Lorihadams-- hi guys...been busy!

[justusnak]

I really dont think those nigi's will need much space. I have a good sized barn..20 x 30 I think, it's an old barn, concrete block bottom....I split it in half. The sheep have an area about 15 x 20, with 2 stalls. The goats have a 1/4 of it, then the other 1/4 for storage. I have 5 sheep on the one side...and there is PLENTY room! They dont spend a whole lot of time in there unless its raining. My Pebbles,(pygmy) has a stall in the other side..its about 6x8 she goes into with half pint when its raining....then the other 4 goats and my Ram...get the other stall...its about 9 x 8. They all fit very comfortabley...plenty room to move around, and sleep.

 

[Farmfresh]

I read an interesting statistic the other day.

There is a term called a "grazing unit", which is the amount of grass that it takes to support one horse or one cow and calf. Acres to grazing units varies depending on the type of forage available. For example it will take a lot more acres to grazing unit to support an animal in the southwest than it will in the lush prairie of the Flint Hills.

In the info, a sheep or a goat are considered .20 of a grazing unit. Maybe this will help you when sizing your barn as well?

 

[gettinaclue]

Wow Lori! You are buuuusy!!!

I really like those swings and your deck looks gorgeous!!

 

[lorihadams]

Thanks!

Tuesday.....

Well, first, yesterday we nearly killed ourselves working on the house. We pulled up all the carpet in the master and living room and got all the staples out of the floor in the living room. Hubby ripped off all the fireplace surround and made a total mess. We decided to leave the furring strips on the walls and paint over them. Hubby is caulking the edges of all the strips so that we will not have any gaps in the edges when we paint. We also caulked all the nail holes....even though I'm sure we missed some. That carpet was NASTY!!! I'm so getting rid of the carpet in the kid's rooms too....we'll put new builder grade carpet in the kid's rooms for now and that shouldn't cost too much for just the two rooms. I started cleaning and wiping down all the walls in the house to prep for paint, cleaned the cabinets to prep for paint, and helped get the caulking done.

On the agenda for today....

1. take all the curtains off the rods and fold up and put away to sell later
2. put all the debris on the trailer so hubby can take to the dump
3. prime the kid's bedrooms
4. pull out all the staples in the floor to prep for laminate
5. vacuum the house
6. take off all the kitchen cabinets and number
7. finish caulking the rest of the strips in the house
8. make a home depot run for paint, caulking, and other supplies
9. put vapor barrier under the house
10. collapse from exhaustion

We'll see how much actually gets done.....we have two friends coming to help this evening after work and I'm doing laundry for now and planning on heading over after we eat lunch. I'm already tired just thinking about it.

I did take "before" pictures yesterday so that everyone can see the transformation. I want everyone to see that living in a mobile home can be just as pretty and upgradable as a "regular" house. There is this stigma that if you live in a trailer you don't care what your house looks like and that is totally not true!!! You can paint and change the inside of a mobile home just like a stick built house. With everything that we have planned it should be beautiful!

Happy Tuesday everyone!

 

[lorihadams]

Friday

I am exhausted and my back is killing me.

We have worked until 9 every night this week. Chad has to get a crown put on his tooth this afternoon, ugh. We have to go to the dump and unload all of the debris from demo.

I was able to get 12x12 sheets of glass 1 inch by 1 inch blocks for half price for the fireplace surround! They were $99 a box and there were 20 sheets in it which is more than enough. Our friend is going to help us lay the tile, he helped us trim out the living room and most of the kitchen last night while I primed the bedrooms for the kids. He also has a sprayer that he is going to bring over to do the kitchen cabinet doors!!! Woo hoooooooo! I was dreading painting all those cabinets by hand.

This morning I am doing laundry and cleaning the house (blech....I hate housework) before granny and papa come back up with Maddie this evening.

On a sad note, I lost 2 of my female runners in the last two days. First I found a chocolate inside the dog kennel....don't know how that happened. Then yesterday the dogs got out when I was changing their water and I didn't see them do it but I am assuming they got ahold of one of the black females when they got back in the yard. They are in their pen now, I'm down to two pairs.

I am thinking of replacing them with better stock anyway, they aren't as vertical as I'd like. I got a holderreads catalog in the mail yesterday and I am thinking that I might order some from them, we'll see.

I was able to get 5 more fruit trees for $136, one pink lady apple, 2 different cherry varieties, and 2 different pears. We have a local nursery that is going out of business and selling everything to another local family to take over and they are clearing out the entire store. Right now everything is 35% off so I snatched up the fruit trees before they were all gone. I may go back in a week or so to see what they have left.....they had some mulberry trees and lots of veggies but I would have to see what we could do.

Tyler was so exhausted last night he fell asleep on the couch in his clothes with no bath and I fell asleep a little later on the couch reading Little House on the Prairie. Yes, I'm reading the series....needed something easy to read with all that's going on right now.

Well, the laundry is done.....next load please.....

 

[Henrietta23]

Sorry about your ducks and your back.
I love LHOP! I read Farmer Boy with DS last summer and then we visited the Wilder Homestead on our vacation. I think we will read the series over the summer. He loved FB!

 

[keljonma]

Sounds like you are making great progress on the house! It will look wonderful when it is complete, I'm sure.

Sorry to hear about your ducks; some times things just happen, but it sounds like you are pretty sure the dogs were involved this time.

We love LHOP books too....and don't have any children or grands here to use as an excuse for reading them.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

I love Little House on the Prairie! No one should EVER need kids as an excuse to read those books! But the books I love more than LHOP, the Christie Series - just reading about waking up every morning in the Back Hills of Tennessee with the Great Blue Smokies out your window to greet you every morning *sight*............. ..............




Oh sorry, what were we talking about? my mind kind of wandered there...................

I also enjoy reading Gilbert Morris' House of Winslow Series. Huge series of books (number in the 20's or 30's now I think?) and they are great historical fiction. I read a lot of these when I was in highschool.

The Historical parts are so accurate, that by the time I got to the books set in the Civil War period, we were studying the Civil War in American History my Jr. Year. First time (and the only time) I ever got 100% on History tests. My teacher, Mr. Newell, actually held me after class to ask why my grades suddenly showed massive improvement. He thought I was cheating! I mean, I was ranking C's on everything in that class until we got to the Civil War Era. I told him about the House of Winslow books.

I'm sorry that you lost a couple runners. I agree with ordering from Holderreads. I think they have some of - if not the - best waterfowl!

 

[Farmfresh]

Great job on the fruit trees! I love Pink Lady apples.

As for the mulberry ... I think you should be able to find one on your own.

Mulberry is like the tree that will not die. I had one I TRIED to kill for over 15 years before I finally resulted to poison. (It had grown up in the crack between the patio and a retaining wall!!)

I do like mulberry trees - in the right spot. If you have a cherry they are crop savers, since they fruit at the same time and birds actually prefer the mulberry! But they often come up volunteer. I would find someone with a big mulberry and do a little scouting around it. A volunteer would be very hardy and they grow quick!

 

[lorihadams]

Cool, my granny had some mulberry jam and the kids really liked it. My little brother has one in his yard in Atlanta and he is constantly moaning and groaning about it

We planted 3 trees yesterday and then our carpet guy (our current next door neighbor) showed up and he is going to give us an estimate on the carpet and laying the laminate cause my hubby is a total chicken and thinks he can't do it.

He got up early this morning to go finish planting the trees and mow the grass. It takes 3 hours and that is with the 54 inch deck mower. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to mow around the pasture fence and the 1000 feet of driveway on both sides.

Hubby is seriously rethinking the goats. I'm panicking. I can't convince him that we don't need a huge barn right now for 6 goats. I really think we could do fine with a 2 or 3 stall horse barn and save ourselves $6000. All we would need to do is get a small storage building for the lawnmower and tools and I think we would be okay. He doesn't want to put something down that is temporary and looks "junky" cause of BIL next door.

Now he says he wants cows instead of goats...

He's killing me....then in the next breath he says that we have too many animals and need to get rid of all of them. I think he's just worried about the money part of it. We have enough money from the loan leftover to pay our mortgage and electric for a year. I have made sure of that. Things will be tight but I think we'll be okay.

On a lighter note, we got the master bedroom done and the living room, dining room and kitchen painted yesterday too. It looks so much cleaner and brighter. I'm so glad we did it. I plan on doing before and after pics on another thread when we're done.

On the agenda for today, finish priming and painting the kid's bedrooms and sand and prime the kitchen cabinets. Our buddy is bringing his sprayer to do the cabinets tomorrow so that will be a lot easier for us. We still have to do the vapor barrier under the house but I think hubby will do that tomorrow. I'm not going over until lunch time.....Tyler needs a break. He's been really good but yesterday was really hot and he just complained all day. I finally gave him a five gallon bucket of water that was supposed to be for the trees and told him to have at it. That entertained him for an hour and cooled him off a bit.

Today I am letting him watch cartoons for a bit before we bring daddy lunch. Gonna try not to melt today......