17 October 2012

Signs of Autumn

With the cooler days of Autumn, the trees around our pond take on their fall colors. Several trees in the neighborhood have now dropped their leaves preparing for the Winter weather.

06 October 2012

Barn Project

It seems like we take on a construction project each summer that involves concrete. This summer's project was a new floor in the basement of our barn. The barn is over a hundred years old and was once a working dairy barn. The old, uneven concrete floor was designed for milking cows and not storage. Two years ago we fixed the floor on the south side of the barn and this year it was time to fix the north side floor.

The first task was removing the old concrete. Much of the old concrete had deteriorated and was able to be broken into manageable chunks. I was able to use my old John Deere tractor and a back bucket haul the old concrete out of the barn.


With the old concrete removed, the floor was leveled with crushed stone and compacted.


The floor was now ready for new concrete. Due to the size of this concrete job we hired Jim Histand and his crew to pour the new concrete.


The new concrete floor.


We also had Jim and his crew pour a section of concrete in front of one of the barn's garage doors, while they were here.


The finished approached to the garage door. This section of concrete also has a floor drain and will be used to wash our vehicles.