First I'll respond to a couple comments from previous entries ...
When I mentioned I was growing a beard in my Cemetery Walk post, Secretary Saving wondered how long it would have took for the Duck Dynasty guys to grow their beards out. Well, I've been cutting my own hair for about the past four or five years. I've come to determine that the hair on my head grows at about 1/8 inch per week. I've also been trimming my beard for the past month. I'm not sure how fast it grows, but definitely slower than the hair on my head. But, not at half the rate of the hair on my head. So, maybe 0.10 inches per week? And, let's say that to have a "Duck Dynasty worthy beard" one would need 10 inches of beard? So, I'd estimate about two years to have a duck dynasty worthy beard. I thought you should know.
I appreciate yesterday's responses about my Barn post. We will definitely look in to selling lumber from the barn. My guess is that there will be a supply/demand problem. We have a huge supply of old barn lumber in my rural neck of the woods, and relatively little demand, because there are so few people in the area. But, we will look in to it.
As far as the girls kicking in some money. I think they would have about $3,000 saved between them. Clearly that get's us very close to where we need to be. The problem is that for both me and DW, we had an agreement with our parents: we would buy the animals, feed and water them, our parent would house them, we would sell them at the fair, and keep the difference in a bank account, saved for only one thing: college.
Maybe we could work out a deal where we share in the cost. Maybe even DW and I could take out a low interest "loan" from our daughters. But the biggest problem I have with draining most of their accounts to refurbish our barn is that in the end, the money for college will have to come from somewhere.
I have no illusions that funds from 4-H animal sales will ever pay for all of college. Nor do I have the illusion that we will have to cover 100% of their college costs. Part time work and/or loans will certainly be part of the package. But, I would like to see where a good chunk of the first year or two of college costs are covered by 4-H animal savings. That's the way it was for me. That's the way it was for DW.
Speaking of 4-H animals - we're about to run out of straw for the animals. I'm guessing that not all of you know what straw is. I know many non-farm types call the bales of yellow plant matter "hay". Hay is green, and is fed to animals. Straw is yellow, it's what's left over when a wheat or oat crop is harvested, and it's used to provide bedding for barnyard animals.
When we moved into our house six years ago, I saw that there was a lot of straw left upstairs in our barn. I found out that it was put there by our Amish neighbor, Ray. My grandpa had let him store some straw in the barn. So, I visited Ray, and asked him about the straw. Ray had apparently forgotten about it, and told me it was mine to keep. It was, for us, apparently a six year supply, and we are about to run out.
It normally wouldn't be a problem to go out and buy straw. There's usually an abundance of straw on the market around here about the second week of July, when wheat is harvested. The problem is, last fall was vey wet. Locally, winter wheat is planted in the fall, and harvested in July. But, because of all the rain in the fall, relatively little wheat was planted. Most all of the local straw is already spoken for by the nearby dairy farms. It seems that no matter what small timers like me might be willing to pay, there will be little straw available.
My neighbor across the road has some large round bales of straw left over from last year. I could get them from him, no problem. But, we are set up to use small square bales best. I'm thinking that we'll need to figure out pretty quickly how to fit big round bales into our system.
Boy, it seems like there was something else I wanted to include in this entry, but it's not coming to me. I'll have to remember it, and include it later.
Loose Ends
June 30th, 2015 at 04:01 pm
July 1st, 2015 at 02:41 am 1435718512
July 1st, 2015 at 03:49 pm 1435765741
With the lumber, is it firewood? Our Kroger grocery store had bundles of about 6 pieces marked down to $.99. I was wondering if you spoke to the manager at a store if they'd have any interest. Maybe post online using an area Facebook page.
Could you make some of these and sell them? I bought one recently and love it.
http://greenesfence.com/Raised-Bed-Garden-Kits/
With the barn have you looked into the pricing of a kit? I'm thinking along the lines of 'tiny' houses but for barns.
July 2nd, 2015 at 05:48 pm 1435859321
July 2nd, 2015 at 06:50 pm 1435863029
July 6th, 2015 at 03:14 pm 1436195698
There's also a Michigan company that will tear down your barn for free in exchange for the materials. I'm not sure offhand how far they are from you, or how long it would be until they got around to removing the barn (or even if they'd be interested in it, of course) but it might be worth checking out if you're deciding between trashing and burning.
http://christopherconstructioncompany.com/barnwood/