City Slicker Gone Nation

There is certainly both humor and tears in such an undertaking. Please share these with us and learn from our mistakes and triumphs.

Installment #8 Lemons to Lemonade–The Barn is Finished

Vacation time utilized, we were now forced to use Hubby’s 34-hour breaks from truck driving in order to complete the barn.

The reason why we call this “Lemons to Lemonade” is that the aluminum was used by us siding from the ruins associated with the housetrailer for the siding on our barn. Therefore we’d strip down a little siding and nail it to your barn frame and then return to the old trailer for some more.

Uh, about this rainfall! It absolutely was back! And this time so was the Central that is infamous Texas winds–probably around 35 miles per hour not counting the gusts of wind. Hubby on the r f, I would personally push the bits of sheet metal r fing up to him as most useful I could from the ground as he attempted to hold onto it in the high winds long sufficient to haul it the remainder way on the r f. More than once we’d to haul the same piece right back up on the r f in the event that wind gusted plus it t k off once again.

Then, supplied if and when Hubby could get the sheet metal in position, I would personally make an effort to hold onto one corner from it from a 2nd ladder as Hubby kneeled together with it and tried to nail section of it down to keep it in place. I also attempted to nail down my end whenever I did not need both tactile hands, elbows and bodyweight to keep it down in the wind.

More often than once, my war cry was “I’m losing it. ” and Hubby would belly-flop together with the sheet metal piece to help keep the wind gust from carrying it well. I think I would have fallen off my ladder laughing if it hadn’t been so serious. You must comprehend, Hubby ended up being nicknamed “Q-tip” by some of the locals right here because his body kinds an extended rail-thin connection between his white hair and his white tennis shoes he was well-known for using in those times. Therefore here was Hubby, all 120 pounds of him, belly-flopping on the sheet steel to keep it down. I’d visions of him plus it removing across Limestone County like Aladdin and their Magic Carpet.

Luckily, their efforts worked and he stayed on the r f!

Then we worked in a mist of rainfall all of the time, simply enough to help make the sheet steel slick. Wonderful!

Well, we are both still right here, so obviously we survived the high winds, additionally the slick, wet and flying sheet steel.

Thank g dness for small favors, completing the three stalls inside ended up being rather uneventful. The big barn allowed us to offer our three horses 11×22′ stalls and a 10-f t run-in the barn in front. I found at my past stable a huge long stall is normally simpler to clean than your normal 10×10 or square stall. The horses tend to use the back component as a pan” that is”potty. Provided that the stalls are faithfully cleaned daily, it is easier to clean up than p p that’s been ground within a horse which includes no other place to escape his or her own dung.

Anyhow, barn finish! Horses pleased! At least now on our treeless 16 acres, the horses possessed a destination to get away from the hot sunlight therefore the inclement weather. Uh. well. for the time being.

Installment number 7 The Working Vacation

Some vacation. It was spent by us working our butts down. Ever try luvfree nГЎvЕЎtД›vnГ­kЕЇ to build a barn in five days?

okay, we already had one wall of the barn in our “Stubborn Storage Trailer” (see previous post) like I said,. We’d have a great deal of our barn siding by stripping the aluminum from the old ruined home trailer.

But we nevertheless had to build a frame. A 32’x36′ structure so that’s what this week’s project was to be, building a frame–for. We rented a post hole digger, bought the lumber and bags of concrete to support the four x fours and we had been down and running like we knew what we had been doing.

Both my spouce and I are under 5’4″. My husband is 120 pounds soaking wet. I will not let you know my fat (wish it was 120!), but neither of us have the effectiveness of the average adult generally much taller. The post gap digger ended up being presented to us to be easy to operate by one person. Ha! there is that deceptive term “easy” again!It was most of the two of us could do to drag it from a single location to your other let alone make use of it. Somehow, with aching backs, we managed.

And in Central Texas where it rarely rains, where rainfall is usually a blessing whenever it can take place, the rain came as being a curse every single day on us to help keep us miserable and make the concrete mixing/drying sluggish and hard.

Nonetheless we managed! The frame was built, but at a cost that is unbearable. We were s o tired, overworked rather than thinking clearly. We had all our cherished pets than any pets I’ve ever owned with us, including my six parrots, more precious to me. Somehow, some tragic means, the madness, we inadvertently gave two of them bad f d. We’re able to maybe not locate a bird vet in time to treat them. We found one dead into the cage as well as the other passed away in my hands him to Waco as I was trying to leave the property to race. We never could have managed to get anyhow. They’ve been buried in the farm and I also can not even approach that little patch of our farm without my eyes welling up. I lost my two best buddies ever that time. No exaggeration. These people were precious beyond terms and the most readily useful company anybody could ever ask for. These were pets I decided to not have to bury and thought would outlive me. A few of life’s cruel ironies.