The Mother Day Workout

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Mothers Day Workout

Mothers day.  A day to honor mothers for all of the hard work, dedication, and sacrifices they make.  My wonderful wife gave up her day to rest and relax and instead spent the day hard working at the homestead.  As soon as I got off duty I headed to Wal-Mart to pick up another tape measure as mine has finally given up the ghost.  I'll admit I also picked up her card for Mothers Day, and no I wasn't the only daddy to wait until the last minute. The girls and I met up at the land.  Jenn and the girls had packed all the equipment we needed and loaded the trailer.  We managed to make it out with everything we needed which was a first.

The plan was to mow, clear and burn more brush, water all the berries, add mulch around the berries, work on the cabin, and have a cookout with hot dogs and then roast some marsh mellows.

I started off by cutting some brush, trees, and low hanging limbs from around the cabin site.  We then pulled all the brush onto our burn area and stacked all the wood I cut into firewood.

I was worn out as we had a busy shift and had not gotten much sleep so I decided to start mowing since that takes the least amount of energy.  The girls began loading mulch and water onto the trailer so they could begin watering and mulching.  We realized we need to get the irrigation system designed and in place. It takes way too much time and effort hauling water.  Last fall we had to use a large tank to haul water to the site to water the plants. We have had so much rain our "wet weather" spring has been flowing non-stop.  The only problem is getting the water from the spring to where we need it so the girls have to load bottles, buckets, bins, and everything in between to water all of the berry plants we have. 

Race watering the berries

Race decided he wanted to ride on the mower with me.  Up until now it had scared him and he stayed well away from it.  He seemed to enjoy his couple of laps around the back lot and that was enough.
Disclaimer: it is dangerous to allow a child to ride on a mower.  They could fall off, be run over, or multiple other horrible things could happen.  Now that I got that out of the way every father enjoys that first time his boy wants to ride on a mower or tractor with him.

teaching Lacie how to operate the lawn tractor

Jenn and Lacie also wanted to mow so I just mowed for a little while and gave it up to them.  I was a bit nervous as they had never used this lawn tractor but they quickly got the hang of it and finished the mowing.

My apprentice carpenter

My carpenter apprentices, my girls but mainly Lacie, are learning.  The biggest hurdle we've had is with reading the tape measure but she will get better with practice.

 After I got off the mower Lacie and I got to work on the cabin.  The remaining floor joists were installed, the rim joists installed, and even though the plans didn't call for it we placed 2x6 blocking between every floor joist at the front, middle, and back support beam.  This stiffened the floor joists and will prevent any twisting or racking.  Of note the plans I purchased called for 2x4 floor joists, I did not feel that was adequate and after consulting span charts decided to use 2x6's instead.  This floor will not have any sag and after my upgrading it is nice and stiff.









We broke for our cookout and had a nice lunch.  We finally ended up leaving around six pm.  After not having much sleep the night before and putting in a full days work I was exhausted and ready to get home.  Everything was loaded and we headed out.

Preparing lunch

After lunch relaxation

And of course some reading

 The cabin is nearly ready for flooring.  After we complete some minor details the floor will be laid and we can start framingl

A full days work