Weekend at the Farm & a Chance to Win a Goodie Basket

We had a busy weekend (again) at the farm. But before I forget....Jaz from the blog October Farm is having a give away. Just click the link & leave a comment to be eligible to win a basket full of goodies!Steve putting up the pex tubing.

Saturday morning we started to install the pex tubing for radiant floor heat. After the first few rows we had it figured out & it went a lot faster. We used six 300 foot rolls. There are two lengths of pex in each bay. It is all done in a continuous loop. At one end it is bent inside the bay and at the other end we looped the pex down & over to the next bay. This is the spot that John from GreenHome Solar will hook up the loose ends of the pex into the tubing (red) and run to the boiler.

Boiler system almost done

This process is very hard on the neck. Poor Steve. He did all the stapling due to the stapler being quite heavy. I ran around untangling the tubing & feeding it to him and giving him the sawzaw to cut down misc. boards that were in the way that were nailed in with ring shank nails by the previous owner.

John should be there this week to finish up. Then we will have heat in the new living area. This is a huge step forward. We still need to install the insulation in the basement by stapling it onto the bottom of the rafters (to hold in the heat from the pex). That is this weekend's project. We will then start to close off the living area from the shop area, insulate & drywall. The plan will be to keep the heat set low enough to keep the pipes from freezing. Then if we can't make it to the farm due to weather or obligations at home, we won't have to worry about the farm.

I will get into the more technical aspects of radiant floor heat in a later post.

This morning at breakfast I started looking through the book "Simple Food for the Good Life" by Helen Nearing. I need some inspiration to keep on the right track of eating healthy. Helen & her husband lived to ripe old ages of 91 & 100 so they did something right :-). It is full of quotes that are fun to read too. Check it out if you get the chance.

Getting Ready for Radiant Heat

Last weekend we met with John Murphy from GreenHome Solar again about the specifics of putting in the pex tubing for the radiant heat. We are now waiting on the wide crown staple gun we ordered. It should be here by the time we get back from Oregon so we can get started. We will be stapling the tubing to the plywood under the main living area floor. After that, we will staple insulation to the bottom of the rafters. I will try to take a lot of pictures to walk everyone through the process with us.

Since we didn't have a stapler to do the job yet, we worked on more windows on the north side of the barn. Every new window makes such a difference. The old Amish windows were single pane and you could just about throw a cat through the leaks (sorry Mia :-)

We also have two outside doors to put in, hopefully before the snow flies. I painted one of them last weekend inside so it will look finished when we get it in.Three windows done on the north side

Steve fixing the hole from the old basement stairs

We also needed to fix the hole in the floor from the previous stairs leading to the basement so we can install the pex tubing.

New boiler for the radiant floor heat

John has been there during the week installing the Munchkin boiler system for the radiant heat. When we are done putting up the pex, he will come back & hook it up. We will still have several projects to get done upstairs before it will be effective for the winter, though. Closing in the wall between the shop & the living area, insulating, drywalling and putting up doors to the basement & shop are all a "have to".

Besides doing all of that, I need to get the garlic planted & the potatoes & leeks harvested. It was too wet to prepare for the garlic last weekend. I did find a source for organic straw in the area for the strawberries, blueberries & garlic.

I picked the last of the tomatoes, dug all the carrots, cut some parsley, picked the gourds and one red cayenne pepper before we left for home. With not being up there this weekend, I'm afraid that it will frost and be the end of the garden for the year. I guess it will be a relief (as long as I get the garlic planted) that it is done. We really couldn't keep up with the weeds this year. Next years' garden will be much smaller, at least until we get done doing the major projects on the barn.

I will be "off-line" for a week on vacation. Talk to you when I get back..