Yet another building project

That's right, while we have two house projects to finish off, the guys have been busy leveling dirt beside the "garage" or shop building for a new build. It is going to be a Quonset type shed for storing grain. When Garry was at farm shows this past winter he found a company that builds them onsite from rolls of steel.


 Today the guys will be busy spreading two loads of slag (it's the by product of steel making, if you are wondering what slag is) to prep the site.





Why are we building this? The wheat will be ready to harvest sometime next month and it will need to be stored.
 Garry is tired of having to pay companies to store our grain (grain is worth more sometime after harvest than when it comes off the field) and really tired of not being able to sell it when he wants for (insert excuse here) whatever reason the guy comes up with. He has been trying to sell some of the wheat another farmer had stored for him this past year for almost two months now, to pay for this building; it is supposed to be sold now, but no cash has arrived yet. Earlier this spring the guy was willing to trade our wheat for supplies for planting instead of cash, so it will be so much easier to keep it under our own roof when decide to sell some for something we need for running the farm or school they can just call up a truck driver, load it up with grain to deliver it to the mill and get paid. 

Those of you who know how bad Garry's ankle is may wonder why he is walking, not driving, down the street yesterday morning.  

Or you may have guessed why, the car was not not ready, they hope  plan  say the parts will be in and the AC fixed and ready to drive home for Friday. I hope. 

They will also be baling hay today... and mowing down more. 

Hopefully the old Belarus will be fixed, they had it all torn apart yesterday to fix something that broke the day before. They had just fixed a problem with the new tractor they bought last fall. It's good that "anyone can fix and Belarus" and the parts are easy to find!

It's to the meter,
Now the electric company needs to hook it to the house!

In other news,  the electricity is getting closer to the new apartment/classroom building, and work continues slowly. The plumbing hook up to the septic needs to be finished, toilets installed, and some other cleanup and finishing in the apartment side.

I'm off to grout my wall tiles this morning, have to remember to take a pail of water for wiping the tiles off.  Garry had the girls start grouting their bathroom, but I hope to finish (and fix) it today, and get some of the other ones done too before it gets too hot.

 I did a few small floor sections that weren't tiled yet when they were grouting before, but Nikolai (who was painting outside) moved his platform in front of the door I needed to go in  when I had finished that yesterday morning so I walked home.

Garry finished the last piece of tile floor- near the door of the entryway to the classroom on Tuesday. I just have to tile two kitchen backsplashes. One is a repair job, Garry was installing the sink while I was in NJ and vibrated the big tiles off the wall while sawing the hole in the countertop. two broke.

Nikolai is painting the brick trim white 

Looks like I'll be making apricot jam this year, maybe next week. Some years there aren't any apricots because of cold weather when they bloom (they freeze or they don't get pollinated by the bees) and some years the ground is covered with ripe ones falling off the trees. It looks like that kind of year.