Tools and such...

You got it, it is an outhouse. After having a few homeschool co-op days at the farm early in April before we started building, I realized that we needed some type of facilities. I knew we would be spending many hours working, and it is nice to have a place where you don't have to worry about getting poison (or slipping on wet leaves).My plan was for a seat big enough for a bucket to fit under it and some sheets strung between the trees. This is Dad's design (he always takes my ideas and makes them so much better, and I am so thankful for that).

I found the information for a "humanure" online when I was looking for composting toilet plans. It didn't look like something I would want to do inside a finished house, but it seemed just right for what we needed while we are building. The trick is you need to completely cover your "deposit" with sawdust (hence the rubbermaid tub of sawdust sitting right outside). It works really well, it didn't even smell until I emptied the bucket and realized I had no way to rinse it.

This is "Mo", Mo Hammer. While we are working we end up naming some of the tools, especially the ones we use alot, or for specific jobs. Mo has been used to pound joists and floor sheeting into place and to get the walls in place. It has also been used to pound in the 'step-in' posts of our electric netting for the sheep. The ground is so hard now that it hasn't been raining that it is impossible to 'step' them in, I need to use Mo.

This is "Big Boy". Not really sure where the name came from, but one day Dad said "go get the 'big boy', and that has been its name since. This pipe clamp really comes in handy to untwist all of our twisted wood. Words cannot describe how bad some of them have been, I am just grateful we have 'big boy' to help us get the job done right.

Rooms with a view

I decided to take some pictures of the views out of each window.

Kitchen window (what you can't see very well is that there is an orchard on the other side of the driveway)

Dining room (will look much better when all of the extra wood is gone)

Living room ( will be really beautiful after the dirt mound and the outhouse are gone)

Master Bedroom

Tanner's bedroom

Madison's bedroom

Morgan's bedroom

Weekend eight

This week we are doing a bunch of tedious jobs. I was working on putting up the top plate to tie up the seams in the walls. Dad was working on plumbing the walls and mom was nailing in the siding.

Tanner was very bored this weekend. His sisters were at a birthday sleepover for a friend and he was anlone. There was really nothing for him to do and he didn't seem to want to play by himself like he usually does.

He ended up clinging to me alot and that made things difficult. When I was on the ladder he wanted to just stand right next to me. It was a bit dangerous since I had some heavy clamps up on the ladder with me. Mom told Tanner to stand farther away, so he stood in the corner. He was there for over 5 minutes before we realized that he thought we put him in the corner (tineout). He is just so cute.

Here are Mom and Dad working on putting up a new piece of siding.

By 9:30 Tanner was already so bored he wanted to go home. After a little while he decided to play in the tent. A littel while later we realized we didn't hear him anymore and went to see what he was up to. This is how we found him.

By the end of the weekend we had siding up to the front door.

Clouds...

I just love the clouds in TN

Nowhere I have ever been have I seen such neat looking clouds.

Big and puffy...

...and just everywhere

Work Ethic

We always knew that Tanner was very co-ordinated. Well, we decided to put him to work at nailing some of the flooring down.

He was a natural...

He also ended up being Papa's 'go fur'. He had a great time helping Papa do some measuring, and that freed us up to work on other things.

Weekend seven....continued

We finished the walls today. The back wall of the storage room is up and braced. The next job was plumbing the walls to make sure they are straight and getting the studs level.

This is the slow tedious part. Dad started the top plate so we could start putting the siding on the house.
This part is going to take alot of time. The nails that we need to use for the siding are spiral nails. All they do is bounce until they are finally into a stud.

Weekend seven

We started our day today like every other: wake up, make sandwiches/do chores, get dressed, pile in the van to work on the house. Only this time, when we got there the kids didn't get out of the van. They leaned the back rest down and all three of them cuddled up on the back seat and continued sleeping.

Mom and Dad and I worked on finishing up that back wall. All we had to do was cut and put in the studs under the windows for the girls rooms. We got that finished and then stood up the lighter part of that wall. Once we had that up and braced we woke the kids to help us stand up the rest of that wall. That was one heavy wall, but we got it in all by ourselves.

We then went to work making our remaining wall for the main part of the house. Mom and the girls worked on getting the studs nailed to the header and bottom plate.

Tanner even helped by putting the studs where they went. He even pushed them all the way across the floor to do it. He is such a good little worker. I worked on framing the last window (yea!!! *jumps for joy*), while Dad worked on building one of the last two short walls for the storage room.

We finished that main wall and got it up and braced.

Then we tried to decide if we wanted to work more, or quit for the day. It was hot and we were tired, but we were so close to being done. So we decided to go for it and try.

Almost immediately we all got really tired. We got one of those two walls up and then decided to call it a day.

Sheeps and Goats

Sampson is finally getting to work. We had been waiting to put him in with the sheep because Penny can be really mean and we were afraid she would hurt him with her horns.

The sheep weren't really sure about him. They don't let him get too close, but they also follow him when they think something is going on, they just leave a cushion between them.

We moved the sheep this morning. Four hours later they are back in the play area. I had used Dad's truck on Monday to get some hay (to extend the life of each pasture). We stacked all of that hay on the bottom level of the kids tower. We had hope that this would keep the hay from being messed up and keep it usable longer (the sheep like to spread it around and potty in it and lay in it, then they don't eat it).

I guess that didn't work too well

Penny's daughter Snowflake made the stack her bed.

Friends and tractors

We have such great friends here in TN. Brian, (known by Tanner as Farmer B) is an especially great friend. He has helped us find and excavator to do our foundation, he got us our cows and checks up on them to make sure everything is fine. He and his friend Kevin even wrestle our cows if they need medication (I wanted to get video of this one, but I felt weird standing there taping it so I gave up).

For weeks he has been telling us that he will mow our pastures. He came a few weeks ago and did one and then hit one of the huge boulders from the driveway and bent the blade. So this week he came with his bush hog. He got all of the area outside of fencing trimmed up and looking pretty and then he went up along the outside of the first pasture. He didn't realize there was a drainage ditch there.

In case you don't already know, we have alot of water on this 22 acres. One very long creek, 2 mountain springs in the woods and a spring in the unusable scrub, plus a very high water table make up our blessing/curse.

So as Brian is cutting this grass his tractor slips, and then sinks, into a thick stinky mud. When we found out about this on Tuesday evening (by accident because Eric went over to check on the cows) the tractor was stick in the mud up to the top of the big tire on the back (and tipped back a bit also). He tried to get himself out by using his hay prong to push him up out of it, but it hit a rock and bent.

Then they enlisted the help of the neighbor farmers and their big tractors, to no avail. This is NOT how I wanted to meet the other neighbors. But all the while Brian is just as happy as a pig in $#@!. Did I mention he is a really happy sort?

This afternoon I get a call from Eric. I need to go over and take some pictures. Oh and by the way when they tried to get it out this morning with a wrecker, it broke. Yes the whole back end came off. I wish I had a picture of that one.

So after I speak with Brian for a bit I take a few pictures:

The tractor stuck in the mud past it's door and axle.

The ripped up driveway where the neighbors tractors tried to get it out

The spot where the wrecker broke.

Then the neighbors are back, with2 big tractors. They are going to chain them together to pull it out. They try in vain 4 times. Then one of the tractors goes up the driveway to come back down along the ditch (yes, the same ditch that the tractor is stuck in). I just watched in horror as I expected this tractor to also get stuck...it didn't.

They used it to lift up the bush hog so they could get it off. The connection had been under mud and they couldn't get to it.

The tractor then came back to the driveway to hook up with the other and try again to pull Brian out. After a few more tries it finally moved. I was surprised, I really thought I was going to have that lawn ornament that Brian talked about.

Needless to say, my driveway will never be the same. After so many tries with those huge tractor tires spinning in different spots I am surprised I have any gravel left in that area.

They were out had the bush hog back on the tractor and we were saying our 'thank you's and what does Brian say: "We will be back after lunch to finish cutting your pastures."

So this is why Brian is tops on our list. Not only is he always there to lend a helping hand, but he never complains, or groans when somethings goes wrong, she is always happy and he doesn't charge us (so far).

Weekend six...continued

We decided to stand the wall up in 2 pieces today. Since we don't have extra people to help, it seemed the safest choice. We did the heavy part first. This side has the dining room window and the kitchen window (headers are so heavy).After getting the wall up we worked on the other big wall at the back of the house. This wall has the windows for the girls rooms and the door from the kitchen to the storage room. Remember how much I love to do window framing? Yep, that was my job again, I guess no one else likes it either.


There wasn't a whole lot for the kids to do today. Tanner decided to take up his favorite seat, in Morgan's lap.We got the whole wall almost finished. We were so hot and tired and exhausted.... and did I mention tired? We decided to use our remaining energy to put the tools away and finish the wall on Friday.

Happy Birthday America!!

Happy July 4th!!!

This is such a great country that we live in. Lately alot of people have been complaining about everything from finances and corporation failures and bailouts, to healthcare and Iraq and our boarders. Even though there are so many things that could be made better we need to remember what this country is about.

We have the freedom to speak our minds. We have the freedom to come and go as we please. We have the freedom to choose what is best for our families. We have the freedom to worship God as we see fit, or to not believe or worship at all. We have the freedom to be whatever we choose and to work hard to achieve our goals, or to do nothing and have nothing.

We all need to remember, especially today where we get these freedoms. It is not given to us by our government, not by senators or congressmen. It is not handed down by judges. Those freedoms were fought for. Everyday people like you and I made a decision to stand up and let their voices be heard. They decided to not just sit by and let others make decisions for them. These people fought for, bleed for, and died for the freedoms that we have today.

Today we have soldiers in countries all over the world protecting our freedom. We may not all agree with the decision for them to be there, but we need to be thankful for those young men and women that sacrifice their time, energy and lives to make sure we continue to have that freedom.

Today we have a government that doesn't trust us. They don't think we can choose the best direction for our country so they ignore what we tell them. Some of them think that our children would learn best from strangers rather than parents so they want to make laws to require preschool at 4. They want to control all aspects of our lives rather than let us make our own decisions.

We must remember what our Founding Fathers wanted for our country. A government of the people, for the poeple and by the people. So listen to what is going on in the world. Use many different sources of information, really find the truth. And when you find it, act on it. Don't just sit there waiting for your neighbor to stand up for your rights, because if you do that, one day your neightbor won't be there anymore and you won't have any rights.

I am off my soap box now....Have a great 4th!

Weekend six

Here is it Friday again already. And you are wondering what Eric is doing helping us on a Friday. Well he actually got a day off since July 4th is on a Saturday.

We started the day by building walls. We all worked really well together and got the first big wall up fairly quickly. This is the front wall and it has a big window frame, a door frame and a smaller window frame. If you have never built a window or door frame then you haven't lived yet. Ok, maybe that is a bit much.


After building most of these frame for this house I can honestly say....I never want to do another one for the rest of my life! You guessed it, it was awful. It involves two very heavy pieces of 2x12 lumber. They must be nailed to 2 studs and be flush on all sides. Every time I got close to the nail, something slipped (I am going to blame this on the fact that I don't have big enough hands). There is much more to the building of these monsters, but I wont bore you with the details. Long story short, this is by far my least favorite part so far.

Luckily our helpers were here again to help us lift up that really heavy wall.

After standing the wall up we had to hold it there while Dad got it to the right spot to nail it in. Then we needed to continue holding so he could get the wall level and brace it.

Here you can see the window frame.

The front of the house.

We actually got the next wall finished but decided not to take the time to stand it up, so it was laying on the floor ready for Saturday.

Admiring a days work.