Progress!

Well a few hours at a time does wonders. This is not an All Day type of job you can do.

When I run into a road block of where to put things or what to do with 'stuff',  I have to walk away and take a break.

Three days ago this little part of the shed just inside the doorway was filled with scrap metal and other chunks of wood and things stacked so deep that I couldn't get to what was hanging on hooks. It slowly accumulated over the years as I found parts of projects and whatnot that got tossed there.

Now? I can see the wall! I even moved the sweet feed tub up to the door so I don't have to walk to the other end of the shed for it.

The little blue tub has some scrap in it that I intend on tossing in the Subaru and taking to the dump.

This spot below is where the stalls used to be.

 Same place but a few days later .....
The tractor is still to the right, no way I can move it.
I have to move all the plywood and the boards. We stacked small bales here on top of wood for a few years. The bolts are still in the wall for the stall panels so I intend to put it back in the same place.

This is the pile of metal that is giving me fits...
I'll need the skid steer bucket to move this stuff.
Rich finally conceded that perhaps it should be scrapped.

Well I guess he is right. It has sat there collecting dust for about 8 years.

One more shot of a sort of before ... photo.
Although I've done a lot of work on it already.

If you can see the tires stacked up...I put them there. They are wheels and tires that go to Rich's truck. Well, not sure what to do with them. The other tires are going to be sorted, the good trailer tires will get sold and the old crappy ones will be recycled.

The line is where the stall panel will go. That large window is too heavy for me to move so it can stay there until I have help, but I need to move the wood from where the stall will be to that pallet and up against the side there...
well, that is the plan.

It may change.
I have already made huge progress. I have cleaned out the area where all the halters and ropes were kept. I can reach that stuff now!

So a few hours a day have gotten me far along in the project. I could use some more help I suppose, but it doesn't seem I have any willing volunteers.

I may have visitors the next couple of weekends. Would it be wrong of me to ask for some extra hands?
I know they expect to be taken on hikes, but ...
Well there you go.

So you got photos of the ugly shed. It will get better!

Wild and Wicked Sunday

Really. 

It was not Wild nor was it really Wicked.

First order of the day was to go get a truckload of hay. Rich said he wasn't going with because his knee is swelled up again and it hurts.

It has been drained twice now and both times the aspiration has revealed blood.

The VA orthopedic department did make an appointment for him on December 4th. 

The lady who made the appointment said that we should visit the ED if it was too painful or bothersome before that date.

When a joint fills up with blood it will severely damage that joint. Rich says leave it until his appointment, but I'll drag him over to the ED [ER] tomorrow after seeing Oncology for a follow up. He is in a LOT of pain. I'd like to also find out why the joint keeps filling up with blood.

So, off I went with the pickup and got our monthly supply of small bales of hay. I paid Eddie for the pig we purchased from him. His wife made coffee and I sat down in their kitchen and visited for a bit.

As you can tell from this photo, I'm not really great at just backing into a crowded shed to get close to the spot where we stack our small bales.
I got the truck into the doorway and left it there.
This way I get to move it at least twice by hand!
Once to toss it off the truck and once to stack it.

I will consider it a CrossFit workout...WOD: Move bales and toss them!

I did get it all taken care of and it went slightly better than I expected. Maybe it is that CrossFit training I've been doing. Maybe it was the cold temperatures that made it more comfortable.

Rich and I have been playing Backgammon for Speech Therapy work. He has to use strategy and counting.
I saw how much he enjoyed playing cribbage with our friends from Kenosha.
So I asked him if he'd teach me.

Cribbage is as clear as mud.

But since Rich loves the game so much, I decided I need to try and learn it. There is a method to my madness. As he tries to teach it to me, he works on his communication skills, words, thought process, and counting. IF I play, he promises to do a bit of writing therapy also.

Even when Rich's words don't come out correctly, they are generally close enough that I understand what he is trying to say. Sometimes it is an exact opposite and sometimes it is just a strange new word combination.

So he started by trying to teach me to count.

"15 two, ..." he said holding cards out, "15 four, see?"
I did NOT see I saw a Jack a Queen and a 5 of spades.
He moved his hands again putting them down and repeating them.
"Then there is the crib, but since I am just showing it to you..."

It made absolutely NO sense to me so I suggested we bring out the board and he help me play the game until it clicked.

Patience has never been a strong suit of my husband's. So we played and I could see he was getting frustrated that I 'wasn't' catching on right away. However we played until it was nearly dark outside...moving the pegs in a manner that almost made sense and counting in strange and odd ways.

I suggested we take a break while I did chores and made supper.

After supper Rich went back to watching Netflix and I pulled out some paints and chunks of leftover wood. I wanted to see if I could make crackled paint with Elmer's Glue. I wanted to experiment with glue on glass.

I always like to experiment on small things before trying something else. I saw a video on Modge Podge and paint crackling that may be fun to try...with napkins? I don't know.
I also did a dirty acrylic paint pour, which is drying in the basement.

I'm trying to figure out how I will decorate this year for the Christmas-Winter season. Time to gather new sticks and grasses to make bouquets.

I see light fluffy flakes coming down outside. This monday morning is very grey. The Juncos -- Grandma called them Snow Buntings, are busy in my flower bed.

Time to get my new week going.

Maybe I'll have a wild Monday?

Tools

My husband is notorioius for not organizing his tools. He just drops them on a piece of plywood on top of a couple of saw horses.
Yesterday I need one tool as my project was to take apart the old picnic table that had rusted through.

After not being able to find what I needed, I started to unload the plywood and place it on the shed floor so I could see what we did have and didn't have.

I found screw drivers that I have thought I lost while fencing. Obviously they went back into the messy pile to be buried under debri.

When I asked hubby where he may have a 7/16 socket wrench ... he simply lay on the bed and said it was on the 'tool bench'. I said show me...he said, 'It is there.'

While searching [I never found the proper socket] I did find some other items of interest.

Broken things. Things of no use. They were also stacked on the 'table'. I sorted through some things and tossed them on the floor. I realized that I needed to find the tool I was looking for and not get sidetracked by the messy table.

I did find a 7/16 little hand wrench thingy... it worked. Along with a sledge hammer and a pry bar, I spent a few glorious sweaty hours dismantling the old picnic table.
I had to get creative as some of the bolts wouldn't unscrew, they were frozen in rust.

In the end I completed the task.

At one point Rich called out the kitchen window asking if I'd found the tools I needed. I motioned for him to come out and help.
He disappeared from the window but came back to the kitchen window and called out...

"You didn't mess up my tool bench did you?"
Ahhhh, I love how he thinks sometimes.

Mean old me. I pretended I didn't hear him and used the sledgehammer and the pry bar on a particularly difficult section. I then used bolt cutters to get the job done.

No cursing, no swearing, and no blood was spilled in the dismantling of the old picnic table. But one more job that had been on his list for over a year was now done.

I may get sidetracked the next rainy day and actually organize that horrid mess of a table. As of now, he has no interest in using it.
Getting him to leave the house is a monumental effort one I fight with every day.

However I should say he has fed the donkeys for two mornings in a row. I consider that an improvement.

Next up, the broken glider.
If I could only operate a chainsaw safely. All bolts on that are frozen/rusted solid.

Oh...what happened to those bits and pieces of 'saved' broken stuff? They went into my bucket of things toss away. I am cleaning up junk...one small bit at a time.

I have a full schedule for this week. But still plan on finding time for a couple of projects.

I imagine if I clean up the 'tool' table, it may come as a nasty shock to my husband.
I think I'll do it anyway. I'm still looking for that socket wrench.....