If anyone has watched the weather the past few days you know what is hitting our state tonight. And if not,we're in a high wind warning until 3pm Friday,winds expected to reach gusts of 60 plus mph.Tonight blowing snow accumilating to between 2-3" which means we can get some very deep drifts quickly.Every night this week I have been working inside trying to get everything closed up before this hit.I got my last 18' of splash boards put on the last 3 wall posts.I did this Tuesday night in the dark and rain because once the ground freezes,there won't be any digging here until maybe March.I next put the last 2 remaining metal sheets on the east wall. These had been purposely left off to accomidate bringing in plywood and other building materials.
If you look in post 272 above on the far right you will see the existing corn crib wall.It is made with 1"x6" boards with about a 1 1/2" gap between them to allow ariflow to let ear corn dry naturally and not spoil.I had been thinking each night the best way to close this up quickly,knowing tonight would be my deadline.I had about 1/2 of the necessary plywood to completely board this side up,but I still need to make one more pen to move last years hatched peas that number about 6 and 4 ornamental pheasants into.In pic 272 you can see where either this last pen will be built,or possibly 2 pens,each being 6' wide and 12' long. Not getting home from work until after dark and the wind already howling out here my decision came down to using a new 10'x20' tarp that I bought this summer to try and make a bit of shade with in the IB pen.The wall is almost 10' high at the peak and since my wall pens are 4' out from the wall,amd I need an entry door,the tarp worked very well.The actual wall was 24' long.
When I first started working tonight inside the wind was blowing thru there like I was outside.Then as work progressed it started to snow.The farther I got the tarp attached to the wall,the warmer it seemed to get inside and less,and less snow was blowing in.This north wall is now completely covered with a tarp and hopefuly it will last all winter since it's tacked all along it's length at 3 diffrent levels and all across the top,and bottom.Tomorrow night it's supposed to get down to 10 degrees with a wind chill of about 0. All I have to finish is making the entry door. This will take 1 sheet of osb plywood,2 hinges and some circular saw cutting and I should finally have this closed up for winter,none too soon.This weekend I will make the last pen and move the last peas inside and get them out of their other pen.
I can now do feeding and watering inside here with 5 adult pens and 2 wall pens,and my other peafowl pen up front with about 20 peas inside it in about 20 minutes.Much more easier and faster than doing this same chore when 8 seperate breeding pens took almost an hout of time. I will get pics this weekend of the wall and last pen,,and I'll be done constructing for a few months.
