Yesterday we had snow, rain and wind and so far today, a repeat.....

                     We need the moisture, so we're NOT complaining. Instead we're catching up on inside chores and our blog that has been neglected for to long, we've instead just been posting articles we think would be of interest to our friends. Well.... now is the time to catch you up a bit!*wink*

                   Mike gives me grief about hanging onto these branches( sucklers from our fruit trees), although
                    he does admit how handy they are when bundled properly. This was Cortney's chore and she
                   did a great job, see below!

This is just a portion of what she cut and bundled, there are approximately three times this amount.

Now to find a place to store them until our next burning season.  We also use these( apple wood) when BBQ'ing for added flavor.

Addy, ready to calve any day, actually today is her official due date! I'm praying she holds off for a bit warmer weather*wink*

Button, who is like a kid in the candy store, she heads for the flax lick ASAP as she's let out onto pasture.

The flax lick is for their reproductive health, to cleanse their internal organs, as well as supplement the minerals lacking in our area.  It sure makes their coats gleam!

Mike's been tilling off and on in the evenings. This will be a sort of pictorial of our garden. We're hoping you will be able to picture our garden layout. All the pictures pan to the right of where I'm standing, just for your info.*wink* 

You'll notice the three raised/ bermed beds in the background. The two covered with grass clippings for mulch have our onions planted in them. The longer bed is for our carrots and some herbs as pest control. Speaking of pest control, before planting your root crops, if you add DE( diatomaceous earth) in the farrow before planting your seed, this will deter root maggots.

Mike's been tilling, he loves to till when he has the time!  See the rhubarb, it's almost ready to be harvested for the first time! If you click on the photo, you'll also see the asparagus going to seed and the apple trees beginning to bloom.

Now in the foreground we'll be building a new raised bed for strawberries, down to the walking onions, then the garlic and beyond will be Spring garlic and our Sweet Dumpling squash.

The green is parsnip, left for seed collecting this Fall. This was our salad garden last season and this season will be our potato patch.

You see our pallet composting area as well as a black plastic composter( gifted to us). The black composter works but we've found it hard to mix in it. So.... we mix and turn in the pallet area, then when slightly composted we add to the black composter, to finish it off.  The area tilled used to be covered with pallets( we used to stack wood there), our branch collection, rolls of wire, and basic JUNK!!!!  We worked to clean this are up and will use it to transplant raspberries we thin from our original patch.

The grey house and shed are my parents home and beyond that( other side of their place) is our back pasture granary and main barn. To the left of their shed are the cows barns and the front pasture. Basically when you look at a Ariel view of our property, it looks like the state of TX. Our homes and gardens are in the panhandle area and the back orchard and pastures make up the rest.*wink*

This is a photo Cortney took while playing with setting on her camera. please click to make larger and you'll see it is quite a serene picture. If you look closely, you can hear the crickets and birds singing their songs before turning in for the evening.

Blessings to each of you. We're off to muck the barns and see if anyone wants out in this weather?*wink*

Welcome to .......

http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/s-510-is-hissing-in-the-grass/#more-1828 Shared by my friend Irene and as she put it( nailed it as far as I'm concerned) " First the banks and wallstreet bailouts, auto industry bailout, healthcare,immigration, then food control....... that about covers everything, we're toast!"

Death of 'Caveman' ends an era in Idaho | Local News | Idaho Statesman

This is courtesy of John and Carrie's FB page( Pioneer Living) this morning. Interesting story, what a life and live to be 94 yrs old too.

Death of 'Caveman' ends an era in Idaho Local News Idaho Statesman

Army disinvites Graham to Pentagon Prayer Day (OneNewsNow.com)

My tolerance of this Politically Correctness has grown paper thin and once more I'm growing weary of all the other agendas, being crammed down our throats. Matthew 21: 12-13

Army disinvites Graham to Pentagon Prayer Day (OneNewsNow.com)

Be aware.....

UDDERLY RIDICULOUS

Feds invade farm for 5 a.m. inspection
Serve warrant on farmer up to milk cows

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: April 22, 2010
10:55 pm Eastern


By Bob Unruh
© 2010 WorldNetDaily


Federal agents invaded an Amish farm in Pennsylvania at 5 a.m. to inspect cow-milking facilities then followed up the next day with a written notice that the farmer was engaged in interstate sale of raw milk in violation of the Public Health Services Act.




A failure to correct the situation could result in "seizure and/or injunction," the warning letter from Kirk Sooter, district director of the Philadelphia office of the Department of Health and Human Services, told farmer Dan Allgyer of Kinzer, Pa., on Wednesday.

The farm invaded Tuesday is the one agents visited in February, driving past "Private Property" signs to demand Allgyer open his property for their inspection, saying, "You have cows. You produce food for human consumption."

The case is being publicized by the National Independent Consumers and Farmers Association, which promotes traditional methods of linking farmers with consumers.

Spokeswoman Deborah Stockton told WND Allgyer "is the type of farmer who exemplifies what we are trying to restore." On her organization's website is the commitment "to promote and preserve unregulated direct farmer-to-consumer trade that fosters availability of locally grown or home-produced food products."

She reported she got details directly from Allgyer of Tuesday's early morning inspection, which highlights the growing conflict between farmers who want to provide health food locally and federal regulators.

Allgyer could not be reached immediately for comment.

(Story continues below)




The farmer told NICFA he came out of his house about 4:30 a.m. for his milking routine and noticed a lot of traffic on Kinzer Road.

Shortly later, the cars were coming up his lane.

"I stood back in the dark barn to see what they were going to do. They drove past my two 'Private Property' signs, up to where my coolers were, with their headlights shining right on them," Allgyer reported.

He called to the five men as they were preparing to knock on his home, where his wife and family remained asleep.

"Two were from the FDA, agent Joshua C. Schafer who had been there in February and another. They showed me identification, but I was too flustered to ask for their cards. I remember being told that two were deputy U.S. marshals and one a state trooper. They started asking me questions right away. They handed me a paper, and I didn't realize what it was," he said.

"Schafer told me they were there to do a 'routine inspection.' At 5:00 in the morning, I wondered to myself? 'Do you have a warrant?' I asked, and one of them, a marshal or the state policeman, said, 'You've got in your hand buddy.' I asked, 'What is the warrant about?' Schafer responded, 'We have credible evidence that you are involved in interstate commerce,'" the farmer reported.

WND telephone calls and e-mails to the FDA requesting comment did not generate a response.

Allgyer said he confirmed his identification but then said he wouldn't answer anything further.

He said he questioned their arrival at his farm at 5 a.m. when the warrant clearly stated it was valid during "reasonable times during ordinary business hours," but one of the agents said "ordinary business hours for agriculture start at 5 a.m."

The agents spent their time "rooting around, like a couple of pigs, in the freezer and cooler area and took many pictures," Allgyer reported.

"They came in the dark, shining bright flashlights while my family was asleep, keeping me from milking my cows, from my family, from breakfast with my family and from our morning devotions, and alarming my children enough so that the first question they asked my wife was, 'Is Daddy going to jail?'" Allgyer said.

The subsequent warning letter was an all-inclusive notice that federal regulations prohibit "the delivery into interstate commerce of milk and milk products in final package form for direct human consumption unless they have been pasteurized."

"It is your responsibility to ensure adherence with all requirements. … Failure to make prompt corrections could result in regulatory action without further notice," the letter said.

The letter directed Allgyer to notify Compliance Officer Richard Cherry of the corrections.

Stockton warned the requirement now is for federal agents to claim they have "credible evidence" regarding a case, but a proposed federal change would strike those words in the law and replace them with "reason to believe."

"The phrase 'reason to believe' would be inserted 14 times into the code with S 510," she said. "If this bill goes through, the FDA will have control of farms. They will not need 'credible evidence' to act. They will essentially be given a free hand to act as they want. And look at how they already act, even with the existing constraints in place."

Allgyer previously had told the officers that as a private farmer, he does not sell to the public.

Advocates say raw milk is healthier.

According to natural-foods blogger Kimberly Hartke, Kevin Trudeau touts raw milk in his New York Times best-seller "Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About," and Sally Fallon Morell's cookbook, "Nourishing Traditions," which has sold 350,000 copies.

On a forum page at Chronwatch-America.com, a participant concluded, "The food produced on that farm is probably far safer than anything you get at the grocery store."

That opinion was endorsed on the Food Freedom blog, where one participant wrote, ""Factory foods are the ones making people sick & getting recalled."

The Weston A. Price Foundation, which is among the nonprofits that educate consumers about more natural food-production methods, said demand for such products is growing.

"Raw milk … is a supremely healthy food that should be available to those who want it," said Morell, the foundation's president.

In January, Canadian farmer Michael Schmidt won a court victory when he was found not guilty of selling raw milk to members of a cow-sharing consortium.

In a previous U.S. case, Mennonite farmer Mark Nolt of Maryland had his farm raided by SWAT-type agents. He was fined more than $4,000 and had his equipment confiscated for providing unpasteurized milk to participants in his program.

Picture update....

Getting the ends installed, forefront is finished cut and ready for the window and door installation.

Window cut and framed in and other end all finished and waiting for windows.

Window and door installed and one of the two windows in the end wall. We hope to get the other window installed tonight after Mike gets off work. Then all that is left is installing the 2x4s, 3ft up the sidewall for our rollup walls.

Our cherry bush, this is a sweet cherry and makes the very best jelly and jam!

Today we focused on laundry and hope to have the remainder of the week to finish spreading manure in the garden, build some permiculture raised beds( trying to block out the bindweed), planting potatoes, onions, lettuce, spinach, kale, radishes and mustard greens.

Photo update on animals, garden, seedlings and hoophouse

Cortney and Brownie, with Tuffy watching ever so closely!

Cortney with both her bum lambs, Brownie and Sonny!

Our chicks, enjoying the grass, bugs and sunshine.

Our progress on the hoop house, actually we did get the siding on the end closest in this photo, today!

We still need to cut the siding to fit the arch and cut the door and window holes.

Self sown chamomile, and let me tell you it is thick and bountiful!

See how big of an area and this is, one of two areas Yeah!

The garlic is up and looks as if we have a 100% germination!

Close up photo of the garlic.

Sorry these next two photos are out of focus, but you can see that it is our asparagus coming through! :o)

I was able to harvest 12-15 spears today. This is only the second season, since I planted the roots. :o)

Rhubarb looks good and had spread even more. I need to move some this fall.

Some of our tomatoes, after we'd transplanted them into new pots. Some looked a bit shocky for a few hours, we just watered them in good and they perked right up.

The rest of our transplanted tomatoes

Our concord grapes after I cut them back.  Praying we get a good crop this season, I didn't cut back them back last season and we got a very small crop.*sigh*

I'll post more photos of our hoophouse progress, ASAP!

Until them we'll most likely be absent for a few days. We're working on cleaning out old flower gardens, herb beds and spreading composted manure on the garden, in prep for tilling and planting out potatoes, onions, lettuce, kale, mustard, radishes, beets and turnips and working on completing the hoophouse. Everything else will wait until beginning of May.

Blessings for your weekend.

Of course it's all.... about $$$ I pray you discern what they are all about...

and it certainly isn't looking out for your wellbeing!



http://www.alternet.org/story/146471/
8 Invented Diseases Big Pharma Is Banking on
By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet
Posted on April 16, 2010, Printed on April 16, 2010



Sleep sweating? Here are some new ways the pharmaceutical plans to make money.


Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear. Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?
But pharma's recent plan to move from mass-market molecules into more lucrative vaccines and biologics did not see the anti-vaxer movement coming: millions of Americans saying You Want to Vaccinate Me -- and My Child -- with WHAT?? and condemning vials of H1N1, rotavirus and MMR vaccines to sit, well, way past their expiration dates. Nor were fears of an international vaccine conspiracy helped by former CDC Director Julie Gerberding resurfacing as President of Merck Vaccines in December. (Nice revolving door if you can catch it.)
Now pharma is back to creating new diseases, patients, risks and "awareness campaigns" faster than you can say thimerosal (the vaccine preservative that started the backlash.)
1. SERM deficiency
A pill to prevent postmenopausal osteoporosis packs the "magic three" of drug sales-- fear, forever and faith--since you never know if it's working or you need it but fear stopping. But 15 years after women began swallowing bisphosphonates like Boniva and Fosamax because pharma-planted bone density machines in medical offices revealed they had "osteopenia,"* bisphosphonates are linked to jaw bone death, esophageal cancer and causing the fractures they were supposed to prevent. Sorry about that. Now pharma is hawking Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulators (SERMs) like Evista and Tamoxifen to prevent osteoporosis and even some cancers. Unfortunately they can cause others…
2. Statin Deficiency
If it seems like the whole world is on statins, it's not your imagination. Last year the FDA approved AstraZeneca's Crestor for children as young as 10 and in March it approved Crestor for 6.5 million people who have no cholesterol or heart problems at all! (See: fear, forever and faith.) Many say, since lead investigator of the Justification for the Use of Statins in Primary Prevention study Paul Ridker of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston is co-patent holder/inventor of the C-reactive protein (CRP) test which "proves" Crestor's effectiveness, there's a conflict of interest. Others say, since CRP isn't necessarily even a marker for heart disease and statins can cause Type 2 diabetes, it's bad science along with a conflict of interest.)
3. Circadian Dysrhythmia
Insomnia is a gold mine for pharma because everyone sleeps -- or watches TV when they can't. But Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata and Rozerem have reached market saturation, so pharma is rolling out subcategories like nocturnal, middle-of-the-night (MOTN) and terminal insomnia and sleep eating, sleep walking and sleep sweating (yes sweating) to boost the franchise. Meanwhile another demo is swelling Circadian Dysrhythmia numbers: Thanks to restless legs syndrome, sleep apnea, shift work sleep disorder, people who skimp on sleep and of course insomnia meds themselves, there's an epidemic of excessive sleepiness! Enter Provigil --"a mood-brightening and memory-enhancing psychostimulant which enhances wakefulness and vigilance," -- Adderall and Vyvanse, known in the days of Lenny Bruce -- also an "excessive sleepiness" sufferer -- as speed.
4. Adult Autism, ADHD and Refusal to Play Nicey
Having marketed adult diseases like depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in 4-year-olds to death, pharma is now finding childhood diseases in adults. Adults with ADHD have hyperactivity, impulsivity, "executive function deficits" and "difficulty with organization and time management," says Harvard Medical School's Joseph Biederman, in a 2004 JAMA. The disease, found in most people's brother-in-laws, requires "lifelong" medication says Biederman, who was accused of pushing Risperdal and hiding pharma income by Congress in 2008. Adults may suffer from autism too says a 2008 article in Psychiatric News, if they're "unsociable, extremely rigid, given to angry outbursts" and "acutely sensitive to light, heat, and pain." Luckily, in two studies "SSRI antidepressants led to a decrease in repetitive behaviors and to somewhat more socializing," in adults with autism says Psychiatric News.
5. Asthma That Requires "Two Drugs"
Leave it to pharma to develop an asthma drug--the long-acting beta2-agonists (LABAs)-- that triples the rate of asthma deaths, especially in African-Americans. And leave it to the FDA to approve LABA's on the basis of a trial, the 2003 SMART trial (Salmeterol Multicenter Asthma Research Trial), that was stopped early because of so many deaths. In March, after more deaths, especially in children, a sheepish FDA recast LABAs as a last resort medication with or without use of a concomitant inhaled steroid. But AstraZeneca doesn't want to stop selling its LABA with a steroid, Symbicort -- and GSK its LABA with a steroid, Advair -- just because they're correlated with death. So the LABA drugs are being billed as safe and able to treat "both" causes of asthma (see: Vytorin) and projected to earn billions this year.
6. "Treatment Resistant" Conditions
If an engine additive or laundry product didn't work, who would chase it with another product--or two-- because the manufacturer told them to? Who would pay $300 to $900 a month out of their pocket for antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and mood brighteners some of which don't work? (see: fear, forever, faith.) Increasingly, pharma is approving drugs as add on or "adjunctive therapy" like AstraZeneca's antipsychotic Seroquel, approved last year "for patients who had failed to respond adequately to an antidepressant alone." Also last year, the FDA approved Eli Lilly's Symbyax, a combination of the SSRI antidepressant Prozac and controversial antidepressant Zyprexa -- do patients gain 100 pounds but feel great? -- for "treatment resistant depression." Why are diseases "treatment resistant" instead of the drugs "ineffective" or diagnoses "wrong"?

7. Low T
Men are you feeling run down and over the hill? Is your hair falling out, skin wrinkling and abdomen developing its own zip code? Have you lost interest in sex or worse, has your partner? (With you?) Do you need reading glasses, dental implants and heel splints? You're not getting old, you just have Low T and are ready for the aging-is-really-just-low-hormones con that women have lived with for 60 years: hormone replacement therapy. Like 50 million women before you, you can be Forever Masculine even though, to (quote hormone giant Wyeth) you have outlived your testes if you start replacing your lost testosterone. You'll get both kinds of zips back in your life, and it won't change your prostate-specific antigens. Pharma promises.
8. "Spectrum" Disorders
Nothing proves pharma's when-the-medication-is-ready credo better than the legions of people who have fibromyaglia now that Cymbalta, Savella and Lyrica are available to treat it. Still, a "grassroots" pharma front group is conducting a Fibromyalgia Is Real awareness campaign like it did for depression and bipolar disorder, just to make sure. Pharma has also rolled out the term "depression spectrum disorder" for fibromyalgia to make sure patients who have some but not all of the symptoms seek treatment. And speaking of spectrums, "Epilepsy Spectrum Disorder" was rolled out in January's JAMA -- a disorder which is not just about seizures anymore but has "shared mechanisms" with "depression, autism.., and other cognitive comorbidities." Spectrum disorders are Real--which is pharma for Reimbursable.
* a pharma contrivance like "perimenopause" to widen the patient pool

Well..... they've finally admitted what we've all known since it began*sigh*

(NaturalNews) Drug and chemical giant Bayer AG has admitted that there is no way to stop the uncontrolled spread of its genetically modified crops.

"Even the best practices can't guarantee perfection," said Mark Ferguson, the company's defense lawyer in a recent trial.

Two Missouri farmers sued Bayer for contaminating their crop with modified genes from an experimental strain of rice engineered to be resistant to the company's Liberty-brand herbicide. The contamination occurred in 2006, during an open field test of the new rice, which was not approved for human consumption. According to the plaintiffs' lawyer, Don Downing, genetic material from the unapproved rice contaminated more than 30 percent of all rice cropland in the United States.

"Bayer was supposed to be careful," Downing said. "Bayer was not careful and that rice did escape into our commercial rice supplies."

The plaintiffs alleged that in addition to contaminating their fields, Bayer further harmed them financially by undermining their export market. When the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the widespread rice contamination, important export markets were closed to U.S. producers. A report from Greenpeace International estimates the financial damage of the contamination at between $741 million and $1.3 billion.

Bayer claimed that there was no possible way it could have prevented the contamination, insisting that it followed not only the law but also the best industry practices. The jury disagreed, finding Bayer guilty of carelessness in handling the genetically modified crops. The company was ordered to pay farmers Kenneth Bell and Johnny Hunter $2 million.

"This is a huge victory, not only for Kenny and me, but for every farmer in America who was harmed by Bayer's LibertyLink rice contamination," Hunter said.

According to Hunter, the company got "the wake-up call they deserved."

Bayer is still being sued by more than 1,000 other farmers from Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Sources for this story include: www.organicconsumers.org; www.bloomberg.com.

Update of what we've been up to lately

Just thought we'd catch you up on some of the Never Done Farm happenings;

The escapee, " Boy is is nice to be away from that crowd!"

" I wonder what it's like in the big world below?"

" Okay, I'm lonely, how do I get back with my friends; Peeeep, Peeeep!"

Cortney's bottle lambs, aren't they precious? Both are boys, soon to be it's, they were banded

yesterday.

This one's name is Brownie

and this is Sonny.

Now, before the wise acres have a chance to say it( and you know who you are*wink*)

Yes, that's me doing a great job of spreading manure*wink*

Here I'm really flinging it, LOL!  So glad we decided to take the time to get the manure spread on the fields

and hauled to the gardens( to be spread by hand, okay not literally we do use a shovel*wink*), this past weekend.

Yesterday besides the regular chores, we did manage to spread some of the manure in the garden and I got the grape vines cut back, praying I didn't kill them*wink*, but they really needed it! I also managed to get a few of our flower gardens cleaned up a bit, but won't do the final cleaning until beginning of May, just in case of frost. 

Addy, our Dexter cow is due on the 30th, so will begin watching her closely. She is beginning to bag up but no sign of discharge yet.  We're so excited to see this new calf, and Cortney is praying for twins( I'm not), just a health and happy calf will be a blessing.

We still have raspberries to cut back and thin, strawberries to transplant, the hoophouse to complete, our seedlings to transplant and move into the mini greenhouse, once the lambs are in their pen full time. Right now with their feedings every three hours, we wanted to keep them a bit closer to the house for Cortney's sake, so they overnight in the greenhouse and then are returned to their pen during the day.

Today is rainy and gloomy, but the remainder of the week is forecasted to be very nice. I look forward to getting back outside, doing clean up and garden prep. Today is a good day to run to the city for some needed items, after we get a few loads of laundry done and hung on the drying racks around the wood stove( which is going to take off the damp chill that was beginning to set in*wink*)

A rant of sorts.....

Have you ever had times when nothing seems to cooperate for you? Well, that is how it has been for us and trying to get the hoop house built. We have all the materials but the weather is another issue entirely. It seems the nice weather shows up when Mike has to work and when Mike has time off it's raining, snowing, windy, cold or all of the above

Another issue is the chicks, we've had a few days actually nice enough to put them outside and the remainder of the days they've driven us all nuts with their peeping and stir crazy behavior( stirring up dust) I'm starting to dream about preparing chick nugget soup, LOL! *wink* I'll just be glad to have our weather even out a bit. Thanks for reading my rant, over and out for now!

It's time....

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Guess who came to dinner...

For the most part Jayla slept through her first Easter. When she did wake up she was hungry and a bit fussy while waiting. She has change some, filled in a bit and seems to be growing just fine. Soon she'll be going for a well baby check up, it will be interesting to see how much she has grown.

Our Easter was pretty quite, just Jon, Bobbi, Jaymz and Jayla came for dinner. We had ham, roast beef, mashed potatoes,gravy, steamed carrots, pistachio pudding salad, deviled eggs and whole wheat rolls. Everyone was full and the kids headed home before we had served our apple blueberry crisp and vanilla ice cream. Of this entire meal and dessert, the only store bought items were the pistachio pudding, heavy whipping cream,and vanilla ice cream. Everything else came directly from our farm.
Praying every one's day was blessed.

Happy Resurrection Day

Happy Resurrection Day
He is Risen, Risen Indeed!

It's Friday and Sunday is coming.........

Since it was snowing outside...

We decided to make homemade whole cracked wheat bread and with the remaining whole wheat flour we made noodles for lasagna for supper tonight!
These were still rising( then photo was taken), and now are baking in the wood cook stove and look and smell wonderful. I'll slice some thick and make garlic bread to go with the lasagna.
We love whole or cracked grain breads, they have such a nutty/ rich flavor.
We've certainly made prettier noodles, but guess what they all taste good!
If you click on the photo, you'll see the whole wheat pieces. Ummmm, Ummmm. :o)
See what I mean about not so pretty noodles, but we were in a hurry and multi tasking*wink*

How To Prepare For Obamacare: Create Your Own Natural Medicine Chest by Bill Sardi

For those who are just beginning this is a good article with good starter info. You can of course build from here with many, many herbs, homeopathic, essential oils, natural minerals and supplements.

I hate to push you, but McCain does have a bill trying to shut down this sort of market, so stock up, learn quickly and begin growing your own herbs, making your own remedies, tinctures, infusions, oils, teas and salves.


How To Prepare For Obamacare: Create Your Own Natural Medicine Chest by Bill Sardi

Use, reuse and keep using until it is totally dead and blessings

We strive to use, reuse, re-do, re-make and then salvage all usable parts for a new project.
This wheelbarrow is proof of that, it's approx. 15+ yrs old, purchased new and has been used from hauling odds and ends, to manure, to firewood, to cement mixing, and many, many other jobs. It finally began showing it's age a few years back and Mike used his know-how and welder and fixed a few rusted out spots. Well, once the rusting began it was a vicious cycle and Mike ended up adding more patches and some steel for added support. As you can see in the picture below, the corner has now rusted out and instead of being a manure hauler, we use it for hauling firewood and odds and ends jobs that don't need a solid wheelbarrow. We've since gotten a nice wheelbarrow, that dumps, making getting the loads up on the manure pile easier, especially in the snow! Once we decide this old barrow is past it's working prime, we'll disassemble and salvage what parts are still usable and the metal will go to the recycling pile. :o)

You can see where it rusted and Mike added a steel plate, even that is rusting. It's still good enough for hauling buckets of weeds, firewood, odds and ends and whatnot.
Here is the door and window I purchased from Habitat for Humanity's ReStore. The cost of each was $20, for a total of $40, then I got 15% off due to their anniversary opening, so the cost was $36. I'm NOT good with imagining sizes, but Mike assures me we could have two more windows in the other end and this door and window in the end closest to the house, so.... I'll be heading back sometime this week for two more windows*wink*
Okay, since we've been so busy I didn't tell about our wringer washer leaking oil and water , almost quicker than a bucket could catch it with each load! Mike tore it apart( you can see some of it in the background) to find it needed the agitator shaft to be rebuilt and new seals, all are doable but we would be out a washer for several weeks.*sigh* So we contacted the friend we'd originally purchased this washer from, knowing he'd had another when we bought this one. Thankfully he still had the other washer and was willing to loan it to us, we asked if he wouldn't sell it and he said he would, that is how we got our second Maytag wringer washer! It's a bit nicer and the tub is larger than our round one. The round one will be repaired and then we'll have two for summer usage and store one in the garage in winter. Laundry twice as fast, YEAH!!!!!

Our April Fools day is toying with us, it's snowing a bit, then stops, then snows a bit and where is the sunshine*sigh* Good thing I have bread to make and a house to clean, so being inside isn't such a chore as when it's nice and sunshiny out.

We fell into a blessing last weekend. Mike's Uncle had to make a quick trip to WY to shut down an operation and in doing so had to remove several pieces of equipment, and several buildings, some small sheds and another all metal building that is 28x30 ft. The smaller sheds are to be sold, but he wasn't sure about the shop building. He offered it to us, if we disassembled it and haul it ourselves. Problem is he was on a tight timeline and Mike's first available days off are this weekend. There was a crew working on loading and hauling these items, they had to disassemble one side of the building to remove a HUGE compressor. It was decided that they would disassemble the remainder and Mike's Mom's fiance', Leroy hauled it to us in two separate loads. We do have some longer pieces to retrieve in Powell, WY as Leroy just didn't have the room or the clearance for them on the last load. Mike is going to contact the warehouse where the rest of the equipment is being stored to make arrangements to pick up these pieces. Now to get it reassembled, it's going to be like piecing a puzzle together, the metal siding got marked, but not the framework. Leroy got pictures for us and will be sending them, this should help. The plan is to use this building for storage of our two tractors and the baler, out behind the barn. It's in very nice shape and will be a blessed addition to our homestead!