Chapter 115...Wow...The Cows Got Into A Fight & Outside Work

Off Grid...Chapter 115 7-1 Mike and I went to his daughter's house to cut a tree down. She put up a hammock on a dead tree and Mike told her we had to fix that so no one got hurt. It worked out well. We got more wood and she got a safe place to hang the hammock. 7-2 We took a day of and went to the Christmas In July festival. It was a long windy trip there and back. 7-4 Hay has been cut, kicked and rolled or baled by our local farmer's. The whole crew was here to today with hay for the barn to keep the cows happy for the winter Now farmer's a hard working bunch. That is a tough job to do especially in this heat. Later on it poured so no fireworks but it did cool things down. 7-5 The heat is on. What a crazy summer. My garden is slowly growing. And looking like a jungle. I think I planted too much I went to check on some of our wild blackberries. Soon to be blackberries I would love to tame them a little so I did some research. After a lot of confusing information I think I got it. If I am wrong in anyway please share Blackberries grow in 2 year cycles and not every cane will have fruit on it. One year some canes will have fruit and then they die. They only get fruit one time on their life. After the summer season you can cut those canes to the ground. The ones that were green this year will bear fruit next year and they can be trimmed back. Anything dead should be cleared out.....ouch!!! Now to apply that to my mess will be quite difficult since I can't get to the ground. I may have to chop down half the jumble of briers this year to start fresh and then chop the other half down next year. This was I will have some blackberries next year. Mike says I should forget about the bushes and start over with transplants...but it's free so I will try. Mike and I picked up a load of dirt from our pile to add the the side of the house where it has settled. Then we shovel the dirt into 5 gallon buckets so we can carry them across the grass. Mike dumps the dirt on the low side. And spreads it out. Now we just need some seed and straw. 7-6 We went to town and picked up a treadmill. You would think I get enough exercise around here...not 7-7 I swear Mike is obsessed with rocks It was bad enough we had the pile of rocks to add to the ditch lines...and we got that done. Now Mike wants to pick up rocks from around the property. We will add any rocks we find to the pond wall. Here is is again....throwing rocks down the hill so we can put them in the tractor bucket. Our new rock spot. Very quickly we get a full bucket. Now it's off to the pond. Mike placing rocks on the pond wall. And a big one we found. Off to another job. While we were getting rocks we saw another downed tree that is easy to get to. Another big tree to be cut up. This will give us a lot of wood. While Mike is getting ready to cut it up I get a view from a new spot. Mike is trying to cut but the chainsaw won't stay running. They just don;t make tools like they used to. Oh well....we are going to have to come back to this tree another day. We drive back down to the pond to check on the fish. Mike is by the drain pipe and I am by the tractor. There is one cow in between us. Next thing I know another cow walks past me and gets close to the other cow...and then the fight began literally. Mike got the heck out of there. The 2 cows were really fighting and pushing each other pretty hard. One cow got thrown all the way into the pond. I got the heck out of there and Mike says "get on the tractor" yeah right, they are strong enough to knock the tractor over Meanwhile every other cow came down to the pond to watch the show. They were all standing around watching the fight mooing away. They reminded me of sports fans, lol. Mike got the tractor out of the way and eventually the fighting cows moved to the barn area and stopped fighting. Wow I have never seen the cows fight. Two bulls yeas but not 2 of the girls. The heat must be getting to them. The cows fighting. 7-8 Mike and I went to the Farm Supply to pick up Quikrete for our next project. Since we added the awning to the front of the house we have no use for our front garden so we are going to fill it in and make the patio area bigger. We got back home and Niki is hiding under the chair....strange little dog. We must be rubbing off on her, lol. We get the 12 bags of quikrete down to the house. Then we get the rest of the material to do the job. We get the black mixing bucket which we've had for years, the hoe, shovel, trap, and spatula and wood to spread it. Now we are ready. I open up one bag at a time and mix it up with water. Then Mike pours it into the garden and starts to spread it. We go right over the rocks because we can't use them anywhere else. Mike working on the fill in. That was work. Not terrible but I have never mixed that much quikrete at one time. Oh my back, lol. Mike is almost done spreading it out. We are done. Now we have to wait for it to cure and then we will stain/paint the patio. That's all for now. Lisa

Chapter 106...Baby Calf Stuck in Ditch and Spring Time Clean Up

Off Grid...Chapter 106 Hello everyone. Mike and I have been moving right along in between this crazy weather. It's time to take you back to show you what we have been up to. 3-21 As you know from last week, we installed our new wood stove. Unfortunately we are not happy with it's heating capability.....so Mike has a plan. Today he wants to take the firebrick out of the inside of the stove. He hopes that by doing this the stove will get hotter. Crossing my fingers that this will work. In order for us to do this we have to take the stove pipe back out. Mikes starts out by going up on the roof to cut away the caulking that is around the pipe on the roof. Then he he comes back inside the house. Next we put a small piece of 2x4 on top of the wood stove and use another small piece of 2x4 to pry the pipe out of the stove. Yay..step one is done and the pipe is raised. Now Mike can reach in through the top of the stove and take the top brick out. Then he takes the fire brick out from inside the stove. After that, we put the pipe back in and Mike re caulks it. Now we will see if this helps. While Mike works on the fire I call around for prices on propane. Our propane dealer will match any prices for us when we order. I called four local places and got 4 very different prices per gallon. I got $2.29, $2.49, $2.90, and $3.13. Wow that is a big difference....you can guess which one I got. They will deliver our propane tomorrow. OK, time for some outside work. Mike and I load up the Jeep and hook up the trailer. Time to go get some wood. We have a huge tree that fell last year and it should be easy for us to get to. On our way down the driveway Mike lets me out to shovel off some of the cow presents. Here we are just past the barn. This is the big tree that came down. It's a heartbreak when we lose trees. Mike cutting from the tree. While Mike cut from the tree, I picked up the pieces of wood and put them on the trailer. We only spent about an hour cutting wood. We still have to decide where the permanent home for the wood will be. For now we brought it up top and loaded it along the front of one of the wings on the house. Our next project for the day. We want to scrub the roof so we can apply the rest of the roof coating that we have leftover from last year. Mike hosed off the roof while I scrubbed. Done. It should be dry for tomorrow. 3-22 Today we are waiting for our propane delivery. We are hoping they can get their big truck into our property. We'll see. While we wait, Mike cleans and organizes his building a little and I mow the lawn. Mike opens the roof coating and it is hard as a rock. It must have gone bad over the winter. I'm glad we didn't have much in the bucket. Finally...the propane man is here and he made it in. Woo hoo. He said "wow, you guys got a good price" Later on we loaded up the trailer with all kinds of stuff and went to the big dump. That evening Mike, Niki and I walk down the driveway to clean it up. Mike uses the blower while I use the flat shovel. We want to clean up any gravel debris and cow messes. Mike starts out up top blowing the driveway with Niki. Getting farther down and Niki is running away. She doesn't like the blower. Looking back up...ah nice and clean. Yeah...Mike is almost done. Ahh!! Done...now we have to walk back up. We have had a lot of rain lately and this is the washout at the end of our pavement. We will have to do something about this. The tub is nice and full. There is so much water flowing out of our property. Ugh!!! the dreaded walk back up. We take a few breaks because Niki has a tough time. 3-23 Mike is still having a tough time with the wood stove. It just isn't heating the way it should. We are thinking of looking for a new one if we can sell this one. Oh..what a pain. He is still working on it. Mike taking out the grid tiles. And replacing with solid ceiling tiles. We did this once before when we thought we needed more air circulation. Now we need to trap the heat. Ahh...poor Niki girl doesn't want to get up. Next we decide to cut some more wood before the storm comes in. On our way down we see a new calf in the rock ditch line. He is OK so we leave him. Maybe his mama left him there. Anyway, this trip down to cut from our big tree did not go so well. We got set up and the chain saw did not want to cooperate. It has the same gas mix as the other day but it keeps stalling. Mike will fix it when we get up top but for now we will do what we can. Here we are back at the big tree. Small load on the trailer. That's all for now. Mike really has to fix the chainsaw. On our way up we see that the calf is still in the ditch...not good. I get out and try to help him but he is too heavy and the rocks are awkward. Mike lifts him out and pushes him onto the driveway. Sure...now the mother comes after us. Maybe she should have watched her child more. At least the calf is safe. Mike found a piece of PVC pipe...finally we are going to cut it down and use it as our hose reel. Yay...we have only been thinking about this since last summer, lol. Wow...looks like we made it. There is a horrible crazy hail storm going on. The hail is huge. Hail. Hail on the hill. The poor cows. Mike finishes the grid above the stove for now. He is planning to cut out a solid piece of metal and a decorative ring to add to the pipe. 3-24 There is not much we can do with this crazy weather. Mike is planning an inside project for us. 3-25 OK, it's clear enough to check the damage. We drive down the driveway to our worst area which is where the pavement ends and the gravel begins. Oh yeah..it's a mess. I drive Mike to the barn to pick up the tractor...hope he remembers how to use it, lol. He gets to play on the tractor while I get to shovel and rake. What's wrong with this picture. Yeah, I really need to learn how to drive the tractor this year. Here are the ruts in our driveway. The water is flowing on the side of the driveway. The water comes out of here so fast that it washes the gravel away. I tried raking some of the gravel off the grass to put back onto the driveway but it is too heavy. I start shoveling the gravel onto the driveway. While I work on that Mike scrapes the gravel onto the driveway. Mike grading the driveway. It's looking better. The edge of our driveway and the gravel. Mike is making a ditch to hopefully divert the bulk of the water before it washes out the whole driveway. Eventually this problem will be solved. We will have to bury a drain to let the water flow off to the side instead of down the driveway. This will do for now. We checked the pond and the water flowing out is unbelievable. and Back up top. We are having some water come down our wood stove pipe. It is either a very small leak or condensation. Mike fixes it. First he cuts the seal around the collar. The gap where the water may be getting in. Mike re caulks it. And then paints on the roof coating. It should all stay dry now Over the weekend we had to run some errands for our next "indoor" project and we visited Mike's daughter. On Monday it snowed and we moved some furniture around...that will be the next story. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I will write again soon.  Lisa [+] Rate this post positively