Progress!!

One of these days I'll have a "real" weekend, right?  At the moment, weekends are a flurry of activity as the only real amounts of time to get work done at the farm.  So here's an update of where we stand as of this morning on the various projects:

• Fencing:  The big house-side pasture is almost ready to have the electro-braid strung!  I think there are 3 or 4 posts that need to go in the ground that didn't go earlier as we didn't really realize they were in quite as bad shape as they were.  2 of those are the corner and brace posts for the corner next to the yard so that will have to be braced as well.

• Barn: we finished cleaning out 2/3rds of the barn on Saturday!  WOW it looks so much better all cleaned out.  The concrete side is done and will eventually house 2 stalls.  The middle portion is done and nicely swept.  We even did the loft over the concrete... cleaned out all the junk, and organized what is left up there.  In the process, everyone had some fun finding the "buried treasures" -- a new in box frost proof water faucet was probably the best find, but there were others: 9' shade canopy in the box, a foosball table (in several boxes), 50 mile electric fence charger, various tools, couple foal/mini halters, some Army gear including a package of beef stew MRE!  Made the dust and cleaning fun.

Before - looking down from the loft

After!

•  Electric:  Attic and 2nd floor are DONE!!  It looks SO much better!  Attic is now ready for insulation, though it was funny -- due to the status of the furnace, we ran kerosene heaters this weekend and once the attic access was closed, the 2nd floor REALLY stayed warm even after the heater on that floor was off for over 30 minutes.  A couple items left on the first floor and the basement.  Then it will be out to the barn.

• Furnace: No real smoking issues anymore but still some odor.  Had a repairman out and after removing the exhaust, turns out the chimney needs cleaned out and probably inspected before he can service the furnace.  So we're currently heating with kerosene heaters until the furnace gets fixed.
  
  
• Flooring:  Purchased 4" unfinished utility grade red oak for the living room and den and I think it's going to look FANTASTIC when finished.  Should be installed this week (after the phone call I just had) but to finish it, I need heat.  So the rest will be on hold.  Thinking I might just put regular carpet down in the bedrooms afterall, after looking at the flooring once I finished scraping and sweeping in the master bedroom.  Need to price it out and see.
  
  
• Walls: Have the first floor scraped and some of the spackling done.  The stairwell is done to the point that I need a ladder to finish.  The Master bedroom is also ready for spackle.  Still need to do some scraping in the 2nd bedroom and landing, mostly up high.

• Paint:  Need to finish picking out colors.  I know what I want the kitchen to look like but not sure what colors that will entail using.  Have colors picked out for the den, living room, bathroom and stairs/landing.  I *think* I know what I want in the master, but not 100% sure.  No idea what to do in the 2nd bedroom.

In other news, I bought my first "toy" for the farm!  A 4x2 gas gator with hydrolic dump bed, extra chain tires, wench and plow blade!  I LOVE it and it's already really come in handy.

The new farm!

It's been a week but the new farm is bought!!!  I'm so excited.  Been out there every day since closing doing all kinds of things to make it livable and functional.  It's going to be quite the endeavor of work and love, but in the end it will be SO worth it!

The specs:  39.85 acres, mostly tillable (over half is currently share-cropped) with some pasture, a small hay field and a creek.  2 story 1905 built 2 bedroom 1 bath farmhouse with full unfinished cinderblock basement (which also has a shower and toilet).  Fuel oil furnace with forced air heat. No AC. Approximately 9,000 gallon cistern. Jefferson Regional Water Authority water. Septic. Been vacant for about 6 years. Existing barn is approximately 60x30 and in poor to fair condition.  Some of the beams will be salvageable but it's neither big enough nor set up well enough for long term use.  Corn crib probably needs to be torn down sooner than later, but will have life through the winter as a place to park the Saturn so I don't have to scrape windows.

LONG term goals:  Along with fixing up the house of course because it needs it, we want the facility to be a small show/training/clinic place... an education facility.  We LOVE holding our current SVF shows at Twin Towers, but would love to see them move to the farm.  They'll end up being a bit smaller in scale, but we could do one/month. We're looking at putting up an 80'x150' indoor arena (to be able to have indoor space that could accommodate a small dressage ring) as well as a 12 stall barn (for training and limited boarding).  We haven't yet settled on an outdoor ring size, but ideally I'd love to see 150'x250' with lights.  One of the dreams would be to run an "under the lights" jumper series during the summer.  And of course we plan to make full use of the acreage to have plenty of schooling cross country jumps. And while our personal focus is in the english world, we are NOT opposed to hosting western or trail events in the future.

My hope here is to blog the progress as we get things accomplished.  Now that I should be getting a new phone tomorrow (with hopefully a working camera) I'll be able to do that.  In the meantime, here are the "before" pics.  By estimation these are a year old and were taken from the real estate listing.  ENJOY!!

PS. Blogger is being piggish about me reordering the pics... so you're getting them in random Blogger order.  Sorry.

The Barn. The gate has disappeared prior to me buying the place (as has the horse in the pic).  The barn needs SERIOUS work and thus has a limited lifespan -- basically long enough to get another barn built.

More of the barn and the driveway fencing.  We're fixing up the fencing here and setting up this space for a paddock.  BTW, the property line to the north is the treeline in the background!

Another of the paddock space between the barn (left) and the road (right).

Bathroom.  Needs updates and work but functional for the most part.

Bedroom 2.  Probably the worst looking of the wood floors.

Bedroom 1.  Floors are only a bit better than Bedroom 2 and as a result, contemplating carpet in both instead of redoing the wood like I plan to do downstairs.  Has a nice closet (door on the right) and a lovely built in (door on the left).

View from the back patio to the corn crib.

Corn Crib.  You can't see it but the back wall is... missing.  Yep... will be coming down but has been storing a full-size tractor for a few days so it should hold up enough to keep the frost off the windshield of the Saturn.  Property line to the west is the treeline in the background to the left of the corn crib.

Living room.  Beautiful built in and I love the big windows.  Floors should refinish nicely.

Den?  TV room?  I haven't settled on what to call this room, but I like it.  Big enough for the tv and a nice couch. LOVE LOVE LOVE the wood french door!  And yes... those marks on the walls and ceiling are where the paint has peeled off.

Another view of the den... and more peeling paint.  To the right is another doorway that leads to a VERY small hallway and the bathroom.

Front of the house, which face the driveway NOT the road (the road is across a paddock to the left).  Fenced patio is a cement slab over the cistern.  And do not ask me why they have random t-posts in the front yard.

Another of the front of the house from the driveway.  The picket fence on the left side continues along the driveway.

Another house angle.

More house.

From the driveway, looking towards the house across the front paddock.  Road is to the left.

Front paddock from the driveway at the "front" corner of the front yard, and looking towards the road.  Treeline in the background towards the right of the pic is the creek bed.

Side of the house, showing the cistern patio and the spring house.

Kitchen.  Unfortunately, the ceiling fan disappeared before I saw the house.  We're now rewiring and moving it to make it a little more centered, but there will be a ceiling fan in this room (and many others actually).

Another view of the Kitchen

More kitchen.  Currently the frig is plugged into the wall outlet on the left side of the pic.  Doesn't leave a lot of space between the front of the frig and the front of hte stove so the fridge is moving to the off pic right side of the window.

Existing kitchen counters.  Will try to salvage and maybe repaint?

Most of the kitchen and obviously taken with a fish-eye lens.  Standing at the back door/stairwell to the basement.

LAND!!!

Almost the same shot as above.

More land with "stuff" that was left.

2nd floor "landing".  Almost a room to itself.  Closet is the door on the right.  The 2 doorways on the left of the pic lead to the bedrooms.  Check out the woodwork near the stairs!!

Another shot of the landing.

Living Room, showing the beautiful woodwork.

Stairs.

Cistern patio and spring house.  The spring house is ok functional, but currently full of junk!

Cistern patio, house and springhouse.

From the back corner of the "yard" toward the springhouse and house.

More pretty bruise pics

Taken this morning, 12 days post kick:

Thigh:  You can see where the bruise is starting to go away.  Towards the front (right in the pic), there is still a lump under a part of the bruise (under where the yellow is)

Knee:  Pretty, eh?  As the thigh bruise is going away, this one seems to be getting "bigger"... not to mention darker.

Whole leg.  All I can say is it's a good thing it's winter.  If it were shorts weather, I'd probably have some serious explaning to do to people. :)

Week of Color

Walnut Creek PC horse trials didn't happen for us.  I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and did the wrong thing 2 days before (Friday evening) and was on the receiving end of a major kick.  No one's fault except my own really... which is almost worst.  The kick landed on my left thigh which instantly felt swollen.  Spent Friday night alternating 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off with ice while I relaxed on the couch.  Wasn't all that great the next morning so off to the ER I went.  Xrays showed no bone bruise.  Prescription was made for no weight for 2 days along with pain killers.  That pretty much solidified the notion that I was going to have to withdraw from the event.  Can't exactly gallop and jump without using my left leg.

I have yet to ride.  Hoping to do so this weekend since the weather is going to be fantastic (mid 60s!).  But I'm still having some issues with the leg, mostly down into my knee.  That pain is most likely due to the limping and thus stressing the joint "differently", according to Thom the amazing paramedic.  So it's just going to take some time.  In case you're wondering, the impact spot is amazingly colorful.

If you look closely you can see the "line" running down the middle -- I'm pretty sure that's the seam of my coveralls that I was wearing at the time.

So Anita has been working with the girls.  Spider is still at Jen's and doing fantastic.  Shirley is at home and doing just as well.  Anita's even gotten on Shirley the last 2 days (walk only) at the farm without any incidents or nervousness!  I'm just hoping to be well enough to hop on her at some point really soon!

New Fencing - in pictures

The finishing touch (removing a couple old posts) was being done when I left the farm this morning.  The new fence -- including the main pasture, new front field paddock and new west paddock is all installed.  I still want/need to go back and cap all the t-posts and run electric at the top and about 2' from the ground (to help keep critters from leaning/rubbing on the fence), but it's DONE!  And it looks fantastic.


West paddock.

Before:

Taken prior to moving in, but after having plenty of rain (note the strange green color of the grass).  Anyway, this was the west paddock.  I mowed it.  And that's pretty much all we did with it given how the house/doors are laid out.  Just seemed like putting in a paddock would be a MUCH better use of the space.

Almost the same angle as the photo above (but taken yesterday - note the brown color of the grass).  Fence is 6' from the garage and angles in to be 6' from the bushes next to the house.  Combination of wood and t-posts with 4' field mesh fencing.  The front posts are faced so I can eventually put in pretty looking 4-board along the road.

West paddock from the road.  There is an "aisle" between this and the main field running along the barn with gates in between.  This paddock measures approximately 32' x 150' (ish)

West Paddock gates near the barn.  Double gate facing barn/drive way to allow for pulling things through.  6' walk through gate on the far side.  12' gates at each end of the "aisle" to the main field.

Front field:

Before:

Basically it was an empty field. Last year with the turkeys I ran some temp fencing in part of it closest to the detached garage and brooder house for the turkeys to run in, but really it was an empty field. Picture taken from the far end (obviously) looking back towards the house. 

After:

Opposite angle. The road is to the left of this pic (taken from the driveway, house is behind). The area is a stand alone paddock as there's an access drive on the far side so there's room between this new paddock and the main field/fruit trees to drive through ... like a turn around. In addition there's a "high spot" along the road so I installed a double gate (far left in the photo) so I could use it for parking or whatnot if needed.

Looking back behind the buildings. Since the back of the buildings are offset, the paddock fencing runs to the garage, and I added an extra fence & gate to finish a smaller area that I can use for the turkeys to be penned up in as needed. Should work pretty well if it goes according to how I see it working. This will be the primary turkey area when I have them. Going to fence off with temp fencing into 3rds so I can rotate the field. May not raise as many next year so I may not have to do that, but it should work pretty well int he meantime. I can also lead animals to this paddock or rig up something to keep them from getting out of the "drive turnaround" in betwen this and the main field (about 20') to let them come and go.

Front Field paddock is approximately 1/3 acre total.

I dont' have any specific pics of the main field. Nothing much to see there, but it's just as pretty.  Reused the main field gate and installed a new 6' walk through gate in the front.  In addition, there's a 12' gate to the aisle leading to the west paddock and a new 16' gate in the west fence line - in the hopes of still being able to pick up that 1.68 acre parcel from the neighbors.

To finish the pics....

Starting to look yummy (even more tasty every night when they look like little vultures when they manage to climb on the roof of the brooder house to roost).  Can't wait to let them out and have more space!

MOO COWS!! Last night in bovine alcatraz before they get out on the grass.  They better not get out of this fence or I'm going to be extremely angry.  The big one will come to me (he LOVES apples, I think he'll like the pears but right now they're still a bit unripe and hard), but the little one is still pretty skittish.