Painting the House, Pe Ell and Doty Hydrology Meeting

09/09/2008 Tuesday: Sunny all day although the nights continue to be chilly.

Very busy day all in all. Began by cleaning off much of the stuff (and I do mean stuff) off the deck. Deana will be pressure washing it tomorrow so we'll need everything away from the wall. That includes the dog house. It took me the better part of the morning to get things out of the way and haul them off to their new homes. I put stuff in the tack room (tools, Chas's golf club, and so on), in the potting shed and in the barns.

Deana came about 11am. She pressure washed the potting shed and the little tool shed. Both look a lot better. Even better, Deana got up on the potting shed's roof and cleaned it off for me. There were ferns growing on the roof. Tells you how long it has been since the roof of that building got cleaned.

I fed Deana lunch when I made lunch for Chas and myself. Our standard fare when there are visitors - ham and cheese sandwiches.

After lunch I made up a mixture of yogurt and a little water and fed it to the little goat using a 20cc syrnge. I also gave her two more srynges of water just to make sure she doesn't get dehydrated.

Then she started on the weather side of the house. She climbed up on the roof and pressure washed down the wall. Then she worked from the bottom up. It was way too hot to work on that side. It was right in the sun. I suggested that she do the rest tomorrow morning. After that she did the east & south L out to the deck.

While she was working on the south wall I chopped back the undergrowth along the east and south sides. I must have taken away a trailer load of climbing rose and ground cover.

Tomorrow Deana will power wash the rest of the south wall. I may hold the ladder for her. That pressure washer could knock her off the ladder. Then we'll have to move a loom and and a ratty couch out of the way. The couch is going on the fire as soon as I can get it loaded into the trailer. The upper deck should be ok. I've moved most of the stuff out of the way. I just have to move some firewood off the deck. There's no good place to store firewood where you need it.

We had a quick dinner of cold cuts before we left for the Doty fire station. There was a water meeting at the station. Public health was concerned about the high levels of e. coli and coliform bacteria in the area water supply and got a grant to study the problem. They were just reporting on this. Chas and I were concerned that we might end up having to join a water district and pay lots of money for a connect fee, but apparently they are just doing a study.

I spoke to Gary N at the meeting. He says his Angus bull is fairly small, but larger than my Dexter bull. He's got him in a pen and when he gets his trailer back will bring him over. That would be good since my girls are in season off and on and are driving Huck, my Dexter bull, nuts.

Our tractor is working again. We found out what the problem was: gas in the diesel. A neighbor borrowed our tractor and had to replace 5 gallons of gas and 5 gallons of diesel. Apparently she got the two cans mixed up and filled the two cans with the wrong kind of gas/diesel (i.e., gas in the diesel can and vice versa). The wind was blowing and Chas couldn't smell that it was gas instead of diesel and filled the tank to loan it out again. The result was that Chas had to drive our trailer into town with the tractor on it and then come back. The service person jumped on the tractor and smelled the mixture in the tank and explained that that was the problem. Dang!

Chas had to drain the full(!) tank on the tractor. In addition when he replaced the fuel filter he lost the O ring when he tipped it over to drain the filter - so now the fuel filter leaks. In town tomorrow we'll pick up two O rings and hopefully the tractor will be working properly again.

I need my tractor back but will have to be patient. When our friend Mike H finishes leveling the soil on his property and moving rocks he's going to take my tractor to a friend who has a large generator with a welder attachment. At Gary's place he'll weld up the fork lift attachment for me. It will be made for my tractor and should weight about 150 lb. He says he's going to set it up so that I can drive the tractor onto the fork lift attachment and then just lift it slightly to chain the forks to the bucket. He's also repairing the bent section on the top of the bucket where we bent it lifting too heavy a tree trunk. He found some 1/4" channel that he's going to weld into place and then put back the chain attachment (the hook that we attach chains to when we're lifting things). I had three chain hooks welded to the top of my tractor blade. They've been invaluable in lifting things.

Anyhow, the blade will be much stronger and with any luck I can keep the forks on the tractor once winter starts most of the time.

I'm going to have to feed square bales to the Dexters for the next few days since they're going to be finished with the current bale by tomorrow afternoon. I wanted to save the square bales for later on in the year mostly because I have to move them from the cow barn to the stall and throw sections over the gate. I'm a bit lazy when it comes to hauling those bales of hay. Bit of a PITA but it will be worth it when I get my tractor back and can move those big bales with ease.

Yah, feeding round bales sure saves me time. Course I spend the time watching the animals so that although I have reduced the time I actually spend doing chores it takes me the same amount of time by the time I've admired my animals and scratched the ones who don't mind being scratched. The cows all love apple sections. I've taken to gleaning the fallen apples and cutting them up into sections. Last night I had drool all over me from the cows waiting for their piece of apple (the Herefords were the culprits this time).

My CA bander arrived last night. I've been playing with it but have not yet got my courage up to do a bull calf. I need to do some more practicing on a stuffed sock before I try the actual process on a live animal.