StoneBridgeFarm: 2016

Riding and camping

New to me truck!

I still ride but not as much as I used to. I have had a very busy year with my 2 jobs and keeping up with the driving requirements of getting our youngest son to all his activities. It's been very taxing on my time to try and balance all of these items. I seem to be driving a lot. A LOT. But the good news is that I have a new to me truck to do all that driving in! And the best part of that good news is that the old truck is still here. It's going to be our youngest boy's first vehicle.
I did enjoy 3 camping trips this year for long weekends. 2 of them were with my friend Kathy and her horse Rio. The other one was with family.

Still loving beach riding in the winter

Wearing our winter woolies to keep warm

Summertime ride at the pine river-so low this year!!

Fall ride playing in the Branch River.

Family camping for my Mom's birthday! Strawberry Shortcake. Mmm

Our campsite for family camping. Horse, dog, boy and husband. A real first!

End of the day while camping this spring

Old fireplaces at Myles Standish State Forest

Rio "sharing" his hay in the morning. Amazing.

Yard remodel - phase four

Framing the building

Work in progress...

The next phase was to turn the run in shelter into a hay storage building. This meant a sill, a floor and another wall. Plus doors to access the building.
Then we could fill it with hay! And fence supplies. And shavings. And buckets. And off season items. And trailer parts. And camping supplies....We found "horse" storage items everywhere. In the tiny barn. In the hay tent. In the cellar. In the attic space over the shop. In the shop. How nice it is to find what we need now all in one place!!

Moving the equipment back to the tent

Move in day for the garage tent.

Next we moved the hay tent, er--garage. I was not present to photograph that!! I guess it was simply a group of people who all lifted parts of the frame and walked it on up to the location where the barn had been. The location was the path of least resistance anyhow. There already was gravel there. And an electric feed which is now hooked up to lights and power outlets. That makes the boy happy as he's tinkering on some lawnmower or other.

Can we knock it down? Please?

That only left a few more things to do. Knocking down the old chicken coop for one. This job seemed to call out to the boys to get it done. The old coop was falling in on it's floor. It was time to go. It served it's purpose well and then even did some extra jobs of storage for another couple of years. But it really was rotted and needed to go. I'm glad the 3 boys were here that day and wanted to take it down.

Yard remodel - phase three

Need power!

The whole barn move project hinged on power. Without wiring electricity out there we would choose not to move the barn. Keeping water from freezing has been the hardest part of housing the horse out back during the winter. That and nor'easter storms. For some reason those would fill the run in shelter with snow. The tiny barn can be closed up tight on a nor'easter so that wouldn't pose a problem but keeping water from freezing was an issue worth fixing. The answer was power. We had to run just over 450' of line from the house to the barn. That meant a bigger service for the distance than what we already had in the ground to the chicken coop and the tiny barn in it's current location. We had to go right from the house with a new wire and run that separately to the panel. Trench. Conduit. Pull wire and install. The first tool we rented for the job didn't work. It was under-powered for what we were doing. It was frustrating too. First we brought it back to the rental place and they fixed it so we thought that was the only issue. Then we learned better. It would stop working after less than a minute of trenching. So the next weekend we tried again only with this piece of equipment. This was the right stuff!

So much fun to dig with!

Millie "supervising"

mini bobcat with trenching tool

Millie filling it in.

This tool got the trench dug in short order. Next we had to lay conduit. Once that was all installed and glued we could pull the wire and hook it up! Nice to have a brother in law electrician to help us with supplies, advice and stuff!
Millie loved this project as digging is her favorite. Except chasing rocks. That is really her favorite. But digging is a close second. She was filling the trench in when we wanted it open and then digging the conduit up once we buried it. She tries to help. She really does.

Yard Remodel - phase two

Lining the trailer up

Barn Moving Day!

We bought the barn from Hill View Mini Barns. When we discussed moving the barn one option was to roll it on large logs by ourselves. We had to move it 400 feet or so and across that stone bridge we have. Somehow that seemed daunting. Another idea was to hire a tow truck. They could drag it up on a ramp truck and move it. $300 bucks or so. I was soooo nervous about that--it would be so high we'd have to cut limbs on the trees at the bridge. They were not insured for damages...etc. So we called Hill View to see what it would cost to move it. $450. AND WORTH EVERY PENNY. This truck and trailer is so specialized to the job. We were floored. The single man who arrived moved the barn in under an hour and without a hitch at all. The barn moved easily and we were all impressed with how it has been aging. The sill was in excellent condition.

And up we go!

Crossing the bridge

The trailer on that truck could move side to side (as seen in the video) with this extra axle that dropped down and faced the opposite direction. The driver didn't have to actually drive the truck to line up where he wanted it...he could move the barn side to side with his remote control until it was in the perfect spot. Amazing. The barn settled into it's new spot nicely. I dare say the horse was thrilled. He preferred to hang out in the barn when he had the choice of the 2 buildings for the next couple of weeks. I think he missed his barn when he lived out back.

Here comes the barn, King!

My first morning feeding with all the horse "things" in one location! Life is good.

With the barn in it's new spot we decided to park the horse trailer back there too. How nice it was for me to think, "I need a brush today to get that mud off him" and voila! there was a brush nearby to use. In the last 2 years that usually meant a 400 foot trek back to the barn or to the trailer and then back again to the shelter...that is if the horse was still hanging out at the shelter, instead of running off into the next couple of acres...
I feel so grateful for the closeness of the buildings.

Leveling the floor

New counter and shelves.

One of our friends has hired 2 of our older sons in the past as farm sitters. They both came home talking about the "apothecary" that she had. I have one now too! Another friend of mine wrote an article for Horse Illustrated and it had some barn ideas. Well, we used several of them in the barn now. I have a counter to do things at. I have a magnetic strip on the wall for my tools to stick to. I have a cabinet for dust free storage of some items. It's all so awesome. :) And of course the actual tack is right there in the trailer nearby. I love it. I love it so much that I even spent one whole thunderstorm out there with the horse. I sat in a chair in the barn and watched the rain and light show while I was knitting and listening to King munch on his hay. Soooo relaxing. I love this space. Thank you John!

Yard Remodel - phase one

Where the barn has been for 10 years.

We moved here in 2006 and set up our out buildings in a way that was appropriate for our family and pets and interests at the time. Well. Times have changed a bit since then. The barn has been an excellent investment. We spent minimal money for a very well built structure. It was delivered on a truck and just dropped off on the site. So easy! But for 2 years now it's been sitting vacant most of the time. We built a shelter in the back field some years ago and the horse really preferred to live out there. So for 2 winters now we have attempted to keep him out there as much as possible. Turns out it is possible. But it's a real pain. The shelter had no storage with it so the hay was kept in the tent structure as we had kept hay for the last 10 years. The tiny barn still had the feed room and blanket storage. And we were storing shavings in the old chicken coop. It made for very challenging feed routines. We've struggled with the decision to build a "real barn" the whole 10 years. Our long term plan had been to construct a 20'X30' bank barn in that hill near where the tiny barn has been. But after many, many pro and con lists we just can't seem to justify building that structure now. However, a yard remodel was desperately needed.

There are just 3 of us living full time at the house now. And our youngest son has different interests than his brothers. Naturally.

A boy in his element...in the summer.

The same boy in his element...in the winter.

So not only did we need to consolidate the horse hobby but we needed to house the motor hobby as it has been growing for some time now.

Project overview...Move barn to back field, run electrical power to the barn, re-purpose the run in shed to a hay storage building, relocate a portable garage tent and repurpose it to a, well. A garage. Remove old chicken coop and clean up yard (remove old horse fence, re-configure new fence, etc.)

Gravel arriving.

We rented a nice backhoe for a day to remove the soil and install gravel in it's place. We moved the gravel with this equipment too. Turns out the 15 year old could run this thing as if he'd had one his whole life. The word "element" really does come to the lips when we see him spending time with machinery.

Rented backhoe to prepare the site for the barn.

While we're at it maybe we could pop out a few of those pesky rocks...

Construction Trades Day

So much so that he hopes to go to college for heavy equipment. The high school had a construction trades day and he got to go. This photo is of him on a slightly larger backhoe. He also got to work with an excavator.

After finishing the work they had set out to do (by just after lunchtime) the green light was given to the boy to go and dig out some rocks that he really wanted to get at. They are in the way when he mows the yard. They are also in the way when he snowplows the yard. He was just itching to get them dug up and moved. He was successful with a good handful of them and then he discovered that some rocks were just way too big to move. We did finally find the bottom (or at least one bit of the bottom) of this rock and it was a full 4 feet from top to bottom. We attempted to undermine the rock and shove it over a little to reduce it's poking out of the ground but that wasn't very successful. It proved to be of an odd shape too. I think this boy dreams of getting at that rock again someday--with a full size excavator!!

Some rocks are just too big for this equipment.

John's Selfies

Mom and son

John likes selfies. Okay, to be clear on this...he's been taking selfies long before I ever knew there was a word for this. He's been taking them since before we knew each other (going back over 25 years now...)

We have 35 mm camera photos he took of himself from trips to DC and maybe even one up on the silo back at the farm. I know I've seen a few selfies from his way back past before. Now that the technology has made it easier we have LOTS of selfies. I will be at work and get a text message from him and it's often a selfie. I, myself, don't have the skill or the interest to master the "selfie". I've tried a few. They didn't please me. 'Nough said.

But John. Yes he loves them. Here are a few I found while looking through the photos from this year.

The first group is during a trip back home. If you were "lucky" enough to get close to him--you got photographed. I think Judy was clever enough to avoid him....