Barn Building 1

With the big wind we had in September that relocated our barn for us came the opportunity to re-build and if your gonna re-build you might as well upgrade right? So our plan was to build a new barn to replace the old that would end up being 3 times the size of the old one. Now most projects around the homestead are usually done by me and the Mrs. or Me and Papa but this one seemed to be of a size that we would need to bring in reinforcements. This would be a multi day project and certain things needed to be completed before others so the weekend before the official barn-raising we had a preliminary event to set the 22 6" X 6" posts. Of course Papa would be there as he is a sucker for anything involving construction and where he can be in charge! I also enlisted the help of my Sunday School teacher whose big idea the barn raising was and a long time co-worker who not only helped with the work but brought out a concrete mixer as well.
The mixer really made the work go easier and faster.

Papa and SS teacher worked on placing posts as Co-worker and I mixed concrete and moved posts.

Remember, a co-worker of mine would also be an inspector. We just can't help ourselves.

The Mrs. would bring water...

and kisses for me!

Day one complete! We were ready for a barn raising!

Long time gone...

Wow! It has been ages since I last blogged. I have been so incredibly busy it has just gone by the way-side. So , I've got all these pics I have not blogged on the computer and I will once again try and stay consistent. I'm sure it won't happen but I'll try.

So , last time I blogged I mentioned that we got rid of a steer and my oldest female whipper-snapper was none too happy. Well, we took the money from the steer and bought Charlie!

The whipper-snappers are having a great time riding him.
He likes chasing goats.

Sissy is quite happy with the animal upgrade.

And becoming a really good rider.

All is well.

Bubs trip to the hospital

For a long time now we knew that our son would eventually need some sort of corrective surgery on his foot. We always knew that there was a problem, we just didn't know what it was. He has always had a hard time running and as he aged it seemed to be getting worse. We finally found the right specialist who determined that the problem was a deformity in his ankle from birth and the Dr believed he could repair it easily.
So Bub went in for surgery and an overnight stay in the hospital. After 2 weeks he went back to the DR and all is progressing nicely. He won't have to wear a cast, just a boot, and should be in PT in a couple of more weeks. He can now move his ankle in a way he has never been able to move it before!

Unfortunately, they don't have a surgery to stop him from being a dork!!!

But we know all is well when the appetite returns.

Last of the catch-up

A couple of weeks ago clan Daniel traveled to Houston for a wedding. On the way back the whipper-snappers wanted to stop by A&M and take a look around. I know, I know but their Papa is an Aggie and he has brainwashed every one of them. It's OK by me though as A&M seems to be a conservative island in a sea of liberal collages. Besides, think of all the cool SEC football games!
They really enjoyed seeing the college and if that is what it takes to motivate them then Dad is all for it!

Another recent occurrence was Bub turning 13! It is hard to imagine that we now have a teenager in the house. Seems like a few months ago he was a toddler, now he is working towards honorable manhood.

It was his first boy/girl party and there were over 20 kids there but all seemed to have a good time.

And most recently we sold our last steer. We were gonna keep him and show him in the state fair this year but decided to go ahead and sale him. He has been a really sweet steer that we all bottle fed but he had a purpose. Bub and Sister didn't seem to have a problem with it but Sissy sure did. She was pretty tore up about it. I think she has a bigger love of animals than the other two but when she sees what we are buying with the $$$$ I think she will be pleased. That will be revealed in a later post.

Labor Day weekend...or the big blow!

Every Labor Day weekend clan Daniel loads up the travel trailer and heads east to the Mrs. families farm and camps, gets ready for deer season and leaves our travel trailer until after the new year. This year we decided to forgo our long weekend trip and stay home to re-floor the whipper-snappers rooms. We intended to pull up the carpet and stain the floors, after removing the carpet we determined that that was not an option so we decided to tile both floors.
The Mrs. does the bulk of the artistic type work like laying tiles to be square and uniform.

Dad man's the saw and does the bulk of the tile cutting.

Bub got in on the act helping to lay tile in his room.

We went to bed Monday night feeling quite proud of our accomplishments with the tile until Tuesday morning when we awoke to this...

Seems a huge windstorm came thru and played havoc on the homestead. We knew that there was a storm but had no idea that this had happened.

The next morning Nannie called asking what was in our garden. When we went out to see we found our barn.

Apparently it had slammed into our travel trailer (that should have been 2 hours away!) totaling it and then lifted up, crashed onto one of the storage sheds (totaling it) and then breaking it in two landing in the garden.

Thankfully no one was injured and we have insurance to cover the losses.

Unfortunately for the Mrs. this barn was her 10Th wedding anniversary present so she was really tore up about it. The re-building process should make for good blogging!