Next step - dirt moving...

Sometimes there is work to be done that I really don't enjoy. Today was one of those days. Dirt moving. Tons of dirt to be moved back up against the foundation walls of the barn. Hours and hours of work... We are more than halfway done, so I guess that is a good thing. I guess I should count ourselves lucky that at least we have a tractor and a blade and we don't have to do it by hand.

So 3/4 of the inside is done - only about 25 feet to go. We still need to finish the 2 long walls on the outside and that will be done. At least until it rains. When it rains it will settle and we will have to fill in some more I am sure.

The girls are really enjoying playing in the dirt. From throwing it, climbing on it, riding bikes over it. They had 2 baths today they were so dirty!

We had a good weekend. My sister is in town from GA visiting. Her, mom, dad, and Reggie came over Sunday for a few hours and visited and had dinner. This was the first time in 5 weeks mom has left the house other than to go to chemo. I'm glad she was able to get out. I'm sure that she is worn out now.

Today our friends Butch and Karen came for dinner. They brought their grandson Luke. He is too cute. He really wasn't sure what to think with all the animals running around. :)

Tomorrow we have to work on the condo and get it finished so it can be rented. The girls have school again to. It was nice to be able to spend a Monday with them today. I don't get to do that much since I am always working on Monday. Back to work for me on Wednesday. These 4 days off sure have flown by...

The barn...

The barn the day we started working...

After inside tongue and groove walls were dismantled, marked, and stacked - we took the tin off the roof and started on the outside boards.
























Tongue and groove from the walls of the chicken room - stacked, marked, bundled and ready for transport.










And the rafters start to come down...

Almost there...

All gone... one floor left. That's a lot of wood stacked up. We worked 2 weekends in a row in rain and couldn't transport anything home...

Tongue and groove floors gone...

Fast forward to today... Literally. The forms came off the poured concrete walls today. I had to make my mark on the walls.... couldn't resist...

The barn is ultimately being raised about 3 feet up from the original height. The walls are 4 feet up from ground level. 6 feet from the footer.

Yeah pictures!!

Chicken chicken and her turkey babies... they are Black Spanish Turkeys.














Guard dogs are great until they decide that the closed window is NOT going to keep them in the house. Naciye went through the window and cut her leg pretty good. We were lucky. $300 later and 3 days - Naciye can get out of every collar made, bandage made, every nasty spray tastes good, and her stitches are gone... On a side note - it still healed fairly well...
















The guinea keets heat lamp burned out and I used a jug of hot water to keep them warm while I ran to the store... think they liked it?? Oh and the kids insist of keeping stuffed animals with the keets when they are tiny... :)
















Daily enjoying the sunshine on the spring grass...

Our first chick of 2010. This is an Easter Egger/Buff Orphington mix.

Wow! We have internet now!

Been way too long since I last posted... its way too hard to type on the phone all the time so I just don't do it at all.

The phone company finally put high speed in here and turned it on tonight. So I imagine that I will be posting quite a bit.

So anyway - lots of stuff to update on. I have to figure out where I left of and I will update everything. Thanks for staying in touch!!