Out with the Old, In with the New - Flooring that is

For the last 3 weekends and during the week after work we've been working on tearing up carpet and laying ceramic tiles in our living room/ dining room. It has turned out absolutely beautiful!
We found a really pretty sand glazed tile from a discount home improvement store in Missouri, Hoods. We purchased all of our other supplies (grout, mortar, underlayment) from Lowes.

We went with the sand glaze ceramic tile because it had a really great texture to it, which is perfect for our piggies. We certainly didn't want to get something that they would be sliding around on.

We pulled up the old carpet and removed the baseboards and all the tack board and nails in the floor.

Under the spots in the carpet where the pigs like to go potty we painted the floor with Kilz primer to seal out any unwanted smells.

For our underlayment we used HardyBoard. We put down floor and tile mortar by Mapei and troweled it out, followed by HardyBoard and lots of screws to seal the HardyBoard down. After the mortar had set, we could start tiling.

We used Mapei ceramic tile mortar, troweled it out and placed the tiles down. We used 1/4 in spacers in between each tile.

We're still finishing up the grouting. The main area of the rooms are finished, we just have a small area in a walkway to finish. For the grout we chose a grey color to match the tiles. I also figured the grey would show little wear or dirt in the future and be easier to keep clean than a lighter color. We used Mapei grout as well.

I will have to post pictures of the finished project, but here are a few near completion. This is prior to grouting, you can still see our spacers in the floor.

This is exactly the coloring of tile I was hoping to find. It really goes great with our wall colors and other decor.

Della likes the new floor, and of course the wood burning stove is her favorite place to relax.

We're finishing up the grouting and need to get some new baseboards to put up. Alex is talking about making some out of cedar, which would be really pretty and help keep bugs away.

We did one room at a time. I'm so glad that the furniture is back in the living room. After we get the baseboards up we can put the dining room all back together.

Pinky's Piglets

Pinky had another litter of piglets! They were born overnight Saturday. They are all looking healthy and strong. Pinky looks really good too. We'll have to keep a close eye on her weight to make sure she stays healthy. Our mommas always lose too much weight after they have their litters.
Here are some pictures!

I always forget how small they are when they are first born.

I'm really excited about the one with the most pink. He is really handsome. We've never gotten that coloration from her before.

Animal Bedding

Check out our YouTube video on animal bedding!
Animal Bedding
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afy_VnXVU94


Hay, straw, and other bedding is getting expensive. Some people forget to use the things at hand. Where we live we have tons of oaks surrounding us. Instead of mowing the leaves and mulching them up, we rake them up and save them for the pigs. We will be making a leaf baler soon for the tractor!

Chicken Moat Update and Guinea Hogs

The fence part of the chicken moat is up, and we've moved the guinea hogs up to enjoy it. We finished the fence at the end of November. Sorry for the delay.

We measured out the spacing for the T-posts, and I hammered them all in.
Then we had to take the fencing, fasten it to our corner posts, and stretch it using the tractor and a come-along to the next corner.
Then we hung the gate, moved the guinea hogs house and then moved the guinea hogs.

The guinea hogs have been enjoying all of the room. It's a win-win because they will get to forage though all of the plants from the summer garden that are left, which will tear up and turn the soil for next year's planting.

They made me laugh because there was a spot of untouched carrots in the garden. I went in and dug some out and tried to get them to eat them. They wouldn't eat them. So I took them down to the mini pigs for a treat. The next day they had eaten all the carrots. They must have been trying to save them and then saw me take them.

They're fun to chase around in the pen too. They buck around and take off. Then they come right back for a scratch behind the ears or a belly rub. 

This picture was taken when it was raining. They're so cute huddled in their house. Time to start planning for the building of a new one. This one is looking a little small.

Chicken Moat

My husband stumbled across this wonderful idea a couple of months ago now, a chicken moat.

We're going to build a fence around our vegetable garden and then put a second layer of fencing around that for the chickens to run around in. We will also attach our chicken coop to their fence so they have shelter. This will keep the deer, rabbits, and a lot of the bugs out of our garden! It will also keep the weeds downs, because the chickens eat the weeds too! We will basically be starting a new flock of hens in the springtime, so in the spring of 2015 we should have lots of eggs to go around!

We've been working on getting our corner posts in and now the corners are done!

We also pulled one of our big gates from the back of the house and repainted it to use for this project.

Time to get the T-posts and the actual fencing to keep going with this project. More updates to come!

Wood Chopping

A couple of weeks ago our wonderful neighbors down the road saw us outside chopping wood with an ax. They stopped by and offered to let us borrow their 20 ton gas powered chopper. We have a small chopper, its an 8 ton electric, and we were trying to make some really big pieces easier to handle with the ax. We borrowed theirs and spent that whole weekend powering through all the wood we needed to get chopped up.

Here is before:

Both sides of our carport looked like this. The logs were very large! We would have had one heck of a time getting these chopped up.

Here is our after shot!

It was a lot of hard work, but it felt so good to have gotten it all finished. We also had cut down a few trees on the other side of the house, and we got that all chopped up for the most part.

Now we have lots of wood for this winter! I have a feeling its going to be a very cold and snowy one. We've already started lighting fires in the house to keep it warm and toasty for these indoor piggies of ours.

Solar Panels Round 2

Well, we have been working on all kinds of things around the house. I will post updates on all of these different projects in the next couple of weeks. Alex has been rebuilding the engine of a 1986 VW Jetta. We have been working on moving the animals around and getting them ready for winter. Our biggest chores have been cutting down trees and chopping wood. Anyway, it has felt like we've been working on all kinds of little things, and I couldn't figure out what to post on, so we'll start with the second round of solar panels.

We got these up in September, thanks to help from our friends Craig and Nathan. We used the same company for our solar kit, Anapode Solar. They have been great! We highly recommend them to anyone looking to do solar. Now we are in limbo with Ameren on our second rebate. They changed the rebate paperwork for additional solar panels, so we've got that all figured out and sent in now.

Round 2

The whole roof

The day before Craig and Nathan came down to help get the panels on the roof we cut down 2 of the 3 trees that were right in front of them. We cut the big one down later that week. We were cutting down and cutting up trees for a good three weeks. We then proceeded to start trying to top off the trees in the back of the house. All so we can get as much sunlight as possible on our solar panels.

It has all worked out great though. We put these panels up on September 15. Our electric bill for October was $7.16! Of course the weather has been great. So there has been no need for air conditioning or heating. Our house is all electric though, and its awesome that our bill almost nothing!