Reddish

We've finally finished painting the barn!!!  

Steve's dad started us with one full side painted in the red but I realized the custom base we went with made it a bit too bright.  The second coat is the less vibrant red and I like it so much better.

The trim was the hardest part of course since we tried to tape to get straight lines but I always end up going back over the mishaps with a small brush for touch ups.  Steve had to do the high areas on the ends of the barn since I hate getting too high on a ladder.

I did the majority of the lower surfaces and trim...section by section.

Steve also fixed the stall doors that had really chewed up wood and it looks fantastic.

Here's the shed row side all painted red and awaiting the trim work.  It seems we had to wait a long time between painting days because of weather or temperature so it felt forever to get this completed.

I also painted the two gates attached to the barn.  One stays open most of the time to let the horses come and go and therefore the white X faces outwards with a neat effect.

I like the pop of the white trim!  Above you can see the left door doesn't have trim below the door.  We'll cut a piece of wood at some point and match it to the other door.

For now I am so pleased to finally have this task done and hope the paint holds up for a while.  Of course we already have smudges of dirt where the ponies rubbed some body part on the edges....LOL.  It's a barn, it's gonna have dirt!  I will have to buy some more of those nubbin scratchers and place them near their favorite spots!

It's so great finally having a major task complete and we can move on to yet more projects we have on the list!

New fencing section

Steve and I have been busy as usual.  I've spent time finishing up my Scuba diving certification in prep for our trip in October to Australia.  Before the trip we wanted to get a new section of fencing put up to change where the horses are fed now that the only door you can use for the feed room is the big door.

Steve staked out what he calls the "whoop-de-do" like what we have on the other side of the barn.  It's basically a human fence pass through.

Steve's new auger makes the job of digging post holes so much easier!!!

He also make sure that the fence posts didn't slope therefore you have a place to rest your beer when you are working out in the yard!  LOL.

We got a new 14 foot gate placed (eventually wanted to get another in the back so you can enter with a truck and trailer through the back to deliver hay etc.)

Then of course the posts had to be cut to the fence size, they were just a little too tall.

I started working on painting the doors to the hay room....we'll eventually have the entire barn painted but that's a lot of paint and time.  Luckily I have a father in law who likes painting and stayed here while we were down under!

So the rest of the post is just pictures since as I write this we have to head out and finish up installing some barn lights and doing some wiring.

I played with a silly filter on my camera here.

Complete fencing!

Lastly we had to run the electric fence connection to another area of the electric fence so we rented a trencher to do that job.  The picture is of Steve but I'm the bad ass who did the job mostly!  Hear me roar!  More to come!

Rewiring the Barn

 Steve and I recently did some work in the barn.  Our hay room was always awkward to stack hay since I used the small human door to enter and feed from, as you see in the picture below.  Because the doors are across from each other, and we load the hay from the big doors we've always had difficulty trying to stack the hay while leaving a space by the small door for my feed bins and supplies.  Now we can load in hay from the big doors and have the human door stay closed while we stack the bales flush against a full wall.  We moved several light switches and sockets to that side of the hay room as well.

Our barn had all the switches to the lights in the hay room, meaning when I entered the tack room I had to go to the hay room to flip the switch.  Steve rewired all the switched and moved the boxes to more appropriate locations.  We now have the inner barn lights, stall lights and tack room switches in the tack room.  The exterior lighting and the hay room light can all be turned on from the hay room.  The next step will be to build a fence on that side of the barn to increase the wormhole (paddock area) into that space and feed the horses from there instead in the stall.  It doesn't matter where I feed them I just need to have the door I get the food and hay from be near their hay stations so that will work.

We also bought another fan so each stall has it's own and Steve placed sockets near the fans and hardwired them into a switch in the tack room.  Now we don't have extension cords running up in the rafters to work the fan!  It's so nice!  I really wonder why the lights were wired that way in the first place.  I love walking into the tack room and switching on a light....feels so fancy!  LOL

The horses of course had to supervise while we worked, the photo above I call "Steve juxtaposed with pony butt"  Hahahahaha.  There is always something to work on around here!

The tractor

We've been having fun with our new toy.  It mows well and if we need any front or back implaments we have the option!  We errected a portable garage  to put the tractor and our expanding arsenal of equipment.

Steve purchased it at Harbor Freight a local tool place.  We were able to get it up in a couple hours though we started late and it was very dark by the time we were done.  It felt like camping!

The only issue was about a week later we had a lot of wind and discovered that the anchors aren't that great.  The sign on the inside of this little shed states to remove the tarp everytime there is heavy rain or wind.  Um...yeah that would be a pain in the ass.

My husband was luckily home as the whole shed lifted up and began rolling towards the electric fencing that would have been destroyed and released our ponies.  So glad nothing bad happened but feel bad that I was at work while he struggled with the thing.  He disassembled it while fighting 30-40 mile an hour gusts!

So our tractor, aka Kevin (named after the minion) is in the garage and his car, who is often at the garage at the airport, will be outside for a bit.  We are currently pricing those metal carports that are guaranteed and secured better.  We'll probably get one with one full side as it will be up against our tool shed.  Steve has eventual plans for putting a large garage behind the barn that will store the tractor, our tool shed and then beer brewing stuff for his hobby (of course I will store soap making and bee stuff there too I'm sure!)  But that is many years in the future.

And just for some laughs here's this:

Pony Shed Rebuild

Last August we discovered that termites had returned to an already severely damaged pony shed. So we disassembled the shed.  Then we started to rebuild some of it but it was hot or rainy or we had other things we needed to do and then the holidays!  Seems like it takes forever to complete a project around here but we are always busy to something!

Well we finally decided to "get er done" and rebuilt the shed.  It took several saturdays with some weekends in between when it was bad weather.  Luckily the horses have the barn so we weren't worried about them not having shelter.

Each step caused the ponies to be wary about the shed; sniffing and blowing commenced and finally ended with licking of lips and a final satisfied sigh.  Ponies are funny.

I did most of the painting of the outside of the shed.  We chose a nice rusty red called colonial red.  I'm thinking our front door to the house will eventually be this color too.  Dani examined the paint and seemed to approve.

Chance also like the paint color so proceeded with giving his muzzle and whiskers a nice rusty red tint.

The south side...

The inside divider where we place the hay nets

The long back wall....that will take a lot of paint!

Eventually the inside will get painted too, we just needed to get the outside done first.  I also added an insect repellent to the paint .  We'll see how that works with the carpenter bees and such.

Awe yes, nice and red!

Still have the top beams to complete but my fear of heights is now delegating that job to my husband!

Yippee we finally have the pony shed again!

Christmas Time Family Fun

Oh wow is this draft old!!  It was just pictures with my intent to fill in what went on this fall and Christmas.  We had Steve's family over for Thanksgiving and then headed up to my brother's in VA for Christmas.  The week before I had the delight of my parents flying in from CO to visit us here for the first time.  My parents loved Geek acres! 

In November we had a new nephew, Colton, born.  Bryson has a little brother now and is happy as a clam and such a sweet brother to him.  My parents were ecstatic to meet their new grandchild!

My mom was constantly holding the little guy.  Dad baked pies with Bryson and Steve and I just visited with everyone.

Most of December leading up to this point saw me working on a monster book of monsters for Steve.  We are big harry potter fans but Steve didn't like the cheap looking books they had in Orlando.  I decided to tap into the creativity and make him his very own monster book.  I may post a how I did it post here in a bit.  I ran into many obstacles where I had to improvise but it turned out great and Steve loved it.  Here see Stubs sleeping with it on the loveseat.  Poor thing didn't know I put it there and when she opened her eyes she jumped 3 feet in the air!!!  Afterwards she sniffed it and then began cleaning the fur, LOL.

So in a nutshell that was Christmas.  The ponies got some nice grooming but no riding.  They are so spoiled not having to work lately but I'm looking into getting some lessons again so that will definitely change.

In the news, today hubby and I are going to tractor hunt!!  Plus we got a manure spreader!  I'll post about that very soon since it's very exciting to finally be getting things we need to make chores that much easier!

Get Your Fall Hay!!

We received some hay for the fall and winter months.  It's amazing how fast the grass goes brown even though it's been pretty warm.  I still had a lot of hay left from the spring so when we had 100 bales arrive it was tough arranging it in our hay area.  With two doors you can't stack the hay in as tightly so it's been a big of an issue.  

We stack a lot of it under the tool shed overhang on pallets and wood beams.

Then several busted bales were stored in the tack room or in the shed and were fed first.  I've gotten it so I can enter the feed room again but am working on the hay under the overhang first.  Dani doesn't seem to know where to stand in order to pester me for food.  First she was at the feed room, then realized okay...tack room area was the place.  Now she had to hang at the gate and nicker while I load up the hay.  Chance just stays by his stall like he normally does and wickers softly.  Such a sweet boy.

Better to have too much hay to store than not enough!  We got a good deal on this hay as well so very happy on the pocketbook!

Beachy

Steve and I headed to Carolina Beach at the beginning of September but after labor day weekend.  It was a ncie serene weekend and much needed.  We have done too much mowing with a tiny mower this year, a weekend doing nothing but sitting on the beach was a necessary getaway.

Our hotel was right on the beach and we rented an umbrella and two chairs.  It was nice to sit, drink and play in the water.  We got a boogie board and rode the waves into the shore.  So much fun!  Having been land locked for a long time it's nice to live only a couple hours from some lovely beaches!

Steve was sexy and silly as always...

I got to try out my new star trek cover-up and pretended we were on Risa, the tropical vacation planet of the Alpha quadrant.

And of course the obligatory picture above.....

Live long and prosper!

Run-in with Termites

We knew the run-in shed already had some termite damage in some of the wood.  When I noticed a new little termite tunnel though, it moved our rebuilding of the shed to the forefront.  Termites build little mud tubes so they don't dry out, that's always something to look for.

The main supports were most likely treated wood and had no termite damage at all so we just have to remove the surround and then the boards that contact the ground.  Most likely it was no treated wood.

If I scraped the mud off the boards you could see some of the tunnels.

Some of the boards had years of extensive damage.  You need to catch it right away!  Many boards we took out weighed nothing and sounded like rain sticks!  At least they weren't the support beams.

As we began to set up for the demolition the ponies of course wanted to help.

What's dad doing?  I certainly didn't want them stepping on the nails or being in the way of falling wood so I herded them in to on the of the fields and filled some buckets of water since they didn't have access to the trough being locked the pasture.

Leading Dani through the gate and clopped in a mud puddle and it went all up my leg!  LOL.  I never stay clean around here.  It's just not possible.

It wasn't too bad to tear it apart, building it back up will take more time.

We pilled all the wood up and then were able to haul it away in the truck.  Steve later dug a trench and sprayed for termites around all the supports.  We had professionals come do the prevention spray around the barn, storage shed and house.  They found some indications of termites in our garage....guess the darn inspector missed that when we bought the house.  I don't think there is extensive damage like the shed since there were also indications that the house had received termite treatment by drilling into the floor of the garage.    At least we know we have prevention in place and will keep up with that.  

We also will paint the shed and barn with a insect repellent mixed into the paint and use pressure treated wood. 

Now we just have the skeleton of the shed, eventually we'll get to rebuilding it but there are always continual projects going on and mowing....oh the mowing!!!