Bathroom Project

How many rainy days does it take to finish a bathroom makeover?  Ah, who's counting, it's done now.  We've been calling it the "bathroom project from hell".

Here's the "before" picture minus the towel bar that we'd already taken down.

Before--April 27

 

 

I have hated this bathroom since we built the house.  The cabinet is not what I ordered but when it arrived and was wrong we didn't want to take the time to get the right one so in it went.  It's a tiny bathroom and always felt too confined.  I have two mirrors from my grandma's house that I refinished and wanted to use them somewhere so I was always looking for a new "antiquey" vanity.  I found one a few years ago at Lowe's but didn't have the right vehicle to haul it home.  Then when I decided I was definitely going to buy it it was out of stock.  I kept looking and finally this spring they had another one similar to the first one I found so we bought it.

I needed to paint so I asked M if I should paint it some color other than white and got a resounding "yes!"  The vanity sat around for a month (or more) until I finally guilted M into taking out the old cabinet so I could start painting.  That's when the trouble started.  Our amateur plumbers (M, his dad and his brother) ran the water lines through the floor and not through the wall so had just cut holes in the floor of the cabinet for them.  That meant cutting the cabinet to get it out.  Not a big deal, but then we had to cut the new vanity to get it in.  That wasn't the biggest deal either until we realized it was just barely wide enough for the water lines to go in and actually had to take off one of the legs in the back to make it work.  (No one will notice)

The painting was the easy part--oh wait, there was a snag there, too.  I went to buy the paint (smoky orchid) and the paint mixer wasn't working properly and they were working on it at the time.  I was in a hurry because I had an appointment to get my hair cut so couldn't get the paint.  I did make it back before they closed, though, and they had it ready for me, thank goodness.  I only go to town once a week and didn't want to have to make a special trip in just for that.  Town people don't understand. It's a very small bathroom and it didn't take long to paint, and I really like the color.  Of course, I bought too much paint so I'm thinking of painting the master bath the same color.  I had to put a chunk of cove base in where the old cabinet had been and wanted to get it done so just ran to the station in Richland and got some Liquid Nails.  As I was putting it in the caulking gun I noticed the date on it was many years past.  It was crap, but I did as best I could with it.  That reminds me I need to tell them at the station to check their supply and throw it away if it's that old.

We started the business of putting in the new vanity on a Sunday afternoon.  Not a good idea. For a moment we had fears of having to shut off the water to the whole house until we could get to the hardware store on Monday.  Luckily, M figured out a solution and we got the vanity in, but then we needed to get adhesive for the top and sealer for the sink, and an adapter for the drain which I did the next time I got to town.

When I painted I didn't fill the holes from the towel bar and toilet paper holder thinking the brackets for the new ones would match up.  Haha, what was I thinking?  Of course, they didn't so I had to fill those holes and paint.

We had a wall cabinet that I wanted to stain darker to match the vanity better.  I tried to sand some of the finish off but that wasn't working too well.  I had some stripper so tried that and that didn't work well either so I was to the point of thinking I had just ruined it and should start shopping for something else.  It was just a cheap cabinet, and I've had it forever so it wouldn't have been a big deal, but I couldn't find exactly what I wanted to replace it with.  I eventually put some stain on it and decided it would be okay but needed new knobs which I actually found locally--big surprise!  The wall cabinet has always bothered me because it wasn't centered over the toilet so we finally remedied that when we put it back up by drilling new holes.  Still not perfect since we wanted it hung on studs, but much better.

I needed a new shower curtain and rod since the blue ones that were in there didn't match the new paint.  I found a cool shower curtain with a tree on it and thought that would be better than ordering five trying to match them to the paint so I went with a tree theme.  For the finishing touches I hung a watercolor that my grandma had done and a tree photo that I had taken.

It took a few weeks but one afternoon I finally pinned M down and we put up the towel bar, toilet paper holder and one mirror.  I thought we had hanging hardware for the second mirror, but we didn't so I had to wait on that until I went to town.  That hardware has been sitting here for another few weeks, but we had rain today and we finally got that up so M is officially done with the bathroom....unless I decide to get a new light fixture.  I'm sure he's very happy and probably having a beer in the Mint right now to celebrate.

After--June 17

 

Panoramic view



A Little Hormonal

We've been busy with various things lately, but the most important has been artificial inseminating our heifers.  We gave them shots last Saturday.  We always joke about whether we'll chase them in or lead them into the corral.  A small group of them was in the northeast corner of the pasture and R rounded them up.  I was at the barn and watched them come through the holding pen and into the corral before R and M had even gotten to the ones on the west side.  They patiently waited in the corral for the rest of the group to get there.  There are advantages to bucket feeding them all winter.  They worked really well through the chute and it took M, R and I only a couple of hours to give 85 head shots and apply heat detection patches.

I was a little bit worried that we'd have some ready to breed on Sunday afternoon.  We had an important event that evening--Sawyer's birthday party--which had been postponed until we finished seeding.  Nothing was ready on Sunday, thank goodness, so they hit it hard on Monday.  I was kind of disappointed that I had to work and missed most of it.  I did hurry home from work to help with the last group.  By the time we finished up with those and took them to pasture it was 8:30 so we had supper around 9:30.  Everyone was ready for bed immediately after!  We were up bright and early on Tuesday morning and finished up the last ones and moved them to pasture, finishing just before noon.

We had much better weather than last year when it was drizzling the whole time, and the heifers came into heat a lot better.  We're hoping that means we'll get a better catch.  We had lots of sun and not much wind and then a rain shower after we had finished.

It's quiet around the barn again now and will be even more quiet once we get the bulls to pasture, probably this weekend, 

We're turning to other projects now.  The solar panels for the pump in the pasture are back up and water is flowing.  We'll be moving the cows to that pasture soon.  We have lots of fencing to do--like always.  We've worked on the new hay yard and now are moving a fence out of a bog to slightly higher ground.  We put some brace posts in this afternoon and were heading to the area where we need to put in some more when M got the skid steer stuck in a coulee.  I knew I wasn't going to take the pickup across there but thought he'd get across.  We didn't have a chain to pull it out so called it a day.  M didn't have time to go get a chain and go back and pull it out before he had to leave for a meeting.  Pretty sure it'll still be there tomorrow and hopefully R can help him get it out instead of me.

We were in prime tick habitat and sure enough, I had one crawling on my neck when I got home.  I need to go shower and make sure there aren't any more.  They give me the heebie jeebies!

Moooving

Seeding officially ended on Wednesday.  The goal is always to be done before June 1, and they went pretty hard the last week to make that happen.  We took the boys and families out for supper to celebrate on Tuesday night (M only had five rounds left so we weren't too premature).  Now we turn our attention to ranching again. 

Yesterday we played a game of musical pastures.  We needed to get the replacement heifers home so we can start the AI process next week and needed to get the cows with calves to their summer pasture.  The cow-calf pairs were roaming between two pastures so in the morning M and Junior pushed them all to the south pasture.  That gave us a buffer zone for when the replacement heifers came in.

Moving heifers is pretty easy.  Once you get them headed in the right direction (west), they're off and move pretty quickly.  It was about a two-mile jaunt, but it didn't take long.  Then we rounded up the cows and calves and headed east with them to the pasture adjacent to where the heifers had been. 

Moving pairs is always an adventure, and the more cows and calves you have the more difficult it can be.  Last year we had cows strung out for a mile and calves not keeping up and turning back looking for their mamas.  We tried a bit of a different tack this time and moved them a mile into the neighbor's water corral where they could rest and pair up (sort of) and then moved them the second mile.  Those on the 4-wheelers (M and R) were busy keeping the calves going in the right direction.  The cows knew where they were going and were happy to go.  We could have used another 4-wheeler, but one of ours is down at the moment.  We found two sick calves in the process.  One got a ride in the pickup and the other slowly made its way.  They received some medicine when we reached our destination.  I hope they're doing okay today.

M and R are busy getting the backhoe ready so they can try to repair the water line at the barn before we have heifers in there next weekend.

Still no progress on the bathroom project since our rain event turned out to be nothing but wind.  I only need an hour, but an hour is really hard to get sometimes.

Forgetting Something?

For a few days now I've been feeling like I've been forgetting something....oh, yeah, I haven't checked the cow cams.....because, there's nothing to check!  Our last heifer calved last week.  I was sure she would calve last Wednesday because M was seeding, R was rolling, and I was having a girl's day to celebrate Sawyer's first birthday so no one was around.  She didn't, but I kept telling R I thought she was close.  Before I headed out to help M the next morning I checked the camera and sure enough, she was in the process.  R had to admit that I am always right, haha!  He ended up pulling the calf but was very happy to be done with the heifers.  We still have three cows left, but they are on their own.  Maybe R can get back to a normal sleeping schedule.  R and I hauled the last four pairs to pasture so it's getting quiet around the barn.  That happened none too soon since we discovered a broken water line to the corral and had to shut the water off until we can get that fixed.  A top priority since we'll be bringing heifers in to AI in a little over a week.

We are on our last day of seeding, thank goodness!  J finished up yesterday and M is running around seeding spots that J left that were too wet or that he couldn't do with the big drill and the odd stuff like some oats.  They'll still have their CSP mixtures of turnips and radishes to put in a little later.

Everyone is tired and crabby so some time away from each other to rest and relax may be in order.  I'm hoping for a rainy day so we can finish the bathroom project from hell.  More on that later--hopefully with pictures of its completion.

"Pull It"

Say what?!

A couple of days ago we had a beautiful day and everyone was super busy.  M was at Opheim seeding, R was north of Glentana rolling, and in between running for the guys I was planting some flowers that my sister-in-law had given me.  It was getting close to 5:00 when it occurred to me that I hadn't checked the cow cams to take a look at the heifers.  I had been over there around noon making my daily check to make sure that we didn't have any more sick calves.

We only had three heifers left to calve, and we've all been so busy with farming that we had kind of lost interest.  I checked the cow cam and there were one, two.....where's the third one?  I panned over a bit and there she was on her side with feet out and not moving much.  In a panic, I jumped in the pickup to head over to see if she was alive.  On the way I tried to call R, no answer.  Then I tried to call M, no answer.  And I'm thinking what do I do, what CAN I do?  Who else can I call?

Just as I got to the corral I finally got R on the phone and told him I thought we had trouble.  When I got to her she jumped up.  Oh good, not dead!  She had been lying right by the gate into the shed, but she jumped up so fast that I wasn't able to get her in there.  I made a few attempts to get her in to no avail.  I didn't want to chase her around the corral too much and get her all worked up.  R told me to go to the house and let her settle down, watch her on the cow cam and hope that she had it without a problem.  He wasn't near his vehicle and didn't think I had time to drive the 20 miles to get him and get back.

M was working about 40 miles from here and when I finally got him on the phone and explained the situation he said, "you're going to have to pull it since we don't know how long she's had feet out".  I'm sure I got real quiet on the phone.  He assured me I could do it since I'd helped him many times and knew what to do.  J was on the tractor by my house so I called him and told him I needed help.  He got real quiet also when I told him what we needed to do.  He's not a fan of cows and isn't around them too much.  He's probably been around when we've pulled a calf, but it's definitely been awhile.

As we're driving over, J says to me "do you know what you're doing?"  I assured him that I did and just needed him to help me a little.  It took us a couple of tries to get her into the back pen and then she entered the barn at about 50 mph!  She was a little excitable, but we actually got her into the maternity pen and head gate with no trouble and went to work.  I went in and got the chains on and then we pulled.  I elected not to use the puller thinking that J was big and strong and shouldn't have much trouble.  In hindsight that probably wasn't the best decision because it was a pretty tough pull.  J had to put his whole self into it, and I would not have been able to do it by myself.  I'm happy to report that mother and baby are doing well and J and I are pretty proud of ourselves.

Lesson learned, and I have been keeping a better eye on the cow cams!  These last two heifers need to just hurry up and get it done.

"Your Heifers are a Pain in My Ass"

That's the call I got from R one morning.  He had had to pull a calf from one of my heifers around midnight and another one that morning.  I had to go to work and wasn't helping with chores, so M called to let me know one of my heifers was calving.  I watched them on the cow cam until I had to run out the door to get to work.  The next day I broke the news to R that the heifer had a twin sister still waiting to calve so he'd better keep a good eye on her.  She, however, had a good size calf unassisted on Sunday so I'm done.  It's their own fault for giving me the little girls.  We only have four heifers left to calve and a handful of cows.  This time of year everyone loses interest in the cows, but we've had cold, wet and windy weather so we have to continue to be vigilant.  M has found some sick ones out in the herd.  We need some sun and warm so we don't have a repeat of the problems we had last year.  The grass is being pretty slow to green up and grow.  It, too, needs some sun and warm!

Spring seeding is going along at a snail's pace because, well....because Spring is progressing at a snail's pace.  Last week I drove to work in a couple of inches of slush because we had snow and this week the ground was white again.  It's not unusual to have spring snows, but we'd rather have nice, warm rain.  I think J got in a day or two of seeding before it was too wet again.  We thought we'd have an early spring, but it's not looking like that will be the case.  They've continued to have problems with the new sprayer.......yes, BRAND-NEW sprayer.  The service guys get here in a hurry now when they're called and the salesman is nervous! 

K is pretty sure there is no hope of us being done and ready to celebrate Sawyer's birthday on her birthday (May 21).  What was she thinking, having a baby in May?!  Almost as bad as when I had one in August.  His birthday party almost always consists of pizza and beer in the combine.

Sawyer made her first foray into the field and played in the dirt.  She discovered sticks and rocks and leaves and thoroughly enjoyed herself.  She's walking like a champ and is a busy, busy girl!

Adoption Agency

Since my last post we've had two more adoptions.  One night R was pulling a calf from one heifer while another was also calving.  That calf was small and frail.  R tried to give it a bottle and thought it would last through the night and we could try again, but it was dead by morning.  I had heard on the radio that a neighbor had a calf for sale.  When M called about it he had already sold it, but later in the day he called back and said he had another set of twins if we wanted one.  M went to get it and we had very little trouble getting the new mama to take it.

A couple of days ago M decided to cut the splint off the broken-leg calf and see how it was doing since it was starting to smell.  He discovered that the ends of the bone were sticking out an open wound.  Very ugly.  We cleaned it out, applied some disinfectant and gave it a shot of antibiotic.  We tried to wrap it back up again, but the break is so high that we can't really stabilize it enough for him to get up on it so I gave him a bottle for a couple of days.  Yesterday R and I kind of made the decision to destroy it because it would never heal, and he knew he'd have to do it because M would never be able to.  R got busy and didn't get it done.  This morning we had another set of twins so M thought we'd give one to baby Bolt's mother.  He's still waffling on what to do with baby Bolt so I gave him another bottle. 

I think Bolt's mother is a bit tired of being moved into the barn, out of the barn, back to the barn, but she likes her ground feed so is pretty easy to work with.  M was not too optimistic that she'd take to a new calf after having Bolt for a couple of weeks, but we put them together and she didn't fight it.  I checked the cow cam a little while ago and the calf was trying to nurse and the cow wasn't fighting it so that's a good sign.  I don't think many ranchers try as hard as M, but it's always a shame when a good mother doesn't have a calf.  Too bad this one was kind of stupid while giving birth.

We are in full-on farming mode now and everyone has been on the run.  Yesterday our brand-new sprayer made it 20 minutes before it broke down.  That stressed everyone out because J was ready to switch to peas and that ground needed to be pre-sprayed.  We knew the wind was supposed to howl today so it was important to get as much done yesterday as possible.  They thought they fixed the problem and it worked for another 30 minutes before it had problems again.  They tried something else and it has been working since then.  Apparently someone at the factory didn't put something together right.  That's been a common and frustrating problem on new equipment lately.  As much as we pay for stuff it should work properly!

I was just having my morning tea thinking I'd have the day to myself when M called to see if I was up because we needed to move the water truck for C and get a seed truck for J and feed the cows.  R was already on the road to Glasgow with a load of lentils.  And, oh yeah, we needed to haul feed to the guy feeding our replacement heifers.  We did manage to get home and have lunch, but then R called in a panic because he had a bunch of cows and calves in the yard and needed help.  We got that taken care of and proceeded to load feed buckets.  We delivered those and came back and picked up J who had moved his tractor and drill and then I got to come home, around 5:00.  M is still at it somewhere.

There's rain in the forecast so maybe tomorrow will be a calmer day.  I've already made it known that I have a haircut tomorrow afternoon that I am not missing--I'm desperate!