Ox in the Mire.....

OK, so they weren't Oxen but the neighbors cows got out Saturday night and Leslie and Kaitlin went to help round them up after church. For those of you who think we might be transforming into "Utah Mormon's" and are wondering why we wouldn't wait until Monday morning to go round up the cows you can blame it, and everything else for that matter, on the price of fuel. There used to be a time when a local farmer could care less if a few cows got out and spent half a day grazing on his field but with the price per bale what it is today they aren't quite as Farmerly. So it was a bit more pressing that the cows get put back where they belong. Kaitlin snapped a few photo's with her phone, it was quite the round up. I told it probably would have been a good idea to make sure that The one downside of dealing in ponies is that the water always seems a little bit deeper.

Progress on the house continues, I'll post some photo's next week after they get the shingles on. For now most of the progress is taking place inside the house so posting pictures is kinda pointless. The heating and air conditioning guy is done, electrical needs a couple more days, and I'm hoping to have the plumbing done by mid-next week. I keep thinking that things are going too smoothly and that a bump in the road is looming. I know now that I've said it out loud it's bound to happen. It just seems like everything has been working out better than we could hope. I've been able to spend a lot more time on the house than we ever imagined I would over the last couple months. I was put on a long term engagement that I've been able to work on from home. I think I've only been out of town two of the last six weeks. If this keeps up we'll move in sooner than I thought.

Finally....

After many delays, some legit others questionable, the lid(construction talk for 'the roof') is finally on and the project finally looks like a house. I started working on the plumbing Tuesday last week but had to jump off that and on to electrical. We've got a guy who's a brother-in-law to some friends in the ward who we are paying to help us. He works 4 tens for an electrical contractor and is going to spend Friday and Saturday's with us. This guy is a piece of work. We started at Home Depot on Friday morning at 7am and worked until 9pm. I new I was in trouble when he asked what time it gets light here. We started at 6am on Saturday. He goes a million miles an hour and we can't decide if he's dipping into the "candy" jar, if you know what I mean, or is just Hyperactive. At any rate we are getting a lot done. We hired our the HVAC while we are working on electrical and plumbing the heating and AC will be going in as well. Here's a few photo's. Front view, back view, entry and great room.

Here are a couple more pictures. Never a dull moment around here with all these animals. We irrigated our field this week and flooded out a couple gophers. Chloe's natural instincts (with a bit of prodding) took over and she had some fun with them. She also took a swim in the irrigation ditch, which isn't a very good idea when it's full of water. She kept trying to swim upstream, to no avail, and ended up getting sucked under one of the culverts where one of the boys was able to grab her. No worse for wear and now we won't have to give her a bath.

Moving Along...

Here's a photo of the latest progress. Note the trusses on the ground. This is one of the reasons why we are doing so much of this ourselves. "We'll get started on Thursday" will always turn into we'll start first of next week. Hopefully we'll get a roof on this week. In the mean time I'll be taking off my framing hat and putting on my plumbers hat and get that going this week.

We made a quick trip up to Northern Utah this weekend to get some of the beams and decking material we are going to use throughout the house. Lots of old weathered lumber off of a ranch that Leslie's sister Lela and family live on. I wasn't so sure about this particular design choice but I think it's going to look great.

We also got a second baby. Berti arrived a couple weeks ago. Our third mare delivered hers also but the baby didn't make it. So we've got Berti and Ender

Pretty good week...

We got a ton done this week. The pictures don't really tell the whole story. Most of the work was putting up the interior walls, got the second floor down, and started on the upstairs walls. I've got to work in St. Louis this week so Leslie is going to be on her own next week and then I'm back and we should be able to get things ready to put the roof on Friday and Saturday. I have to admit that it will be nice to take a little break. We have been going at from 7:30 until dark 6 days a week for the last 3 weeks and Leslie and I are both worn out. It's been a long time since I've slept this good, except for the night's that the cramps in my hamstrings kick in, those are awesome!.

We also had a new addition this week. We have three mares that are with foal and one of them finally delivered. They are all a couple weeks overdue. Misty, who is our babysitter, had a little bay colt. Just what we were hoping for out of her. The pictures aren't great, we'll try to get some more posted soon. We should have two more babies in the next couple days, hopefully.

In other news. Bronson ran the 200 in the big Hershey track meet and won. He was pretty excited, however, while he was trying to figure out when he was supposed to take his turn in the long jump he missed the start of the 400 he was supposed to run and then while he was trying to figure out how he missed the 400 he missed his turn in the long jump. He was not a happy camper but the when he won the 200 he was back to being happy Bronson. I asked him how close the 2nd place finisher was and he told me that he kind of waited for him to catch up and then took off so it wasn't such a blowout. Also Kaitlin competed in the District track meet and set a new district record in the shot put. Beat the old record by a foot. It's kind of funny because there are these girls who are really into and do the whole psych yourself up and then the whole backwards, hop, hop, through thing and Kaitlin just kind to steps up there and takes one step and chucks it out there, 35 feet. Who would have thought?

Week 3....

Well we're starting week 3 of framing and we are going to have to pick up the pace. I'm supposed to go out on the road next week and I'd really like to have everything up to the trusses. We think we're going to hire a crew to come in and do that in a day or two because it's complicated and I don't want to die falling from the roof. Here are a few updated pic's. Note the big tall wall that is just under 18 ft. You should have seen Me, Leslie, Cooper, Kaitlin and Lil trying to stand that thing up. I'm certain we would have not gotten that thing up if it weren't for Jeff(the professional) directing traffic. We're pretty much moving on to interior walls downstairs and then the upstairs. Interior walls are going much faster than the exterior.

The End of an Era

This weekend was truly the end of an era. Ever since Leslie was a little girl she would spend every Saturday with her family at the Utah Livestock Auction in Spanish Fork buying or selling horses. When we moved here to Benjamin we continued the tradition. I think in the last five years we've bought at least 15 horses from them. It's great Saturday entertainment and there is a core group of people that are always there. Due, mostly to urban sprawl and the fact that STUPID PETA have made it illegal to slaughter horses for consumption, after over 50 years the auction has closed it's doors for good. We went over for the last time and visited with all the regulars and had our last Auction Burger, best burger in town, and watched the horses run through for the last time. I'm sure we'll have a few weeks worth of withdrawals on Saturdays, good thing we've got other things to occupy our time for the next 8 months to a year. We also got a ton of work done on the house this week. We were able to get the crawl space framed and the sub-floor on. Lessons learned: Things always take longer than you think, experience is way more valuable than reading a book, fire a few shots with the nail gun before starting a wall(ouch!), mistakes can always be fixed. Here are a few pictures of our progress. These were actually a couple days old I'll post some news ones tomorrow.

Latest Goings on....

Well it's been a pretty busy couple of weeks. Leslie and the three younger kids made a trip up to Salmon, Montana with Grandma and Grandpa Allred last weekend. They were going up because Leslie's sister Lena had a mule and horse she was selling at a big sale so Leslie thought they'd tag along because there was also a visit planned with one of Leslie cousin's who she has not seen for a long time who lives in Darby, Montana. I opted to stay home with Cooper and Kaitlin for reason which did not become apparant until after they got home and gave us a detailed trip report. Let's just say that things were a little crowded and leave it at that. As you can see from the photo here Addison had lots of fun. Any chance she gets to put her butt in a saddle she has fun. She's become quite the little rider. Even likes it when she gets dumped, which doesn't happen often, becuase it adds to her legitmacy as a cowgirl.

This weekend was the Benjamin Stock show. Kaitlin has a sheep that she showed along with a bunch of other kids. This stock show is kind of the warm up for the Spanish Fork Stock show where all the 4-h kids bring their livestock to show and sale. Kaitlin had a lot of fun as you can see. Her sheep was invited back with about six others for final viewing for Grand Champion. She didn't win it but her friend did and Kait was pretty excited for her. This picture illustrates why Kailey's sheep was the Grand Champion and Kaitlin's was not. With sheep it's all about the butt. The bigger the butt, the more to eat. Yes in 4-h they have these kids raise these animals, make them real pretty to show-off and then they sell them to someone who is going to butcher them and eat them. It's like the anti-PETA organization and I personally think it's great.

Yesterday we ordered the concrete to poor in the crawlspace. We had some really great neighbors volunteer to help. That is hard work. I want to say that I gained a new respect for guys that do concrete work for a living but it's difficult for me to respect someone that does something that hard for as little as they get and not find something else to do. Maybe it get's easier the more you do it. I'm pretty sure I don't want to find out. But we got it done and now we'll get some lumber delivered and get started on the framing.....