Windows.

Posted on by David Maxwell

Things are picking up speed in regards to finding and buying the materials for the house. Last Saturday my dad and I drove down to Alabama and bought all of the windows. We got a pretty good deal, and I like the windows, especially a couple of the larger picture windows. It was a nice little excursion that was a little bit of a cross cultural experience at the materials store. Nice folks, but Liz probably won’t be running into any of them at Whole Foods anytime soon. On the drive back we stopped at a gas station that I had previously patronized. They have mediocre food and some awesomely bizarre taxidermy, shown below.

 

Plans change.

Posted on by David Maxwell

As you might have concluded from the above picture, the farmhouse is no more. We made the difficult, but responsible, decision to tear it down and start from scratch. It became obvious that the core of the house was just in too poor of shape to justify spending the money to try and save it. The foundation repair bill alone would have covered the cost of a new foundation for both the house and garage, along with much of the framing. So we decided to salvage as many materials as possible and wipe the slate clean.

The new house will look remarkably like the old one, both inside and out. It will also sit on the same site. Construction should go a lot more quickly due to not having to tip-toe around the existing structure.

It was  more difficult to bring down the house than I anticipated. Fortunately the new tractor was a huge help. The pallet forks really made a difference too. I took off the bucket on day one, and only returned it once the house was pretty much completely down. The free pallets I got in Shelbyville have also been great. I loaded them up with shingles, block, and limestone from both the foundation and chimney. I got a 30 yard dumpster and loading it with the tractor has been a breeze. The limestone is really pretty, and we have some nice blocks of it. I’m not sure what we will do with it though. Maybe a cool outdoor fireplace.

The new house will not be very flashy, just another simple farmhouse. That is to help keep the construction costs down and lower the ongoing maintenance expenses. It will still have three bedrooms and 2.5 baths, along with an additional bed and bath in the garage apartment. The main changes from the previous plan are a little more space in the living and dining rooms, an eight by eight foot office for me, and a little different location for the door between the kitchen and garage.

The county has been great on changing the permit, and the bank was very accommodating as well for this change.

Unfortunately now we are dealing with tons of rain. It stopped a couple of days ago, but the ground is still super saturated. Flooding all over Middle Tennessee. It doesn’t feel like it will dry out until August! I have just a little more of the old patio’s concrete slab to remove along with some block. Then I will grade the house site lightly and we should be ready for the foundation crew. Hopefully they can dig this coming week.

It will be a huge relief once we really get going full speed ahead. There have been a lot of delays and changes on this project, but I really feel like each evolution has improved the final result. Next week is the start of daylight savings time, so it will be great to have an extra hour of light in the evenings. It looks like the next couple of weeks will be pretty warm. February was mild, hitting 80 one day with plenty of others in the 70’s. It’s hard to believe that winter might be over, but that could well be the case. I guess that means no snow camping this year. Oh well.

I’ll try to post some pictures soon of all the mess I’ve made around the farm. Of course I’ll also post some of the foundation as soon as it’s in place.

 

Welcome to the newest member of the family!

Posted on by David Maxwell

Well life sure has been happening. So much for my goal of posting daily. Oh well. I will try to get everything up to date shortly.

The big news is that I finally got a tractor. Yes, I am now the proud owner of the orange beauty pictured above. The search was a lengthy ordeal and forking over the cash was painful, but man this thing is a beast. It is a Kioti DK40SE, 2012 model with about 850 hours on it. I was prepared to buy a (smaller, less powerful, and more expensive) brand new New Holland at the dealer, but decided to call on this Kioti. It was down at a dealer in Alabama, and priced higher that I thought it was worth, but I could tell they were flexible on price. So my dad and I drove down there to check it out. It had been worked pretty hard, and had a little cosmetic damage, but it ran good. We finalized everything and the salesman said they would bring it up to their Columbia store for free. Unfortunately that ended up taking four days longer than promised. The one down side of this machine is that it is too big for Lexie and my trailer, so I had to get a tow truck to bring it to the farm.

Fortunately once it arrived we got to work! I have put about 15 hours on it so far. I purchased a pair of 42″ pallet forks also, and they have been on the tractor the whole time. I can’t get over how amazing they are. I got a trailer load of free pallets down in Shelbyville a couple of weeks ago, and I have been putting everything on them, and moving them around with ease.

The tractor is very easy to operate, but it will take a little getting used to certain aspects. Primarily the fact that the hydrostatic transmission is controlled by two separate pedals, as opposed to the treadle setup on our old Kubota. The other adjustment will be getting used to so much power! I think that the some scientists from the Russian Olympic program must have visited the Kioti factory. One of my biggest requirements in a tractor was a super powerful loader, and this one delivers. I need to get some sort of weight on the back end in order to keep from lifting the rear tires.

We have had tons of rain recently, so I have made a bit of a mess. Came close to getting stuck a couple of times too. I don’t think the ground is going to dry out any time soon, unfortunately.

One thing that gave me confidence in buying a well used machine is the fact that my new next door neighbor is a diesel mechanic for the county. He offered to help me maintain it. There is a great dealer over in Murfreesboro that has been very helpful. I bought manuals there and appreciated their friendly service. Hopefully I won’t be seeing much of them though!

A big challenge is coming up with a good name. I was going to call the New Holland “Bonnie” and I was considering a Case IH which I would have named “Ruby”. Nothing comes to mind for the KIoti. My friend Tim has been calling her “Big Orange”, but I’m not really into that.

Overall I’m very pleased with my purchase. It is a very capable machine that should help me get a lot of work done. I need to buy some implements for it, most likely a mower and box blade to begin with. First I need to repair the three point hitch. One of the arms is missing. Soon I’ll do a post on all of the little accessories I have bought and plan on buying.

The master plan – orchard.

Posted on by David Maxwell

Like the garden that I mentioned yesterday, the future orchard will be a great source of healthy and delicious fruit. Which I am super excited about because fruit is a) tasty and b) expensive. My goal is to have apples, pears, figs, apricots, peaches, plums, and anything else that will grow. I am most excited about figs because fresh ones are amazing and difficult to find here.

Once again I hope to benefit from my father-in-law’s expertise. He is an expert fruit grower, with many years experience raising apple, pear, and cherry trees up in Michigan. If he is in town soon we might go up to the nurseries in McMinnville and Smithville to buy trees.

I would really like to load up the front yard with trees. I think 50 or so would be a nice number, if there is that much space. The soil seems pretty good. I wish the space was a little more level, as it might be a bit of a pain to use a ladder on the hill, but that’s okay. We can also use the tractor and front end loader, as long as nobody calls OSHA.

The master plan – garden.

Posted on by David Maxwell

I love fresh fruits and vegetables. I am not so crazy about the high prices. Therefore I look forward to growing my own on the farm. There is an area of about an acre that I have identified as being the best place for a large garden. My neighbor Russ told me that it is great soil and that anything will grow there. Right now it has some exceptionally tall and healthy looking weeds. Hopefully I will have a tractor before too long, then I will determine what implements I need in order to efficiently work the land.

I want to grow a large manner of things, particularly items that are expensive and hard to find in the stores. It will be lots of fun to experiment. Liz gave me three heirloom seed catalogs for Christmas, and I have really enjoyed looking them over and thinking about what I want to order.

It might be a bit of a challenge to plant much this spring though. I will be super focused on trying to finish the house as quickly as possible that it will be difficult to devote time to planting and upkeep. Maybe there are some seeds that I can just throw out and forget about.

I also want to grow herbs, although that will probably happen in a dedicated little garden just behind the house. I have also looked into growing potatoes and sweet potatoes in tires. Tires should be pretty easy to get, and the process seems pretty simple. It will also be fun to can the produce so that we are ready for the zombie apocalypse.

Going to my in-laws’ farm in Michigan is something that I have really enjoyed over the past few years. They grow about twelve acres of heirloom pumpkins every year, probably around twenty varieties. I hope to grow many of the same types that they do.