Chapter 143...Pouring The Concrete Slab For The Store And Clean Up

Today is the day.  We will have the concrete slab poured and then if the weather holds Mike and I can start construction:)

The concrete company and our workers are ready to go:

They will need 12 1/2 yards of concrete so the truck will have to refill and come back.  This is the first truck and the concrete crew smooths out the first section:

While they are doing that, Mike and I brought the chainsaw to do some clean up work.  We have a big tree trunk down on the back hill.  Mike gets in the Jeep and backs it up as close as he can.  I take the chain and wrap it around the log so Mike can pull it off the hill:

Mike starts cutting and I start loading.  Now we have a nice start for our wood pile for next year:)

Back to our concrete crew.  The second truck of concrete is here:

Using the chute to pour the concrete onto the slab:

All the concrete is poured and our contractor does the finishing touches for a smooth slab.  He uses a troweling machine to smooth it out.  Looks good:

Now we have to let it cure before we can do any building.  We also need a dose of good and dry weather.  Mike and I will order the lumber and start building as soon as we have 3-5 good days in a row.


We do get a chance to go back to the lot to clean the land.

First we have to buy a ride on mower since we sold our last one.  I use a push mower at the house but that would take too long here.  So down to Lowe's we go and we pick up a Troy-Bilt Pony mower which has the exact same engine and size cut as the John Deere but it is $500.00 less:)  Troy Bilt Pony

The only problem we have is Lowe's forgot to give us a manual and a key....grr!!!  Lowe's is too far for us to make a trip back so Mike stuck a screwdriver in the key hole so I could start it.  Hey...it worked for now.

Getting the equipment to the property:

Mike unloads the mower onto the grass for me:

And off I go.  While I mow and blow all of the debris on the hill by the road, Mike works with the tractor.  We have a lot of clean up after the grading was done.  Mike wants to make sure we have a nice small ditch from the back of the building to the road at the other end of our property.  This way any water that comes down the back hill will get caught in the ditch and carried away from the building.  It's a mess and it takes Mike a long time to get it somewhat cleaned up.

The lawn is cut:

For the next week we have to work at home but now we are back and it's time to rake and seed the property where Mike has cut it open.  I start out by weed eating the front 400 feet of the property while  Mike once again works on the tractor:

And he grades it out:

I get the grass seed, the shovel and the rake from the car.  I start at the far side by the road.  I need to dig out the one small hill so the water can flow into the lower section of the ditch by the road.  Unfortunately it is too hard and I need Mike to break up the dirt for me:

Now I can get some work done:)  I rake out the ditch line that Mike made, shovel up all the rocks and throw seed down.  It is a slow process.  I get about 100 feet done and I have to stop.  Mike is working on a muddy area and there is nothing I can do there so I do the same job behind the building.


My sections are cleaned up, raked and seeded.  The front of the ditch by the road:

And behind the building:

That is what we are up to on that lot.  Now we need a big break in the weather to start construction.  Mike and I can't wait.  It will be hard on us to build but this is something we both really enjoy doing.

I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and I will write again soon:)

Chapter 116...Staining The Patio

Off Grid...Chapter 116 Mike and I are slowly running out of projects. The stories now will be just a little shorter now. So let's get to it. 7-9 The cow family brought a new bull in for our girls. He is a new small bull and Mike and I are keeping our distance since we don't know his personality yet. Of course on our way down to do some work, what do we see? Yup..the new bull is in our rocks in the ditch line rubbing his head on our nice rocks Mike and I picked up more rocks from around the property. Here is another area next to one of the ditches. We loaded up the tractor bucket and cleaned up another area. We took those rocks down to the pond and picked up a bale of hay for the side of the house. We also stopped off at the dirt pile and got some more dirt to bring up top. Oh the fun things we do On the way back up we saw the new bull pushing Mike's big burn pile around I really hope this new guy settles down soon. The rest of the day I did the mowing and Mike did stuff in his building. 7-10 Time to get the patio ready for staining Mike starts off by scrubbing the concrete off the front of the house. Then we move the patio benches off the patio. We stack them on top of some logs by our wings. Mike uses a new concrete filler to fill in the cracks on the patio. It looks pretty good. Hopefully the stain will cover the line. Then Mike uses his grinder to grind down the rough edges on the patio table. Since the table is too heavy for us to move we are going to tape off the bottom and stain around it. We don't normally do something like this but we don't plan on ever moving that table Next we clean the patio and get it ready for staining. I use the scrub brush on it while Mike hoses it down. 7-11 Today we helped Mike's daughter with some of her trim work. It is hot hot hot today. The outside temp got to 102 The house is very warm but not unbearable. It is the humidity that is very high. 7-12 OK...it's time for the fun stuff. First we are going to repaint the front of the house. We want everything to look fresh and clean when we are done. I do the cut in while Mike does the rolling. It takes us about an hour to paint the front. Mike finishing up. Now it's time for the stain. I really hope the color is OK. We picked up a solid stain of a color that is a lighter green. We are hoping it will compliment the house and make it cheerful. Uh oh...it's not looking good Mike is rolling the stain on and it looks like mint ice cream Ugh!!! This will not work. It is downright ugly. Oh well...you all know how bad mike and I are with colors Mike rolls out the rest of the can to use as a base coat. We have a sample color of paint that was off the same card as our house color. We thought about using that for the buildings. We try that sample color out....and it is too blue. Yuck!! another color we don't like. It's back to town to get more sample colors. This time we try the tan colors. We don't like those either. Oh well...so much for trying a new color. It's back to town and we stick with a weathered concrete color. We also switch to a floor paint since the solid stain didn't cover very well. 7-13 Mike starts out by painting along the crack that he filled in. I use the brush to paint the expansion joints, around the table, around the posts, and near the house. Mike rolls the rest. Now we have to let it dry and then we can do the second coat. 7-14 Same story different day We get the second coat on. Mike rolling again. Well we didn't get a color but it is clean looking The crack filler helped but they didn't get completely covered by the paint. I really thought the paint would cover the fill in. Oh well..it's still better than it was For the next few days it was just the usual chore...cleaning and yard work. On Saturday the neighbor's bull from behind us got in again Mike called our cow people to let them know. They were not happy about it since our neighbor was supposed to put his bull in another field. So our cow family, Howard, Eric, and Ivalee showed up along with our back neighbor to get the bull out and then fix the fence line. It took awhile but they finally got the bull into the barn and locked him in before loading him up. He is so strong that he bent the steel gate They finally got the bull loaded up and Eric found a buyer for him. That bull is on his way to Virginia For the next few hours we all went up and worked on the fence line. At least we won't have any more trouble from that bull. He actually got into a fight with our new bull and our little guy did get hurt but he is OK. I know it was a short story but Mike and I have really been knocking things off this year. Next we have to get the driveway ready to get the final section of paving done. I hope you all enjoyed the story. Have a great week and I'll see you again next Monday. Lisa P.S. Nike says she can't wait for it to cool down so she can get back to supervising us