Chapter 84...Paving Coming Up

Off Grid...Chapter 84 8-8 Now that we know the paving crew is going to start, Mike and I have to put up a temporary fence to keep the cows off the fresh pavement. We are only doing a partial paving job this year. We will have the side walkway of the house, the back parking area, and the steepest part of the driveway paved which is about 650 feet. Next year we will finish the rest of the driveway. We will also have curbing done to keep the water flowing down the pavement and not wash out any more dirt. First thing today Mike and I have to go to David's to pick up more T-posts and electric fence string. We thought about doing barbed wire but that would cost much more and it would take much longer to install considering this fencing will only be up a couple of weeks. After we get home we start banging in the t-posts going down one side of the driveway and back up the other side. We put the t-posts in about every 25 feet. Mike putting in T-posts. We were short 2 t-posts thankfully we had a couple of extra in the building. Here are the t-posts waiting for the string. Next Mike and I start running out the wire. Mike had one spool and I had another. Mike went down one side of the driveway and I went down the other side. We will be putting 3 strands of wire on the t-posts. We wrapped the string around each t-post on the way down and then started a second strand going back up to the top. Temporary fence with 2 strands of wire. And 8-9 It looks like a beautiful day but it is supposed to get very hot. Mike wants to do some work on the ditch but I think it will be way too hot for that. We still have to finish the temporary fence so we work on that together. We start at the top together and work our way down. About 200 feet down we see that the cows already broke through the fence. Uh oh. They are such troubles, lol. It looks like they got inside the fence from the bottom and didn't know how to get out so they broke through a side. Once we put the third strand up and close off the opening they should stay out. I hope so, at least long enough for the pavement to harden enough before the cows walk on it. Our temp fence is now up and hopefully it will keep the troubles out, lol. We ran about 2000 feet of wire. Next project. We start getting the gutters ready to go back up on the house. We are going to paint them first so they don't stand out like a sore thumb. Mike takes the gutters apart so they can be lightly scuffed(sanded) to hold the paint. Then Mike and I fine sand them for the paint to adhere better. Mike sanding the gutters. Ah and my favorite part, lol. I get to paint them. They took 3 coats of paint. While I was painting the gutters Mike did some odd ball jobs. He cut any weeds along the driveway that might get in the way of the paving. Mike cutting a monster weed. I wish the plants would grow that fast. I think we are ready for the paving to begin. Hopefully the cows will stay away. Tomorrow is the big day. I hope you enjoyed this update. Lisa