Heading Into Summer

Things are going well on Farver Acres. Lorrie is so proud of her garden, she wanted me to share some pictures. Also included some of the more recent "wildlife" pictures.

The garden is about 22 feet by 33 feet. For those that don't live in the woods, the yellow strands are electric fence to keep the wildlife out! We have a solar powered unit, seems to work well.

Bush green beans.

Sweet corn.

Yellow squash & peppers of all kinds.

Tomatoes.

Spring Tom turkey with some hens.

Cows? One day I looked out the window and yes, there were cows in the pond taking a dip. Some of the "neighborhood" cows got loose. Bet they will be back as the summer heats up!

A snapping turtle enjoying the afternoon sun. He'll have to go, they like to eat fish and if I ever want to take a swim, don't want something like that in the pond!

Spring is Here

The weather has finally broken and spring is here. We pretty much accomplished all our goals over the winter months and we are ready to start really enjoying ourselves on Farver Acres.

We wanted to get all the major projects done during our first winter, which primarily consisted of getting the shop areas done. When we moved in, in September 2012 the house was pretty much finished and we have actually not done much of anything in the house since we moved in. In the shop areas all of the walls, ceilings, insulation, electrical, lighting, drywall, OSB, painting and trimming are complete. This includes all of Deer Processing, the Man Cave and the Automotive/ Woodworking areas. We also have a separate furnace and central AC in the shop areas now, that will be awesome when it is 90 degrees and high humidity this summer!

This is the walk-in cooler in the Deer Processing Area, all framed in and ready to go!

This is in the Deer Processing Area, "my" washer and dryer for doing hunting cloths. The door goes into the main House.

This is the Automotive/ Woodworking Area. Two garage doors and a man door to the outside.

This is the Automotive/ Woodworking Area. This man door goes out into the Storage Area.

This is the Automotive/ Woodworking Area. This set of double doors goes into the Man Cave.

This is the Automotive/ Woodworking Area. The area to the left is the "Tool Room" and the door goes into the Deer Processing Area.

The Bar Area of the Man Cave. The lower of the two doors on the left goes into the cooling unit of the walk-in cooler. The upper door is to the "furnace room", it has the furnace/ AC for the shop areas.

Different Man Cave View, Doors Go Into the Automotive/ Woodworking Area.

Different Man Cave View. The door goes into the Deer Processing Area.

I call this "Canada Corner" in the Man Cave. Everything here is from/ has a Canadian theme, more will be added.

A TV will be on the wall here at some point in the future.

Different Man Cave View.

Shop Areas Coming Along

We started working on the shop areas during the Christmas holiday period. Over the past 6 weeks or so we have roughed in all the electrical outlets, all the lighting circuits and insulated all the interior and exterior walls in preparation for the Amish crew to come back. With the amount of work they get done for the price, it was a no brainer to have them back. In just over a week, they hung OSB in the Deer Processing Area (23x15 w/15' ceilings) and in the Automotive Area (23x37 w/15' ceilings) and they also hung the drywall in the Man Cave (23x22 w/15' ceilings). Then once that was completed, they installed metal ceiling in all areas, Deer Processing, Automotive, Man Cave and the 29x48 Storage Area. The final activity was to blow in insulation in the entire 66x48 shop area. It took 275 bags of insulation to get a solid R38 or higher but I can tell you, it is already paying off. They also framed up some closets for me in the Deer Processing Area for all our hunting clothes and supples. All of that in just over a week!

During all that we installed light fixtures in all areas. In the Automotive Area we installed 8 flourescent fixtures which are 4' T5 High Output, 4 bulbs per fixture. With the 8 fixtures we have about 200 lumens per square foot, nice and bright! We also installed two of those same fixtures in the Deer Processing Area and then in the Man Cave we hung 4 pendant lights that are dropped 3 feet down from the ceiling so they hang at about 12 feet or so.

Finally, we turned on the heat! The shop areas are all heated by the boiler and each is its own zone with its own thermostat. Lorrie no longer has to dress in 6 layers to come out to help, she complains now about being hot. Nothing better than being able to work in a T-shirt in the winter time.

The painting in the Deer Processing Area is done and the painting in Automotive is 90% done, just need to paint the bottom 40 inches dark gray, thought that would be a good idea for some contrast from the "all white" walls and to help cover up the dirt, dings and dents that are likely to occur in an automotive work area.

Our drywaller guy is coming in the evenings this week to finish the drywall in the Man Cave and we are in the process of thinking about the paint scheme/ colors. Thinking about doing multiple colors to give it some character, we will see.

Hanging lights in the Man Cave. You can see the drywall has been hung but not finished yet and how nice the ceiling is.

This is the Automotive Area, all nice and bright. With the white walls, white ceiling and high output lights, it is very well lit and will make a nice work area. Just need to paint the gray at the bottom and this room will be ready to start setting up.

This is the Deer Processing Area, looking at the walk-in cooler and one of the new closets, still need to get closet doors and will need to trim everything out with wood trim.

Another angle of the Deer Processing Area, the paint is all now dry so we will begin to set it up for "grinding day" which is in a couple of weeks.
 



A picture of the hoist in the Deer Processing Area. We braced up above the ceiling to ensure strength and then flush mounted the hoist on the bottom of the finished metal ceiling, also ran power so it will be clean and neat.

Wrapping Up 2012

We looked forward to 2012 for many, many years. We knew that 2012 was going to be a big year with Danial graduating, building our new house, selling our old house, moving, etc. Now that 2012 is over and we reflect back, it was a great year and pretty much everything turned out the way we had hoped and planned it would. We are living our dream on Farver Acres.

I thought I would catch up on a few items that wrapped up 2012 before we head in to 2013. The outside wood boiler is up and running and is pretty much completed, we have a few tuning items yet to do but the propane furnace has not come on in weeks now though we have had some pretty cold nights near 20 degrees.

With the boiler up and running, we are starting to use the wood we had previously cut and we make it a habit of going out every week to cut additional wood. My goal is to cut enough wood to get us through this season and also by spring, to have cut all the wood we will need for next year. Then going forward, in winter/spring, I will cut the following years wood to always be one year ahead.

We had our first Christmas in the house and the boys were here, just took down the lights, stockings, etc yesterday and plan to take the tree down and take it outside today.

We have started to finish the shop areas. Lorrie and I ran all the electrical power to all required locations and about 90% of all the exterior walls have been insulated. Over the next month we hope to get the ceiling in and the attic area insulated so we can then start heating those rooms with the boiler.

We are not done hunting, just put it on hold for the past 3-4 weeks with other projects/ priorities. We need to at least take a couple of more does for our grinding and to get us through the coming year.

More to come from time to time as we have things to report.

Since we will be cutting a lot of wood and getting it from way back in the property, we purchased a trailer that can be towed behind the ATV or Tractor. It has 4 wheel independent suspension, an electric dump bed and electric brakes.

This is in the utility room, these are all the pumps and water lines running out to each of the 8 heating zones we have. Five of them are turned on, the other 3 will be turned on once the shop areas are fully insulated. This room is always very warm, we keep the door open to let the heat out into the hallway!

First Christmas Tree on Farver Acres.

First Ice on the Pond since we moved in.

Electrical and Insulation nearly completed in "The Man Cave".

The back side of the cooler in The Man Cave. You can see the beer tap out of the back of the cooler. I plan to build a bar in this area, will start on that over the coming weeks.