No Work!

This was our first weekend not to work!  It was family time and we had a blast.  The Stennings were brave enough to spend the weekend at the farm with us.  I say brave because it was slightly better than camping in a tent.  We just happen to sleep in a building with an AC (which all by itself is worth a lot).

We did however have a great time even with the 100 degree days.  The kids got to ride the tractor and four wheeler.  Their favorite was the four wheeler.   Oli seemed to love the great outdoors and spent a long time helping clean up the joint.  His passion was carrying wood to the burn pile.

It does appear that being around John (Papa) makes kids make funny faces.

You do know you are desperate to make your grandchildren happy when you agree to making roasted marshmallows for smores when at dark it is still 95 degrees.  So John got very creative.  This is the longest roasting marshmallows stick in history.  It was way to hot to get close to the fire, even within 5 feet would burn your eyebrows off.

Tasha then tried her hand.

Dad, the official marshmallow bag holder!  Everyone needs a job!



And here are my babies!

Mouth full of marshmallow!

Well there appears to be another SOB in the world.  Another dog has ended up on our door step.  We have named her Scruffy.  It has been said that on Craig's List, there is a posting that the farm is the place to drop your unwanted dogs. (haha)  All joking aside, I am becoming very disappointed in the human race, 2 dogs, 2 months......REALLY PEOPLE!!!!

Clean Up

You know you are two messy people when it takes a whole day to cleanup the farm.  Of course, this included John mowing with the tractor all day and I got the prestigious job of doing the cleanup around the construction site (the barn).   I also got the job of spraying for bugs and the weed killer.  I can only assume you are jealous :).

I did however find and 'removed' the largest spider I have ever seen.  It scared the crap out of me when I saw it was making a quite an impressive home in the eaves of the barn.  But me being me, I thought to myself, 'you must die', and it did - I love bug killer! 

John and I were both exhausted; this is one of the hardest day we have had.  It was so hot and being out in it all day was just draining.

So to round out the weekend, Sunday, we get home, I did 100 loads of clothes (yes, John wears a lot of clothes), made dinner, ran the normal errands and finally, I am tired, and think to myself, 'self, you should go for a bike ride, you will feel much better, and relaxed, and you can work off the pancakes you had for dinner'!  Sooooo, as you fear, it did not go as well as expected.  I CRASHED!  Yep, I fell going about 10 mph.  If you remember when you were 10, falling off the bike wasn't such a big deal, falling at 49 is more than a big deal - it hurts like hell.   Not only did I fall, but I fell while a car was passing!!!! Awesome, public humiliation, I love it.    After I got home, John did his best imitation of Dr. Oz and patched me up.  So I sit here, with a bag of frozen peas on my shoulder and frozen french fries on my knee wondering how swore I will be tomorrow.  Not looking forward to that.

For those who know me, know that I do think it is funny when someone falls, and I can only imagine how ridiculous I looked when I fell, it kind of makes me giggle, if it didn't hurt when I laughed.

Then to round off the day, I grabbed some posion ivy.  Another great move on my part since I am highly allergic to it.  So I spent 10 minutes washing my hands and arms. 

I think I am going to bed before I break a bone, I think that is the last think left.

Oh yeah, another picture of Sandy looking at me like I am an idiot!!!! Not sure why it looks yellow - I will not be a photographer in my next career.

More Barn Stuff

We got a lot done this weekend!  OK maybe not we, maybe mostly John.

The back wall is finally up.  The shop area is now completely enclosed, all 4 walls have siding up.  YEAH!  Yep, that is Tyke in the middle of the room.  Just a small black dot.

Then we went on to the ceiling.  We are almost 1/2 done with it.   In this picture it looks like the floor but that is the ceiling.  John had the great idea to use cedar pickets and with a small amount of cutting they worked great.

And to complete the weekend, the shower has been installed.  Yep, that shower is on the outside wall and inside the barn area.  We even have hot water.  OK, yes you are correct, technically you are taking a shower outside, but based on where we are no one can see (nor do I think anyone really would want to).

Barn Doors

John has out done himself again.  He has finished building the cedar barn doors.  All that is left is to hang them.  Yep, he is pretty cool.

And here is my contribution to the weekend, I burned shit.  I will say that I can burn a pile of limbs better than anyone! 

My other contribution was mowing and in doing so I got the tractor stuck.  And I will say that I got it stuck very well!  Just about hid the front tire in mud. 

This little miss adventure took a call to Chris to come and pull the damn tractor out.  Yes, I was pretty mad about the whole thing.  Chris was very nice and didn't say, 'what idiot got the tractor stuck', he just pulled the stupid thing out in about 10 minutes.  Do I sound bitter, well I should because I am. 

John builds barn doors and I burn a pile of limbs and get the stupid tractor stuck, yeah me!

And then we had Sandy with us, who just looked at me like, yep, you are the idiot who got the tractor stuck.

5 Things We Know About Fred

Well Fred has been with us for a week or so and has definitely made his mark in the family. 1st, his speed has not yet improved, still moves pretty damn slow, 2nd, he loves to bark for hours if he sees someone leave from the front door. You may think he would take a breath every once in a while or at least get tired, NO, not Fred. He can keep barking until all humans have to go outside to get a break.  So that means that when you leave for work, you have to sneak out of the house. 3rd, he LOVES to be petted. Around 2:30 every morning, he comes around to my side of the bed, not Johns, mine, and decides he needs to be petted. He will cry until he finally gets petted, so I have stick my hand over the side of the bed and scratch his head for a minute or two and he finally goes back to sleep.  4th, when he doesn't want to do something, he puts his down, lowers his bum and refuses to budge.  So to move him you must scoot him across the floor.  Thank goodness we have wood floors and no carpet or he would never move.

And 5th just to make sure everyone understands exactly how lazy he is, he lays down to eat EVERY SINGLE TIME!  Check out the nose over the bowl.  His head is huge!!!!

Siding

It has been a very busy week at the farm.  I took the week off and we (mostly John) worked our bums off.  John finished all the wiring in the shop area of the barn.  I think we have more outlets in this one room than we have in our whole house.  We have 15 outlets.  I plan on pluggin in a whole hell of a lot of things.

I did find something that I could do by myself, put up tar paper on the outside walls of the shop area before we put up the siding.  Yes, not a sexy job, but a job non the less. 

We finished siding the outside walls of the barn.  We still have the one wall (inside the barn), but that one will be much easier because it is always in the shade.

I have never been so hot and sweated more in my whole life.  To work at all, we would try to start at 6:00 am, work till around noon or 1 and then because we were on the verge of dying from a heat stroke, we would get in the truck, soak up all the air conditioner we could, ride to Hutto for more building 'stuff' and then start working again around 6:00 to 8:00 pm.   Early morning is really only the time to work.  Around 9:00 am it starts to get hot and from 1:00 - 5:00 the heat was so overwhelming just walking around outside, the sweat would pour off of you (not a pretty picture).  But we persevered and I believe the majority of what we have left will be in doors or at least under the barn.

I can honestly say that I have not been that tired in a long time.  Every evening I think we would just fall into bed because any extra movement would cause something to hurt; shoulder, knee, legs in general, hands, back, finger where I banged with the hammer no less than 16 times (yep, that hurt like %$#%@@).

Freddie Mac

We have officially been adopted by a Basset Hound.  It appears that some #@$%$, who deserves to be starved and dumped on a deserted road, did the same to Freddie Mac (his new name).  We found him Thursday morning at 7:00 am sitting on the road by the farm just waiting for someone to help. 

He is very thin, had a few scraps and had a lot of mud on him (not sure where that came from), but overall seems healthy.  We took him to the vet as soon as we found him, no chip, no obvious issues, but we will take to our vet on Monday to just make sure. 

He is very good natured, does not seem to have a temper about anything, even when Tyke tries to attach him (like he does Sandy).  Loves to carry socks around in his mouth and his bark is something to behold.  He loves to be petted and you have never seem such big feet on such a small dog.  Also, just to be clear, Freddie will not win any race, be the first to the dog dish, jump (he has not vetical) or, move fast; he has more sloth movements than dog movements, but the guy is pretty darn cute and loveable.  As John says, only a face a mother would love.