Shaker Village

We went to Shaker Village with Kathy and Bill yesterday. It’s a historic religious community settled in 1805.

Kathy walking in Shaker Village.

The horse wagon we rode on.

Waiting for the wagon ride to start. The young family with the child got off before the ride was over.

One of the interpreters taking a break.

The horses, Ivy and Blue.

Brother John, our interpreter for the ride.

We managed to get at least one bench picture.

Shaker cat.

We took the river boat ride on the Kentucky River.

We brought our own snacks and drinks.

Kathy and Bill had sandwiches.

High Bridge.

High Bridge.

Cute Chick

When one of the hens went broody we let her try and hatch some eggs. We gave her four, two broke, one hatched and one rotted. Hopefully they get the hang of it. We think the chick is a barred rock cross.

We shut the sheep and Louie out of the barn so we can clean it out. We put up a tarp for them to get under. They like it.

Bill and Kathy bought the rest of our posts and concrete for the driveway fence.

They helped put them in too.

Concrete in every hole.

Kathy was wearing Lisa’s stylish boots.

Berrymans in Kentucky

Bill and Kathy came to visit. They drove down from PA after visiting Bill’s family.

Bill and Kathy before getting their hands dirty.

Andy showed up with dirty hands so he cut the notches in the stretcher posts.

Bill engineering the installation of the next ten posts. He’s good at this sort of thing. It would have been nice to have him around when we were installing the other posts. I’m sure they would have lined up better.

Bill demonstrating the correct procedure for proper nonporous soil compaction at the base of vertical wooden post installations in temperate geological regions. 

Bill had a good idea for making sure the posts are aligned. It has something to do with the little yellow flag thingies. We dug the holes today. Tomorrow will set the posts and he’ll show us how the little yellow flag thingies work.

Andy cooling off in the shade.

Hay Fence

Andy and Heather came over to take down the hay fence. Mr. Reece had put it up to keep his cows out of the stacked hay. We didn’t need it anymore and were planning to use it on our driveway fence. We couldn’t use it because it is only 42 inches high and ours is 48 inches. Heather said she could use it for horses. All she has to do is hang it high, horses won’t go under it like sheep would.

Andy used the boom pole to pull the T posts. Heather can use them too, we’re doing all wood posts.

Lisa went over to help. I didn’t go because I was on-call and just got called. They were done pretty quick anyway. The weather was beautiful. The heat wave finally broke. It was in the low 80s today and is supposed to be in the low 60s tonight.

They came back up and Andy and Heather put the two big rabbits in the freezer. Sorry, no pictures of that event. We’ll have fresh rabbit to eat when Bill and Kathy come to visit next week.

Parang

My new machete came this week. This is the one my parents got me for my birthday. Thanks Mom and Dad! It’s from the Gerber Bear Grylls signature collection. I had to go down and check it out. It wasn’t hard to find high weeds.

I got the two lower pastures mowed before the storm came on Saturday.

We had to fix the chicken yard so Lulu couldn’t get in. This is the bantam hen that looks like a little song bird.

Her tail feathers are getting bigger so she is looking more like a chicken.

The silky. She’s easy to spot. We worry about hawks seeing her.

She’s been bad but Lulu is looking good. She’s turning out to be a solid little ewe. That’s Curly and Shemp behind her. They are filling out nicely too.

It is July, but still…

It’s freakin hot out.

The bunnies were too hot behind the garage in the morning and early afternoon so we decided to build a bunny port for them. It is going to be similar to the tractor port but not as wide.

This is what 100 degrees looks like in Kentucky. Beautiful, isn’t it? It eventually went a little over 100.

We put up the canopy the other day because we though the bunnies were going to die.

The first hole. It’s nearer the fence than the other two, the property line angles away from the back of the garage. It’s nearer to the wild rose thorn bush too. We had to dig the holes manually because the auger wouldn’t run.

I was removing the siding and finding the studs to get ready for the ledger board. I used the existing bunny cage for scaffold. It must be strong if it held me up. We’ve had to wait until the afternoon to work out there. The wall faces east so it’s too hot in the morning.

Post Post

This post is about fence posts. We got holes dug for all the fence posts we had on hand plus four extra. We went to Lowes and TSC to get concrete, stretchers and the four posts to fill the extra four holes.

The four wheeler works great for moving around the posts. Can you guess where we got the idea?

The tractor was taking a break under the walnut tree. We hit rock in three of the holes. Two of them were the next two in line from where we got the auger stuck a few weeks ago. We think it was all one big rock or rock shelf. The posts are all just sitting in the holes, they aren’t set yet. After we got back from Tractor Supply we set the posts in the gully transition with the concrete. We’ll get more concrete to set the rest later.

Lisa took her mother on a tour of the property. They rode all over the Mr. Reese side.