Smoked Pork Roast

We had a pork roast on the smoker yesterday. It stayed on a little longer than necessary because we were working on sheep, but it was still excellent.

 Originally Lisa talked about doing pulled pork with it but we had slices with baked potato.

 Maybe she'll pull the next one.

 Lisa was painting the boards for her new flower boxes. The dog by the refrigerator is Lady. She is a rescue we are fostering. They say she came from an animal hoarder.

 Ivy is in seclusion while she recovers from a parasite. She went to the vet on Tuesday. She was in the trailer Tuesday night and was doing better Wednesday so we added the panels so she could come out and graze. The sliding door on the trailer is open and she hops in there for shelter. Her babies were a little over six weeks so they got weaned early.

  We think she has the same thing that killed Lulu last month. We hope she pulls through, she's a good ewe. She was Lisa's first bottle lamb. She seems to be doing better. She's up on her feet and she's eating.

 Lady came to us through Sheltie rescue. She's overweight and someone hacked her hair off. She has a good disposition and gets along with the other dogs. They move a lot faster than she does so she has trouble keeping up with them.

 Lisa has bathed her three times in the two weeks she's been here and combed all the mats out. She came with the name Lady. Lisa was going to call her Caddy. I wanted to name her Lotta, as in "That's a Lotta dog". That didn't go over too well, so Lady it is.

 Paige displaying her enthusiasm at having a foster dog and convalescing sheep.

Smoked Bunny

Lisa got her new smoker seasoned so it was ready for business. The first test run was this five pound rabbit.

 It was on the smoker for five hours. It was perfect. Tender and juicy with the hickory smoke flavor. Lisa pulled the leftovers and I had a BBQ pulled bunny sandwich for lunch today.

 Remember gigantic pregnant ewe Molly?

 She has slimmed down and shed all her winter wool. She looks great!

 Paige.

Form Off

The concrete has hardened enough to remove the forms.

 We didn't walk on it until today.

  Andy helped pull the form boards.

 The ground was still muddy.

 Heather caught me impersonating a plumber.

 The forms came off clean.

 Paige.

Slab

Andy and Heather came over today to help mix the concrete for the slab. It took 22.5 bags at 80 pounds each. 

Photos are by Heather.

 Heather brought her big wheel barrow.

  We had our old regular size barrow.

 You can see the rain in this picture. That's why we pulled both trucks into the garage. Andy met us at Lowe's and we put half the concrete in his truck. We bought 25 bags which is 2000 lbs.

 Andy has done concrete before.

 It didn't take long to mix it all with all the help.

 I was filling voids behind the screed.

 The Lowe's concrete calculator said we would need 21 bags so we stopped there and leveled it. We only had to add another bag and a half.

 Andy took off his shoes because of all the mud.

 Lisa thinks he just liked the feeling of mud squishing between his toes.

 I had on boots. I had enough mud between my toes when I did the form.

 I think it came out pretty good. It has a broom finish on it now for friction.

 Paige.

Happy Birthday Lisa

I got the form built for the slab.

 There has been a lot of rain so it was all mud after removing the sod.

 Paige should like the new slab. She enjoys the concrete in the garage.

 We got some rock sand from the quarry to stabilize the base.

 I got it smoothed out and tamped.

 Last in was the expansion joint against the existing slab. I backfilled the form with sand.

Last of the Lambs

We worked on the gravel around the base of the house. Ivy had her lambs. Llamas climbed on piles of rotting poo. We started forming the slab under the carport.

 1.15 tons of #57 gravel from the quarry. We go there so often I think the guy in the scale house has our tare weight on a post-it note stuck to his computer.

 Lisa dug the trench while I stood around and looked pretty.

 We continued the plastic drain tile around the corner and down the hill.

 We stopped short of the crawl space door. The slab extends about a foot out from the block wall. We plan to divert the water flow differently from there.

 The llamas climb on the compost pile to get to the higher up leaves on the locust tree. All the herbivores seem to really like eating locust tree leaves.

 Ivy's new babies.

  One boy, one girl. That concludes this year's summer lambing season. We have thirteen lambs on the ground now. Dudley came home today so we should have a late fall lambing too.

 The slab is going to be in front of the door under the carport.

 I dug out the sod and we planted it in the front yard where the lawn was damaged from the plumbers.

 Notice the rotting door frame. It's all water rot from where the door sill broke off. If by some mystical synergistic cosmic alignment, an engineer with vast experience with home improvement were to magically appear here in the next month or so we might enlist his help to get it fixed. The sill plate is rotted to the corner of the building so there may be some jacking and bracing involved.

 Paige.

Summer Flower Post

Lisa was out taking pictures of flowers. Pretty.