King of all you SURVEY

So the survey guys were out yesterday:
Azure Green Consultants, LLC. They really seemed open to working with me on finding my boundary lines without trying to up sell me into doing a complete survey. I understand that's probably how they make most of their money, or maybe there's so many big commercial projects going on in this area that most companies don't have time for small jobs, but Azure was very responsive, and got on my job within a few days of finalizing things.

They have what looks like a GPS antenna on top of the van.
I was talking with the lead guy, and he said there is a monument embedded in the road at the intersection closest to our house. They get a GPS reading from the monument, and head down to our property. It's pretty high tech, he enters the data on a touch screen, and the other guy down the road with the survey stick radios back, and the computer on the tripod beeps and chirps a lot, and that seems to be about it for the data collection on the road.



Here's a closer look at the main survey computer. I'm sure these guys thought I must be pretty nosey - walking up and taking pictures with my cell phone. =)

The other guy is way down there - you can barley see him in the background.

It's no wonder that all the boundaries are off once you get out here. Before all this technology, it must have been really difficult to be accurate.















Here's what the corner posts look like in the front. I'm going to research getting something a bit more permanent to install there. Maybe some kind of metal monument or something. On this property line, it seems like we were pretty accurate. It was off by a couple of feet.



This is on our gravel road to the back of our acreage looking back to the road. The aforementioned corner is right on the edge of that hedge line, and as you can see -
the second point is right on the edge of the road. So there will be some of our gravel road that sneaks onto our neighbors property, but it's not too bad on this line.

The other boundary to the west is another story.
This boundary is right up against the house. The actual fence that we're tearing down is almost 40 feet from this post. I called King County, and Steve told me that there only needs to be a 5 foot setback from this house,
but I don't feel right about getting that close. I'll probably put the fence in where those metal posts are in the right hand corner of the picture. I'm going to wait until I get the official survey report done before I go and talk to him.



I also went to the back to find those corners.
Here's the west back corner. They also put up some blue stakes along the way that say "Control" on them. I'm curious as to what they are for. Probably just a reference point because the actual line is in the brush, I assume.
I'll update the post when I find out exactly what they are, and when I get my final bill and report.

See you next time.

~ron

Got the T-Shirts! Check It Out!!!

So I made some t-shirts for the blog... Click here to see them. I put my order in for two of the shirts last week, and the UPS guy dropped them off at the house this morning.

I think they turned out pretty good. A bit expensive, but they make them one at a time. I can't quite figure out how Cafe Press does it? They don't seem to be silk screened, and it's not an iron on transfer... they must somehow print the design directly on the shirt and then put it in an oven or something.

However they do it, I put the order in less than a week ago, and I'm wearing it to work today... Nice.

I also designed a new Herb The Goat shirt, I think he'll be the new American Idol of Goats.



So if I actually sell a few t-shirts, I'll make some more designs... We'll see.

Thanks

~ron

Springtime for Hedges (The Producers? Anyone?)

Well, as the time has finally sprung forward, there's been a flurry of activity here on the farm. One job that I could not do myself was to trim back our hedge.

I don't think the yard had much attention in years. You can't see it very well, but there's a big hedge behind those bushes that are falling over. It was about 20 feet high.

I knew we needed to do something with them when one of the hedges collapsed under some snow we had this winter.

Since those ones in the front are falling every which way, and are growing into our power line. We decided to take them out too.

Luckily, our neighbor down the street owns a tree care company, so we worked out a deal.
I didn't get any pics of the guys in action. It happened while I was at work, but here are the "after" pics.

I think it looks much better. The hedge turned out great, and I like the look without those other trees in the way.

If you live in the Greater Seattle Area, give Chris and the guys a call at Arbor Preservation, A Tree Care Company, LLC. His wife Adriana does the scheduling - 425-413-0198.

We're planning on having them back out to grind some stumps out next.



Check another job off the list, and that gave me a chance to chill out for 20 minutes in the hammock for the first time this year. Nice!
















See you next time.

~ron

De-FENCE-less --- Back to Hot Wire

Well, we need to be able to turn the horses out in the pasture. It's almost dry enough that they won't completely turn it into a mud pit.

And while I did have a major score with the 5' heavy gage wire horse fencing at the auction, [Click here to read He Shoots, He Scores At The Auction!] we can't afford to do the full scale wooden fence right now. Plus I'm going to get a survey done in the next couple of weeks, and I'm waiting for my farm plan approval with King County. When that happens, a portion of some farm expenses will be reimbursed by the county. Your tax dollars at work!


So we decided, and by "we" I mean The Cowgirl decided and I nodded my head, to put up a temporary fence with T-Posts and Hot Wire. For those of you that are unfamiliar, hot wire is basically an electric fence for horses. When they touch or press against the hot wire, they get a small shock, and learn to not touch the fence.
We got the t-posts from Home Depot. We got 80 of them and some misc other things - came out to about $400. The actual Hot Tape and connectors, ground rod, and other stuff, we got at Reber Ranch. That was another $360.

After all that, and a half pot of coffee, it was time to get to work.

First thing we needed to do was clear out the old fence that was in really bad shape.



Now this part of the project was not fun at all. God knows how long these posts have been in the ground. There was also several strands of barbed wire attached to the top and a mix of rusted t-posts and old rotted cedar posts. I ended up just cutting each individual tie off and pulling the posts out of the ground.


I borrowed a t-post puller from my neighbor Bill. That was nice not having to buy a tool for a change.

No quick way to do this.
Just one post at a time. Pretty tedious stuff, but we finally got it cleared.

A quick mow job with the riding mower... a world of difference. It's almost too bad that we have to put up anything here. I kind of like it open, but at the corner right behind where I took this picture, it gets pretty wet right now, so we have to separate things.

Your standard stretch a string to give you a straight line technique.

We used the 7 foot posts and pounded them down 2 feet. If you have to do this type of work, it's a must to invest in a T-Post pounding tool. My brother said he made one, but he has a welder at his house. I just picked one up at the hardware store.

It's basically a 20 lb. steel cylinder with two handles. But there would be no way you could get a sledge hammer up high enough to do a 7 foot post. I don't know how they do it in areas with really hard ground, but up here in Washington state, this method works fine... and gives you a heck of an arm and upper back workout.


One really interesting thing that I learned about today was this system to reinforce the corner posts for tension. It's a three piece system that uses all t-posts. The guy at the Ranch store showed it to me. Here's a close up of how it works.




You slid the square piece in between two teeth on the t-post, and then the second piece slided down to lock it in and the third piece is at an angle. You put another t-post in and it braces the corners when you want to put a lot of tension on the hot wire. We fooled around a bit with how the angles should go, and finally decided the the highest point should be at the corner post to give bracing in both directions when you add tension. It seems like it will work well.

So I ended up pounding in about 40 posts or so. That's as far as we got today. We need to pick up a few more insulators for the wire at the store, and I'll post our next challenge: installing the hot tape and turning on the power. I wonder who gets to check and make sure it zaps you when you touch it?




See you next time, thanks for reading...


~ron


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A Day Off To Snowboard!

The weather was nice, and I had been challenged by Lars and Eric (12 & 13 respectively) to a snowboard race. So I put fence building on hold for a day, and hit the slopes.

We decided to meet at the top of Crystal Mountain at high noon for the showdown.
It was also a good chance for me to try out my new gear. Most of my snowboard gear was stolen out of my car a few weeks ago, along with my iPod, so I had managed to cobble together a new rig. Bought some new boots, gloves and goggles on Overstock.com.

Got in some great runs before the race. Then we made the mistake of trying out the Double Diamond lift before we broke for lunch. Bad idea! I was in way over my head. After walking down about half a mile to the nearest ridge I thought I could navigate, I proceeded to slide on my butt most of the way down the hill. That took a lot out of me, and after a quick break for a snack, I was trounced in the race. Oh to be 13 again, and care of nothing but speed.

But you know what they say, a bad day snowboarding is better than a good day fence building!

[more pics to follow as soon as I get them from the winners of the race...]
{I got the new pics - here you go}





































~ron


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Pole Dancin'... Um, That's Fence Pole.

So I've never claimed to be a math genius, in fact the calculator is the second most popular item on my computer after spell check, but it's finally dawning on me that owing a farm is expensive. (Collective "Duh" while slapping forehead heard around the world.) Since I scored a big time deal on fencing materials last weekend, I'm now left with prospect of buying fence posts.

And to make matters worse, we have an area that we want to use as horse pasture in the summer that gets really wet in the winter, so I've been researching the different systems a lot. First, I was thinking about the standard split cedar fence:







But we also want to have the goats out running around too, and they can just walk right under this type of fence - so it's no go on the cedar - even though I like the look.

Next up is the standard Pressure Treated Lumber: I like the look of it and I've built several fences with pressure treated lumber, so i feel pretty comfortable with this material.

The drawback with this is that the fence installer I had out to give me a bid is convinced that I'd need to put 6x6 posts in the ground for the entire "wet" area, and a pressure treated 6x6 is about $25 each... Expensive.

So I got to talking with my architect friend Michael again, and he suggest steel posts. Thought they'd last longer in the wet area and would probably be cheaper than pressure treated wood.

So I went to my local Ranch Store to see what they've got:














I like the look of the round posts, and might do some kind of mixed fence. Put the wood closer to the street and the metal out back.
Reber didn't do metal poles, they had the standard T-Posts, but I don't think they are going to be sturdy enough. So it was off to Home Depot to look at the chain link poles:

The thinner ones were $8.99, and the thicker ones were $12.99. I think if you drop this guy in two feet of cement, that should do the trick in the wet area. It's definitely not the cheapest route, you can get T-Posts for $3.99 each, but I think it'll last a lot longer. And I don't want to waste the good thick fence on posts that will be loose in one or two years.

I haven't pulled the trigger yet, so if you have any advice for me or experience with Washington State wet pastures, I'd love to hear your comments.
I'll keep you posted when we start the actual project.
~ron

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New Farmer Ron Gear - Represent The Valley!

So my significant other thinks I'm getting carried away with the blog, but I just designed some Farmer Ron gear with the website called Cafe Press. I'm assuming they make them one at a time with some kind of transfer printing. I just ordered one of each so I'll let you know how they turn out.

I made two designs:





This is the fist one. You can get men's and women's T's and I think one long sleever.









Here's the 2nd design. Had to represent Maple Valley! I also made a coffee mug and some baby gear for this one.


The only thing is they are kind of expensive. But I'll let you know when I get it how the quality it.

But for now, check it if you want:

http://www.cafepress.com/farmerron

Thanks and I'd love any feedback on the shirt ideas.

~ron

Update on the Platnium Survey...

So, I admit I was a big fat whiner about the cost of a survey in my previous post. And now I've got a few more bids in.
It's gone from over $4000 to $2500, and then I got a bid today for $1500.

I still think that's a bit steep, but I'm warming up to the idea. I have a very good friend Michael who's a big time architect, and he sent me a great note on my attitude:







"Surveys cost a lot because they are worth it. They are a legal document that specifically describes your property. It takes 2 or 3 guys several hours to walk around almost 10 acres, set up stakes, scope the sight lines, draw the map, write a property description, etc. $150/hr here in Cali is cheap. Yeah it sounds expensive, but without it, you are just guessing. So if it's too expensive, just guess. Out in the country a survey might not be a critical part of your relationship with your neighbors because you have lots of open space and buffer between properties that is uncontested. But in an urban area, or if you want to put a building right on the setback, you can't afford NOT to know exactly where to put it. A fence...whatever."

He's probably right, but I still wish I could make $150/hr doing something.

Well, I've got a few more phone calls out, but I may just have to bite the bullet and go with $1500 to find out where I can put my fence.... "sigh."

I'll keep you posted on the updates.

~Rancher Ron

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He Shoots, He Scores at the Auction!

So the auction ran today. (Click here for a review of the building materials auction.)
I was looking for some fencing for the horse pastures. We need at least 650 feet.


It was busy today. A lot of people looking for deals. I got there around 9:15am to scope out what was going to run today. They had some good stuff up for bid.


There was a lot of fence, and lumber. I tried to put in a bid on a pallet of 2x6's, but it got too rich for my blood in a hurry.

They also had a small tractor with a roto-tiller that didn't sell. I asked Danny, the guy that runs the place, how much they wanted for it. They needed $2600 to let it go. Would have been a deal if it had a front end loader, but it didn't - so that was the end of that.

I had called ahead during the week, but the woman who helped me out wasn't that well versed in fencing - so I knew that they had some, but that was about it.

This is the auctioneer - he was running the building materials. If you haven't been to an auction before, a few suggestions. Look in the book and circle or star the items you're interested in. Then see if they're selling it by the unit or for the whole lot. For the fence, you bid on the price per roll. But sometimes, he would have the bid a whole pallet of lumber or pipe. Also, watch out for "phantom bidders." Once there is a bid on something, they sometimes try to get more money by bidding you up against a phantom. "$20 - $30...$30?" Well if you're the high money, make sure there really is a guy at $30, and you're not just bidding against the house. I was bidding against one guy. He had no idea what he was doing. It cost me about $5 a roll to drop him, but I won the bid on the 5' horse fence for $40 a roll. I took the whole pallet. At this auction, they allow you to name the number of rolls you want if you're the high bidder. It seemed like about 700 feet, so I took it all.


Mine's that pallet in the middle. My neighbor got a bunch of the 6' fence, and I helped him install a few hundred feet of that. It seemed a bit too high, so I'm glad we got the 5'. It's really thick guage stuff. My total was $600.52. The auction has a 15% fee, and there is sales tax.

But the cool thing is, if I went down to the local ranch supply place, these go for $224.99 per roll. So my bill would have been at least $1600. Maybe more, I might have over 700 feet... It's hard to tell with the auction rolls. I have 13 rolls, but they're not all 100 footers. I'm assuming that these are at the end of a spool of wire at the factory, or there's a minor defect. I'll take a bent wire here or there to save $1000.

Now the fun part, loading it in the truck and taking it home.
There were a few guys that helped us out at the auction, so the load in wasn't too bad. We got the perfect amount of rolls, we could not have gone one more in there. I also stopped by the Shucks an picked up a ratchet tie down. We had a man killed by an unsecured load last year... Don't want to have that happen.

Well, I was by myself for the unload - funny how that happens. My neighbor had to go take care of a busted pipe in his septic system at a rental house, so it was up to Rancher Ron to man handle this one.

I just have to get it from the back of the truck to that cement slab... doesn't seem too hard. Lucky for me, I have one of these:



So I just pressed my easy button, and...











That was easy.

I did have one issue, I recently had some stuff stolen out here at the ranch, so I wanted to lock this fence down. I went up to our local hardware store and had Tom the hardware guy make me a 25' steel cable.



It was about $7.50 cause we made it there. The prepackaged cables were a lot more.











I just fed it through all the outside bundles of fence, and ran it through fence by the slab and slapped a lock on it.


So now I'm going to see if I concentrate real hard and hit that easy button again, if the fence will install itself along the horse pasture?

~Rancher Ron


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