The Word-Nerd’s Homestead – Summer 2021: Blog Edition #6

Welcome back to the Homestead, Happy Readers!

So many interruptions!

I’ve been plugging away at five or six different things (completing none!) and I keep getting interrupted.

Today, for instance, was supposed to be the last day for me to finish up the Bubba Yaga, but…

We interrupt your interruption with this interruption!

I went to the shop to use the table saw to rip some boards down and found that the damned squirrels (I think it was squirrels. It might be a different critter, but I’m blaming the squirrels!) had eaten a 3RD hole in the already rotting through board by the door.

I wish I had remembered to take a ‘before’ picture of the problem, but as you can see in the ones below, it was pretty extensive.

The repair was on my list of things to do, but after blocking it three different ways, it was simply impossible to ignore at this point. It was a gaping entryway straight through to the underside of the trailer. (My shop is a very old 24 x 50 double-wide office trailer).

So, I had to INTERRUPT my other project to fix this! It had already been interrupted by rain, forgotten editing deadlines, internet repairs, and general project failures that wasted a bunch of time. Well, one more day of interruptions.

And now, you guys get a Repair Blog instead of a Bubba Yaga blog. A late one at that!

This took me from about 1 PM to 7 PM to get done. It was 80+ degrees, and I refused to run the shop AC while the door was open, so I only had a small breeze. I spent most of that time sitting and bending to cut away rotted wood. I actually have bruises on my knees!

I had to cut about a 14″ x 4′ section out of the floor, plus a 5″ x 12″ section under the wall. The 2×6 joist header was almost completely rotted away, as was the first couple inches of two floor joists and the wall sill board.

That’s from nearly 20+ years (previous location & current location) of rain with no gutter over the doors.

Yeah, I should fix that too. Add it to the damned list!

I also had to remove a piece of paneling and cut some sheetrock behind it to get to the wall sill board. Which of course meant I had to remove the whole dang light switch box! Nothing is ever simple.

Then I had the problem of not being able to get to the door frame screws because the front deck was screwed to the wall. So, like any good carpenter, I cut that crap. I chopped the screws off and then ended up cutting the bottom corners of the door frame out as well.

The only plywood I had that was pressure treated was 3/4″ think. The original flooring was 1/2 (or 5/8?), so this meant that the door frame had to get cut higher before I could get the bottom section back in.

I decided to add some tar paper to help keep water out (in theory… it’s far from perfect).

Then I added the bottom door frame piece back and screwed it in from the edge. I don’t know how robust this will be, but I’m sure I need to add some caulking. Add it to the list!

This is where I left it for today. I still need to put the paneling & light switch box back in. The paneling has all the brads still in it, so those have to be removed before I can put it back, and I was out of energy.

And that’s what delayed me today. Totally unplanned 6 hour project that HAD to be done RIGHT THE F NOW!

Things are never dull on the homestead. I promise that Bubba Yaga post is coming, though!

In the mean time, here are some Goonie Birds & Ducks to look at!

Oh, yeah… I almost forgot!

I also got a record number of eggs today: 5 Duck Eggs & 3 Chicken Eggs. Note: There should be 8 duck eggs & 16 chicken eggs. I do not know why they are so stingy! Some of them are 2 months past due on their 1st egg! Must be the heat, I guess. *shrug*

It took a while, but I finally got enough chicken eggs that I was able to set this up…

Hopefully, the flock will be expanding around Oct 6th & 13th. I was really wanting more hatches this year, but my birds are just too slow in the egg laying department. If I had waited any longer, the chicks would not even be full feathered by Christmas, so it was now or never for 2021.

The 16 duck eggs will either be Blue Swedish (or Black or Silver/Splash) or a Welsh Harlequin/Blue Swedish cross.

The 23 chicken eggs are mostly Maran (darker ones, I think), with some Buff Orpington (lighter ones?) mixed in. There might be a Blue Laced Red Wyandotte in there too, but I’m not sure. They are all either BLRW or French Wheaton Maran crossed. That’s assuming they are fertile. I know the boys are trying, but since there are three of them, they tend to interrupt each other a lot!

Talk about inconvenient interruptions!

By next spring I will have a sectioned off hutch area built for the ducks & chickens that will let me actually breed them for specific ones. For now, I’m just adding the barnyard mix to my flock for ‘dietary’ purposes. (That means I’m gonna eat ’em!)

Welp, that’s it for this edition. Hope you enjoyed.

Until next time…

Happy Reading, Prepping & Homesteading!

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