baby groats round one

New baby goats have arrived. We have scotch and butter. They are 2 cute little girls born last week to Brie brie. While Brie is not a great mother she is starting to let them nurse some.  We supplement their nursing with a bottle a couple times a day. They are adorable. Check um out.

Bed room

Yesterday I took an in progress shot of the addition and at that I took it right after getting out of bed. Here are a few more pictures. This time with the bed made and everything. 

Addition numéro 3

Sorry for the delay in posts. The mix of cold and loads of work has coupled to reduce my posting. We have pushed forward with a bedroom addition on the main floor. The wood floor is laid and we have some wall coverings up. The local saw mill had a decent amount of already seasoned/ dried cherry that we bought for the walls. I like the look. The last photo is looking up from the room at the high ceiling and the little loft. The loft allows us to access our upstairs area via Donnelly's work room. 

Rail

Though we opted for an open floor plan in the house ( easy when one floor is two hundred square feet), we determined the porch needed some delineating features. Enter the rail. We utilized spare wood left from another intended project that was never realized and created a picket rail to the poarch. Concerned that the pickets would block our view down into the lower pasture we opted to use galvanized suspension cabling on the East rail. The cabling keeps the view open while keeping dogs, children, and me from flying off the poarch. Two months back I took a nasty spill off the porch and landed on my neck. The rock that caught me was less than forgiving. I have now retired my Eno hammock, age 3. With no ripes, tears, or flaws it split open down the middle with me in it resulting in the spill. Lucky for us we now have a rail to keep me in and I will not be trusting our second Eno, located in a the bottom of a deep box. We are loving the new rail though not as much as kitty. She has taken up semi preeminent napping residence on the rail and really loves the addition the he porch. 

Farm dinner

Well one of the hens would not go in the pen and as such volunteered to come to dinner. 3 pumps with the BB gun at 13 yards and a little time helping her get cleaned up for dinner. Should be a great meal. 

Rural fix it razor

This evening my wife's razor handle broke. Solution: find something that will fit the razor slot and avoid a 20 minute drive to town. Mission accomplished. Considering razors are for cutting hair I thought I would look in my tool box tray designated for cutting. Tin snips were too bulky. Sissors were too slim. But the saw blade now that was just right. And so in about 5 minutes we saved a hour of driving to town and back, $10 for a razor handle (saved for today but probably buying soon) and the gas money a town trip would entail. Net win if you ask me. Plus I can still use the saw blade when she is done. 

Addition

We are making progress on the addition. It is dry inside with a roof in and tar paper wrapping the sides. We have part of the floor down with insulation to boot. We even ran some pex in the floor in case we ever want to plumb in radiant flooring. Today the big project was purlins on the side of the house in preperation for metal siding ( turns out metal siding is less expensive than wood per square foot, oh and less maintenance) 

Though house building has replaced old hobbies such  as rock climbing the skills still come in handy. This would be lead bolting bolt 2 if we were climbing rock but as it is the house it is just purlin mounting. 

Dc low voltage lights

Amidst the darkness of Winter we have found a light. No more need for kerosene and candles. Thanks to Lowes we now have indoor lighting in our little house. $30 for 3 lights with a solar charger is not too bad a deal. For the amount we paid monthly on kerosene we had 1/2 the new system paid for. It is a simple and basic set up. Thousands of folks have this little set up in their front yards. We have it on our ceiling. More thoughts on this set up and the logic of dc low voltage lighting independent of main house power is to come.