DIY Woodshed

Since we moved into our house a couple of winters ago I have stacked wood on the south side of the house off the garage. When it snows the wood gets wet the last think you want to be doing is clearing snow off when its cold out.  I decided I wanted to build a partial open air woodshed to stack the wood in.  It would be partially open on the sides to allow airflow to help the wood dry but also covered to keep the majority of the snow off.  

In the late summer I slowly started the tedious job of planning out the size, and layout, followed by leveling and squaring the cement deck blocks that would be used as a foundation.  Once this was completed I ordered a load of gravel and rented a bobcat to pour in gravel around the bases to level the floor of the shed which would be made of compacted gravel.  From here I ordered the wood which showed up last week.  I worked at it during the evenings after work and a little on the weekend.  All in all it was done in less than a week.  A much more reasonable project than the crazy garden project from the spring.  

 I have learned that the key is not to rush in the beginning and be sure to get the posts squared up right.  If this gets messed up you spend a lot of time trying to fix issues later.  The picture above shows the posts going in with a few board nailed in to keep them straight and square.  I used cedar for the front posts and the cheaper pressure treated posts for the inside back as no-one will really see these once the wood is is and everything is stained. 

Here is a couple pictures with walls up as well as the roof rafters installed.

Here is the completed structure including 1x4 face board on the front of the rafters and the roof strapping that will be used for attaching the corrugated roofing.  The second photo is the completed structure stained (Messmer's - Oxford brown - same as the stain on portions of our house)  I also added a black decorative "T" bar to the middle post.  I am thinking I will try to find a couple of similar black "L" brackets for the upper corners to hid the metal braces.    

Final shot with the roof added.  Now to load in the firewood for winter!

  



Gormly cousins come to visit!

Jennifer and the Gormly cousins came to visit this week. What fun week had!!

The kids got to have many swim days followed by biking riding, ice cream eating, movie watching, staying up late and camping out at Camp Owl (in the backyard). We even got to celebrate the two "sister cousins" August birthdays. It doesn't get better than that!

Fun memories were made and a good time was had by all. Until this next time Gormlys, we love YOU! ❤❤❤

Wildlife

Two wildlife spotting’s in the back yard this morning within minutes.

As I sat out drinking my coffee I see this animal coming trotting cross our grass. Low and behold it’s a bobcat!

As I walk over to get a picture our friend the owl flies out of a tree into the post of the trampoline where I was able to get a video of it.

I hope these two start to make a dent in the population of chipmunks in the yard.

A new resident

We have been coming out in the mornings recently to see a great horned owl swoop off our back porch.  Pat was able to capture a picture of our new resident on our neighbors fence!  What a beautiful bird... and hopefully he/she cleans up some chipmunks and maybe a rabbit around our place.  

Garden

We haven't had a vegetable garden since we lived in Boise, so now that we had some space, I thought it would be fun to have one here at the new house. Few challenges - ground is rocky, soil is like sand, short growing season and their are a lot of animals that would love some soft leafy greens - especially deer.  In February I started researching and doing some planning.  The idea was that when we did our landscaping in the back, I would get the team to scrape an area and bring an irrigation line down to the area when they put the rest of the irrigation system in. My inspiration for the garden was here.  Beautiful but unfortunately no plans so I had to make up my own plans just by looking at the pictures. I also used the farmers almanac online garden planner tool just to see how it might look.    

 The garden would be a set of raised beds, with a 5-6 foot wooden fence around it.  The back landscaping went in late march, so I ordered the wood and set to work.  The biggest challenge was getting the base level.  its funny how the ground feels pretty level until you actually start to measure it.  The west side (right side in most of the photos) was at least 10 inches lower which meant getting a load of gravel dropped in the driveway and a lot of hauling gravel in a wheelbarrow down to bring it up somewhat.  Additionally... like a lot of plans, they seem right until you get started so due to large boulders messing up post placement and other challenges I had to make a number of changes and concessions as I went along.  Here is a series of photos of the build process.

Here is the finished product.  Ultimately I think it turned out pretty nice and we look forward to growing some fresh veggies for years to come!  The only thing left to do is install the drip irrigation system.  Abbie and PJ helps plant as well... for now we are hose watering it until the  irrigation is running... hopefully in next couple days.  

 


Kicking off Summer 2018

The summer solstice is still a few weeks away but with the calendar turn to June, and some beautiful weather this weekend, we will call this the formal kick off to summer in central Oregon.  Kelly was gone on girls weekend so it was the rest of the crew making the best of it!  Campfire in the backyard Friday night and a day at Scout lake on Saturday.  Ending of Saturday evening with a glorious sunset off the back porch.