Barn Rehab and sheepy prep

It's strange. My blog server seems to be having trouble posting today. Hum. I think it's more to do with my slow internet connection, but hey- slow is better than nonexistent!

I spent my late-morning working on the barn today. It's really in sore shape, and I've been putting off most of the work because, well, it's super creepy in the barn. There are random children's desks, broken bottles, and dirt, cobwebs and dead animal bones from when the coyotes were using the barn as a den (before we lived here). Creeeeeepy!

First I re-set all of the doors and gates. Over the year they had all sagged or warped making each and every one completely non-functional. I reset two gates, one door and two sets of dutch doors. Now, aside from a terrible creak from the primary dutch door, they're all functional and easy to use! I need new latches for a couple of them, but it's a start to have them functional I guess.

After the doors, I turned my focus to the clutter. I was able to wedge all ten of the bizarre and icky children's desks into the old storage room, out of the way. Because we're renting, I really don't have the right to throw anything away, but I don't have a ton of storage either. I figure they'll be out of the way in there and I can pretend they don't exist. Hah.

It was shortly after I finished with the desks that I noticed the place where the wall was coming off the barn. This barn is in super sore shape. It isn't going to fall over or anything, but the foundation has broken and one wall is leaning away from the rest of the barn, leaving a big ol' hole roughly coyote sized. I spent a good hour with various pieces of old wood that I found lying around, carefully fitting, sliding a piecing together a makeshift patch. It's actually fairly solid, and is helping to hold the wall in place, while also acting as a pretty decent predator block and as an added bonus, it is aesthetically less-terrible than the wall was before.

I don't have a ton of other photos, and it doesn't seem to matter much, as my blog server is apparently not going to let me upload them (meh) but in addition to all of this, I started leveling the floor and dusted about a gazillion cobwebs off the wall. It'll probably only take another day or two of work in the barn to get the interior fairly set for inhabitants. We're getting a shipment of bedding straw (for sheep and for mulching) tomorrow and I've got the pallets all ready to stack it. It's really sinking in that I'll be bringing home little pittery pattery cloven hooves in a few months! I can't wait!

My other aspiration is to have the barn ready with a poultry coop inside by next spring so that I can talk chickens with my land lady. I'd love to raise some meat chickens, as well as maybe six egg hens. The ducks are good layers, but nothing really compares to fresh chicken eggs.