Monday, October 24, 2005, 21:55
The Deed Is Done
As of Sunday evening, the shelter-shed was in Isabelle's pasture. That's the good news.
The bad news is that the horse was not in the pasture.
At 6 p.m., we broke off a wire trying to put the fence back together, so Isabelle had to stay in the L-pasture for the time being.
We started moving the shelter off the driveway at noon on Sunday. The first part of it, hooking onto it with the tractor and pulling it over the bank into the pasture went very well. We took the fence down first and pulled out some posts, too, figuring it was best to take the most direct route, instead of pulling the thing down to the barn, around the garden, around to the back of the barn, maneuvering it through three gates and then into the pasture.
The first five minutes at the edge of the driveway was the critical time. As soon as the front of the shelter tipped down the bank, I held my breath, waiting to see if it was going to go down the slope gently, or if it was going to pick up speed.
It went down gently. Thank goodness.
When Randy got into the pasture with the tractor and the shelter in tow, he turned toward the east.
I couldn't help wondering why he had turned toward the east, because if he had turned west, the shelter would have been facing in the proper direction. I didn't have much time to question his decision to turn east, though, because all of a sudden a tremendous *crack* rang out from the shelter.
One of the skid beams had separated from the frame. Pulled the nails right out. The turkey shelters were built on skid beams because they were made to be pulled around the fields at the turkey farm.
Randy idled down the tractor and got off. "Dog-gone it!" he exclaimed, sounding disgusted. "It's smashed to smithereens."
The shelter was *not* smashed to smithereens. A little crooked. A little bent out of shape. But not smashed.
"It is not," I said, "smashed to smithereens. Just a little separated. If you hook the chain to the front, I think you can straighten it out and put it back where it belongs."
Randy got back on the tractor, brought it around, and then we hooked a chain onto the skid beam. A few minutes later the beam was pulled back into place.
"Now we've got to spin it," I said. "Why *did* you turn that way, anyway."
Randy looked at me. Looked at the shelter. "I'm an idiot," he said. "I should have turned the other way."
Thus we began the long process of turning the shelter so it was facing the right direction. Randy hooked the chain onto the bucket and onto the front of the shelter. He lifted the shelter off the ground with the bucket and then put the tractor into reverse. A few feet later, the front of the shelter had come up another foot, so Randy dropped the bucket a foot. Bit by bit, backing up and then dropping the bucket, backing up and dropping the bucket, he finally got the shelter turned around.
"We need to move it just another foot," he said, as he walked around looking at the shelter.
"Why," I said.
"It's crooked," he said. "It won't be exactly parallel to the fence."
"Who cares?" I said.
"I do," he said.
It was while he was pulling the shelter back another foot that the second "crack" rang out.
This time, the other skid beam had separated from the frame. Except that this time, we couldn't get it pulled back where it belonged.
The loosened skid beam was minor, and we decided to go about putting the thing up on a blocks. The shelter needed to be on blocks to make it a little taller for Isabelle and also to level it out, seeing as it is sitting on the sidehill.
While Randy lifted the shelter with the bucket and the tractor, I put blocks underneath it and moved the chain when I had to. I kept a sharp eye on that chain, too. If the hook looked as if were going to slip, I was *not* going to have my hands or my head under the edge of the shelter. The chain did slip once, but I wasn't under the edge of the shelter at the time.
An hour later, the blocks were in place. Then we dug some post holes, sunk posts and nailed the posts to the frames to anchor the shelter to the ground.
We knew we wouldn't be able to finish the shelter on Sunday, but we figured if we put the fence back up, Isabelle could at least explore around her shelter and start to get acquainted with it.
We were just starting to put up the first wire when -- Ka-sproing! The wire broke. We use high tensile wire, and while it can stand a tremendous amount of pressure pulling on it, it cannot tolerate one little kink in the wire. It must have gotten a kink when we tried to pull it straight, and then it broke at the kink.
By this time it was nearly sunset, and while Randy worked on the wires, I was going to feed the horses. I had no more than gotten into the house so I could measure out feed when Randy came inside -- dripping blood from the end of one finger. [Later on, I found drops of blood on the basement floor, too. Where's my husband? Just follow the blood trail.]
As it turned out the wire had jammed itself under Randy's fingernail when he was trying to splice the two ends together. I don't even like to "think" about jamming something like that under my fingernail -- and there he was, calming assessing the damage while he waited for me to find the peroxide.
It was nearly dark by the time we got Randy's finger bandaged, so my husband decided to call it a day.
"Isabelle can stay in the L pasture for now," I said. "Won't hurt a thing."
Isabelle's shelter is *almost* a good job done -- and in a few days, I'm hoping it *will* be a good job done.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Saturday, October 22, 2005, 19:26
You. . .Turkey!
We now have a turkey shelter sitting in our driveway.
I know what you're thinking.
What's a turkey shelter?
And why is it sitting in your driveway?
Well, you see, there is a commercial turkey farm two miles down the road from us, and for years and years, during the summer and early fall, they raised "range turkeys" out in the fields. The turkeys needed someplace for shelter, and so, there were dozens of corrugated tin and wood shelters, sort of like little two-sided sheds with roosts inside. Then, a few years ago, the farms all owned by the same company stopped raising turkeys outside and now are only raising them inside buildings, and the shelters are no longer needed for turkeys.
Enter Isabelle. And my old gelding, Kajun, who has gotten grumpy in his old age, grumpy enough so that I am not at all sure he will let Isabelle stand in the barn with him this winter.
Randy and I decided we should build a shelter for Isabelle now, while the weather is nice, rather than take the chance that Kajun will not let Isabelle into the barn so that when the weather is 20 degrees below zero, we are outside, trying to build a shelter for her.
And since the old turkey shelters are just sitting there, not used anymore but in fairly good shape, we figured we could use one of those as a shelter for Isabelle: take out all the roosts, enclose three sides, put it up on blocks so it's high enough -- and presto, we have a small barn for our little black filly with the funny white face.
Well, it's not quite "presto" -- once the shelter is modified we still have to somehow ease it over the bank from the lower driveway and down into the pasture where Isabelle can use it. And we're going to have to take down the fence. And take out a fencepost. And hope that the bank isn't steep enough so the shelter gets up a good head of steam on the way down. I mean, really, it's not like Randy and I are going to grab a hold of thing and stop it if it gets going too fast. Or rather, it's not like *I* am going to grab a hold of it and stop it because Randy will be on the tractor, trying to get it started down the bank.
The next few days could be sort of interesting around here.
Now, if you'll excuse me, my husband is pulling out nails and is sawing and hammering, and I really ought to go and help him. . . .
LeAnn R. Ralph