The week after Christmas we worked on the floors every day. Every. Single. Day. Finally, we applied the last coat of sealer and I felt like a free woman! Seriously, I could have done a back flip but I knew that would have landed me in the hospital and I just don’t have the time or the patience for that right now. So, I celebrated the last coat of sealer on the floors the only safe way I knew how. I yelled for joy, did my happy dance, and then loaded up the gang to put in fence posts. Ha!
We worked all day and put in almost 40 fence posts. The next day we put another 44 fence posts, plus 4 wooden fence posts along the driveway.
We couldn’t have done it with out Spider-Man’s help! Don’t worry. Those pictures are coming soon.
It’s a little hard to see the fencing on the hill, but it’s there. I promise it’s there! I think I need to work on my zoom lens….
The next day we put in another 50. Jim and I actually work together really well. Well, most of the time we work well together. Okay, okay, as long as there isn’t a dozer tearing down everything in it’s path, we work great together. Since the dozer still wasn’t running, he couldn’t tear down anything, so we were golden. Let’s do this thing honey!
Jim and I typically find a system to working together and we run with it. And that’s what we did. We put in as many posts as we thought we could. We had plenty more fencing to put up, but we had made a great start. I was happy!!
This is how we were able to put in so many fence posts.
We had superhero help! Look at that cuteness!!
Quick joke: How does Batman stay in Superhero shape? He runs on the treadmill of course! Ha!
After his morning jog, he is ready to go to work with all his other superhero friends.
Meet The Flash.
His speed should help clean the playroom in a second. Then he can help us with the fencing.
Meet Spider-Man.
Oh my, Please excuse us…We are experiencing technical difficulties..
Please stay tuned. We are working to resolve the problem.
Hmmm, they were working just a minute ago…
Got it. Sorry, gotta run!!
Woops! Spider-Man ran too fast. Spider-Man down! I repeat:Spider-Man is down! Send backup!
Wait! He’s back up and running. But where did his mask go??? Oh dear, this could be a BIG problem…
Okay, the secret is out. Spider-Man is actually Camden. SSSHHHH!!!
So, after we dealt with the lost Spider-Man mask emergency-and that was a REAL emergency. We just had one small problem. Well, actually a few small problems that led back to the one problem. Did that make sense? Sorry. What I was trying to say was that we still had trees down from storms. Before we fenced in the pasture we needed to push the trees out of the way. But the dozer hadn’t been fixed yet so we couldn’t move the trees. Nope.
We were going on 2 weeks and the dozer still wasn’t fixed!
Does this picture look familiar? Yep, it’s the dozer the week before Christmas.
This is the same lazy dozer the week after Christmas. Still sitting in the same spot. ARGGGG! Come on, coffee break is over now. Get moving!!
I was starting to get really concerned about the weather and the timing of the sheds for the animals. The weather at the beginning of the New Year was going to be around 30 for a high! The lows were going to be in the low teens at night! Ouch, that’s brutal! So, yeah, I was a little concerned that even if they were able to fix the dozer in the frigid temperatures, it might not be a good idea to run the dozer in such cold weather.
Without the dozer running we hadn’t been able to level the spot for the sheds. In fact, the spot where Desi’s shed was going to be had a brush pile pretty close to it.
I wanted Desi’s and Minnie’s sheds just above this brush pile. Not an ideal situation right now. Without burning and moving the brush pile, both the sheds weren’t going to fit there.
The sheds for Desi and Minnie were supposed to be delivered the second week of January which meant we were cutting it close.
So, we kept putting in fence posts. Until we couldn’t put in any more without being in the way of the trees that had to be removed. After all the posts were in we tried to put up the fence on the coldest day of the winter. It was almost 25 degrees and the wind was brutal! I couldn’t clip the fence with my gloves on, so I kept taking them off. Then I couldn’t feel my hands and couldn’t clip the fence. It was a lose-lose situation, but I am too silly and stubborn to quit. So, we continued to battle the wind. Jim was trying ever so hard to be patient with me while stretching the fence. Good ol’ Saint Jim. After a few failed attempts, he finally called it a day. My hands finally regained feeling a few hours later!
So we put up curtain rods
and we put up curtains. Look at those lovely floors! Sorry, the picture is supposed to show off the curtain rods and curtains we put up, but the floors distracted me. Woops.
We even put Camden’s new Superhero sheets on his bunk-bed. He was a happy little fella.
Maylin picked out all the bathroom stuff. It’s certainly not my taste, but it is hers. This has Maylin written ALL over it!
This neutral gray is a little more my style. Maylin says it’s bland. We are so opposites….
We found some affordable closet solutions. We tried to complete all the little things that make a house a home, I suppose. It was starting to look like a home now. Except we still didn’t live there…..
We even got started on the kitchen island. That is Jim’s thinking face. Isn’t he handsome?
I think Camden approves of Jim’s plan. I agree, great plan.
This is how the butcher block countertop turned out. Isn’t that BEAUTIFUL??? I am sooooo in love with that!
This is the front side of the kitchen island/table. Jim and his dad did all this work! I couldn’t be happier! It turned out so beautiful so that I still haven’t let anyone touch it. Maybe when they turn 18 they can apply for rights to eat at the table. Until then-Hands off kiddos!! That means you too Jim!!!
In our spare time, we tried to put up as much fencing as we could. However, putting up rolled field fencing in 20 degree weather without a tractor (or dozer, in our case) is crazy. But we are crazy, so we kept doing it. Jim and I would unroll the fence as best we could and then Jim would pull the stretcher while I clipped the fence onto the posts. It was a slow, painfully, cold process. A process that would have went Way faster with the dozer running!!! Come on people fix the dozer already! PLEASE!
This is Jim after we came in one afternoon. I can’t tell if he’s tired or frustrated. I think I’ll just let him rest…
After almost a week of near zero windchills, we were both exhausted and pretty much frozen. Jim was trying to work as much as he could. However, weather this cold is a teeny problem for his pump truck. Sure you can dig through the frozen tundra and pump out a septic tank. But in temperatures this cold, the sewage starts to freeze in the truck on the way to the dump. Yeah, that’s not really a fun problem to have. Climbing up into your truck to chip away frozen sewage so you can dump it, that’s just not worth it to me. But Jim did the best he could to keep an income coming in during the deep freeze.
On one of his jobs, he ran into the dozer repair guy. They were trying to start a frozen dozer. Not surprising, huh? Mel told Jim that he had been so swamped with contract work, he hadn’t made it back out there to find the frayed wire. Ah, a frayed wire was the problem. Yep, they had already replaced the fuse for the emergency brake but it didn’t work. The signal was leaving the box but not returning, so they needed to search for a frayed or rubbed wire. Basically, they were going to be looking for a needle in a hay stack in a heavy-duty, steel-framed box in zero degree wind chills. Hmmm, I might have put it off as along as possible too. They promised to get to it as soon as they could. They said next week was supposed to be warmer and they would try to put us at the top of the list. Thanks guys.
Next week is forecasted to be nearly 45 degrees. That’s a heat wave! Seriously, I might break out my capri pants people!!!
