Weekend Warrior

You know how projects and chores can seem to pile up, and then all of a sudden, the timing just works, and you end up doing what feels like all of them? That has been my week, ending in a very full weekend.

As you know, there are always things to be done on the chicken farm. We have managed to get most of the waterline repairs done, things like changing regulators, and fixing minor leaks. We had one line break loose as the catchers showed up to catch the last flock, and with new birds, I had to spend some time getting that line rehung. I am glad that I have good helpers in Justin, Ian and Ben. That was a couple of weeks, ago, but it was the emergency that kind of threw these other projects back a few weeks.

Of course, mowing and string trimming are a never-ending chore, particularly in a summer that has been the wettest in Arkansas' recorded history. Kathy, Andrew, I don't know how you guys keep up. Maybe the slightly cooler weather in Seattle.............Oh, wait, YOU had the 100 + temps this year, not us. We also have the first year in Arkansas history where there was not a single day of 100+ at the main weather monitoring sites in Little Rock, and the surrounding communities.

That has made anything moisture related a chore for us. And it sure made this last round of projects fun.

Last Saturday began the real fun. Michelle and I have been planning to put a porch off the back door. We want to do the front porch, but it will be larger, and therefore somewhat more expensive. OK, a LOT more expensive. We decided to put the back on, because Michelle's Granny Edna is coming out this week, and she can not navigate stairs very well. The front stairs are tall, and have become slightly wobbly with age. I hope we will have saved the amount needed to get the front porch under way, before the steps really start to give out, but with Justin leaving on his mission in 3 weeks, that may be our next tax-refund check.

Anyway, the back porch had to be built on the last 2 weekends, or it had to be built in the midnight hours during the week. LOL, last weekend, it had rained, as it had done all week, up until Friday night. Michelle and the Youth from church were gone to Morrilton for a service project at Petit Jean State PArk.

Justin, Kaylee, Ben and I stayed home and played in the mud. We were trying to get the footings set for the porch. I really don't like digging holes for structures when the ground is this wet, but we are on a bit of a time crunch. It was almost funny, because when the first hole was about 6 inches deep, it started to fill up with water. Nice little artesian well we had going!

So, the kids bailed water, I dug mud, and we set, unburied, and reset the concrete base pier block for the next 3 hours. 1 Block! we ended up adding about 50 lbs. of large balast rock (2-3" gravel) to keep the pier from disappearing into the mud again. You may ask why we had dug so deep, if we needed to fill the hole back in with gravel. I'll tell you.

Just before she left, Michelle saw all the water in the hole, felt it was clearer than the second hole we had started, and realized that we were very close to the water line into the house. She wondered if we didn't have a leak in the supply line to the house, and asked me to please dig down to make sure we didn't have a leak. So our hole, ( although sideways from the waterline) had to be deep enough to find the water line and verify that it was intact. The mud we threw back in the hole did not support the concrete block, which sank out of sight 3 times, before we got enough gravel in the hole to support it securely.

Once we got the blocks set, I have spent several post-daylight hours this week, measuring, cutting and fastening boards to get the porch done. It is not huge, only 6 1/2 ft. X 6 ft, but it is very solid, with a nice built in bench for donning and removing chicken house shoes and other grimy footwear. The steps are low and wide, and rock solid. I am very proud of it. I consider myself pretty handy, but lately it has all been used to maintain farm houses. It is nice to use it for us.

Then, you know how one project leads to another? You guessed it. We have been meaning to build a high storage shelf in the utility room for ages. Just a place to put some things up out of the way, and utilize the huge space over the freezer. Nothing big, just a couple of 2X4's, some plywood, some measuring and cutting, and nails. But it always got set to the back burner. Well not this weekend. Shelf accomplished!!

Then I spent a few hours helping Bob dig some holes to mount a back-up switch to our old chicken house. The automatic switch will transfer from grid power to generator during a power outage. 18 inches-24 inches deep, about 1 ft. across. Should be nothing, as wet as the ground is. No water to carry for the cement, Mother Nature is bringing the water. Wishful thinking! 6 inches down, we find a layer of bedrock!

Now, around here, bedrock is mostly sandstone, so we needed to get through it. I used the 40 lbs. breaking bar that Bob has. I was finally able to break a hole roughly the right size. The rock was only about 6" thick, and we were able to go down the last foot with ease. Posts are mounted, electrician scheduled. Mission accomplished!

But wait, we're not done yet! While Bob and I were digging, I had given the kids an assignment. One related to my last posts about fruit. Bob has an old pear tree. He can't even remember what kind. It is not bartlett, but one of the varieties that stays really hard, but gets really sweet. We have discovered in years past that these pears make excellent "apple" pie filling. When cooked, you can't tell they're not apples.

Well, of course, this week they are ripe, and starting to fall off the tree. The tree is small, but it was about the only thing food related that produced like mad this year! So we wanted to take advantage. That meant the kids picked pears, while Bob and I dug. 4 buckets. (the 5-gallon size) They left quite a lot on the tree, but they only had 4 buckets. So after all our sawing, nailing, screwing, pounding fun on the porch and shelf; after all the bone-jarring, knuckle scraping, rock-breaking, muscle aching fun digging post holes; after the constant entertainment of running back and forth to chicken houses at regular intervals,

We finally got to break out the canning assembly line! We made several quarts of pie filling, and a number of quarts of pear slices. And we did all that before it was time to send Michelle and the younger boys off to the Church building. Michelle to join the Relief Society sisters in a dinner before the General Women's broadcast for Conference, and the boys, as a service project to clean up and wash dishes, etc., so the sisters could visit. There were 49 sisters from 3 branches that were invited to come to Batesville for the broadcast!

I think I will be sore for the next few days, but I really feel like we got a lot done this weekend.

And then there was Sunday!