Finally a windmill!

As you may know, Randy has always wanted a windmill. He spent years trying to buy old ones from farms. He even went to Kansas with a truck and trailer but it was bent pulling it down. 

Recently he found a company that sells new windmills made to the specs of the old aermotor 702.  So he drove to okc and bought a very heavy erector set.

Here are pictures of the build over the last few weeks.  He built the tower first and then set out on concrete.  Then he removed the too five foot section to build the ten foot mill on.  Then he put it on his truck to transport back to the tower and we finished that today, Nov 6. 

We could not have done this without the help of many friends, thank you to all! Hope you enjoy!

And then a storm.

The evening of Monday July 7 we had a terrible storms with winds 60 to 70 mph.  The dogs were upset, Fly was shaking, Kira was yipping and we were just trying to sleep.

In the morning we woke to this destruction of our hay barn, yes the same barn we just cleaned and organized with my new sheep handling system.

It's a total loss.  Parts were tossed 300 yards away.  No animals were injured.  We have full replacement on the barn so we will rebuild as Soon as we can!

looking at the front of the barn, foundation probably reusable

The left side of the barn, looking east.

The back of the barn.

the right side of the barn, remnants of sheep handling system.

rafters on the ground

looking toward the lagoon, downhill from front of barn 

down the hill now, at the lagoon, barn at the top of the hill.

at lagoon, looking up toward the barn, more debris on the fence line

debris at the lagoon, roof or back.

portable sheep hut turned over on its roof.

'cheese' 

Sheep handling system

So, Randy and I spent about eight hours over the last two days working on this.  We needed a better way to give shots and wormer to the sheep.  I used horse corral panels and attached sheep wire to prevent runaways.  And yes, sheep will jump through those panels if left as is for horses, I've seen it.

We also lined the chute with solid surfaces so no little feet would get stuck in a wire.  I ran all the sheep through this three times today.  Hopefully when I need to do this for real, everyone will cooperate.

If these pics post in the order I selected them, you will follow kira through the chute.  Then a look back at our handiwork.

The system is along half of the  back wall of the hay barn and then up the right side.  It allows me to store hay in front of it, I'll use cattle panels to surround the hay, and use the left half of the barn as well. 

Happy fourth of July!