Category: homestead (Page 1 of 13)

Storms May 2023 - Upside Down Meat Dryer

Stormin’ Storms

June 2, 2023 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

After one of the worst droughts I believe in Texas history last year, which was almost certainly a contributor to the the wildfire we faced, the Lord has graciously brought much appreciated rain this year. We estimate He granted nearly a half-year’s average last month!

But with that came several severe storms — some of the severest we’ve had — some of the highest winds we’ve experienced, and the largest hail — golf ball sized, with a few maybe up to tennis ball size?

And so, we thought we would take you through some of the results…

This just shows how many of the leaves were knocked off the oak trees:

This is the meat dryer upside down and pushed up against the clothes dryer. I had the legs wood-staked into the ground, but I believe over time the wood rotted and couldn’t hold against the winds:

The hail did a number on all the gutters and downspouts:

My wonderful wife has gotten us by for a while with a superb tape job she just did on her own! 😀

The hail punched holes through the window sills, and tore up screens. I don’t believe we had any broken windows through it all though:

Here’s a video of how I attempted to repair these:

I had these goat sheds staked into the ground as well, but they probably had the same problem (that middle shed is upside down).

Worrisome at the time but a funny story now: our rooster Albus (who was the inspiration for a hymn I put together, and who is one of our musical roosters from long ago) goes up every morning to hang out with the boy goats. Well, after a storm with the shed flipped over, I went up there and couldn’t find him. Uh oh. But, I wondered….and sure enough, he was in the upside-down shed, standing on the roof that was not the floor. Yea! My guess is he ended up going with the shed as it went over. We’re thankful the Lord spared him. 🙂 :

This was a palette shed we had put together for our goose at the time, Gigi, who decided to nest there — torn off its bottom and upside down:

This shed’s roof and one of its sides were blown off, but this below is it stitched back together.

I also was tired of sheds rolling over, so I pounded t-posts next to the opening on each side and tied the roof and shed to them. Hopefully that will generally hold them now, unless God has other plans for them. 🙂 :

When the winds came through the first time, this solar panel, which is attached to a palette that has three cinder blocks holding it down, ended up face down with a cinder block on the back of the panel. Well, that put some cracks in it.

And then when the hail came through, that finished the job. 🙂 …although I believe it still functions fine:

And finally, here’s the car. I figure it must have been one of the big ones similar to some that hit the roof of our house — a sound I don’t believe we’ve heard before — big pounding bangs on the house roof. I figure those must have been bigger than the golf ball-sized ones:

Then, after some road renovation to keep water from flowing off the property, our original pond overflowed — the first time since we built the extension some time before 2008.

This is the far side. When it was overflowing its worst, it was really going over much of this back side:

And here’s an overflow trench I dug to try to keep that from happening much more, although I probably need to make it wider because I don’t believe it will keep up with what can flow into the pond on a heavy rain:

Lastly, here’s a video of some of that overflow after I had dug the outlet trench:

In the end, we believe all these things are by the hand of God fulfilling His purposes:

Psalm 148:8 – “Fire, and hail; snow, and vapours; stormy wind fulfilling his word:“

But, the Lord was very merciful through it all as things could have been worse, and again, He has granted some very much-desired rain. We pray He applies it to the land to bring healing after being so parched last year, and pray for His continued mercies in the weather.

May we thirst for Him, and may He fill us with His Spirit so His graces in godly fear of Him, holiness and obedience flow from us for His glory.

Psalm 63:1 – “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;

John 7:38 – “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

— David

Wildfire!

May 26, 2022 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

With the extreme drought happening here, everything is very dry. And, around here, that often makes for severe fire potential.

Well, recently one got very, very close to our “backyard”, and it was a little unnerving to say the least.

Above, and these following, is what it looked like from a road about 1/4 mile (maybe a little more) behind the south end of our overall land area. It was pretty windy, which made things difficult. Apparently, 9 fire departments were called in:

And from our homestead:

And from the roof of our house that first night (the flames are not on the ridge directly behind us; it’s probably the next ridge back). So, you maybe see why we were a little concerned. It did slowly dwindle as the evening rolled on, and I sat on the roof until 2:25am, and by that time thankful the glow essentially could not be seen:

By the next day though, with more winds, the fire picked up again. And by the time we got back from Lord’s Day services, the forestry service had a helicopter working on it, one that could suck up water from ground-water tanks and dump it, and by later in the afternoon, multiple planes flying over dropping bright red, we believe, flame retardant.

Their goal was to keep it from jumping that back road I was on when I took the above pictures. I went back there again and asked one of the firefighters if he thought they could keep it from jumping the road, and he said it was iffy. For us, if it jumped the road, it was nothing but forest up the hill, over the ridge behind us, and then down the hill to the back of the land, where there are multiple homesteads.

They worked on it all afternoon, and were still working on it into the evening. Everyone here had already prepped for evacuation if necessary. With all that continued firefighting effort, I was pretty worried.

However, as I watched the smoke billows from the windy roof of our house through the evening, I spent some time with the Lord in His presence in prayer, not just asking for His mercies, especially for the homesteads in the back, which were most vulnerable, and working through making sure I was submitted to His complete will in this situation (especially if it was to be that everything burned down), but just spending it in His presence…just a time alone with Him, even with the winds howling at times and fire somewhat bearing down on us. It was a special time with Him, and one I pray I won’t forget.

As the evening continued, one of the volunteer firefighters from a nearby town who we know some was able to contact our county’s fire chief, and he indicated that they were able to get it settled down for the night, and that it apparently wasn’t going to advance at that point. And so, we didn’t have to evacuate.

The next day, the winds picked up again, but from then on, the crews were able to keep it from moving any further. While we continued to smell smoke, and I think I saw smoke flare up at one point, the Lord mercifully granted it essentially to come to an end. And we are not aware of any loss of human life, most thankfully.

Later that week, we drove by to see how close it got to the road, and you could see burned trees not far in from the road. And here’s a map showing just how close it got, the top of the fire heading toward us. I think part of the reason they were able to contain it was because the forested area actually narrowed down between two fields, which probably helped them isolate it:

Finally, here’s a video of some of the events, including a little more from that Lord’s day evening, and drop aircraft (please forgive the wind noise):

We thank the Lord for His mercies to the firefighters, to other folks, and to us. May we always be submitted to His will in all things.

— David

Texas 2021 Arctic Blast: Our Homestead’s Version

February 22, 2021 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Here’s a little around our homestead at the beginning and end of Texas’ 2021 arctic blast!

This was after the first main night — snow and cold, with forecasted windchills down to -18F. These were I believe our worst temperatures we’ve experienced here, even after the 2011 freeze. The thermometer says about 4F:

Here’s the homestead:

I was a little worried about the cattle, given there are some young ones, but thanks to the Lord, they all made it through ok!

Another of Cattle After Freezing Snow Storm

During the week, Sue’s “onesy” (coveralls) in front of the wood burning stove was the favorite for the domestics:

On the first day after a week of these freezing temperatures, things started getting back to normal. Here’s our resident stray hanging out on the cistern spigot, which we had double wrapped with blankets the whole time, allowing us to use it too whenever we needed:

And here are all the goat accoutrements hanging on the fence after Sue took them off:

Those were just a few pictures, but we show a lot more in this video, which has the day after the first main night as above, and then after coming out of it 5 days later (including a surpise from a momma cow!):

All throughout, the Lord was merciful in granting all the animals come through (yes, that missing rooster from the video showed up!), and helping Sue and me with strength to do all the care-taking!

We have no grid electric or water, which actually worked to our advantage, as we always had electric and good water as needed. We pray for those still suffering from the effects, but also hope people might consider their situation and on whom or what they depend for life sustenance.

We also saw how we believe God pre-set up provision before we really knew what was coming, even though they seemed a little “cross” to us at the time: the boy goats had knocked off the top of their hay bale, but Sue just took that hay into the barn, and it ended up being their main food for the week; and I had pre-put out hay bales for the cows, and one had been eaten down a lot and spread out by the time the cold hit, and another spread around some, but those also afforded bedding for the cattle. Also, both the tractor and truck starters went out at the same time a few weeks ago, we needed both for this cold front, and so they were ready to go.

Once again, we are very thankful for God’s help through 2021’s arctic blast, and for the gift of the new little heifer calf!

— David

Movin’ The Hay Roll Old-School

December 18, 2020 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

Our tractor and truck recently both wouldn’t start, the tractor with a hay spike for moving hay rolls, and the truck as a backup using a chain to drag them out. And our cows were an hungering, so with some help from the neighbor boys, we did it old-school — rolling it out by hand!

And we take you along for the ride in this video:

We thank the Lord for able bodies to even do this and help from friends, and we thank Him for all His provisions, both temporal and spiritual!

— David

Pesky 2nd Law of Thermodynamics: Outside Wood Boxes Refurbish Time

October 19, 2020 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

As built into the natural order, things decay over time. I believe this is a type or a picture of death, which entered the world through sin:

Rom 6:23 – “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.“

And so, we can learn to see God’s hand in all things, and be reminded of sin and what its due is — death: physical, spiritual and eternal, and then be reminded of Christ Jesus, the only savior from spiritual and eternal death! Thank the Lord for so great a gift! And for designing these things in the physical realm to teach us spiritual realities!

We see lots of decaying things around here, and some end up being beneficial, as in a compost pile. But other things aren’t as helpful as that, and one of those are wood-structures. Through time, they start to fall apart, and recently I went through and refurbished several items around the homestead…

Well Box

We actually did have a well dug on our place not long after arriving. It actually still does push out water, although we need a generator to use it, and it has a lot of, I believe, nitrates or nitrites in it. And so, we stick to our catch water systems.

In order to try to keep the well hose that comes out of the well head from freezing, I built an insulated box to put over it. Well, it’s been a while, and here is where we were with it:

Cats would come and go through the blanket holes; chickens would get in there sometimes too. And so, it was time to reconstruct the box.

Here it is uncovered:

And then disassembled:

Here’s what was underneath. Remember about the chickens? 🙂 (Actually, this is a re-stage of the eggs, because I forgot to take a picture initially, but it was basically like this.)

And then cleaned up, ready for the new box:

Here’s the well box frame. Last time, I had different heights on the ends to allow for water runoff, but with enough of a slant on the ground, I decided to just make it square this time. Also, I shorted dimensions to allow for overlapping the plywood siding at the corners, and also to have the top overlap the side plywood pieces:

I also decided to tack on what was left of the old footer to the new footer to let that rot on the ground instead of the new footer, hopefully buying us a little more time with the new box:

Then, it was caulk the frame before putting on the plywood siding:

And then add the siding:

And the insulation:

Put the box in place, ready to lower down:

And then set it in place over the well head, and caulk the corners, ready for painting:

And then paint it, and then it’s done and ready for hopefully another 10 or 12 years!

Well Hose End Box

Most of the well hose I buried way back when, but we of course needed part of it to stick out of the ground to attach a normal hose for the actual use of it. For that, I also built an insulated box, only just a mini version.

Here is what was left (this is a re-stage too, but it was basically like this, although not quite as cleaned out as here):

And so, here’s little brother — basically the same design:

And painted, and in place:

Generator Box

Once again, here’s what was left:

And the new box. I decided to forego the flat-board insulation I had used last time, to try to help sound proof it. Most if it was gone because the chickens like to peck at it :), and we really don’t need the sound proofing:

Here’s the lid:

And the new box and lid ready to go!

We thank the Lord for granting the resources and know-how to do these types of things! Again, may we learn to see and contemplate God and spiritual things from all the temporal things around us!

— David

The Barn – Update VIII – The Loft – Update VI – First Shelves

February 11, 2020 / David & Susan Sifford / 0 Comments

The last work we did on the barn loft was putting up the stairs.

We spent a lot of time last year cleaning up around here, and part of that was clearing out the barn. And part of that was wanting to move stuff we were going to keep up into the loft, but there wasn’t much room left, so the plan was to go vertical and add shelves!

And here’s how building the first set unfolded…

Here’s part of the wood stack:

And the first frame. I doubled the long boards because I was planning to span 5 feet between support posts. And I put the cross pieces 16 on center:

I set each leg with screws and then bolted them with 3/8 inch lag screws:

I used the speed square to try to square up the leg:

Here are all 3 legs on one side:

And then I flipped it over:

And did the other 3 legs:

And then turned the whole thing upright:

Then, after building the other 2 shelves, and with the help of the guys here, we attached the other shelves:

I also added leg braces at the bottom:

Several of the turkeys roost in the loft at night, and here are the natural results of their eating! 😀 Straight to the compost pile!

And here are the shelves done:

And then loaded with “stuff”! 🙂

Another of Barn Loft Shelves Loaded with Items

We are thankful to the Lord for granting the resources to further organize here and store His blessings of provisions!

— David

A House – Update LII – Bathroom Cabinets & Library Bookshelves

September 9, 2019 / David & Susan Sifford / 2 Comments

It’s been over a year since our last house update, so I thought we’d catch up everyone as to the latest progress…

We took a little break from doing anything on the house, but earlier in the year added some cabinets to our bathroom area. Sue felt best to have something enclosed as things get dusty around here so quickly, being on a farm:

And then recently we finally got the library going as I’ve kind of always wanted. Mostly it was just getting the bookshelves into place, and then we could move the books from the other pre-made shelves into them, and then clear out all kinds of stuff from tubs we brought when we moved here almost 14 years ago!

We had to move out the current portable bookshelves. Here is where they were: