Goat Houses

"Then the tabernacle was taken down; and the sons of Gershon and the sons of Merari, who were carrying the tabernacle, set out." Numbers 10:17

Far cry from the tabernacle.
And the sons of Gershon and Merari were nowhere to be found.
But the little goat houses are finished and Eric and Michael moved them into place! We're almost ready for the critters!!

If you check out my Scrap Lumber post, you'll see what we started with to build the goat shelters. Now you know why Eric wanted to use a pallet as the base!! Pretty ingenious, if you ask me.

Pressing on

"I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:14

True - we do press on toward this goal. However, today we're also pressing on toward the goal of finishing the patio.

In comes the dirt. For some reason, we thought we had to remove 9" all the way around. In reality, we only had to remove 9" where the drain pipes were. So, we had to bring all that dirt back in.
Thank goodness for the tractor!!

Looking good!

The laser level works great for leveling the dirt all the way across.

Gravel is next. Now I'm really thankful for the tractor!

Can you imagine how heavy that would be?
Or how long it would take with a shovel?

Are we finished? So soon?

Actually, we're finished several hours later. But doesn't it look good?
If you look back near the foundation of the house,
you'll see three little black boxes on the ground.
Those are the grates for the drainage system.
Wait till you see what we did with these!!

You know, it seems to me that something was missing today.
Oh yeah - Michael (our hired summer help)!
I'm sure he's glad to know we still work when he's not around!!
Tomorrow: sand and flagstones.

Up from the ruins

"They in turn gave it [money] to the carpenters and to the builders to buy quarried stone and timber for couplings and to make beams for the houses which the kings of Judah had let go to ruin."
2 Chronicles 34:11

We're not exactly repairing ruins, but we are converting an over-grown yard to a front patio.

With the front step finished, it's time to work on the middle step. See this post to figure out what I'm talking about.

With the help of our trusty orange steed, we had no trouble moving the rocks from the pallets to the patio.

Making the stones fit was another matter. As you can see, Eric had to try several different maneuvers before getting it just right. Those stones can be quite stubborn when it comes to cutting them.

Since the span was only 6', a 2x4 worked great for leveling the stones.


I'd say this day is done!

And a good day's work it was, too!!

Kioti has found favor

"And of Naphtali he said, 'O Naphtali, satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of the LORD, take possession of the sea and the south.'" Deuteronomy 33:23

Paula's Paraphrase:

And of Kioti the mechanic said, "O Kioti, satisfied with favor, and full of the blessing of Eric, take possession of Paula's side of the garage and the driveway."

The new tractor (Kioti) was not registering the hours. The mechanic tried to fix it at the house, but ended up taking it back to the shop. This was the scene when I came home from work the other day.

It struck me odd that the tractor would have such a place of honor - until I learned Eric asked the mechanic to park it there so he could do routine maintenance: check all the fluids, grease all the zerts, etc. It was time.


Where did I park?

Under the tree.

In the shade, of course!!



And I was happy to park there knowing Eric was taking good care of our not-so-little investment!!