A Great Week So Far

Did you see yesterday's A Word For Wednesday?

A Great Week So Far

Tuesday and Wednesday were exciting days around the Lazy OD Ranch. We were blessed to spend time with family, friends and more family. We really enjoyed the visits.

Tuesday KJo's mother, we call her Gran, and one of Kelly's nieces, Morgan came over. They were picking up some graduation decorations that my sister gave them and it was wonderful to see them.

We do not get to see Morgan all that much and we are glad she tagged along. This was the first time she had seen the house.

Tuesday afternoon we drove to Florence, Kentucky to meet wonderful friends for a meal and fellowship. The Apostle Donald C. Williamson, Sis. Gayla and their daughter and son in law, Sis. Rachel and Bro. Kevin Collins were in northern Kentucky visiting the Ark and the Creation Museum.

We were hoping they had time for a visit and we are so glad they squeezed us in.

Long time readers know that we love these folks and that we cherish their friendship. We seldom get to see the Williamson's outside of Alabama or the Collins' outside of Oklahoma and Alabama, so this was a special treat for us. We enjoyed the meal, but we especially enjoyed visiting with our friends.

But the fun was not over. Wednesday, Kelly Jo and I were blessed to have my brother Steve with us all day long. He and Karen are home this week and we love it. We worked on a barn project while he was here, but nothing too strenuous. Mostly Steve and I supervised KJo.😊

It was wonderful to have him with us all day. We have more special friends that are supposed to visit today and Steve should be back too. We are looking forward to it!

Hopefully, I will have pictures of all that later. Thank you for spending a few minutes with us today.

Davy

It is Time For Some Air!

Is it feeling a bit stuffy in here? Hey, smash that little button on the thermostat. It is time for some air!

Saturday was a big day that we have been anticipating for a long time. 

You have seen pictures and videos of the room that I use for a study that is built into the attic area of our barn. I have recorded a few installments of A Word For Wednesday up there and it works great for that. 

Since the room is up in the attic part of the roof, the room is virtually unusable in the summer. I have to keep a dehumidifier going around the clock to keep from ruining my books.

It has been my goal for a long time to install a mini-split air conditioner unit up there. A mini-split will cool in the summer and provide heat in the winter. Last year, a family donated the money specifically for us to buy and install the mini-split. I called the guy that did the heat and air in the house, he looked it over and scheduled it for May 1.

I thought I would be back on the road by then and Dad could let them in the barn. As you know, I am still here, so I was able to see the whole process and enjoy the fruit of their labor and the blessing of the wonderful gift to us. We are so very thankful.

The weather right now is perfectly springlike, so neither heat nor AC is needed up there at the moment, but summer is coming and I will be able to use the room IF we are home.

I took some pictures of the process and of the finished project. I know you may not enjoy these as much as we do, but that is OK.😊 We are so happy to have this completed.

This is Jeff Haines from Haines Heating and Cooling. He services this whole area with installs and troubleshooting problems with your systems. I highly recommend him.

I was upstairs studying one evening this week and it was a little stuffy. I pushed a couple of buttons and all was right in the temperature world! Awesome!

Thank you for dropping by Mile Markers for a few minutes today. I know that your time is valuable.

Davy

Can You Remodel A Barn?

We have only owned the Lazy OD Ranch and the barn since December 2014, but we are "remodeling" already.😁

For new readers, you may wonder what I am talking about when I say the Lazy OD Ranch. Well, I named this property the Lazy OD Ranch with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek. This property consists of two parcels that are .861 acres each for a grand total of less than 2 acres. Hardly a ranch, but it works in our life.😍

One of the very first things that I did after taking possession of the barn was to build a workbench in the northwest corner of the barn out of scrap lumber that my brother Steve brought to me. 

Can you see the electrical panel to the left of us in the pictures above? Dad told me that I would regret building the bench in front of the electrical panel, but I thought it was fine.

It was fine for the first few years until it was not fine anymore. The last year or so, I have dreaded working in the panel, because I had to reach over the bench. It took me some time to consider how to do it, but the plan finally fell into place. 

I removed the workbench section on the north wall, but I kept the piece I removed intact. 

Then I cut the section directly in front of the panel and put in bracing so that piece is removable. 

Then I put the section from the north wall on the opposite side. I still have an L shaped bench, but the electrical panel is accessible in moments.

Once that was completed, I redid several circuits in the panel and added the new breakers that were needed.

Having the panel buttoned up, put me in position for the work that was completed Saturday. I will tell you about that work on Thursday by God's grace. 

Thank you for praying for me. I am trying to be active, but I am working in short stretches and taking more breaks than are probably allowable by law.

I appreciate you joining us today.

Davy

Getting Ready For A New Barn Door

OK, I have been hinting at a barn project and I told you I would fill you in soon. It is not completed and will not be for a while, but phase one is almost done. 

Working with an oxygen machine on my shoulder is a bear, but we worked very slow and deliberately. The pictures and descriptions below cover several days and gloss over frequent long breaks gazing toward what needed to be completed.😊

When we purchased the Lazy OD Ranch in December 2014, the only structure was a pole barn built around 1982. The very first thing on my agenda was removing the sliding doors on the front of the barn and having an overhead door installed. It is now April 2021 and we still have sliding doors on the front of the barn.

😎

Time and circumstance got in the way, that is for sure.

The sliding doors work fine, but when they are frozen to the ground in the wintertime, there is no getting them open quick. When there was a massive amount of snow on the ground in February and I was sick, we could not get them open.

I had an overhead door company look at the project while we were home for Christmas in 2014. The original employee that looked at the opening said the door would be less than 12' wide when they were finished. 

Ouch! 12' is the absolute minimum I would want and I much prefer it wider. They were supposed to send their head guy to look it over and then work up an estimate. Two appointments were made, but he never showed OR called to explain.

I did not push the issue, because, during that time at home, I discovered that we had a more pressing issue. The 32 year old shingle roof leaked like crazy and it leaked in different places every time it rained.

The roof became top priority. That next summer, Bro. Mitch Boggs Jr. and Bro. Jason Fellers transformed the barn with a beautiful metal roof.

They not only added the roof, but also added trim and dressed up the sliding doors. 

In 2017 we started on the house and the barn naturally went to the back burner. The installer that put the garage door on the house was supposed to give us a price on the barn door, but that fell through the cracks several times and we were too busy to pursue it.

The first company in 2014 was going to build out both sides and reduce the door opening to 12' or less. That was a no starter from the beginning, but at the time, I did not know what to do to maintain the width.

I could get by with a 12' door, but it would be tight. Most guys with buses I know that put in a 12' door regret not making it wider. Through the years, I have studied the opening and the posts and figured out what would have to be done to retain the space for a wide door. 

The door will have to be off-centered a few inches on the front of the barn, but it is the only way to preserve a wide opening and we are willing to deal with it.

Recently, my father in law gave me the name of a reputable company and I contacted them. They sent a guy out the next week and he confirmed what I would need to do, framing wise, to get it ready.

The right side post needed about six inches added to it, making the opening narrower. The left side needed the upright post moved outward to make the opening wider. 

The first thing was making the platform on the left side of the barn smaller. We did that a month ago, remember?

The platform previously extended over to the post that I have marked in red. The post was removed and a new post is now between where the old post was and the new edge of the platform.

The first day we built the right side out about six inches. That post had to clear things on that side that could not be moved.

Then we widened the left side several inches over toward the recently moved platform. We built a new post on that side and then removed the old beam. We had an opening of 13' 8" before and we have an opening of almost 14' now. 

We had some metal trim pieces left over from the house and we used it to cover the new door posts. It is ready for the door, but that will be down the road a bit. After the door is installed and the sliding doors are removed, we have some more trim to add on the outside.

The old door post is buried in the ground and concrete. The part that is still in the ground will be exposed to the outside once the new door is up. I am drilling it out a few inches down and I will cover it with concrete.

The concrete where the edge of the door will rest was a bit higher and needed to be ground off. David Butler came by last week and ground it off in a few minutes. I sure appreciate his help.

Gary Coffman came up one morning and ran the wires to the receptacle for the future opener and then down to the future switch location. That was a big help. I can certainly do that type of work, but the least amount of time that I spend 17' in the air right now the better.

That brings you up to date on the barn door project. I will give you more news once the door is up and operational down the road.

Thank you for joining us today.

Davy