Tuesdays work on Wednesday

We had a day-by-day plan this week of what we want to accomplish on our barn site.

We fell behind, even though I was sure he was being conservative when he lay out the plan.

Anyway, he tore out my left wall. All that work, not good enough. He ripped it out and started again. OK this is taking way longer than it should, but I guess it will be good when it's done!

Here is my man putting in the wall again. (And he destroyed my hoof-trimming gloves, 8 out of 10 fingers have holes!!)

I filled the stones in with small gravel and tamped them down with the heavy hammer. This is the lower layer of stones that are completely packed with gravel, to act as a french drain under the barn. We also have one along the backside - a completely underground row of stones with gravel packed inside.

OH! I think Aarene and Jim would be happy to see that we adopted their idea of putting in some support beams under the barn frame. At least, we did two sides. We have these seriously heavy concrete bars (meter long) that somehow, blessedly, we had exactly 5 meters worth and they fit perfectly in the front area. I mean not a centimeter off, perfectly.

Here is a photo of my man using our tamping device that I almost threw away in the trash. Good thing I didn't, it is invaluable now to levelling work! He always puts in a layer of gravel underneath the garden stones, so that they have some sort of foundation.

And there is the left wall, halfway done.

I hope no one is laughing at us. I know it's basically a run-in, but we're building it up in case the Bau-Amt (building code auditors) come to call, and if they do, we'll use the area for a terrace. I pray daily that will not be the case. But if so, we'll move the run-in out onto the pasture, and this area will be usable for ....human pasttimes, something. Coffee parties.

I think it must be like it was for my mom, when her husband built up his new garage without permission as fast as possible in Normandy Park! But since it's not a garage, but rather a horse home, it's my issue if it's a problem. Here my man sticks out his tongue at me for taking his picture.

We're pretty sure we're allowed to build something in this watershed area, if we meet the criteria that it be abbaubar (take-apart-able) and have no foundation, and be moveable. Well, this thing is called a "fahrbarer weide hutte" (transportable run-in). I hope and pray we avoid difficulty from the law. We've asked our neighbors' permission, one of which is a cop, so I hope we're good. Scarily, the cop got busted himself when he tried to build a lean-to against his carport. He had to disassamble it. You know, now that I think about it, I'm so glad that we didn't hire our fencing guy to build us his 5KEuro run-in. Cuz if we had to tear down a 5KEuro run-in......

God held off the rain for us today, despite the weather forecast. We were able to work all day and only get sprinkled, and then by dark, Baasha came up the hill saying "omgosh, I'm getting WET!" so we let him in his stall (but we have to block him from the area in which we're working cuz he might roll, and rolling on our construction area would hurt him.)

Sweet, the feeling of progress, and we hope to start building this thing soon!


I've worked through our huge pile of gravel on the street. It's more than half gone.







Funny how at first I thought this would not be enough!




Here is the guy on Monday dumping the gravel from his sideways dumping truck. Ingenious - it allows that we have two types of gravel that do not mix. We have the big stuff, and the fine stuff for finishing.


Now it's pouring, but it's late, and Baasha is tearing through a new bale of hay that my man handed me from the loft.

I will have more progress photos soon, and here is the lovely scene I encountered walking out of my front door of our neighor's horses under a crescent moon.