The Beginning Farmer Builds: An Update

Here is a neat picture that my wife took out at the farm today. If you frequent her blog you will notice it showed up there as well, but since I was a little to busy to be snapping pictures today we are going to have a duplicate. Anyways, I think this is a pretty cool picture because of the things going on in the picture ... and just out of the picture. Here is what was going on:

• You can see Bobby supervising off on the left ... He and his wife stopped by just to check it out and see what was going on.
• Cal is handing a piece of sheet rock up to Doug (he started this whole deal with the help) and Steve on the scaffolding.
• There are various wires running up and down the walls thanks to Bob (and my wife).
• You can see that we have some food on the platforms in the foreground so that everybody has enough energy.
• The walls and the insulation are up thanks to my father-in-law along with a few others (Ken, Dave, etc.).
• And, I'm over on the right trying to figure out what needs to be wired up for our doorbell (I skipped the fire alarms and am going to seek advice on those).

Now, what you don't see in the picture is this...

• Tim helping with various prep work, including moving 100 pieces of sheetrock out of the way
• Paul and Al are over working on putting up sheet rock on the walls.
• Charlie and Dave are getting another piece ready to be put up.
• And, the rain is coming down outside making the roads a muddy mess for guys that baby their vehicles! They really are sacrificing a ton to help us out.

It took us a little while to get going this morning (getting things set up, fixing an electrical problem, and remembering all of the steps), but once we got going I'm very excited about the progress we made in such a short time. It will be neat to see what we get done tomorrow!

Have You Ever Built a House?

One time in 9th Grade Shop Class I built a dog house sized house out of balsa wood and glue. Well, I guess I should say that my group and I built the house. I did get to take it home though ... where I'm pretty sure my friends and I smashed it! But, now we are inching ever closer to building our own house. I think if you would have asked Becca and me eight years ago if we would be building and house and starting a farm all at the same time we would have said you were crazy. We have always wanted to live in the country on a quiet road with some animals for fun, but back then something like this wasn't even on the radar.

We have been married for just over seven years now, and during that time we have lived church owned property for just of six of those years (we lived in an apartment for around 10 months). But, judging by the stack of wood and equipment that we saw at our farm on Wednesday night we are going to be living in our own place very soon.

This is pretty exciting stuff because we are carving our farm out of nothing. I often tell people that we are like the original homesteaders coming to Iowa and building their lives on bare piece of ground, because that is just about what we are doing. Except I think that maybe those early Iowa settlers had a little more building (and farming) experience that I have!

So, have you ever built a house ... or even more specifically have you ever built a house out of a pole barn? That is what we are going to be doing for the foreseeable future (with the help of family) and we would love to have any tips or hints that you have!
**A little update on our boar: After talking with our builder yesterday we found out that they were at the farm until a bit after five on Wednesday and he was still in his pen when they left. They did mention that he was panting heavily, but he had plenty of shade and water and even cool mud. We got out to the farm around seven that same evening so he couldn't have been out very long at all. Basically he was able to bend up the cattle panel between the fence posts (spaced 4 feet apart). I think there must have been something medically wrong with him, but we will never know for sure. Still hard to swallow...