Last Week In August Farm Report

It's been a busy week on the farm.

Carrie came over and helped me finish the ulay flooring.

The place is starting to look good.

No more smell.

We're 4 sheets short so I'll pick them up on Tuesday to get the job finished.

Today Carrie and I finished framing in the new supporting beam that Ken and I installed.

Notice the grip I had on the ladder. She needs me there helping for safety sake.

I know I'm a big help.

It's all ready now for drywall. Carrie is planning on doing that next week.

She is so handy. I love working with her.

So yesterday we had a slight goof up.

I was nailing down the ulay and she was taking the kicks off of the kitchen cabinets so that we could get under them and vacuum up any mouse nests that were hidden behind them.

So I came up with the brilliant idea for her to take the jig saw and cut the kicks right down the middle. That way they could be easily pried out.

What we didn't know was that the main water line coming into the building was right behind the kick.

Yup. She sawed right thru it and there was no shut off to be seen. What a mess.

This picture shows the waterline with a new shut off a few hours later.

The lower brass fitting is the repair we made to the saw cut .

We were frantic.Water spewing all over the place and no shut off valve anywhere. 

We looked outside the building but there was nothing.

 I got the brain wave that if the water line was coming up from the crawl space

 there may be an answer down there.

I pried the trap door open and dropped thru.

The crawl space was filling up with water fast 

but I thought I saw a water line coming in from outside by the far corner. 

Luckily I could see that there was a shut off valve on it.

I had to get thru this supporting wall quickly and shut it off. 

I was there in a flash. Whew. Problem solved. Thank goodness we figured this one out.

On a humorous note , I got stuck trying to get back thru this wall to the trap door.

Not a lot of room for a big guy. The wall is only about 30 inches tall with a sewer pipe running down the centre.

I guess the adrenalin helped me thru the first time.

What I did this last week

We spent some time with the grand kids.

There's nothing better than dinner with Nona.

Ellie went swimming but had no dry cloths to wear after.

Ruth managed to fit her into something of hers.

Jack officially turned 8 years old this week.

He loves birthday cake.

Ruth and I walk to her garden every evening and water it.

I'm the strawberry inspector.

She always finds the big one's and luckily she shares with me.

She grew this monster beet .Yumm.

WE'VE BEEN SO BUSY

I need to start taking more pictures as we redo this log home. 

We've been so busy working on it that when I get home at night I don't feel like doing the blog

 but I know I will wish I had once it is finished.

We got quite a bit accomplished this week.

We had our first dinner at the farm on Tuesday evening.
Lots of left overs which I love. No cooking dinner for the net couple of days.

Wednesday we brought the pressure washer out of retirement and cleaned the logs and decks.

it sure made a difference.

Kenny didn't think I did a good enough job sanding the floors so he made me rent

 the sander again and redid them himself. He's a good guy. 

Thursday we washed the inside logs and ceiling.

This place had quite a smell. It's getting better.

Thursday afternoon and all day Friday was dedicated to painting all of the floors with Killex.

Saturday morning the house smelt wonderful. 

No odours.

Sunday we were back at the house working. 

Carrie was inside taking measurements so she could put the floor plan into auto cad. 

We want to make an addition on the place so she is helping.

So Ruth and I are on the deck enjoying a beer in the sunlight when Carrie yells out

 that there is a snake in the living room.

I ran in to see what she was talking about when we  saw it slither into the bed room.

Being the cool guy I am I shrieked as I got it into a bucket.

I hope it is just a garter snake. I took it up the hill and let it go in the neighbours garage.

WHEW.

Fun On The Farm This Week

So this is what the log home looked like inside. 

It was cluttered (This is after the last owner moved lot's out) and dirty.

Something had to be done to open the place up. We're use to the open concept .

The first thing was to open up the ceiling and see how this beam was supported.

Scary.

This beam holds up the entire north side of the buildings roof

 and was sitting on its support by less than 1/2 inch.

A disaster just waiting to happen.

Lucky we decided to do this job.

So we built a temporary support and got to work.

Kenny spent hours in the attic changing things around.

I really appreciated someone like him helping Ruth and myself on this project.

He's built hundreds of houses in the Okanagan and knew what had to be done as soon as he saw it.

So the end result turned out great.

We opened up the kitchen to the great room with a 12 foot opening.

It gives us a really nice feeling.

While we were in construction mode we also rearranged some of the kitchen counters.

This made a huge difference to how everything felt.

Carrie and Brad came over to rewire the switches and plugs.

He's a great electrical contractor and Carrie's an engineer

 so between the two of them this was an easy job.

Carrie started the wiring downstairs while he was in the attic 

installing a new junction box.

I really enjoyed watching them work together on this.

I was a bit like how Ruth and I use to do sales promotions together.

They work well together.

On another subject, Dana and I did a dump run in the afternoon and this 

Praying Mantis was in the pile of junk.

Dana noticed him after we threw it all in the back of his truck.

 I had him climb up onto my hand and let him go on a bush around back.

Later I saw a snail with a broken shell so I picked him up and put him

 beside another shell that was in perfect condition.

I watched as he crawled out of his old shell and moved into the new one.

So my tractor came back today . 

I've never driven one but Dana is like the Tractor God.

He got on this machine and he was like one with it.

I directed him up to the cedar roots and hooked up the chain.

He used the bucket to lift the old stumps out of the ground

 and then drop them in the back of his truck for the dump.

It was fun to watch and help.

I have to get a lesson on this tractor.

We've Bought The Farm

This is it.

Almost 1000 feet of frontage along the new Rails to Trails hiking and biking path

 between Kelowna and Vernon. 

The previous owner is a hoarder and we spent the first week

 removing his treasures from the house and yard.

Notice the rubber gloves.

It's been quite an experience.

 Our friend Dana has spent 3 days with me moving junk.

We have done 5 dump runs so far.

Here he is trying to make the front flower bed look nice.

He said that he wanted to make something in the yard nice for Ruth to look at.

Sweet.

The hose stretched across the yard was bugging him.

The previous owner picked up his garden today and took it to his new place.

 Part of the deal was a rebuild on the tractor.

It was delivered on friday but still had a leak from the transmission.

I wouldn't accept it so it went back to the shop.

The floors are uneven so my friend Ken and myself spent 2 days

 on our knees in the crawl space levelling the building. 

It was a lot of work but well worth it.

Wine time on Friday after a long day.

Anita came out to join us for a cocktail on the deck.

Ken having a well deserved suds.

The building is almost perfectly level.

Now all I have to do is sand it smooth , Paint the floor with Killex and lay a new subfloor down.

Thats when we can lay new plank flooring and make it look pretty.

Should be done by July 25.

 This is the entrance side of the house before Ruth and I removed all of the shrubs.

 

This is after.

It's looking good.

Still a long ways to go but we can see the light.

This is the back yard before removing all the dead bush.

It's getting there.

We have nothing but time.

The place is going to look great.

It use to be a horse ranch with 3-4 corrals. 

They were penned in with barbed wire.

We don't want this on the property especially with our grand kids playing here 

so I spent the afternoon removing the barbed wire.

I think I saw some laying in the back pasture but I'm sure I can find it again to remove.