New porch is DONE!

Well, the guys finished up the new barn porch late this morning.  It's supposed to storm big time tomorrow and/or Tuesday so it'll be great to have ALL the stalls nice and dry all the time now!



Jerry cleared out all those grids there on the left today, too so their paddocks are all nice and cleared out.
And they love it.  They've been hanging out there in the barn ever since I opened the paddock gates!



I thought that roof might look really odd since it's not the same as the roof around the other side of the building, but it turned out just fine.  In fact, it actually does make the building look more balanced.  (It kind of looked odd not to have anything at all on the right side before!)  And hey -- it IS a barn.  I guess it looks pretty darned good for a barn, doesn't it?!

And the horses love going into their stalls with those mats in place so they don't have to walk over the bare concrete.  And Mark is planning to move that fence between Shadow and Arthur's paddocks when he gets back home.  That'll be good.  Those fence posts look pretty darned crooked next to those new perfectly straight porch posts, don't they?

 

 

 

Those posts -- in fact EVERYTHING in that porch construction -- is completely hurricane proof.  They did a fine job of it.

 

 

 

All of that wood is pressure treated, too.  Nice.  Although that does mean we can't paint it until fall, probably. 

There are hurricane brackets around all the beams, and that plywood is 3/4" treated wood so it's possible to get up on top of the roof and walk around to deal with painting up there or that fan on that side of the building.  And down the road, I hope it will also be possible to put a light up there!

 

Oh - AND Blaze said he would come by and cut down all those super-tall trees next to our fence and get them burned for a much more reasonable price than the usual tree people.  Vickie and John do want to remove all those old trees except the live oak, so I hope they're willing to let him get on with it because he said he generally gets off his regular job before noon most days so he would come by and cut down a tree and haul it over to the burn pile each day.  That way he would be rid of all those trees by the time we have to worry about hurricane season.  And that will let that land dry out and remain cleared.  Sure hope Vickie and John are up for it!    I'll give them a call this afternoon.

 

Well, time to go have some lunch.  When I woke up early this morning it was thundering like crazy so I ran out to make sure things were in place in case it rained.  (It didn't -- just a couple light sprinkles.  The rain must have gone by north of us.)  Anyway, all things considered, I completely forgot to have breakfast this morning!   And now that I think about it, I am REALLY hungry! 

 

So . . . later --