It’s been a day and a half, but Haven has buildings! Again, they are fir-framed storage sheds once used to store grain. They are normally constructed on skids to make them easy to move.

The guy who moves graineries, J, has done hundreds of these. In a best case scenario, which is about 95% of the time, he just winches the graineries up, slides a dolly onto the rear of the side skids, attaches a hitch to the middle skid, hooks the hitch up to his truck, and away he goes. Average time from arrival on site to departure: 20 minutes.

My graineries were in the 5% that do not go smoothly.

The smaller one, which will be a shed, was not attached to its skids. J and Charles were shocked since they had come out recently to scout out the buildings and this completely escaped them.

Followed hours of trying to get the building attached securely to the skids, including a run back to Charles’ place for parts. We had arrived on site around 9:30 and didn’t get on the road with the first grainery till almost 1:30. I had complete faith in J by this point. He’s a bit of a loud mouth, but there was no cockiness here, just expertise.

It was slow going through a pasture and up a rutty private road to a gravel road, and then it was smooth going all the way to Haven.

When we got on site in the morning, I expected the buildings to be smaller than I remembered. They were bigger! I had this vision of Haven being completely crowded so I was relieved when the smaller building rolled into Haven and I saw that both would fit comfortably and still leave room for a clothesline, garden, guest RV parking spot, and Moya parking spot.

I had originally planned to stick both buildings together, but tree stumps and overhead lines nixed that plan. The shed wound up at the southwest corner of the property, near the street. Right now, its opening is right on the street, but Charles will make me a door on the side and the existing hole will be covered.

Having the first building in place, I could see where the other one would go and I hope it would be far enough south to clear my office window. My clothesline plans changed when I realised that instead of putting in posts, I could just string the clothesline between the two buildings!

It took a bit of time to get the first grainery settled and reasonably parallel to the curb. We had something to drink and set off to get the other one.

The larger grainery was on skids, but the middle skid, the one the hitch is supposed to attach to, was too wide! J got under there with a chainsaw and shaved the extra width off! After that, it was fairly quick going to get it loaded. I could tell that J and Charles fading fast.

It was much slower going bringing the larger grainery back to Haven as it is much heavier. It was a bit of work to back it in because the ground is so soft. I was really disappointed when J dropped it the first time as it was right between the RV and the neighbour’s shed, meaning a very closed in view from the office window. But after repositioning his truck, he was able to get it back just far enough for me to be happy with the positioning.

I don’t deserve any credit for all the hard work today. I documented the whole event and occasionally fetched parts, but mostly stayed out of the way. Charles and J are my heroes! I can’t believe how hard they worked today.

J originally quoted me $500, but because of the extra time, he asked for another $200. He hadn’t expected me to have the $500 today, so he said the extra can wait until I see him on the wagon train in a couple of months. $700 to get these two buildings on site is a bargain! Remember, the buildings themselves cost me nothing!

Charles and I started to work out a plan of attack for the buildings, but that will be the subject of a future post. They’re on site now and the rest can wait for a bit. The only thing I am going to try really hard for is to scrape the money to put a tin roof on them this year. We shall see.

There is short video after the pictures.

This video is worth watching for the last couple of seconds. Listen to what I say and see if you can catch it.

I said, “Is it supposed to be baloting like that?” I meant wobbling or teetering, but I apparently lose my English and resort to French when I’m excited and tired and hungry. 🙂

Spring seems to have finally sprung in southern Saskatchewan! But, really, I have idea why I’m so wintered out. Compared to winter in about 95% of the rest of the continent, winter here was easy. I don’t even feel like I ‘survived’ a winter living in an RV in southern Saskatchewan.

Today’s high was about 20C/68F and I made it a point to spend several hours on my property tackling the huge pile of sand and stone on which I plan to park Miranda when I move back in a couple of weeks. Power should be going in around April 20th (delayed because of one last, unforeseen, cold snap) and the RM says they can likely open my water tap around May 1st, so my return to Haven is coming up fast!

Looking south. The broom on the left indicates where I want the driver’s side rear bumper to go. This would give me enough room between the RV and the tree line to move around on that side and also give me light through the front driver’s side kitchen and living room windows.

Looking north. You can see how much I’ve raked out and that the area is nowhere near level. The darker spot represents an hour of work!

Queen of the gravel pile.

Standing on top of the gravel pile looking north.

It’s a formidable task to move all that material by hand and I will likely have to hire someone with a tractor to finish the job for me as I am running out of time. How do you move a mountain? One shovel at a time… I started by raking out as much as I could, but I now have to move what’s left using a shovel and wheelbarrow.

I’m disappointed with the material, which should have been crushed gravel, but it’s what I have to work with.  I’m trying to spread it evenly over a very large area so as to give me a dry solid surface around the RV for accessing the compartments, emptying tanks, doing maintenance, etc.  I’m hoping that the dirt will sink and the rocks will rise to the surface, as has happened on the pile over the winter.

The other thing I need to coordinate is the moving of my buildings. In an ideal world, I would have a level spread of gravel and a foundation all ready for them, but that’s not going to happen. Charles suggests that I focus on getting them weather tight this year and next year we can jack them up properly. I’m still hoping to get out to where they are right now to get some measurements so I can determine exactly where I want to put them. Oh, and I have trees to chop, too. Whew!

I’ve worked really hard this winter and I’m looking forward to slacking a little on the typing hours and spending some time working the property now that the weather is nicer. I’ve got a mountain of work ahead of me, but I’m focusing on just one task at a time and relishing the slight ache of muscles that haven’t done enough all winter and are happy to be productive again.

I had one of those mornings where I am kicking myself for going out without a camera!

Charles took me out this morning to look at old graineries, fir-framed buildings that litter the landscape here and have been replaced with more modern round metal graineries. Fir doesn’t rot, so many of these graineries can be moved to another location, reclad with new walls and roofs, and be used as outbuildings. The two graineries we were going to look at belong to a friend of his who said they were free for the taking.

The first one was quite large compared to the ones Charles has, about 16′ by 12′ and quite tall. It is in excellent shape and would be an ideal guest cottage (taking care of the exterior and insulating and finishing the interior, etc.) with plenty of room for a storage loft.

The other one is smaller, about 14′ by 12′, and while the frame is solid, it’s in rougher shape with a plywood rather than fir floor. It would make an awesome shed, workshop, and laundry room.

Charles is going to tell his farmer friend that I want them and assures me that they’ll be there when I can afford to move them to Haven, even if it’s in a year. A friend of his (the one who provided the horse on the wagon train) hauls these for about $300 a pop, but Charles is sure that I will be able to work out a deal, even if it’s only a payment schedule.

I’m trying not to get too excited or to start planning what I’ll do with them until they’re actually here, but it’s hard. 🙂 I do want to remove a couple of trees before I haul them here. Next summer, C&C are removing the cedar shingles from their house and they have promised them to me. There should be enough shingles to clad both buildings and I will let them weather to a silvery finish. They will also eventually get sky-blue tin roofs. Charles has a lot of experience refinishing the graineries and says that I’m looking at about $1,800 a piece to get them here and weather tight (including the tin). I couldn’t *build* anything for that price!

But moving the graineries here isn’t my first priority by far. It’s getting cold and I need to determine just how I’m going to arrange myself for the winter. Option one, getting hooked to the grid, is turning into a surprising nightmare (I wish I was as busy as the local electricians and able to pick and choose jobs!). So I’m exploring other avenues. I would ideally like to remain in Miranda for the bulk of the winter, and if I can get enough power, that will be very doable. I will post when I’m settled in for the winter, and give updates as the cold sets in, as I’m sure that information will be of interest.