Sunday, November 25, 2012

Thanksgiving Holiday

We had a nice weekend. Allen and Jessica came down to Andy's. We had dinner on Thursday and then a leftover dinner on Saturday. We went to the gun range on Friday.

 My egg yesterday had two yolks. We had a lot of two yolk eggs last month, This is the first one for a while.

 Heather was here.

 Allen was here.

 Piper was waiting for someone to drop turkey.

 The turkey was delicious.

 Lisa shooting the pistol.

 Lisa shooting the rifle.

 Andy setting up targets.

 Clear Creek Shooting Range is in the Daniel Boone National Forest. It was a nice day for shooting.

Allen shooting the 41 magnum.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

New Ducklings

We have four new ducks. There were a lot more eggs but so far this is all that have hatched.



 The yellow ones hatched first.

 They'll be white when they get big. We won't be eating these. We plan to be rid of them long before they stop being cute.

  The Christmas cactus is blooming early.

 Both of them are blooming.

Monday, November 12, 2012

Grand Finale

It started with an idea two years ago. The idea was to fence the driveway and create two separate pastures. The road access would be isolated from all animal areas. The creek crossing would be resistant to damage from flooding. There would be a wide area left open for turning around and parking equipment. We had a plan and we set out to complete it. There were a few engineering changes that were needed along the way. We made some mistakes and adjusted accordingly. There were some damage causing accidents but we made repairs and carried on. We can now strip our sleeves and show the scars that we received on this task and say we have completed the driveway fence on this day.

 The bridge crossing before the gates were installed.

 The posts were all in and painted.

 Lisa packed the posts while I pulled the tension wires.

 The flood gates being installed.

 The wire is hung.

 Completed fence with animals. They are enjoying the new grass.

 I was getting a lot of help twisting the wire ends.

 The shed posts with batten boards. We used 2x6s since there will be cattle behind them.

 Lisa cleaning out the cage for her new bunny.

Lisa's new bunny. It's a male of some interesting variety that I don't know. She'll have to explain. She did mention that it was too small to eat.


The freckle headed hen duck has some eggs in this rabbit nesting box. We are going to let her stay there for now. Watch the video to find out why.

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Season Finale

Summer is a thing of the past and soon the driveway fence construction will be too.We got the last of the posts put in and Andy came over to cut notches for the stretchers.

 Anne came up from South Carolina to help with the posts. In this picture I'm repairing the phone line that the locator said was ten feet away and 120 inches deep. It was only about 10 inches deep and nowhere near the mark, so naturally it was in the exact spot where we needed a post.

 Lisa and Anne dug out an area for the phone line junction.

 Andy demonstrating his skill with a chainsaw.

 All work and no play makes Andy a dull boy.

 We have posts for the bridge crossing. It will have two 12' galvanized mesh gates like on the other side.

 This is the 14' gate into the creek bottom pasture. The little wrinkle in the top bar is why we got it so cheap at the factory second lot.

 The lower corner of the turn around area. The tall square posts are 12' 6x6s. They will be the center support for the run-in shed on the pasture side and an equipment shed on the driveway side. The ground isn't level, of course, so it will have a higher ceiling on the down hill side. The plan is to have a dry shed with a floor deck on the low end.