Mom and Dad are here!

Mom and Dad have arrived! We are having a great time with them here. They are a tremendous help, and we enjoy just spending time with them. They will be here until mid August, take a couple of road trips, and then return for a time before the snow flies.

Mom has really been a blessing to Sheryll, and Dad has really been a blessing to me both at the pole barn and here at the farm. Today we poured some concrete patches on the foundation where we will build our barn. Tomorrow we return to the pole barn to get the rest of the rafters and the tongue and groove 2X8s that form the manure wall.

Here are some pics of our progress taken at the end of days 6, 7 and 8 (I think?)

Pole barn dismantling project

The pole barn is 40X80. The tin on the end walls is in pretty good shape, over half of the back wall is in good shape, but most of the front and the roof tin is damaged. There are quite a few 2X6s and tongue and groove 2X8s, so hopefully the material will be worth our time. Tomorrow we should find out how easily the 2X6s will come off of the poles.

Trevor getting some tin off the back wall. Now that I'm in the old upper 40s, it sure is nice to have a teenager to help with this kind of work!

Tucker pitched right into the effort as well. He has great eyes, and was a great help in finding all the nails we dropped. I promised the owner we'd do our best not to leave any nails for tires or cows to consume!

The back wall when we were about halfway finished.

It's a big project!

The hay is in the barn!

We now have 770 square bales stacked in the pole barn. It is a great feeling knowing that our animals have feed for the winter. We should get at least one more cutting this summer, and possibly two more. I'm told that the first cutting is best, and that together the second two cuttings probably won't equal the first. It's a good year for hay.

It was great to be baling hay and watch Tyler, Trevor and Tucker getting the hay loaded onto the trailer. I was very thankful for their help.

This next week I will start dismantling a pole barn on a farm about 20 miles away that had the roof collapse this past winter under the weight of snow. We should get enough good material to build at least half of our barn. I'll be building on an existing foundation of the barn that burned down here in the mid 70s. That will put the tractor inside, get the animals much closer to the house for the winter, and allow me to get electricity to the barn as well.

We now have 50 dual purpose chicks. We'll butcher the roosters and keep the laying hens, once we can tell which is which.

We also went to a gathering of like minded folks on a farm down by Bismarck, and came home with 75 meat chickens that we will butcher the end of this month.

At least two of Trevor's rabbits kindled, so we have little bunnies added to our farm.

All in all, June was a good, productive month.


Tyler came for the weekend and we put him to work. What a great help!

The baler worked like a champ!

Mowing the road ditch with the mower/conditioner.