Slow Progress and Thumbs Up from a Farmer

I am making very slow progress on the little cabin-thing still. I am running into lots of little problems that require precious time to figure out, design some ethnic engineering fix and then complete.

Take the light above. The electrician put just a standard white fixture up there and cut a hole through the siding that was right up against the window trim and would fit in one of those big round wire boxes. Well of course Mom didn't like it and I had a pair of the outside lights in the picture and she really wanted them put up. So I had to cut a board to cover the hole and rewire the entire thing. Of course the hole was way up at the top so I had to balance the thing out with an extra long board. Now she has some plan for something under the light.

Then I had this problem today.

She handed me the holders for the closet rods. She decided not to line the closet in Cedar sheets because I think she is running out of money and told me to just leave the inside of the closet in open studs. Fine with me I would have done that anyway rather than spend money on cosmetics no one will ever see but then a new problem arose of course. The rod holders were too wide to fit on the stud so I had to do a bit of ethnic engineering again. Ya not pretty but no one will see it anyway.

So there her little closet is finished. I even got started on the trim today believe it or not. At this point as I have mentioned before we are not finishing the addition until Spring so I am actually getting closer to at least a temporary finish point. The trim won't take as long, or shouldn't because today I broke out my secret weapon.

It isn't often I have cause to use this saw but when I do I have to say it rocks. It will miter down those trim angles in a split second and all I have to do is adjust the angle from one 45 to the other. Believe it or not that saw hasn't even been out of my storage shed for close to five years now. I used to use it to cut picture frames years ago and haven't really had a project that needed it for a while now.

Another good thing about that saw. My Mom is scared to death of it :)

I even got far enough along today to quit a bit early and split another truck load of firewood for this cold snap we have coming in. Turned the water back on to the barn and filled all the water tanks to the brim and had the neighbor come by and put out two new bales of hay for me.

On his way out he jumped down off his big New Holland to come over and look at my sickle mower all on his own. I guess he spied it as he was running the bales out.  He said that was the best sickle mower ever made and mentioned something about it having the solid forged casing or something and no damned wooden pitman bar to boot. He was so interested in my quest to actually bale square bales with the 8N that he volunteered to ask his professional farming friends if they had an old John Deere baler stuffed in one of their buildings for me. He rattled off a couple of model numbers saying those were the best balers back in the day.

Since his father was farming back then I suspect he was waxing nostalgic for his teen days helping dad or something because he was really excited about seeing if I could get all the pieces together to make it happen. Maybe his contacts will help. At the very least he knew what all the settings and such did on the mower which helped me a lot.

So now I am hunkered down inside and ready for the temperature drop we are suppose to get over night. The water line to the barn is off and drained and I have double the wood supply ready.  Looks like I will be sleeping in two to three hour shifts for the next couple of days.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!