With the exception of a couple of rainy days and an extremely windy one this past week, progress has been moving along on our siding project especially when the materials we’ve ordered are in and we can pick them up.
Over the past couple of weeks dealing with getting all the necessary materials we’ve ordered that trickle in days and weeks at a time, my husband has confirmed that he would never make a very good general contractor. While waiting for his order to get gathered up at a lumber yard in Rapid last week, he helped other employees load materials out of boredom.
We’ve been anxious to test out our siding and determine if adding insulation, house wrap and siding makes a difference in our home feeling warmer, but we’ve only had two mornings that the temperature dropped below 30 degrees so it’s a little early to tell for sure yet.
 
The true test isn’t likely to happen until calving starts. That’s typically when we get a blast of 20 below steady for a couple of weeks. I’d hate to admit to looking forward to a cold weather just to test out our siding so I’ll just say that this year I’ll be able to face what South Dakota’s noted for doling out every winter. Mostly, I’m looking forward to not having to wear long johns and extra socks in the house when it’s 20 and 30 below outside.
 
In addition to getting in the way to help put up siding over the weekend, I did manage to get some other outside work done in my yard and our garden as well. I disassembled some fence I had for our garden’s beans and peas to attach to; picked up garden hoses, newspapers I used to cut down on the weeds growing, and garden tools. Sadly, our garden was a flop this year. there wasn’t much of our garden’s plants left after the grasshoppers set up camp. I noticed that they never bothered to strip clean any of the weeds while they’re destroying plants.
Last spring we tore down our chicken coop’s straw ceiling because it was falling apart and chickens were getting up there and laying eggs. I cleaned out the chicken coop’s bedding and straw from the ceiling and piled it up in the corner of our garden over the summer. Due to the amount of dust I stirred up I think it’s safe to say the straw from the chicken coop is now vintage straw dating back to the mid 1800’s. There was enough dust in the old straw bedding and chicken coop ceiling to refill Mt. St. Helens. I scattered it all over our garden and my guys took turns tilling it all in with our “rodeo†tiller (our nickname for the dinosaur tiller) for next spring.
 
Overall, the weather we’ve been having lately has been ideal for getting yard and garden work done and comfortable for working on the house. Hopefully in another week our house’s facelift will be finished.
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