Honey

This is sister Honey. She is smaller, lighter, a bit sweeter tempered. She has two notches on the right ear, and one on the left.

Straw Bale/Timberframe Hybrid Monitor Barn

Here is Babe. She is a bit darker, heaver, and bit more aggressive than her sister. She has two notches in each ear.

Snow

Matt, stockpiles his amunition for the great snow ball fight!

Jon makes his supply ready!

Bailey works on her defense strategy.

Jon lets the first one rip!

Milled Wood

This is some of the milled wood for our project. David L. has been very busy collecting trees and helping the sawyer. Cold, and wet weather aside, they have put a major effort in trying to get it ready by the end of the year. Susan gave them a Christmas deadline, as a gift to me for the holiday. Now I have to meet the same deadline for finalizing the plans for the permit! Getting the cart ahead of the horse, I guess. But a barn permit won't be too hard, I hope!

You can see mud. So slick I couldn't get close with the truck, and had to slog through it on foot for these shots. I think the deadline may have to be a bit more flexible, but they are close to complete on the take off list, as it exists so far.

You may have noticed a big lapse in posts. Weather, work, school, family matters all have a part to play. Hopefully, we will get back on track as the new year starts. No big plans for the Christmas break here, we'll be together, and that's all that matters.

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Bridget meets the pigs

Bridget was at space camp when the pigs arrived, so she didn't get to meet them 'till the next day. She Seems a bit shy of them, as they were of her.

Pigs

Here's our newest additon to the family! Two of the four pigs we picked up from Winchester, KY this weekend. They are Tamworth-Red Wattle mix, two gilts, and two barrows. I haven't ever raised pigs myself, just been around them from my various uncles' farms when I was little. So this will be an adventure! Will keep y'all posted!

Frost Protected Shallow Foundation

I've been spending many man-hours working on the plan. We spoke with a concrete contractor regarding the footers, and he had some interesting facts to share with us. The first fact was the two foot [24 inch] frost depth required for footers here. I had been thinking about the amount of concrete we'd need to adequately support those big posts, and had settled on 12 inch depth, 36 inch square footers, but to avoid using excess concrete, we were planning on laying each footer on a bed of ruble 12 inches thick. The local code, however, requires a depth of 24 inches for a footer. No matter, we can accommodate that. But I recalled something I had come across before regarding shallow foundations, and frost protection I'd like to share.

A frost-protected shallow foundation system was started in Scandinavia. They use rigid foam insulation set around the outside of the foundation to protect against frost heave. Such shallow foundations reduce costs several ways. First, you have less excavation and backfill. You can use significantly less concrete by not needing to pour footings below the frost line. Since we plan to use in-floor radiant hydronic heating,
it just makes sense to combine the insulation of the surrounding foundation with the slab insulation.

Katherine Bailey

More of my Dark Angel.

My Dark Angel

So hopeful of a good night collecting treats!

She was not disappointed.

Fall Color

Here's a little taste of our fall color.

Sunrise

3 Nov 2009 Sunrise.

Piggy's BBQ

Located on East Bound Interstate 70 on the Left Side

at Mile Marker 199.6 

Traveling through St Louis area this week, we see this bill board on I-70 East. We've eaten there before, and Allison wants us to pick up some sweet sauce for home. We had the best slab of pork ribs I've ever tasted! Check it out sometime, if you're in the O'Fallon, MO area. Check out their site. [see links]

or click...

Piggy's BBQ

Post Footings

I have been working on finalizing the footing plans for the twenty posts we need to put up for our barn. I have a grave concern for rising damp. The antique wood we have, and the new posts we are making out of our felled poplar trees deserve to remain dry. I have seen the damage done to those components of the barn that were in contact with ground, and the amazing preservation afforded those posts held up off the ground by a simple rock footing. The rock, having been much denser than concrete, didn't exhibit the rising capillary action of water near as much.

This capture from SketchUp shows a compound footer made up of 12 inches of compacted stone and a 36"X36"X12" concrete filled FastBag from FabForm. We will dig out 20 holes, 12 inches deep, by 36 inches square, to hold the rock, [Thank goodness for the back hoe!], compact it with a hand tamper, and set the bags over the rock. That will give us effective 2 foot deep footers with half the concrete.The bag is waterproof, and will prevent ground moisture from entering the concrete. We will place a moisture barrier under each post, likely a square of EPDM, to serve as a backup.

New power lines

Here's the first new pole, line threaded through the insulators, but waiting tension.  The workmen reminded Susan not to mow over the power lines laying on the ground. I'm glad they mentioned that! Who knows what Susan may have done without that little warning.

This is a great example of a corner support for timberframe. I have so many nice corner pieces from the Johnson's barn, we should be able to use them in the stall areas. Our horizontal beam will be two 2x12's, with the corner brace sandwitched between them. The post attatchment will be let in somewhat like this picture. The strawbale wall will be outside the timbers, as seen here. I'm getting so anxious to start!

Mom's Home Office

Mom's Home Office:

Susan has decided to put me onto a smaller project, to do this first, and then get our skills up for the big job. I think that's a fine idea, but boy do I wish she'd had that brainstorm earlier! No matter, it will be a small project, and get our skills up, like she said!

The better reason to do it, is it will be next to  my Wood Shop, that building to the right in the drawing. This view is from behind, where there will be a small area behind the shop like a secret garden. I'll pop a door out the back, and make a great spot for us, away from the constant eye of the kids.

Workin'

Been working, mostly. Not much progress to report.

I've been working at the hospital, and Susan has been busy with kids and school activities. David L. has been here a few hours each day working on another project, we are reclaiming an old strip pit that was left here 40 years ago. The area we are working on lies on the southern border of our property, and includes a spill pile of tilings that forms a dam between two lakes. The southern most lake is a strip pit, and lies mostly on my neighbor's land. The fence between our properties actually runs through the shallow lake. The pile of tilings rises much higher than the water level, it is so devoid of organic matter, even weeds will not take hold on it. David has been scraping it down, pushing it north and south into a small ridge, and then adding some topsoil over it so it will grow something. It is tedious work, but he is doing such a nice job. I wish we could devote more time to the barn project, but with me stuck at work so much of the time, and Susan and the kids going strong with school work and activities, I'm afraid it is going to be slow movin' for a while.

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Cedar Trunk

This one isn't so big, but will make some nice T&G boards for a closet or for the kitchen. We've got a larger cedar in the area below the dam I may be willing to take down for some ceiling planking. I think that would be a good use of it.

Post & Beam outhouse

This comes from another site, they used this little set up to make an outhouse. I'm thinking about a composting toilet, like the one on the British show "It's not easy being green". I like the looks of this, but I'm not to sure about the utility of those through tenons on the bottom.

Corner braces

These are four by four knee braces from the antique barn. The will come in very handy in the stall sections of the timber frame. No matter how beefy the large timbers appear, we need resistance to racking at the corners.