Pumpkins / Barn Work

A few days ago we pick some pumpkins from our garden and I thought they were so pretty that they

just had to go on the blog!

These are some pictures of the chicken coop in the basement of the barn it (as in the chicken coop) is almost finished! 

p.s. the pictures are in black and white because I thought they looked better that way!

We have been putting scrap wood in this wagon for some friends of our's who are going to use it for fire wood to heat their house.  

Summer Freezing

Today is summer freezing ( I just came up with that )! 

It means that it is in the 40's today!! 

Ah!



Sorry I don't have a picture for this one because if I take out my camera it might just freeze right up
(not really but I am pretending)!!

-Jessie

Camping

 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday My dad, brothers and I slept in our tent at our at our very own "Murmur creek campground" by the stream. Here are some pictures of our Monday morning breakfast...

Pa cooking up eggs and sausage over the fire.

Here are some bannocks roasting (which is basically a biscuit over the fire). 

Thanks for the recipes Uncle Miles!

   

This is our wood shelter the my dad built with scrap wood from the new barn siding. 

 This  the match storage place where we put a lot more things than matches including a sign in sheet!

Calypso Bean Earrings

Today I made earrings with calypso beans (which we like to call orca beans) from our garden, and yes there is a monarch chrysalis in the background.    

This is what the bean looks like.

This is what our basement looks like after we put all the canned foods in today.

Corn from our Garden

Today we husked 8 beautiful ears of corn from our garden for lunch! So cool! 

p.s. They were soooo good!

Sydney is on the Overhang!

This evening I was busy up in my room cleaning up when I heard my mom call for me ( something like this), "Jessie come down here quickly with your camera! It's something really important! It's a blog post, come quickly!" So I ran down stairs and grabbed my camera out of my drawer, and ran out side to   what my mom was showing me... Sydney was on the over hang of the barn that Pa had fallen off of last week! I think she is testing it for Pa!  

don't worry she's not falling!

aw!! 

I'm Back!

(by Jessie)

Yesterday we got back from Indiana (where my Grandparents, my Mom's parents live). In Indiana my Mom, Aunt, and Grandma can foods for the winter while my brothers and I play with our cousins! Here are some pictures of the canning:

Structural and Internal Integrity - A frightful test.

(from Ken)

I’ve been contemplating a cantilever design for an overhang on the barn (avoiding posts).  I lay in bed thinking of structural forms and have perused countless photos and engineered drawings on the internet.  Well today I decided to give one of my ideas a try a massive bolt holding each support in place (1st part).  All was going well.  hole drilled and lined up, the bolt ratcheted down into the beam.  It seemed tremendously strong.  I was even impressed.  Then I got the brilliant idea to test its structural integrity.... if it can hold me (200lbs) then a series of them should be quite good.  So I stepped out on the beam, and all seemed good for a moment... then down it went.

Well these things happen rather fast.  Had I a moment to think about it, I likely could have just dropped to the ground and been alright (only about seven feet up - I’m sure Rosetta is happy I wasn’t trying this on the second story north side where I’m planning another one).  But instead of just dropping, I reached for the beam, then something else, then slid down the side of the barn, and then finally hit the ground on my feet I think, and the beam I had attached didn’t fall on me (that was nice).  So other than the abrasion I could feel down the side of my leg, and the skin tore off a few places on my arm (not real bad), I thought all was good - other than being a bit disappointed in my engineering (ok - very disappointed!)... but...

Apparently there was also an internal integrity test going on.  As I stood there assessing what happened and making sure I wasn’t bleeding so much that I would have to stop working, I became...well, I’m not exactly sure...it wasn’t lightheaded exactly, but I knew something wasn’t looking good.  I thought about heading to the house, but wasn’t sure if I would make it.  I managed to get to the excavator and sat down on one of the tracks.  Things sort of faded a bit, but I never fainted.  I tried to asses what was happening but couldn’t make any sense of it.  I hadn’t hit my head, I hadn’t really hit anything hard.  I thought when I’m able to move again I should go to the house and call someone.  So I sat and sat, breathing hard, sweating like crazy, and feeling nauseous.  It seems my internal integrity was not up to the test either.

Some time passed and I eventually got up and started moving around again.  I went up to the barn and looked over things some more, then decided to go ahead and cut some more wood and install some more beams before it got too dark to see.  Not sure what to make of all of that, maybe I was just really really disappointed that the first structural test didn’t hold.  As for now I’m feeling good, and rethinking how to improve my plan.  I’ll include a photo when I come up with something that works!

 Barn or Cathedral?  

(From Ken) 

I haven’t been preaching at a church for awhile now...  These photos make me think I could have a sneaky plan of starting a new church right here; now I just need some stained glass windows to finish it off.  Wouldn't that be something?

Really, it’s just a barn; unfortunately, those nifty looking gaps in the wall will eventually get covered over with wood.

Below is a photo of my portable miter saw table.  I can just drive it out to location where and when I need it and easily put it away at the end of the day.  Always ready to go and I can easily handle the 14 and 16 foot boards on it.  And its a Deere!

Asher inspects the job.  Today I spent most of the day working on trenching/drainage for the barn.  This involved finding the drain and ground tile from the barn and running pipe through the trench, chasing out the frogs, putting in some gravel, and filling it all back in.  This is one of those jobs that needs to be done well, but its hard to appreciate, because if it all works well, you never see it and don't think about it again.  But it's done!  (and I'm thankful for the air conditioning in the excavator).

Barn pictures of the progress Pa and Micaiah make over the last few days.

Along with siding Pa has put in 3 windows in the basement.

This is the front of the barn (the road side).

Today in our garden we found a huge radish!

 I have just added the followers widget and I am hoping to get many followers!

Just after we posted that our bees were doing great they just had to swarm! But the swarm disappeared  within an hour, faster then we were able to get ready to collect them! But both of our hives still looked normal! 

A few days later (Friday) they swarmed again, but this time we were able to see which hive they came from and where they went to cluster. We found them nearby up high in a tree.

We decided to try to collect them so we got all of the stuff ready and Pa climbed the tree.

Micaiah and Samuel getting the hive boxes ready.
  

Pa cut the branch they were on and lowered it down with a rope. The bees didn't like this to much and started buzzing all around.

Next Pa climbed down from the tree so he could clip off the ends of  the branch and put what was left of the bees (on the branch) in the new hive that we had got ready.

We watched bees start to gather in the box. We were so excited we were going to have 3 bee hives instead of two!

  

Happy ending! 

 Until Pa checked the hive yesterday!...

Only a small cluster of bees reman in the hive!

Yesterday's work project:

Pa gets boards for the siding.

The photographers working feet.

Samuel cleans up the barn with the shop-vac.

Me the photographer!

Mom staining. 

Mom cleaning up.

Pa cutting siding boards and Micaiah doing something but I don't know what!

Our "mighty mouser" is getting ready for her barn job!