For the last week-and-a-half, I have been on an electronic gaming vacation. Normally, I am quite obsessive about playing electronic games (on the computer or Nintendo). But, of course, this takes time away from things I should be doing: reading, checking on the animals, farm projects. I don’t normally allow the games-playing to interfere with absolute essentials, but it does normally limit the amount of time I have available for the important things. So I am taking a vacation from that so that I can focus more on reading, animals, and projects.
It has been great so far. Occasionally, I am tired, frustrated, and bored and really want to play, but I resist the temptation. The progress I have made in the garage has been great! I have finished putting insulation and drywall on the walls, and now I have a stack of drywall for the ceiling. I bought a drywall lift that allows me to lift the sheets of drywall to the ceiling without any help, thus making this a one-person job. I have put up six of the sheets so far — it is a bit slow-going, but it seems to be working well. The biggest challenge is working around all the junk I have accumulated in the garage. I plan to try to complete the drywall on the ceiling this weekend, then I will want to get insulation to blow into the attic space. I also still need to cut out the soffit vents and install the chimney for the wood-burning stove. Once the insulation is blown into the attic space, I want to put some decking in the attic space in order to provide a platform to store items in that attic space. Hopefully this can all be done by mid-January.
Future projects still include:
- repairing the minivan from its trip into the ditch (before February);
- putting a roof and walls on the duck-house (before mid-March);
- fencing pasture to prepare for trees and water pipes (unknown deadline)
- digging holes for trees (by mid-April);
- preparing the garden by moving pigs out to pasture, preparing beds/paths (by mid-May);
- building a whizbang chicken scalder (before Summer);
I feel like there are more projects in need of my attention, but I can’t think of them now. But even this exercise has been helpful — bottom line is I need to complete the garage and get the minivan fixed immediately. So that I can get to the other projects in a timely manner.
