The big day came and the big day went and then it came again

If you think it all went smooth, think again!

Ok, so we geared up for the big day, doing final prep work. Rory is putting the dead bolts on the safe room door here, with help from his friends. The goat going into the room it Eight followed by her twins, Bacardi and Coke (a long story) The goat with her head to his head is the lead girl, the white head behind her is Carol Channing. Bear and Max always like to help.

So, we were ready. It was all very exciting. That night a big storm came through and it rained and turned cold but we were not deterred. Up at the crack of dawn and out to the farm we go. It's pretty wet out there but we forge ahead and here comes the pump truck ( notice the water laying around)

He pulls up to the back of the house and promptly gets stuck. We end up pulling him around with the tractor trying to position him but to no avail. Meantime it's too late to cancel the first cement truck.

Here is the result. What you are looking at here is $847.11 worth of cement that we had to dump on the ground. At least we positioned it over the mud hole where everyone has the potential of getting stuck. Everyone goes home and we wait for a better day. I was not Happy, I can tell you that.

Okay then, fast forward a week and a day. The weather is beautiful and we are ready to try again.

We Arrive, not so early this time. Bear is ready to go.

We put the big girls up in a pen and the calves over in the east pasture. We are weaning them right now and they are not happy but they will still follow you anywhere if you have a bucket of food.

And here comes the Pump Truck again. This time it's a bigger one. He parks in one spot (on the new cement where the mud whole used to be) and proceeds to start unfolding the boom.

This was the most amazing thing.

This guy walked around with a remote control box and directed the boom and regulated the flow of cement while Sam walked around with the hose pouring it into the forms. Everyone else scrambled around tapping on the forms with rubber mallets mostly to hear how far up the wall the cement was. We went around 3 times, three courses the first, two the second and then topped it off. When we went around the windows you had to bang on the wall to have it fall down while shoving it in with a piece of wood so we wouldn't have any gaps. We had one blow out, that was exciting, it was the big scramble to patch the hole and clean up the cement but other than that it went without a hitch. We had the whole house poured in 5 hours and that included about an hour and a half wait time between cement trucks. The walls took 58 1/2 yards, for those of you who know what that means. It was all truly amazing

I'm putting a bunch of pictures here so you can be as impressed as we were.

You can see how impressed Max and Bear were.
My big guard dogs would sit in your lap if you let them. Look at the look on Max's face. they loved this guy.

Okay, so it's done and it's finally Miller Time. We hung out there for awhile just looking and being very relieved. We then had to wait two days before we could start wrecking out the forms to get ready for the framers. We were already a week behind and they were getting anxious. We are due to wreck out on Saturday and Sunday so they can start framing Monday morning. Friday night we have severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. We get up Saturday morning and the rain has stopped but it is far from nice out. The sustained winds were around 40 mph with higher gusts. But we are not deterred!! we get out to the farm, we have one helper meeting us there and we find a lake in the house!!


The good news is the house is definitely water tight.

So, we knocked out the wood in the door openings and I proceeded to sweep the water out of the house for the next several hours. Meantime Rory and Joey started tearing down the scaffolding. We worked all day and got it all down leaving carting it out of the house and chipping up spilled cement, sweeping up and stuff like that for the next day. It was a good day.

Okay, we set up with Joey to meet us there at 10am to finish the cleanup figuring it would be and easy day, think again.

We get there at 10, no Joey plus, we get a call from Reed and Sherri that their little goat is in labor and having a hard time. Off we go next door. It was a long labor and the baby was born weak so we let Angel dry her a bit and then we finished the job. She couldn't stand so we held her up to nurse then wrapped her up and carted her and her mom off to the barn where it was warmer with no wind. Here she is. She has the longest ears and legs you ever saw. We named her after the flying nun (Sister Bertril) and we call her Bertie. She is the cutest thing, I'll never get tired of this.

Now it's 1:30 and we go to get started on the cleanup. Still no Joey. We worked till dark, lifting carrying, scraping, shoveling. You'd think I'd be skinny but actually I'm heavier than I've ever been. We were exhausted!! But it was done and ready for the framers on Monday.

The wood had arrived on Friday and we were all set. Monday morning comes, no framers. They had taken a another small job to tide them over until we were ready, which was fine. It would have been nice if someone had told us, we then could have taken 2 days to do the cleanup. Oh well, you gotta roll with the punches.

The bear helped us rest so we are ready for the next phase.

Let the framing begin..............................................

Reprieve

We have gotten a little break in the weather and things have begun to move along. We now have a couple extra guys helping and it has made a huge difference. Yesterday it was around 70 degrees and today should be close. it all ends tomorrow and for the next week it will be in the 30's during the day with a little sleet or ice or something, falling from the sky at the end of the week so the rush is on.

With any luck at all we will be able to pour the cement next week. let's all keep our fingers crossed. The framers are supposed to be here the end of Feb., then it will really start to look like a house.

Here's the house from the back, from the front and from the top. All the forms are up and the guys are finishing up the bracing and the roof on the safe room.
In addition to the house the new barn has had some upgrades too. Sam has pretty much finished the electrical stuff, we have the pump room done and the lab space is coming together. The big news is we have water!! The well guys came and hooked it all up last week. We have been dependent on the generosity of Reed and Sherri (my brother and sister in law). They have let us come and get water from their house (they live next door if you remember) for the last 6 months. Now we only have to haul water form the new barn. Later this summer we will be trenching and running water lines for automatic waters, but that's another story that we'll save for later. This little room within the room is the pump room for the well. When Rory arrived at the farm yesterday a large amount of water was pouring out from underneath the barn. When he got inside water was everywhere. Seems a fitting let go and we had quite the flood. Luckily we had most of the feed up on pallets so we didn't loose any but everything, like the walls and the Sheetrock and such is pretty wet. This is the two rooms from the outside. The larger one will be our lab to run fecal egg counts for intestinal parasites and any other thing we might want to do. That's right, we get to play with poop!!. We'll also have a frig in here to store all medications. Right now we have to haul them back and forth everyday. The day you don't bring them is always the day you need them.

Today is Thursday and the weather has changed on us again. Pretty cold, in the 30's and cloudy for the next couple of days. Two steps forward and one back

In the old barn we built some kidding pens where we house the new mommies and their kids. We find it helps with bonding, some of these girls are not great at being mommies in the beginning, and we can control how much they get to eat, they get more. They love the special treatment and when we start letting them out they go out to play for awhile then run back in and just look at you as if to say "this was fun now where's the food

The bigger babies have their own feeder that most of the big mommas can't get into. There's always one who can squish herself in but for the most part it's just the babies.

And of course no blog is complete without the Bear. He's growing, growing. This first picture is Max and the second one is the both of them. Bear is 51/2 months old now. I think he's going to be really big.

I just got the word, we pour on Tuesday. I'll keep you posted