Friday, June 17, 2016

Meat Birds Are Moved into the Chicken "Tractor"

My dad and nephew came over today to move the Cornish X chickens from the brooder into the Joel Salatin inspired "chicken tractor".  I made the tractor, which I think of more as a mobile pen, over the past several days.




Now it's time to work on turning the two old corn cribs into a coop for the guineas, ducks, geeses, turkeys and laying chickens.




In other news, I got a new (to me anyway) farm truck!


Sunday, June 12, 2016

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Replacing rotted rim joist/sill plate in farmhouse

When I started to frame the fireplace opening in the floor I found some fairly significant rot.

I built a series of temporary walls inside the house to support the weight that would normally rest on the sill and today started demolition. I’ll pour a concrete cap on the old foundation and put new floor joists on top of that cap. Then take out the temporary walls.

(Click on any picture to make it bigger.)

















I did the west wall, roughly 30 ft long, today. Tomorrow I'll start on the north and south walls, at 20 ft each. A total of 70 ft.

I've worked on a number of old houses and never seen the masonry piled up in between the joists like it is here. That accounts for part of the rot; all that masonry wicking moisture right next to wood.  On the other hand the building has lasted for 100 years.