My brother jokes that Blake and I should write a book on how to start a farm without any tools or a truck. And that’s pretty accurate. We own a hammer, a few screwdrivers, a couple of wrenches and nails. Pretty much that’s all. So when we started working on getting our land ready for farm animals and putting up fencing, we were kind of starting in the red. But we weren’t going to let little things like that stop us!
Blake had been researching pig houses for months, so he wanted to design and build our own little pigdiminium ourselves. But when it came to putting up the fence, we knew that we had to hire that job out, except for the small pig paddock, which Blake built. After we hired someone to build our big fence, we could concentrate on the pigdiminium. I’ve always heard that if your marriage could survive building a house together, it can survive anything. Well. Now I would add that if your marriage could survive building a pigdiminium, you will most definitely survive anything!
Before we even talk about the building process, let’s talk about Mother Nature and the state of Georgia. In Georgia, it can be 12 degrees one day and 75 degrees the next. It can be windy and raining that morning, but sunshine by that afternoon. During the seasons of Spring and Fall, we alternate between wool sweaters and flip flops daily. No joke. That’s why you will see Blake in a variety of clothing – short sleeves, long sleeves, hoodies and hoodies with coats!
So when we began the building process of the pigdiminium, it was late January. And boy, did it ever feel like January. But in Georgia you never know. January sometimes can feel like June. And rain? Yes. The winter months here were very rainy. In fact, it rained 8 out of 9 weekends from early February through the end of March. Really? My husband’s days off from work are every Sunday and Wednesday. So let me add, it also rained almost every Wednesday from February through March. Oh and did I tell you that there were also tornados coming through Georgia in March as well? What luck we have had.
Due to the rain, we had to start building the pidgiminium on the front porch. We took four big pallets and secured them together. Now, was that the smartest move? Probably not. Because once the pallets were together we had to get them off of the porch. Ugh. That was challenging. But we did it. We also had to build all of the walls on the porch too. Every time we would make progress on building, we would have to cover everything up with tarps to keep the wood dry. When I tell you it has rained a lot in Georgia the past few months, I mean it has rained a lot! So, our daily workouts included covering the wood and uncovering the wood. Eat. Sleep. Work. Repeat.
Once we got the heavy pallets down off of the porch, we had to get my brother with his tractor to come and pull the pallets down to the pig paddock. Surprisingly the pallets stayed together and survived the move. Then from there it was putting down flooring and putting up the walls and roof. Piece of cake, huh?
Now, most builders could have knocked this job out in a few days, but for Blake and I, it took us about 5 weeks because we could only work on it after work and on our days off, which most times, it was raining! And cold. I mean cold and windy too. And then there were those tornados.
Back to the part about a marriage surviving building a pigdiminium. It was stressful, especially since we would come home to either rain, wind or cold or to having to build it on the front porch to working until dark because we had the kunekune’s coming and we had a deadline. There was one particular day I remember, Blake and I had words, I won’t go into what words we had, but it ended with him saying, go put that in your blog! I think I will leave that part out. Ha.Ha.
But on to the happier side of working alongside your spouse on a “from scratch” project, with no tools or a truck mind you.
Ever since we started this project I knew I wanted to use the old barn wood and tin from my great grandparents’ barn. We had it taken down in early 2017 because it was falling in and had not been kept up for many years. At one time, the land with the barn had been sold out of the family, but fortunately Blake and I were able to purchase that land again in 2016. I loved going down to the old barn looking for treasures as I would call them. Blake seems to always have another word for things like that! Some of the treasures I found, you will see on my future blogs. There weren’t many as the barn had been abandoned for so many years, but even the old wood and tin were treasures to me.
So, how do you put old barn wood on a pigdiminium you ask? Very carefully I say. Each piece had its own unique characteristics and charm. Mostly being that the wood was either extremely heavy or had more nails in it than would have ever been required, I’m sure due to my Paw Paw Levern Murphy. The pieces were long too. Most were 12 feet long and some were even warped and not cut even, I mean the barn was over 80 years old. And the tin we were using was also over 80 years old, so it wasn’t in as good of shape as we had hoped. We had to double layer the roof on the pigdiminium so it wouldn’t leak. Then we had to seal it from the inside with rubber seal. Some people don’t realize that just because pigs like to roll around in a mud hole, they do that to keep cool in the summer because they don’t have any sweat glands and to ward off pests like flies, but they don’t like to be cold and wet in the winter.
So nothing is level on the pigdiminium. Did I mention that we decided to build it on a hill? Yes. That probably wasn’t the smartest choice either, but nonetheless, that’s where it sits.
So even though Blake and I were learning on how to start a building project with no tools (we did buy a circular saw) or truck and learning to use the tools we did have and building on a hill after first starting on the front porch and using 80 year old barn wood that was the heaviest wood I swear I’ve ever lifted, and old tin with holes in it, I think we did a pretty good job!
I think the pigdiminium is perfectly imperfect! I love that we have repurposed the barn wood and tin and I love that it was our joint creation and effort. Oh, and in true Levi Bates and Levern Murphy fashion, this pigdiminium too has far too many nails in it than is necessary!
Here are a few pictures showing the process. Tomorrow the kunekunes arrive!
