Goodbye, Stupid Canvas

Regular readers know we have used a canvas tarp, here on the hill, to block the northwest wind.   And they know that it has regularly been torn to shreds by said wind.  

The original canvas.  It lasted maybe a month, with lots emergency stapling

Where we used to live, we had to worry about water, water in the basement, water from the creek.  We once had help from the volunteer fire department to evacuate our horses from the rising waters, leading them to higher ground, through the knee-high water that earlier that morning, had been the Berwick Turnpike.

Here, we don't have to worry about water.  Instead, it's the wind.  While others in the area were thinking, "Hurricane Sandy? Big Deal," I was bracing against waves of wind and rain that stopped me in my tracks, evacuating horses to the protection of our new equipment barn, because that canvas tarp had failed again, and the horses were frantic and, worst of all, shivering.  I cannot tolerate seeing a shivering horse.  To me, it's a situation that needs to be fixed immediately.

Two shredded canvases.

So, we knew this year we had to make a more permanent wind block.  We knew it in the spring, in the summer and in the fall.  And we knew it before the hurricane.  But it wasn't until after Hurricane Sandy kicked me in the butt that we actually put it up.

The former owner left all kinds of crap on this property before he left.  I have spent quite a bit of time collecting said crap and bundling it up, cutting it up, making it transportable in our truck to the junk yard, or better, yet, small enough to throw out in our regular trash.  I transported more than 50 tires to a tire dealer and paid to get rid of them.

Why would anyone have 50 tires in the first place, let alone spread out in all kinds of unlikely places on one's property?  I don't get it, but that's another story.

Yes, that was snow on our roof yesterday.

Back to the point, he also left several, 15-foot, galvenized roof panels.   I didn't get rid of them, because they just seemed so darn handy.  Plus, a neighbor offered to buy them, but never came back for them, so I thought that someone, a farmer who knows more than I, must see value in them.

Yesterday, we saw value in them too, and up they went.  Believe it our not, this was an all-day project for us, but a good one.  It involved only one trip to the hardware store, for the CORRECT supplies (emphasis because we usually have to go back for something forgotten, or something that we didn't get right in the first purchase).  We also learned how darn handy a little four-inch grinder is, as, with the right blade, it cut through the steel roofing like butter.

Here's the result of our work.  Not pretty, but very fit for purpose!

The finished work.

Inside.

Stormkite and Starlight NOT posing nicely. Starlight's going all alpha on him.

That's better. Thanks, Stormkite.