Finally…electricity and indoor plumbing

This may only be incredibly exciting to me - but we have a toilet! We don't have the faucets connected for the sinks in the bathroom yet. But, still, a toilet that flushes? What person wouldn't love that after more than a year of a Porta-Potty?

It's beautiful :-)

We also have all of the lights installed now (thanks to Jeff with Teague Electric). I was so happy to see last night that the kitchen is well lit. Our stove is also in place and we discovered that the countertop for the island needs to be rebuilt because the opening for the slide-in range is a little too deep. Other than that it looks great.

All lights are installed.

Brent and I did a lot of work shopping at ReStore and on Craigslist to get most of the light fixtures. We even got our ceiling fans - and they are really cool! It feels good to re-use these things - and in almost all cases it saved us a ton of money.

Even the bathroom cabinets, countertops and faucets came from Craigslist. Yesterday we did some shopping and found more things at ReStore. Our "new" toilets are a matching, pristine set from the 87th Street store. They were complete with working flush mechanisms and cost us $25 each. That's an incredible deal! And they look brand new. All that made it easy to get over the idea of a used toilet. And what is there to be squeamish about after a year of using a Porta-potty?

Brent will focus on getting the bathrooms totally functional this weekend. Then he will shift his attention to the monumental task of staining and finishing the main level flooring. This will include an intensive cleaning job for the upstairs to eliminate all of the construction dust.

The rest of us will continue to "chip" away at the painting job. That job gets closer everyday to being finished. We will finish up the downstairs and start on the master bedroom. Logan painted the entire half-bath side of the master bathroom yesterday. We are very lucky to have such a hard-working son :-)

Alpacas are home!

How many alpacas fit in a cargo van?

Ever wonder how to move alpacas? I found an answer: in a cargo van. We moved our guys to the farm last weekend in my step-dad Pete's cargo van - all SEVEN!

All 7 of the boys are "cushing" as we drive on I-70 through Kansas City.

They were quite packed in and we lined the van floor with a drop cloth and some matts that we got from the Harrison's with the purchase of the alpacas. They had no mishaps or accidents on the 60 minute drive across town. Several times a few of them would stand up but, as soon as we hit bumps or curves they would cush again. There were a few instances of spitting (at each other) that got the windows a little dirty. And it was fun to see people behind the van pulling up close to take pictures with their phones!

My co-pilot took a selfie :-)

Jeremy and the alpacas in the van driving through the city.

A big THANK YOU goes out to Pete for loaning us the van and following us back to the farm in the truck! We couldn't have made this happen without you.

After the alpacas unloaded at the farm we had to figure out how to corral them and remove the halters. Jeremy was a big help. And I was able to use the handling techniques I learned at the Camelid Dynamics workshop I attended last Spring to get them into a small area and avoid grabbing them by the neck and wrestling the halters off. It was time-consuming but a calm procedure.

Removing the halters.

Jeremy and I spent the night at the farm to make sure our herd fared well in their new spot. We were anxious to find out if they would be comfortable with all the coyote antics that go on in the wee hours of the morning. And as the sun came up we were glad to see everyone was happy and healthy.

The alpacas' first day at their new home.

Amazingly, they slept out by the fence in the dirt (which they seem to love to roll in). They were wet with dew! Which, of course, turned to mud where they were rolling in the dirt. All dirt is apparently good in camelid personal grooming practice.

Dew-covered alpacas.

I've been encouraged to see them getting more and more comfortable. They've been exploring the barn and all the areas of their small enclosure. They love the neighbors cats and the horses that live to the north and south of us.

I'll keep you updated on their antics :-)

Painting (with a lot of help!)

Now that we have the floor and cabinets installed it's time to paint and, boy, is that a big job!

Brent's dad, Bob, flew in from Washington state to give us a hand last week and over the weekend. The previous weekend Brent's brother, Bryan, drove up from Springfield, MO. The three of them put primer over the whole interior (main floor and lower level). And by the end of the weekend they had painted the ceiling in the large family room and were ready to paint color on the walls.

Bob taping around the kitchen window.

Brent and his dad taking a break for a picture.

Finally, we got to see the color. Beautiful!

We still have a ways to go. Getting everything painted seems a never-ending job but it really does make it seem much less like a construction site and more like a house. The walls look so clean!

I am so inexpressibly thankful for these hard-working Ragsdale guys who made it possible. There is no way we could have done this big job ourselves in any reasonable timeframe - and no way to thank them enough.

So, THANKS, Bob and Bryan. We definitely owe you a big favor (probably several). You guys are the best!

Alpacas are coming

Over the weekend I visited our little herd of alpacas at their current home in Blue Springs, MO. They are in the process of getting their health certificates so they can move to Happy Apple's Farm next weekend. I am so excited!

The boys look good. But we accidentally walked them all through a patch of cockleburs and I'm afraid their fiber may be ruined for another season :-(. The cockleburs mean that we may not be able to have the fiber processed anywhere. I could process it by hand, though. In fact, their current owner has given me last year's fleeces for hand processing for the same reason - cockleburs.

I didn't get any photos of them while I was there because we were busy pulling out fencing and posts to set up their new enclosure at our farm. Because they are the last of the herd at their current home, the owner is giving me all the fencing, gates, buckets and equipment that he has. I'm very happy with the deal. These boys came with a lot of equipment and that has set us up pretty well. But moving it and installing it was a lot to accomplish over the weekend.

Here's how their new pasture looks at our farm:

New fence encloses between 1/3 to 1/2 acre. Brent is making it look even more handsome :-)

A tarp will provide temporary cover at the barn if they need it. Nothing would make this more handsome.

I was hoping to have a roof on the barn prior to moving the boys in. But building a barn almost on my own is WAY more time-consuming than I hoped - especially only working on it weekends and evenings. (Brent is helping too by staying focused on moving the house construction forward.)

Funny thing about alpacas is that they don't really need protection from the rain or cold. So the cover is only for shade. Thankfully, it isn't too hot right now so even the shade isn't essential. And they still have plenty of grass to eat so I don't need to store hay yet. Keeping their hay dry is the other purpose of the barn.

The boys will move in next Saturday or Sunday depending on the weather. I can't wait!

Barn update

I'm still working on the barn (I think it may take forever).

The truss carriers are all installed now and the barn is ready for the trusses. That will require more than just me to accomplish. So I'm hoping to tackle that in a couple of weeks. You will notice in the photos that the gravel floor is also in place. That made it a lot easier to stabilize the ladders.

Here are a few of the latest pictures:

Truss carriers installed. Doesn't look like much, does it?

Me, after work, driving the huge ring shank nails.

I learned a lot about hammering nails. I also bought myself a good hammer. It's pretty darn obvious when you start trying to drive big nails that a good hammer saves a lot of time and trouble.

We received several different types of nails with the barn kit. All the wall girts and skirt boards were attached with regular framing nails. Those seemed pretty big to me when I started. Then I opened the box with the ring shank nails for the carriers!

The top 2 nails are the 5" long ring shank nails that hold the truss carriers.
Bottom nail is the typical framing nail.

 After our first day of trying to drive those ring shank nails, I realized that even with a good hammer then weren't going in. They needed pilot holes.

First attempt at driving truss carrier nails (bent over nails). The flush nails had pilots.

We had to do a little shopping to find the long drill bits needed at the correct size. But after all that, we piloted and drove all 108 nails for the truss carriers (actually more than that, because I put in extra if I thought they were needed).

Hope the roof stays up after all that!

Trim and doors are in the works

Rick and Dave have been concentrating on installing all of the knotty pine trim and the interior doors. And those are looking great. Here is an example of their work in the lower level.

Closet doors in southwest bedroom.

It's really turning out nice - very simple and rustic.

They have also nearly finished the stairs. I'm excited to see the stain on the main level floor and the stair landings. It should contrast nicely with the unfinished knotty pine trim.

Kitchen cabinets!

Yesterday a kitchen was born :-)

Kitchen cabinets installed

I left work in time to catch the installers putting the finishing touches on these. They look perfect - simple and clean. The only problem we had was the lack of our kitchen sink. It was supposed to be onsite for this event so the hole could be cut into the countertop.

So our big open living space went from this:

 To this:

It was a big day! And it meant we were finally able to pick the stain for the flooring :-)