Barn Tour
Before we get to the barn, we have big news. Daisy is back!!
To recap, we bought this tractor last summer to build our roads. We named her Daisy. We put about six hours into it before the clutch went out. We read the forums up and down. Our best hope at not having to split the tractor in two and replace the clutch was to block it down. Literally put a block on the clutch to keep it in the engaged position and hope that would pop it. We did that. Waited around some days and made a new plan. After it didn’t immediately pop we decided we’d need to shift direction and find a clean dry space to work on the tractor. So we had the barn built. We left the tractor, clutch blocked, and went back to Boise to design the barn.
The thought was that we’d get the barn done, the goal was late winter/early spring. Then we could tow Daisy in and work on her. The schedule crept up too fast and the barn took a bit longer to build than anticipated. a couple weeks ago we went to replace the starter and assess the damage. We had a bear of a time just finding the right tools. The tools we do have are underpowered and spread out. With other things creeping up our timeline we opted to call the shop to see if they could fit us in. We didn’t have much hope, they had zero availability last fall. As luck would have it, they had a couple of down weeks before they expected business to pick up with harvesting. We went for it and have been finding all the ways we can to justify the unexpected expense.
She came back with as clean a bill of health as an old girl can have! She’s got some leaky gaskets and her oil pressure is low but it’s going up with some fresh gas and an additive they put in. We were able to use her to get some dirt to start our raised beds. We’re so excited to have a working tractor again!
Onto The Barn
It’s just a shell and I hesitate to share now BUT, it’s a milestone. I’m a believer that all milestones need celebrated! So here she is. That little white man door will be painted red. I bought some red tractor paint, as soon as the forecast looks dry enough I’ll run down and paint it up! There is a lot yet to be done to make this the workshop we see in our mind but this is a dang good start.
First, the side with the two man doors will eventually be a great big 1.5 story greenhouse. I think we’re going to need to move that up the to-do list because the building pad is eroding away with each rainstorm. The mezzanine space will be dried in and insulated so it can be our homeschool room as well as our classroom for workshops. Under the mezzanine will be our workshop. The big door bay stays open and is large enough that I could have built my tiny house indoors. The outdoor overhang is for Daisy (tractor), Beastie (camper), and future livestock feed.
In other news
Look, we have a new family member! This is Ginger. She belongs to Hazel and I think she likes that. We picked her up from the pound while we made a trip back to Boise (picking up lumber and solar panels for our next project). She was born just before we took off to Hawaii and had been living in the pound since then because of a freeze on adoptions. She is a sweetheart and Hazel drags her around everywhere. It’s weird but Ginger just loves it! She’s not the least bit intimidated by Denver. She does keep trying to snuggle with him but he doesn’t know what to do with that so he just walks away :D.
Our orchard is doing great! All of the trees are getting their leaves except the plums, I think they are still doing ok though, just recovering from the planting. We took an opportunity to stroll through the local arboretum and boy was it amazing! It was magical and it smelled amazing! James, the kids and I spent mothers day building raised beds behind the tiny house. I know the picture looks shady but it’s the end of the day. The area gets mostly sun until the evenings, which I think will make a nice time to garden. I ordered the plants I’m going to plant this morning and should have them all in the ground Saturday. We’ll be planting all kinds of greens for salad, lettuce, broccoli, onions, tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini, squash peppers, cabbage and herbs. For not planning much of a garden this year that sure escalated quickly! 😀
Up Next
Forever projecting, up next on our to-do list is a couple things. We’ve been designing a full length deck for the tiny house. Because we are in a place with real winters we’d like it covered. This is what we’ve come up with, it’s about 500 s.f. of outdoor space. It changes the look of the tiny house which I am already finding is off-putting to some people who are wonderful supporters of my design! I apologize for that but the space has to be functional first and appealing second. Also, I like it better! 😀 I think it will feel like sitting in a whales belly which is oddly fun for me. We also have plans of mounting our solar to the hand rails of the deck so they are easy to clean off and can get full sun.
When we submit that to the county for permit we’ll shift gears to making our winter shed. We’ll need a place to store our water that won’t freeze. James’s mom took down a patio and we scooped up the materials to be reused instead of going to the dump. I think it will be enough material to build almost the whole thing. The only thing missing was studs, which we went to Boise and got from disassembling our deck which no longer gets used and will need to go to accommodate the future plans there.
That’s all I have for now, I hope you are all doing well and taking appropriate safety precautions in this wonky time. You can bet that we are!
