January 2018...Taking a Walk, Planting Grass Seed and Putting Shingles on the Roof

Hello all.  I hope all of my followers had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  This is what Mike and I did last January.  I need to get caught up before 2018 is over, lol.

I love the trees and fields at the back of our property...and it is flat:)

Open area:

And:

OK...time for some work.   Mike is digging out some of the sand that is too high along the house so we can seed:

It's ready for seed:

And hay.  We can't find straw here but there is a ton of hay around:

Mike building a quick ramp out of leftover pressure treated wood to make it easy to go in and out of the "barn":

Almost finished:

Mike adds a dozen or so a day of truss clips on the inside of the barn as required:

Ugh...it's time for the uglies.  Her are our shingles:

The tractor is going to make this so much easier:

I'm on the roof.  Mike throws the shingle packs up to me and I spread them out on the roof:

Getting ready to start the first row:

Moving right along.  We have our system.  Mike nails the shingles down using a roofing coil gun while I line the shingles up:

Halfway there:

Sadly I have been slacking in the camera department.  As I look back I cannot find a picture of the other side completed.  Anyway it took us 3 days to shingle the entire roof.


Our lovely barn/workshop inside.  Mike is working on a well house and this is the cover:

More seed and hay where the electric company left their mess.  I wish I could bill them, lol.

Working on the drip edge on the peak:

And the sides:

Mike's new well house:

Other peak.  I hate being on a ladder that high.  I'm glad Mike has good balance:

Murphy's Law....put seed down and the turkeys will come, lol.

I love winters in Florida:):)

That's all for now.  I will try and catch everyone up and get to our animals soon which is just fun.:)

Trusses, Roof, Electric and Barn Door

It has been a very long time.  I have been asked to do a recap of the things we have done.  Mike and I are still building, expanding and now adding farm animals to the mix but for now let's get the barn/house finished.  So it's back to last December, two months after we got to Florida last year.

This is going to be like the DIY channel on TV.  Wow...it's amazing how quickly things get done, lol.


Mike cutting out the siding for a window.  Normally this would be done before the siding went up but doing it this way made it faster fir Mike and I to get the harder parts finished:

 Caulking the window to seal it to the siding.

And one window is in.

Ugh...now it's time for the hard work.  Trusses...I really don't mind if I never do trusses ever again, lol.  First we had to get all of the trusses inside so they were closer for us to install.  Then one at a time we put them up.  Of course since it is just Mike and I we have to come up with a system.  Together we would slide one end up and then Mike walked the other end up a ladder.  We would then slide it upside down over a rat run to keep it stable.  Flip it up.  Measure it and then nail it in.  Easy right?


Mike getting ready to flip it up while I get ready to hold it in place until Mike can start nailing the ends.

Holding one end.



While Mike nails in his end.

Nailing the middle to the rat run.

And it's magic...all the trusses are up:)  Seriously though if it wasn't for our friend's, M&J, we wouldn't have any of the "work in progress" pictures.

Mike got a new toy.  We walked past this JD mower at Home Depot and it was marked 50% off.  Mike said to me "grab the tag"...and now it is ours:)  I love my goofy man.

Now that the trusses are up we can start the roof.  For those who have followed our stories how many roofs ago did Mike say was our last one??


Picking up plywood a little at a time:

Normally Mike and I would each hold a corner of the plywood and throw it up onto the roof together.  Well we tried and our age must be showing.  It just didn't work.  I'm blaming it on the heavier plywood that we used, lol.


Anyway...our tractor comes to the rescue once again.

Once we got a sheet of plywood up Mike can nail it to the trusses.  Might as well do the first row from the tractor.

Plywood is almost up on one side.

And the other side.  Mike won't let me on top of the roof to help until the first row is up.  This darned sand makes it so slippery and dangerous.

Mike working up top.  Not safe but when I am up there I have to be up there without shoes.  I guess it's better than falling off the roof.

It's been a hard month and a half.  We just want to get the roof sealed in so we can take a little break.  So we used the stick on ice and water shield to buy us a couple of weeks:)  Now the roof is dried in and protected.  We hate when roofers leave the wood on a roof open to the elements.

Well Merry Christmas to us.  The day after Christmas the electric company showed up to install our electric.

It's not like in TN where we can do the work ourselves and save a ton of money.  Here, unfortunately, the electric company does it all.


Digging up the ground and laying out the conduit.

Mike putting the outside panel together.

Oh what a mess but an exciting one.

Wire is in the ground.

Wire on the trucks...hmm I could have used those spools for the goats we have now, lol.

 Hooking it all up.

Mike and I cleaning up the ditch and mess that was left behind.  We have new supervisors.

Hey...Mike picked up the camera, lol.  Me cleaning up some of the mess left behind form the electric company.  Think I can charge them for the work to fix their mess?

Yay we have electric.  How many times do you get to see a meter on zero?  Cool:)

Back to the barn/house.  Mike made our barn doors.  Installing the first one.

Cutting the wood down for the second one.

Adding the zees.

After I stained them Mike bolts it on.

Our new doors.  Mike did a nice job:)

After the doors were installed we moved everything from the trailers to inside the building.  Then we sold the big trailer.



So that takes you into 2018:)  We have a very busy week coming up but I will, really I will:), write more next week.  Mike likes these stories also:)