I as I have stated before I have a full time job as a project manager at Enviroscapes in Louisville, Ohio. I have been working on a small project at Lake Mohawk for the last few weeks and wanted to share a couple of pics.
It has been a while since I have done much brick work on a job. Mostly I do bluestone an other cut or natural stone that is mortared on. This customer preferred a brick patio so we followed some similar steps with pouring a mud pad to lay the brick on but instead of mortar we screed sand on top of the concrete to lay the brick on.
With every project I do I try to come up with something unique and different that sets it apart from any other project anywhere. My best specialty is top rock and natural stone. It has earned me the title "Rock Master" at work. The patio we installed is on a small house and is almost 1000 sq.ft.. I wanted to add something to the area on the front of the house between the patio and the house to break it up the wall of windows without taking away the view of the lake. It is also on a steep hillside so there is no room to pull patio back from house. So I decided to put a rock in the patio. My helper suggested adding another smaller rock to it to give the effect of bedrock being exposed. The end product turned out pretty sweet.
Here is a shot from near the edge of the patio. The homeowner loved it and it is pretty unique. I have done this before but every time it is a little different and no two rocks are the same.
Here is a picture of the fire pit area with the field laid out. These are the pieces that do not need cut. Everywhere you see missing brick is one that needs cut. It took as long to cut all the pieces into the pit area as it did the entire patio up top. The end result however is phenomenal! I will get more pics when we finish the project this week.
The weather this weekend was absolutely awesome. I spent most of my day yesterday doing some misc. items and helping dad with some stuff at his house. Hay season started this week, two weeks earlier than normal, so I decided to take it easy and enjoy the day with the kids as I will not have another weekend like this for a while. We started out going to check on Mallory who I penned up yesterday to have her piglets. She had six by the time we headed out so we left her alone to see if she had any more and headed across the pasture to see if we have any new calves.
On the way we were treated to a rare sight. A family of Killdeer birds were running around the pasture. While it is common to see Killdeer it is not common to see the babies. When they hatch they are literally the size of your thumb and leave the nest almost immediately. The parents will play injured to lure predators away from the little ones so you never see them. But today we saw all four. You will have to look at the picture in large size to see the little one. It is standing just up the bank from its parent!
This is a pic from yesterday. Pearl was laying behind the steer that is staring at Lisa and Lisa wanted to pet her. Well, on the way to her she got in a staring contest with one of the steers. Lisa won!
This morning Legacy and Pearl were both hanging out together, as they have been since she was born, with Pearl's momma Precious.
The pigs also found the pasture this week and have been enjoying the green grass. I went from feeding them 150 lbs. of feed a day in the barn to 50 lbs. since turning them back out on the big pastures with the cows. They are growing gaining weight quicker already and look way much happier. I didn't like having them on the pig lots as long as I did but I needed to get fences completed and thing needed to dry out. The wet year last year destroyed the pasture and it needed time to recoup before letting them out again.
Here we have Mallory in the barn. Instead of penning her up in the pen I decided to try something different and give her the entire half of the barn. With all the others out on the pasture this was easy to do.
She is just deciding where to put her nest. She doesn't look as big in this pic till you realize that the pen she is in is 8.5ft. long and 6.5ft. wide. When she lays down in it she fills most of the pen up. This leads to the problems with the piglets being laid on right after birth. Having more space should completely eliminate that problem!
The six she had were all of them. I was hoping for a litter like her first, she had ten live ones, but she only had six. On a good note all six look very healthy and really cute!
The kids wanted to pet them and with more space and still laying down Mallory didn't care. Her first litter she was really protective but this time she seams to have calmed down a little.
Then, our piglet midwife daisy had to step in and check everyone out and clean them all up!
She does so well with the pigs it is amazing. I just have to be careful which ones she gets in with and when because some don't care at all and others will think she is trying to hurt them.
Well, I am off to bed to start the work week. Doing all my first cutting this week as well as finishing up the project at the lake for work. I picked up some more ground this year so I am excited to see how it all goes. Going to try to plan it out better this year so that I don't run so ragged. Also going to try to everything all at the same time so I am not constantly having to switch equipment and run around. It is still going to be a lot to get done but the reward should be some great hay and hopefully plenty to sell at the end of the year!
Hope everyone has a great week! I will be posting pics of the new calves when ever they arrive. I can't wait and they are past the estimated due date so I am really getting impatient!
Kenny
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