Construction Update #32

We were blessed with a delightful dry evening tonight, and predicted dry weather overnight, so Karen and I finished off the first coat of paint on the barn. Now on to the second coat!

Corn in the backyard 2009, week 10

July 26

The ears are maturing nicely and the stalks keep getting taller. The tallest tassels measured 118 inches, which is just shy of ten feet, or as someone once said, "...as high as an elephant's eye..." Thanks for visiting!

Construction Update #31

I realized I've been negligent in showing images of the barn from the roof of the house.

This shot was taken last Thursday evening showing the progress, but not quite completion, of the first coat of paint.

Just for grins here's a re-post of an image of the same part of the yard taken on June 11, 2008. Thanks for visiting!

Corn in the backyard 2009, week 9

July 19

Last week I said we'd be watching for tassels and a few days later, there they were! Tassels are only part of the process of growing corn, another important part is...

...ears! As you can see those are starting to pop out too. Even so, farmers don't make a living selling tassels, or stalks, or even ears, but the kernels that grow on the ears. We'll keep our eyes open for evidence that kernels are developing, because that's the whole reason for growing these plants.

Finally, for the record, the corn continues to grow taller, measuring 103 inches at the highest point this week. Thanks for visiting!

Paint!

God has blessed us with some relatively dry weather recently, so we broke out the paint and attacked the barn. Unfortunately the "one-coat" paint we purchased is going to require more than one coat, but at least we're not paying someone by the hour to apply it. All the girls sprung into action Saturday morning, and we made good progress, but we still have plenty of painting before we can call this one finished.

Since we have so many high surfaces we are doing a lot of the painting from ladders, which is slow and requires moving heavy ladders frequently. It didn't take too many minutes of painting before we came to a few solid conclusions: (1) pre-painted siding looks like a very attractive option; (2) the next time we build a barn we will paint the siding before it's attached; and (3) building a structure with all the painted surfaces accessible while standing on the ground is a very sensible thing to do.

Here's Karen attacking the north side with vigor. The paint is pink when wet, and dries to a "Brite Red" shade that is appropriately named. Kind of makes me wonder why barns were traditionally painted red: so cattle could find their way home in a snowstorm? Nonetheless, our barn will soon be the brightest red barn in the neighborhood in case you're trying to find our place -- like from an airplane, or the space shuttle, or something.... Thanks for visiting!