My New Barn

[Cheep a'lil Talk a'lil]

More pictures would be lovely

 

[AK Michelle]

Thank you for your patience my friends. An unexpected death in the family kept me off of BYC. While I didn't have time to post, we did continue to make progress.

The heater is fully installed and works great! We plan on keeping it just above freezing so the water lines don't freeze but we can also crank it up nice an warm so the FRP glue sets in record time.

We pulled all the electric lines through the conduit we buried from the house to the barn. We also pulled water lines through the PVC we ran through the deep trench. We used Pex lines which are 3/4" semi-rigid plastic. We had 300' of 3" PVC running form the boiler room in the house out to the barn. The longest fish tape we could find was 125'. For those of you not familiar with fishing and pulling in terms of utilities... Once the conduit is buried a semi-rigid tape, or wire, is pushed through the conduit which is then used to pull back the electrical wires, or in this case, water lines, much like you reel in a fish. Since we didn't have a fish tape long enough we had to get creative. I got my good kite reel with 350' of strong line, the kind you use for the huge nylon kites. The end of the kite string I tied onto a cluster of 4 packing peanuts (they came with eggs from The Warden

). H2B went to the barn and fed the crevice tool of the shop vac into the other end of the 3 " PVC. I fed the packing peanut flower into the PVC in the house and then H2B turned on the vacuum. Even though it was 300' away the shop vac pulled the packing peanuts pretty steady while I played out the string slowly enough to avoid kinks and knots in the string. Tom attached the pull cable to the kite string and I reeled it back to the house. We drilled holes through the ends of the Pex lines and attached the cable with some good strong clips which we then taped like crazy to minimize the edges to catch on the inside seams and corners of the PVC. That was the easy part. The Pex lines, while a little flexible, were still a royal pain to pull through the PVC. My BIL, a big strong guy, was pulling them by hand, but 12-18 inches at a time was going to take a really long time. I brought my 6-wheeler in to the barn and using a come-a-long, we pulled the cable 10-12 feet at a time. We had to build a frame to handle the tension of the steel cable and there was a lot of ratcheting of the come-a-long, but we got the water lines pulled all 300'

 

[cristancanoe]

Quote:
"packing peanuts" you cruel woman!!!

then I realized you meant the styofoam ones.... lol

 

[The Sheriff]

Michelle, my condolences on the loss for your family.

I am glad the packing peanuts helped. They did better than most of the eggs!

 

[Jack Sparrow]

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and I guess you proved it with your ingenuity.

Congrats on getting the lines done.

My condolences on your loss.

 

[krcote]

Excellent solution to a difficult problem, you are my kind of gal!

I am sorry for your loss.

 

[AK Michelle]

We got soooo close. If there were just a couple more hours in a day we could have moved the chickens into the barn tonight. I will go back and fill in the blanks but look how close we are.

Because the ground is going to freeze and we need to move the fence posts from the other chicken run to the new barn before that happens we decided to get the layer pen and turkey pens put together first. This will give us enough room to house all the chickens and turkeys together in the barn while we disassemble their old pens and move the fencing to create their new runs. Once we get the outside work done then we will finish up the last pen which will be for the Icelandics.

Tomorrow evening we should be able to move the chickens in

 

[The Sheriff]

I think I am more excited than you are Michelle! By getting it done before winter sets in you are going to save yourself so much worry and hassle. We needed a couple of more hours today too. Tonight we were installing the gate I made in the dark by flashlight. Getting the birds moved into their new quarters was a major victory and you too will taste the sweetness tomorrow! I just hope my emus don't kill my juvie Icelandics. Those boys are in full-on guard mode and if they don't know it, they go after it. Then come to me for a big hug. Go figure! Will your guard dog patrol the area between the various breeds at night or will he be outside? I know he is too little now but I mean is that the plan long term?

Tomorrow I will be on construction clean up mode. I can't really even enjoy the progress we made until I get all the stuff put away. Before I load the trailer with trash for the dump I am taking it to the feed store and loading up on chicken feed, orchard grass, alfalfa, crimped oats, goat chow, etc. Then I am going to sit back and enjoy my Autumn and my birds.

Can't wait to see pics of the move-in. Who's gonna climb the trees for the Icelandics?

BTW, my friend and her husband who just moved to Anchorage recently were in Palmer a few days ago! I told her she could have looked you up and see a reindeer farm at the same time!

 

[AK Michelle]

Quote:
Ahh yes, work by flashlight, I know that one all too well. BIL is putting exterior lights on the barn when he gets back from Fairbanks and a big yard light for when I need to really see outside.

Glad you got the Emus all squared away. My guess is the Icelandics survival instincts will kick in and they will avoid the emus, at least I hope that's the case.

Yes, my guardian dog will patrol but on the outside. He really doesn't like to be inside at all. I'm getting a second one in the early spring, the pasture is too big for just one, and the birds spread out too far. These dogs sleep during the day and patrol at night, if there are two of them one will sleep while the other watches, less stress for the dogs that way too.

We won't have the nest boxes or roosts done but we can make do with their existing furniture for a day or two till we get the new stuff built.

Tell your friend the Reindeer farm is having harvest days each Saturday through the end of the month. It's a great time to come out and see the animals.

Now I'm off to bed, I have tons of pictures but I'm too tired to upload them.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm so happy for you, Michelle! It looks fabulous. Must feel great, being in homestretch!