Snow...

Well - the Weather Gypsies started out guessing that we'd get 6" to 10" of snow. Then it went down to 5" to 9". The they revised it to 4" to 8".

We ended up with about 3".....

Oh well, I had the tractor all set up and ready to blade snow, so I went ahead a did it anyway. I usually don't bother with anything less the 6" - it's just not worth the fuel. It only got up into the mid 20's today, but the snow melted rather well where I had bladed.

Tractor Buddy watched from a tire by the barn. She even held her ground when I backed up and dropped the blade within 6" of the tire.



I guess she is getting used to being around the tractor, even when it's running.

Since I thought it was going to snow more then it did, I had several boards lined up in the barn to clear nails. After that, I cut them to size and made divider panels for the stalls in the barn. I still need to make two more, and make permanent gates, but I'm making progress. Here is a shot from the gate going into that area of the barn.



All of the stalls on the left side are 64" x 42". The ones on the right are a little larger, but they all are large enough for a Nanny and her kids.

I built the panels from used lumber from a couple buildings that were torn down last year. The boards had several small nails because they were the roof boards (sheathing) that the shingles were nailed to. It didn't take long at all to "de-nail" them.

When we put down concrete in this part of the barn, we set small lengths of 1 1/4" PVC pipe into the wet concrete. When the concrete dried, I inserted 30" pieces of 1" metal pipe into those PVC pipes (the ones embedded into the concrete), and then slipped other 1 1/4" PVC pipes over the metal pipes. These second PVC pipes extend all the way up - and fasten to - the rafters.

When all of them were in place, I used 1 1/4" conduit clamps to fasten the tall pipes to the panels. Two clamps per pipe - one top, one bottom.



I bought a good amount of 20' long 1 1/4" PVC pipe at a couple of auctions in the past 3-4 years. It really came in handy for this.
I put a spring on all the gates in the barn (and some on the outside gates), so that they would shut on their own. Here is what one of them in the barn looks like:



The spring is from a light weight garage door. It will bring the door back pretty good. I don't have this one tensioned very tight but, it doesn't really need to be. It still comes back really good, and the goats haven't figured out how to open it yet, even if it is unlatched. Even if they DO open it, they will only be able to get into the other part of the barn, not outside.

I have this room to finish, then three more stalls in another room, and some platforms for the goats to sleep on.

Then it will be time to start another project.

I'm sure I will think of something....