Help, unwelcome visitors

Mama and Victoria helped me get the rollup door in place Friday night. I was confident the three of us could get it done although Mama was less so. When I had it in place I discovered that I was off by about ¼ inch on my height measurements. The door fully would on the drum just barely brushed the underside of the roof panels as it turned. To be able to get the door into the side rails, I had to take the roof panels loose at the front of the shop and raise them slightly. Now that the door is down and properly adjusted, I can screw the roof panels back in place – with only a tiny spacer to ensure I have all the room I need. Mama did not know that I had ordered the door to match the trim. That really excited her. This week I will complete the siding and trim on the front of the shop. Installing the smaller rollup door on the back of the shop should be fairly easy since it is only a four-foot door.

My coworker came over Saturday in the early afternoon. By the time he got there I had already begun cutting the fence loose. I cemented in the posts that had the gate attached to them and had the holes almost complete for the two posts we were moving. The night before I had gone to Harbor Freight and bought a portable band saw to ue on the fence. That turned out to be a real timesaver. I had all the cutting wheels I needed for my grinder, but I did not have the adapter required to use them so before he got there to help I had been using the Sawzall to cut through the welds. It was slower, but it worked. His grinder outfitted with the proper cutting wheels sliced through the welds much quicker than I had been able to with what I had available. Within an hour we were pulling posts to be reset.

When he had looked at the fence last week, he had suggested leaving the smaller rail pieces as long as possible, so we would have less cutting and less welding to do when we reattached them to the relocated posts. That turned out to be a very good idea and saved a good bit of time when we did weld the fence back together. We were done by 4:30pm. It does not look perfect, but it accomplished something I had wanted to get done since we took out the tree the fence had been routed around shortly after we moved onto the farm. It opened a large space in that area of our driveway and makes it possible to access the shop much more easily. It also makes it easier to back out of the driveway from the garage. What a blessing. Now I will gravel or blacktop that extra area to make it look like it belongs to the driveway.

When Mama went out Sunday afternoon to check on the animals she discovered the remains of the two Banty hens that have roosted on the hay feeder we use for the goats. We had tried several times to get them relocated to the coop or the Banty house without success. They always ended up back in the goat barn. We will fight that battle no more. When she saw the feathers in the hay feeder she followed the trail of feathers back to the Igloo dog house we keep in the barn for the goats to discover that one on the two missing birds was half eaten inside the Igloo. By the time she got back into the house to find me, I had already dressed for church. We decided to get the mess cleaned up after church.

That actually worked out to our benefit. By the time we got changed and gathered what we needed for the cleanup we discovered the culprit. When Mama shined the light into the Igloo to show me the half-eaten chicken, she also found the opossum that had done the deed at work on his kill. I headed to the house to get my pistol while Mama fussed at me to hurry. I knew the opossum was not going anywhere. It’s not their nature. A raccoon would have been different. One shot and he was done for. One more unwanted visitor gone but so many more to yet contend with. That one was quick and easy.

But it did reinforce the need to make sure the chickens are closed up every night.