and leave the back part of the property more wild with only walking trails. We'll add electric fence and other more temporary fencing dividing up the front section into gardens and animal yards, but that's a long ways off.

"When he reached the New World, Cortez burned his ships. As a result his men were well motivated."

Each step is bringing us closer to moving on to our property; whether it is throwing the moldy old mattress out of the bus to be replaced by a clean, functional futon, or working towards developing our property through cutting down brush and trees and digging up mud. We march forward to our exciting future and enjoy the journey. 

First try with the strap

When we last left off, there was a 'widowmaker' hanging over our future home that wouldn't come down. We finally decided the only way left to try was using straps and the excavator to pull the thing down. 

Second try with the strap a little higher

Ariel was recording a video of the momentous tree felling, but we pulled and pulled and it didn't come down! ...So Tim moved the strap a little higher...  

Third try with the strap higher still

...and a little higher. And finally the tree came right down! No there is a big pile of a dozen trees sitting right on the (future) fence line. Clean up is a project for another day.  

The gate in and survey line strung to the South for fencing (right)

While Tim was focusing on tree-clearing and land-clearing, Ariel was focusing on putting up a front gate to make our property safe for all our animals. Some neighbors came by and exclaimed "We've lived on Whidbey 35 years and don't even lock our front door! You don't need a gate!" I explained the goats and dog and chickens might think otherwise when they saw all those cars zipping by. Unfortunately, our neighbor was wrong about Whidbey and we noticed some things missing from our woodshed a few days later.

Tim installing surveillance

We got busy increasing our security measures, which ended up not revealing any intruders but being a great way to document our work on the property.

A "before" picture of our property pre-gravel in the driveway

Our next big goal (aside from those falling trees and the gate and related fences) while waiting for the electric company to get back to us about installing power has been to work on extending our driveway around to the future home-site.

The mud pit that was the entry of our property

Tim did some initial mud-making/road clearing with the excavator, then we called in the gravel trucks.

The first gravel load arriving in a very big truck

The gravel man took one look and said "No." then put the gravel in a pile at the top of the existing driveway, passed on some instructions for leveling the road before spreading gravel, and left. Ariel was home alone for the day and got busy trying to use the excavator (second time ever running it and the first was only for a minute on that first day...) to further flatten the driveway. Minutes later Eldon The Hero arrived; Ariel's fire station lieutenant and a frequent co-contractor with Tim's work. Eldon had been told by his truck driver that we had no idea what we were doing and desperately needed help, which pretty much summed it up.

Eldon scooping gravel directly from the back of his truck - definitely an expert-only move

Eldon demonstrated the proper and expert maneuvers for spreading gravel, left Ariel briefly to practice while running for more gravel, then came back to fix what Ariel had done and continue the excavator lessons. With this demonstration and supervision, Ariel has been improving steadily with the excavator from the initial stress and self-doubt to smoothing out the road bed in ways that don't need fixing and redoing.

Tim's time-lapse video of the driveway project

After three days of working together, the road is drive-able and looking like a driveway! Houses need driveways. It is far too easy to under-appreciate a driveway, but it is such an essential thing. What good is a house you can't get to without sinking knee deep in mud?

Driveway to road (right) and future-house (left) meeting at turn-around (foreground)

Finished-enough driveway, park-able and drive-able for the week while we wait for the rest of the mud to settle

Mama Hen (right), chick (center back), and Speckled Hen (left)

Back at the Honeymoon Point Farm across the road, there were too many hens in the nest. One nest in particular. Dear Mama Hen did all the good work of sitting on some eggs for nearly three weeks, then days before hatching, speckled inexperienced hen stole the nest! With chicks potentially in peril, it was too dangerous to try to switch them back. The white mama tried to stay close to the nest for the next week, especially when she heard a chick peeping, and briefly it looked like they might be sister-mothers and raise the single chick together, but then the white mama gave up, the speckled mama was still focused on the eggs and not the lone chick. 

Speckled Hen being very broody and the lone-chick

Tonight the chick has vanished. Our next barn will be rat-proof, and our next barn will have a separate area for broody hens and new moms. 

Dad-Rich in the workshop building a laundry-center platform

Dad-Rich was here since before Christmas and here more than in Juneau for the last six months, but finally finished with appointments down here and got the all-clear to head home. Before leaving he accomplished a great deal around the house like chopping up trees, building new trellises, installing a full set of blinds upstairs, adding a new washer and drier, moving the old washer and drier downstairs, and building a platform for the new set.

Dad-Rich's lattices

The last day Dad-Rich was in town, Joe-Dad and Roni came for a visit as well. Grandpa taught Roni how to play bridge. Rowdy has now returned to Alaska as well, leaving Nemo to no-longer need to compete for Grandpa's attention and hot dogs.

Can you spot the arborist?

Also at the big house, the arborist has been back to hide in trees and make them healthy and strong through selective pruning.