Goat Shelter is complete!

So unfortunately, Tim decided one day after work to come home and kick ass and do all the siding and roofing on his own.  I told you before, my husband is amazing. But this means I dont have any photos of this part of the process.  I do, however have some photos of him putting the finishing touches on with some battens.

We also learned the hard way when it came to fencing... Tim was able to get a long roll of chain link for free from someone he knew.  Thinking it would be a $ saver, we jumped at the opportunity.  After we got it unrolled and stapled to the trees, we realized it wasnt anywhere near tall enough and we feared the'd jump over it.  Additionally, we were short by about 150 ft and we figured if we had to buy new fencing, at that point it was best to back track and remove the free fencing and start fresh with a good livestock quality fencing from our favorite place- Tractor Supply.

As you already know, if you've been following this blog- we just got our goats (which we are in love with by the way) and they are happily enjoying their new home.   The didn't, however care for the noises of the nail gun every time Tim shot a nail in to the boards.   Zoey was especially funny and very curious. Actually they were all pretty curious to see what he was doing.   Here's a few photos of the finishing touches and our final product.  Not bad for the first goat barn we've ever built with our own two hands, eh?   (pat on the back to us).

Here's a few shots of what it looks like from the inside. They're loving it!

Here's the finished product, even comes with a two section door so we can put them away and still leave the top open for air- OR shut the top portion on days with heavy snow or rain to keep it out of the shelter but still allow for the goats to come in and out freely.  

This day we were taking sections of the old chain link out and replacing it was the new goat fencing we purchased.  This was the first time these little guys saw the tractor and curiosity got the best of them all.  Especially, Zoey!  Our little trouble maker she is...

Let us know what ya think in the comments below.

Starting to Build a Goat Shelter

We've been talking about getting goats for a little over a year now.  Kayla has really been pushing the topic, probably because she's getting older and the longer we wait, less of her childhood will be spent with them.  It took a little convincing, but once Tim came to terms with the idea, he was just as excited as Kayla and I were.

After months of research and talking with our new farmer buddy in Lebanon who breeds the goats we're going to pick up- we think we covered just about all basis.

Goat behavior
Goat diet
Best food brand for goats
Goat's favorite treats
What goats like to play with
Personality of different goats
Goat breeds
Breeding goats
Milking goats....

yea, we pretty much had everything covered and were ready to get going...


oh! Goat HOUSING!  We couldn't possibly bring baby goats home without proper shelter!

Build a goat barn you say?  No problem, my husband is a genius and can do all things, including building a goat shelter.  And that's just what we're going to do!

A trip to the barn to see what we had for lumber and a few items at Home Depot and we got the start of what will be an awesome structure.  Too bad its super cold out and it's going to SUCK being outside putting this thing together.    We went back and forth about where the best spot for them would be. I wanted them out front so they were the first think you saw pulling up the drive. Tim liked the idea of them being out back so all summer long when we're hanging by the pool we can enjoy them.   So guess what we ended up doing?   Nope, usually I get it my way, this time Tim had the final say, and as much as I HATE to admit it- he was right (just this one time in 17 years of marriage haha).  We decided to set up shop out back and get the construction on its way.  It looks a little lifeless as everything is still very dead and brown, but once the spring comes and we have GREEN it'll be a great little goat home.

Before we actually began, we had taking several large trees down out back the week before.  We had to cut the center of the logs out to allow a pathway for the John Deer to make it back and forth with materials for the new structure we were going to build. Luckily, Tim wears many hats, this day he was a lumberjack.

 Here they come with the tools we need to get rocking and rolling!

This is the spot!  Perfect view of the house and pool.  Time to dig up some big rocks to make the area nice and clear for our new structure!

                                     We know who's REALLY doing all the work here...

  Here's a shot that actually has me in it, hard to tell from all my photos but I was equal parts in                                   building this thing.  Getting anyone to snap photos is usually a chore.

                                           Kayla stepped up and gave her dad a hand.

                          She looks thrilled, doesn't she? haha, she'd kill me if she ever saw this post.

And the framing is just about done! 

Goodbye Rotten Railroad Ties, Hello Gorgeous Stone Wall!

We didn't realize how bad the side retaining wall was rotted out when we moved in.  Last summer, I did some yard cleaning and decided to tackle the job of raking out under all the huge rhodedendrons we have.  I could hardly get my rake under them they were so overgrown and encroaching on that entire hillside.

Didnt take me long- I had Tim fired up with a chainsaw in hand ready to clean it up.  We took two trees out that were so poorly grown, they were just an eyesore.  After taking all that out it really opened up the space, but then we were left with a total nighmare... rotten retaining wall.  We actually had rhoadie roots growing out of one of them and it was pushing it so far off where it should be, the hillside was starting to cave.   We ended up with a much larger project than we had anticipated, although that seems to be the norm around here anymore. It's like peeling away one layer and find another that needs peeled beneath it and so on.

We decided to take out the railroad tie on the bottom as it was damaged the most and replace it with a stone wall.  The awesome part of it is that we were able to hand gather each and every stone that you'll see in this wall from our very own property- which to us, makes it THAT much more special.  Sure, we could've hired guys to come in with a crew and load of stone and bang it out in a day or two.. and pay upwards of $8000, but we prefer to do these things ourselves as the reward of accomplishment is far greater than the end result.

This took us a little over a week, with a few hours here and there throughout the week after work and a few long days over the weekend. We're tickled pink and love the way it looks.  Can't wait to rip out and replace the upper tier next!


After tree trimming and cleaning up was done, but still has the old retaining wall:

 Start of the new wall going in, looking good hunny! XOXO  We had to dig down, lay waterproofing,                                          back fill with gravel and start laying in the tiers.

                         

These were some of the rocks we dug up, cleaned up and brought down for this wall.  And let me tell you- majority of them were heavy as hell.  Some were so heavy we needed to load em in the tractor and dump em.  This was by no means an easy task.  We agree, however it was well worth our efforts.

 The trash pile we later loaded on the trailer and took to the landfill in Honey brook.  Most of these                    were so rotted out they crumbled and fell apart when we tried to move them.
                                               Glad they're no longer an issue!

And no better way to pat ourselves on the backs when it was complete-then with a cold one.  

CHEERS!

Back Stairs, Grunge to Gorge

Being that we're a raised ranch, which means we park in the garage at ground level out front, but our living space is upstairs.  That being said, we have a back set of narrow stairs that lead from the garage up into the kitchen.  The stairs we think were an after thought, because they're extremely small and narrow and quite frankly they hog space in the little kitchen- but that's another story.

After trucking up and down these white stairs that looked like they hadn't bee cleaned or cared for in a very long time- I decided to attack them, viciously.  My weapon of choice? The god forsaken paintbrush. (smile)

I decided to do a multi-tone on the stairs and paint the walls a light grey to warm the whole hall up and give life to a once drab space we were in multiple times a day.


                                                                BEFORE:

                                                                 





                                                                   AFTER:

                                               



                                               SIDE BY SIDE COMPARISONS

Now for some artwork and quirkiness... will add some finishing touches and update soon.

Checking Out the Attic

One of the most bazaar things we discovered when we purchased this home, was the attic access, or lack there of.  We searched high and low in every nook, cranny and closet and much to our surprise there just wan't any access to the attic space- at all!    This means that most likely, since the time this house was built no one ever checked in on the attic space to make sure things looked kosher.  This was a really scary thought.

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, (I believe it was the post about painting the exterior of the home) we were having a major yellow jacket issue near the roof line and there were several large gaping holes with these bees going in and out of the cedar shakes.  My husband grabbed the gauntlet and in he dove.  An hour later, we had a small access panel in the ceiling of one of our bedroom closets and he crawled around up there and discovered all kinds of things- like a HUGE bee colony that was living in our house. Unwanted.

He treated the area, and the outside was addressed so we no longer have these nasty flying stingers occupying our space.  AND we now have access for any future needs.  This actually lit a fire under Tim to start another one of our (MANY) projects- updating the closets.  We had normal drywall on the bedroom ceilings, and it went into the closet space as well, BUT they installed drop ceilings in the closets with a small lighting fixture cut into them that hardly gave off any light- and cut our closet space by about 10" .. which is a LOT when you're talking about an old closet that's not very big to begin with.  You can see where the drywall was painted and where it stopped.  All that unpainted drywall space was hidden beneath a dropped ceiling of panels.

Good bye drop ceilings, hello attic access and beautiful bright recessed lighting! My closet is up next!  Then it's paint, new closet organizers and some metal tracked wood barn doors- WHICH I CANNOT WAIT FOR!

Updates to follow as they happen..


                                                                  BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Just needs finishing touches!

Drilling A New Well (part 1)

You know that feeling when you hop in the shower on a cold night after working outside all day? It's amazing, right?  All hot and steamy, as you let the hot beads of moisture penetrate through your skin... ok, get your head out of the gutter, that's not where I'm going with this.   I'm talking about the thing we use every day and take for granted- hot water. Or how bout water period?!

Now picture that same scenario, but you're in the shower all hot and steamy and lathered up with soap and something major happens. The water starts to trickle... and trickle.. and eventually trickles no more.  

That's what just happened to Tim...  And it wasn't a pretty sight around here, let me tell ya.  He was freaking out, yelling and questioning everyone "who used all the hot water, better yet who just used all the water?  Who did laundry, took showers and ran the dishwasher?"..   sadly it wasn't like that.  Yes, we used the water in the house like we did every day, but for some reason this time- we ran dry. yes DRY people.  We ran our well DRY. You can imagine the feeling of disaster when you think you have no water left in your well.  

Well, it took several hours, but our well eventually filled and we were able to get water out of the faucets again, but we realized that something needed to be done- quickly.  We had some contractors out who used to service this house prior to our ownership and much to our surprise, we learned that the well had actually run dry previously.  Of course this was never mentioned to us before, so we were upset and that's just a whole other can of worms that I'm not even about to get into in this post.  Let's just say it was best to just move forward with correcting the matter at hand.   After several contractors out to the house, we decided to get a new well drilled for better water flow and accessability.  The well we have now is only drilled a little over 100 feet deep. This is not the best set up for a family of 5.  We had our buddy Tom Smith out with his excavating equipment to dig our hill out for the drill to access freely.  Say hi to Tom:

Now we're all ready for Mills to come drill our new well!

To be continued...

One of the Prettiest Times of the Year, Fall

I was looking around and couldn't happen to notice all the different colors around us, from the leaves changing on all the different types of tress, to the changes in flowers.   I wanted to share how pretty it really is up here in these woods.  This was taken while I was enjoying a cup of coffee this morning sitting on the swing under the old pine tree and having a "me moment" (which doesn't happen too often).  It's slightly difficult to see in this photo, but we have a red maple that's to the far right of this photo that is absolutely gorgeous this time of year.  It's crimson fire among the golden rays of the oak trees behind it.

Ahhhhh... nothing like a hot cup of coffee on a brisk fall morning.  Love our house.
Happy Saturday Morning, Y'all!