Tag Archives: environment

Monday Afternoon Ramblings

August 29, 2011 D.A. Adams 1 Comment

338751_2210502496379_1061973238_2628575_112536_o — New wall along far side.

My apologies for being away so long, but this summer proved to be a roller coaster to say the least. I’ll spare the details, but just about everything that could go haywire did.

Today’s entry is a brief update on the farm. Yes, I’m still working on it and moving forward, but there have been several setbacks along the way that have made it a much slower process than I had hoped. Most importantly, it took a lot of work to fix the flooding issue along the back wall. Even after I installed the drainage pipe, I had to by hand rework the ground slope along the length of building to make water flow to the drains. That was one of the hardest, dirtiest, hottest jobs I’ve ever done and took many, many days to complete. However, now, I’m fairly confident that the situation is under control. There are only a couple of places inside the building that need to be sealed to prevent water from flowing through erosions in the mortar.

Another major issue that has taken much more time than originally anticipated has been repairing the outer wall. After close inspection, I realized that virtually every board along the front and far side needed to be replaced, so I’ve had to strip the entire area and cut boards to replace what was water or pest damaged. Fortunately, the treated wood of the foundation is in good shape, but it has still been an enormous job.

Also, after looking at the water issues along the far side wall, we decided to replace much of the old wooden wall with new cinder blocks. I’m not a brick mason, and it has been 22 years since I last laid block, so that’s coming along slowly. Tearing out the old wall took a little time, too, but I believe that once it’s complete, the new wall will be much better against the elements.

While I’m not where I wanted to be by this point, overall, I’m pleased with the progress. The building isn’t too far away from being functional, and we should be able to begin production over the next few months. Again, thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged me along the way with this endeavor. I appreciate you more than I can express.

General Posts

Thursday Morning Ramblings

May 19, 2011 D.A. Adams Leave a comment

Just to give an idea of the progress we’ve made, here are a couple of pictures from before. The two above are of the interior back corner before we started. There were two frames for rooms that had been put up and also a plethora of wood, molds, and junk that had been stored back there. The picture below shows what that corner looks like now. My apologies for the poor picture. All I had with me was my phone, and the lighting was poor yesterday. I’ll try to take a better picture soon.

General Posts

Wednesday Morning Ramblings

May 18, 2011 D.A. Adams Leave a comment

Drainage Ditch with Pipe — The drainage ditch behind the building before being filled in.

Excellent news on the building. The new drainage system, a variation of a French ditch, seems to be working. Despite the heavy rains yesterday, there was very little water inside the building, and what little water was there came from the area in the roof around the chimney. That’s a fairly easy fix and shouldn’t cost much money. I can’t even begin to express how good it feels that all of my hard work is paying off.

The picture above shows the pipe before the dirt was filled in. The one below shows the pipe covered with dirt and sections of brick over the drill holes for drainage. If you look at the black plastic on the wall, you’ll get an idea of just how much dirt was moved to fill it in. So far, it’s working exactly like we expected. There’s still some work to do on the ends to get the water flowing away from the building, but the bulk of the job is complete.

The building is coming together. soon, I’m going to start posting some of the before pictures to illustrate just how far we’ve come. Overall, I’m pleased with where we are. There’s still a lot to do, but with the momentum we have, I’m certain we’ll be successful.