Alpaca barn and plywood flooring

Brent and I spent our Labor Day weekend building muscles. Brent putting together the planks he milled from salvaged material for our main level floor and Skylr and I starting the work on the barn for the alpacas.

Brent discovered that what seemed like a small part of the job was actually quite time-consuming. The dominos that are used to create the strong and very level joints between the planks take a long time to insert and glue into the boards. He felt like that was taking the majority of the time assembling the floor.

So, after a slow start, today he was able to hire our eldest son to help and the job went faster. Here's a picture of their progress.

Brent (left) and Blaine installing plywood flooring.

The floor is going to be beautiful. I will love showing it off and telling everyone how Brent engineered it from scrap wood. I know it will make a pretty floor, but even better, its story will be interesting. It's been hard work for Brent but worth it to save some beautiful material from rotting in a landfill.

I think it's going really well. The schedule is pretty tight. But he has a week and, as he's learned a system for installation with the first days, I imagine the next days will continue to be more and more productive.

For my part, after spending many hours over the last weekend trying to layout the barn on it's leveled site, it was clear I needed to have a hand with my project. So our next to youngest, Skylr, agreed to make a little money over the weekend helping me.

Together, after I found some instructions on another barn kit company's website, we managed to make the barn layout square. Here's how it looked when we finished the layout:

View of southwest corner of barn site - orange spots are pole placement.

Sunday we rented a pull-behind gas-powered auger with a 16" bit for drilling the holes for the posts. I was under the mistaken impression that it was hydraulic. It wasn't but it certainly appeared big enough to me.

Rented auger from Home Depot

The handle near the auger bit was at about 4 feet high - about chest height for me. Unfortunately we need the holes to be 4 feet deep. I didn't realize when I saw this bit that it would only go about 3 feet deep.

Skylr and I worked very hard running that machine for 5-6 hours on Sunday. Neither of us is very tall so it wasn't easy to hold on to this spinning metal bit and also apply downward pressure while it attempted to chop through tree roots and break up rocks. It just did not want to stay where we put it. Instead it would run all over the top of the ground. Rather than digging the bit seemed intent on chasing off the brave person holding it by threatening to eat their feet! 

Amazingly, we finally got one hole as deep as the bit and the handle would go. We measured for accurate placement on our line when we'd reached a depth of 1 1/2 feet and found we were not close enough to our mark to place the post correctly. So we fought to adjust one edge of the hole and used shovels to widen the opening in the needed area. After more drilling we thought we might be getting the hang of it. As the handle finally reached the ground and the bid was as deep as it could go, we measured again to discover the hole was only 3 feet deep. Hmmm. That's when I realized we couldn't get this job done with this equipment.

Trying to make the best of our rental time, I decided to try and make another hole. At least we could get most of the way to the 4 foot depth, right? But this time the bit wouldn't bite into the ground at all. After fighting with it for what seemed a terribly long time, we measured. It had only gotten us one foot deep. And the ground looked shiny-slick like hardpan clay.

This is where we ended:

One 3' hole and one 1' hole in around 5 hours

The barn will have 18 posts. It was painfully (literally, physical pain and blisters) obvious that we did not have the right equipment for this part of the job. So we hooked up the auger to the truck and decided to work on cleaning up.

And on top of that beating to my pride and old muscles our canopy that we used for shade was destroyed by the wind. We had found these great concrete plugs with handles from the tops of the cisterns that were perfect for anchoring the portable canopy on this windy day. Tied to those plugs the wind just caught the cover. The constant movement of the top twisted the metal legs until they broke. The legs did not come off of those concrete plugs, though. So those plugs were the right equipment :-)

See, at least one thing I did was right. Just kidding, there were some other positives, I think.

I continued to pay Skylr today (Labor Day). He helped me place the stakes for the new fence along the draw. It went a lot faster with him on the other end of the tape to mark the 50' distance between the posts and help find a straight line. I am very happy with it. The fence will follow the draw so from the north side of the property it travels relatively straight south. Then at about halfway across the pasture it takes a 45-ish degree turn to the west until it hits the south side of the property. The fence will have 2 large gates: one for accessing the crossing to the back pasture; the other for accessing the area intended for the pond. So, when I find the person with the hydraulic auger to drill the holes, they will all be marked and ready. 

I wonder how long it will take the right equipment to drill 18 holes for the barn and 14 more for the fence. Eight hours? Ten? And how much will that cost? Whatever it is, I think it will be worth it. 

Dang, nothing like digging a really deep hole in very hard earth to make you feel… appreciative of someone else's tractor? (I'm trying to find a positive because I slid back into the negative.)

Next week, exterior house paint!