Barn Awning

        We're always looking for more ways to make our animals more comfortable. All of the renovations we've been working on recently have had that end goal in mind. One great feature about our barn is that the entire south facing side is completely open to the outside. This is ideal in the summer and really allows the air to flow freely through the barn helping keep down mold and mildew, as well as keep our animals cool. However, in inclement weather the open face of the barn can prove more of a problem. We set out to devise a plan to help keep water, snow, and cold out of the barn during rainy and/or wintery weather.

Here's what we came up with!

        Healthy goats and sheep can handle the cold very well, however it's the wind that can cause the most harm to an animal trying to stay nestled for warmth. The tarpaulin is the perfect (and inexpensive) solution. Not only does it keep the wind from whipping through and chilling the livestock to the bone, but it keeps horizontal rain and snow drifts out as well. It was important to make sure the outside wall design was modular so we didn't lose the best aspect of the barn in the warmer months, but durable enough to withstand the mountain winters. A simple pulley system allows the tarps to be rolled up, essentially turning them into huge blinds. We're pleased with the design and the barn stays much warmer now even on the coldest of nights. The water containers are frozen less frequently than before. Feel free to click on the above pictures for a more detailed look at the tarp and pulleys!

Barn Remodel

        We've been busy in 2012! It's only February and there has already been SO MANY things added to our to-do list, gotten underway, already completed, or soon to become project numero uno. One top priority was the barn. It was in desperate need of a good organizing and ultimately a remodel to best suit our and the animal's needs. Unfortunately, I did not have the forethought to take some "before" pictures prior to picking up the hammer and having at it, so enjoy only the "after" shots.

        Moving in the direction of having goats and sheep as our primary herd animals, it was necessary to build pens for them. We also don't want to only accommodate the animals we have currently, but allow for expansion and have a place to put little ones, interim goats b/w the time they are born and the time they find a new home, and any other animals we may need a place for. Accommodating the animal's needs is one thing, but we also need the barn to suit our needs for storage, influx of livestock, ease of feeding and watering, and ultimately easier upkeep and ability to keep the barn clean. We decided to go with a lane design for the barn. Essentially this just means that an aisle is set right down the middle of the barn with animal pens on each side. This way when it's time to clean, we can muck everything into the center lane and then scrape it all out at once as opposed to having to hand shovel and wheel barrow every last bit of manure and used bedding. Our barn was already set up perfectly for this design since it has two big bay doors that open on the west facing side.

Here you can see the lane that goes straight back to the sliding bay doors.
Each pen has two doors into the lane. Each door can be opened into the lane
and secured to create one large pen from the front to the back of the barn
allowing for even more flexibility in the use of the barn!

Eglantine and Rosie happy in their own pens!

Here is the milking pen, which also doubles as our birthing pen
since it has better lighting mounted directly over head.

Two additional pens on the backside of the barn.

Here are the two bays used for tractor implement storage.

Here are two bays being used for hay storage.

A look down the lane from the opposite side of the barn.

We've added gravel to the backside of the barn. Soon this whole area will have a roof
over it for the dual purpose of covering our processing area, and allowing for storing
our tractor out of the elements. For the time being we store the tractor in the
barn by the hay storage.

Autumn Has Arrived

Last Friday was the official first day of fall. Ah, the double edge sword of autumn. Personally, fall is my favorite season. The leaves start changing, the days become crisp and refreshing, pumpkins are ready for harvest, and the pace of the farm slows down quite considerably. We're very excited to be able to focus much more time to our construction projects. As most of you know we have a second yurt, upper garage, and turn-of-the-century log house to build. Keep looking for updates here on our blog as well as a call for volunteers for anyone who is wanting to get their hands dirty and pitch in to the farm.

Autumn is gorgeous on the mountain and I plan to include you all in the splendor!

HAPPY FALL TO COME!

Upper Garage Construction: Part 1

Construction is under way!! This project was started last year before all the craziness with Whitt's health, Mia & I moving up to the farm; even before winter really got in to the swing of things. Needless to say, this project has been put on hold for quite some time. Now that the dust is settling, and Mia and I are acclimating to farm life, it's time to get-a-move-on and finish this project up! It's hard to fit it in during the busiest seasons of spring and summer up here, but we're doing our best.

For those of you who may not know about the project (or even what the "upper garage" is for that matter), I'll start at the beginning. Before Whitt and Martha moved to the farm, there was only one house, one garage, and the barn on the property. When Whitt & Martha arrived, they built a house a bit farther down the mountain complete with another garage. In 1987 the original house burned down, leaving the garage for the original house as the only structure left standing above the barn on the property. In order to differentiate between garages on the property, the garage higher up the mountain has always been called the "upper" whereas the now main house has been called the "lower" garage.

Now that we're on the same page, the upper garage has essentially just been sitting untouched as a storage area since 1987. It housed our water tank as well as a lot of old antiques, keepsakes, building material; things of that nature. We've now cleaned it out and began renovations!

First (as mentioned above) the old water tank had to be removed and replaced. Being that it's a big concrete tank weighing in at 12,000lbs -- EMPTY -- it was a fairly huge task. Our neighbor, a bit farther up the mountain, Brian was kind enough to lend us a hand. With the use of his massive four wheel drive box truck, we were able to pull the tank out of the garage. You can see below that the pictures were taken during last fall/winter.

Biggest. Truck. Ever.

Brian hooking up the cables.

Hm..let's try it the other way.

Voila!

The Pool is Officially Open!

The finished product is amazing! The work really paid off! Now the water is a crystalline blue, and no more roughed up feet from the bottom of the pool. Anyone for a swim?

Mia, Alex, and Liz enjoying the water!

Pool Time

Memorial Day is not only commemorated by paying our respects to those who have fought for our country, but also by opening pools! Our pool needed some work before the swimming season, so Whitt and I tackled it over the course of a week. The bottom of the pool needed to be acid washed, patched, primed, and painted. Boy did that make a huge difference! Now the pool can be enjoyed by all.

The shallow end before...

...and the deep end.

Whitt ready with patching material in hand!

The pool patched...

...and primed!


The painting and filling is next!

Box Scraper: A Must Have!

We've been making a lot of new roads recently with all of the new construction going on up here. Essentially, each new structure needs to have as designated a road as possible to prevent everybody from getting in each others way, ESPECIALLY when it comes to the weekend BN'B guests.

There are a few steps to building a road:

1st: Plan out the route of the road keeping in mind the incline, what the bulldozer will be demolishing, and how direct you'd like the road to be. Ideally you shouldn't need a 4x4 to make it up or down the road if it's rained recently, you don't want to plow through existing power lines or septic lines, and you also want to have as little impact to the actual forest around the road.

2nd: Find a friend with a bulldozer to clear the area and make a rough path.

3rd: Spread the road surface of your choosing. In our case we use gravel. Start with larger rocks to form a foundation, and then add gradually smaller gravel to really stabilize the road. Finally, spread a top layer of mostly pulverized rock to form almost a tarmac surface that won't get washed away.

Thanks to the ever trusty Dave VanDerveer!

The rough road completed.

Now, the bulldozer tearing down the forest may seem like the hard part, but as long as the dozer driver knows what he or she is doing, it's relatively straight forward: get stuff out of the way. The hard part has been spreading the gravel evenly over the road surface! We've been using a rake attachment on our tractor to spread the gravel, but it never did the best job. Essentially we would just push the gravel around and hope it was even.

WELL! Have we made it SO MUCH EASIER?! Oh yes!

Whitt and I ran to Tractor Supply yesterday to pick up some more feed and waterers for our birds. Dave VanDerveer had been telling us about a box scraper we could get for our tractor to help make spreading and maintaining road surfaces a lot easier. We priced out a box scraper for our tractor while we were there and the price was better than we expected! So we loaded it up and brought it home.

This is the same style rake we were previously using. Ours is a lot more beat up.

The new tool gathers all the extra material in the "box" and spreads it evenly with a smooth edge.

Previously it took me 4 hours to use the tractor rake to push all the gravel around to some semblance of a path (let alone a road). With the new box scraper? 20 minutes! 2 passes! DONE! Now, forgive me for being so excited about this new tool, but ANYTHING that can cut my time down by 90% AND do a better job than what I was able to do previously is something I get REALLY excited about! Not only am I able to do more in a day, but we're using WAY less diesel fuel and putting less wear on our tractor! Yay efficiency!

Here's a video of a similar box scraper set up taking a pile of crusher run and spreading it smoothly and evenly down a driveway. This isn't our tractor or road, but ours works exactly the same way!

The best part about the box scraper is that not only does it make spreading new roads 100% more efficient, but we're able to use it to re-surface existing roads that are a bit worse for wear. It has "ripper shanks" which can be adjusted to dig into the existing road, churn up all of the gravel that's been packed in and re-lay it evenly. Gravel is not cheap when you're buying it by the truck load, so the more we can get out of the existing gravel the better!

One pass down the worst driveway restored it to almost new. (All that gravel was under the dirt!)

Many thanks to Dave VanDerveer for clueing us in to the box scraper, and also for owning bulldozers, dump trucks, backhoes, and everything else needed to move the earth for a living. If you need any heavy duty excavation or landscaping done, he's the man to call!

When One Yurt Isn't Enough...

Get another one!

We're getting another yurt from our friends at Blue Ridge Yurts! The new yurt will be a 16' yurt, so a little more than half the size of the current yurt we are running as a Bn'B. We're planning on using the smaller yurt as a rental geared more toward a camping atmosphere then anything else. As of right now we're imagining hikers from the Appalachian Trail, or families in need of a camp site being able to find running water, compostable toilets, and shelter inside the new yurt with fire close by. However, we are also aware that the ideal simplicity of the new yurt may very well be turned in to a full on cabin type endeavor much like the larger yurt. The best part about yurts are how endless the possibilities are!

Check out the yurt! We'll be picking it up toward the end of March/early April. We already have a spot cleared. Stay tuned for all the new things happening!