Chronicles of the Long Shot Farm

Jens, Jeff, Lars and Jens’s friend Kevin worked on wiring the barn this weekend.  We bought wire that already had the flexible aluminum conduit around it and so far they used up about 375 feet of it.   All the ceiling fixtures are up (twelve of them), and outlets are installed on the wooden walls.  They ran additional wires for outlets on the wooden support beams, but those still need so be wired to the actual outlets.  Light switches are already installed and a complete new fuse box was set up and connected as well.

Jens connecting main line to barn

Jeff wiring light fixture

Before ….

After

What a crazy and productive weekend we had – and still found time to celebrate Easter!  Our barn underwent a total makeover, including new windows, new walls, new “deck” and new landscaping.  Plus we planted over 50 pounds of potatoes, mowed and weeded, painted fences, moved stacks of lumber and fitted a wedding dress.  All because we had so many helpers:

• Omi worked on the wedding dress mostly, but also found time to weed and paint fences.
• Anja baked tasty cookies, painted, sowed grass seeds, raked and watered and helped with fitting the dress.
• Gracie made Easter dinner with an amazing ham… and patiently stood, and stood, and stood to have the dress fitted, and refitted, and refitted (and had to go to work)
• Sam had to work a lot over the weekend, but found time and did most of the family laundry (our washer broke and she and Anja had to go to the laundromat), photographed progress and got us straw for the newly seeded lawn
• Duff powerwashed for 3 days!!, helped with rebuilding the barn walls and stacked a lot of lumber
• Jens, Jeff and Lars worked mostly on rebuilding barn walls, putting up the “deck” railing and moving debris
• Tina rototilled and raked the area around the barn and worked with Anja on planting the grass seed, mowed and weed whipped around the house, the grapes and around the garden and elderberries

After preparing the inside walls all week (jacking up the outside corner of the barn, cutting new posts, and cutting a load of 2×6’s for supports), we spent Saturday and Sunday tearing off half the downstairs wall of the barn. The new posts and supports were set, and the jacks carefully removed. 
Jeff, Jens and Lars worked most of the weekend on this.  By Sunday afternoon, half of the wall had been rebuild with sheeting, and the new windows were studded in and installed.  Hoping to get the remainder of the wall rebuild next weekend.  While this was going on, Tina raked up all the left over gravel in the yard and dumped over a dozen wheelbarrow loads along the swampy edge of the lower pond.  Also rototilled the first segment of the “barnyard”, spread grass seed and covered it all in straw and soaked it, even through it drizzled all day.  And we got some weeding and mowing done, and cleaned up a lot of the brush and old wood, which Jeff had cut into firewood-sized pieces.

Before….

and after!

Cement was delivered and poured earlier this week for what we are calling our future crush pad. This is a section right in front of the barn where the outside floor is level with the inside barn floor, which will make it really easy to roll out our cider press. The section is also high enough off the ground on the far end to line up with a trailer or bed of a pick-up truck.  This area could also be used as a patio, since it offers a nice view of the pond and grape vines – or, if need be, it could double as a dance floor! Another large project done…just in time, because on Friday we are getting our order of 500 new grape vines!!!!