Wednesday

Thanks for your nudge Tonia, helped give me enough inspiration to post a catch up!

Well, I worked a big stretch at the farm after my day off. I felt like I was coming down with something on my day off. So, as much as I needed to get on with my two outdoor projects, I thought laying on cold ground digging out rotted posts or breathing chainsaw gas were not good options!

So I cleaned up the house a bit and went back into another stretch at the farm right through a downpour on Saturday. I am working Saturdays now and taking a day during the week, so I took Sunday and Monday off.

I was supposed to help get my oldest's car unstuck out of the swamp at the bottom of his Dad's driveway on Sunday afternoon, but I had three truckloads of gravel dumped in my driveway and spent the afternoon raking that out! I still have a pile at the top to wheelbarrow around before I can back around with my next hay load.

Monday I went to Home Depot and bought 10 more 60# sacks of concrete for the post job, and spent the afternoon digging out another post and putting five sacks of mixed crete in. I had to let it set up to put the form up around the post to finish it off, which I was going to do yesterday.

After work I swung by to see if the car was unstuck, and it was still in the swamp, so I talked to my oldest and we went down to check it out. Step by step, putting air in the flat, jacking up the front and backfilling the hole with rock, making a bridge out of a piece of plywood and old tire to get at an old stump the rear end was hung up on, then rigging the jack to jack it up to get the stump out, then building a bridge out of his Dad's firewood to bridge the swamp, two tries and a re-fill of rock, and he drove it out.

Well, by then I was cold and wet and hungry and it was too late to do concrete or firewood back home, but I did a happy dance for him we got the car out without his Dad!

(If you remember the post I did way back about getting stuck in the mud here I had some experience with situations like that!LOL)

Well, today I had to do laundry after work-grr- I hadn't done it since the incident with the older gentleman taking a crash, and I still don't know how he made out...?

I was a bit apprehensive wondering what crisis would strike today, and sure enough after I left the store with my laundry soap, I saw a boar goat stuffing herself along the highway-and I mean highway, with cars and tractor-trailers going well over 60 mph.

I had heard a tale of escaped Boers that ate their way through China (China, Maine, LOL) over the summer after they escaped, so I wondered if this was one, and turned around and parked and she went away from the road and I followed her to a goat pen where another boer, looked like a wether with horns, was quite upset she was out!!! LOL darn goats!

Well, I know better now than to chase a goat, so I offered her some torn up grass which she sniffed and rejected, and then found a nice strawberry leaf which she took with neck outstretched but ducked when I snuck to get her collar...Ugh one good thing about goats with horns!!! handholds! Well, I went up to the house and knocked to no avail, dogs barking, chickens flapping, more goats and horses out back. The goats looked a little worse for the wear no wonder she was stuffing herself!

I left her under an apple tree stuffin on apples hoping she didn't go back to the road and get run over. I couldn't catch her without grain so hopefully she was ok..

Made it home with the laundry just before the kids came home and hayed my own goats and cleaned their goat houses and have to cook dinner and a million other things, but hopefully I can finish the cementing the post I started Monday- after work tomorrow- and maybe chainsaw up some more goat wood!!!

So that's what I have been up to!! LOL

Oh I took a couple pics of the post job in progress a couple weeks ago, one is the original post like those I am digging around down three feet and collaring up over the bad part (hence 10 bags of concrete) and the other is a back up post made out of part of an old utility pole. The crete goes three feet deep and only a couple inches of the new post are in the top of the concrete to help anchor it.

It is much easier digging a plain hole than digging around the original posts!



You can see how much rotted off the original 8-10 inch diameter cedar post, but what is remaining is solid and now encased in an 18 collar of concrete 4-5 feet high, should last awhile!

This concrete is smaller in diameter but the post is about a foot diameter and the concrete is about 3 inches wider on each side, so still 16" diameter and 3 feet deep for a footer!