A House - Update V - Homemade Termite Shields

In studying on how to build a pier and beam foundation, and how to prevent against termites, I learned that there are termite shields available to put on top of a concrete pier. Well, I wasn't able to obtain any locally; so I thought I might try to make them myself. The following is the process of how I did that:

Since flashing is galvanized, which again helps against rust, I figured that would be a good material to use. I purchased 20" flashing, and cut it into squares:




Since they had to fit over a 5/8" bolt sticking out of the concrete pier, I drilled two 3/8" holes next to each other in the center of the flashing squares; and I was able to drill three squares at a time easily:




Since the two drilled holes were next to each other, and given the size of the pier's bolt, I had to cut out the center hole a bit:




Here is the flashing pushed onto the pier. I usually had to work it down onto the bolt. Before putting it on, I sprinkled on some Seven termite powder because I heard that was a good thing to do, but my guess is the weather has removed most of it by now:




After placing the beam bracket on the shield over the bolt and finger tightening the nut down to hold the flashing in place, I folded the sides down to crease the flashing, and began to form it into its final shape. I originally tightened the bolt down all the way on quite a few of them, but realized that bent the brackets in the middle, which wouldn't have allowed the beam to sit flat on them:




On opposite sides of the pier, and starting several inches in from the side edge of the flashing, I cut the folded flashing from the lower edge to a point where two perpendicular creases met in a line, creating a square out of two flashing edges and a cut edge; and I did this for all four corners:




Then I positioned myself on one side where I had made the cuts, reached around the other side of the pier, and tucked in underneath the opposite side of the flashing the cut edges in each of my hands:




And then I folded the other sides on top of the tucked-in cut sides:




I didn't want to leave the sides of the termite shield loose like that, so I decided to use rivets to fasten the corners in place. They are aluminum (again, to help against rust problems), and I chose 3/16" short fastener rivets. I took a 2x4 and put it behind a folded corner to support the pressure of drilling; and using one hand, I closed the corner tightly around the 2x4. I then drilled a 3/16" hole through the flashing in the corner of the overlapped flashing, and another hole in the corner of the folded-under flashing:




I then set the rivet in place...




...and squeezed the rivet tool several times until the stem of the rivet cut off:




And here is the completed rivet:




This is the completed termite shield:




And here are all of the piers with all of their termite shields in place. No mind control for these concrete piers! :)




We're thankful to the Lord for His provisions, and for the idea and ability to put these together.

-- David

The Blog Days of Winter

This Winter has gone on a bit longer than usual, at least from what we've experienced in our time here so far; and it's also been wetter and colder than normal. With that continuing, yesterday, the Lord brought a decent amount of the "white stuff" to the land.

This was how things were first thing in the morning:

Texas Snow Feb 23, 2010 in the Morning


And this is how it was in the early afternoon:

Texas Snow Feb 23, 2010 in the Afternoon


We once again thank God for His mercies in the weather, the provisions of warmth and shelter He has allowed us, and for the provisions of the moisture for the ground.

-- David

Nessa Makes a Mess-a

We still haven't been able to figure out what she's trying to get at here; but Nessa, one of our Border Collies, loves mud puddles:

Nessa our Border Collie Digs in a Puddle


We've been trying to think of ways to harness this to our advantage here in agrarian-land. Maybe she's a new kind of post hole digger. Or maybe we could put her over a bucket of dirty clothes that are soaking; and she could be a fancy, automated laundry agitator.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions? :)

-- David

Farmer's (Goat) Cheese aka Neufchatel

I just finished eating a few crackers topped with my first (successful) attempt at Farmer's Cheese, a soft "cream" type cheese.

A neighbor said she had made some Farmer's cheese with the inexpensive Junket rennet tablets found in the local grocery store, so I thought I would try that first. An online cheese making blog said not to use Junket rennet because it is not the same as cheese rennet. But it was here and within my budget, so it was cheese rennet to me! :)



My "first" first attempt was a bust, using the original recipe from the Junket instructions. Not to say it doesn't work, but that my attempt didn't work. The recipe calls for buttermilk, which I didn't have; so I looked online and found you can substitute with milk and lemon juice. So I did that, along with adding 1/4 tablet of rennet dissolved in a little water. In hindsight, I don't think the combination of those was enough to coagulate the milk. I heated the milk to 65 degrees F according to the recipe, added the "buttermilk" and rennet, and left the covered pot out overnight per the instructions. It was supposed to solidify overnight; but it just never did, even after I left it another 12+ hours. So that went to the chickens.

My next attempt was a conglomeration of a couple of recipes. This time I heated two quarts of our raw goat milk to just below boiling, and added two generous tablespoons of white vinegar (one per quart) and 1/2 tablet of the Junket rennet dissolved in a little water. Since this was previously frozen milk, it was a bit watery; so I decided to err on the side of caution and add too much vinegar and rennet rather than too little. The last thing I wanted was to ruin another batch:




I whisked it all together, covered the pot, and hoped for the best. Well, this time it started to coagulate much more quickly, which gave me hope. By the next day, it was not as solid as I imagine a really good cheese probably would be; but it was close enough!




According to the recipe, the cheese is ready when you can poke your finger in and lift the top, gelled layer cleanly from the lower, liquid layer:




Then, you are supposed to cut it into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes in order to assist with the "draining of the whey" (sounds like a ceremony). The instructions call for the first cut starting down the middle, holding the knife at a 90 degree angle, and then each subsequent cut tilting the knife a little until you get to 45 degrees by the time you reach the side of the pot. You turn the pot 1/4 turn, and repeat the process, which eventually makes a grid of curd cubes. I forgot to tilt the knife as I cut -- oh, well. But, it came out okay anyway:




Then, I spooned out the cubes of curds into a handkerchief-lined strainer with a bowl underneath to catch the whey drippings. They say to use cheesecloth, but it just seemed too loose of a mesh, and the handkerchief worked very well for this type of cheese:




Here it is all spooned into the strainer. You can't tell here, but it's draining like crazy underneath:




Quite a bit of whey drained quickly, but it takes 2-3 hours to fully drain:




Here are the curds with the majority of the whey drained. Pretty cool, huh?!




After the main draining, I hung up the handkerchief to draw out the rest of the whey with the help of a bit longer exposure to gravity:




Well, this looked like it might resemble Farmer's, or some kind of cheese, and not too much like a train wreck:




So I seasoned it with a little salt, garlic and onion powder, spooned it into a container and put it in the refrigerator overnight. Using two quarts of milk is supposed to make approximately 3/4 lbs. of cheese, and this looked about right:




I'm very pleased with the mild, seasoned taste. It has been too easy to eat a lot of crackers topped with the cheese at one sitting! But I'd rather have to combat will power than have to hold my nose closed and gag it down :)




All of our does have dried up in preparation to deliver more kids in the Spring, if the Lord wills; so this was my last opportunity to attempt making goat cheese until then; and I'm very thankful it turned out. I'm excited (and not as scared) at the future possibilities! What a great way to preserve milk; and we are, as always, very thankful for God's direct provisions. Believe me, I know I probably could have done this much better and more "properly;" but, hey, it worked for me; and it's food! I hope to continue to improve with more practice and maybe somebody out there can learn from my mistakes. Bon appetit!

Susan

David's Digest: The Truth, or Not the Truth: That is the Question

It is of the utmost importance for us as Christians to have the truth as given to us by God's Word. We can not lay hold of Christ nor worship God properly if we don't know who we are, who He is, and what He in the personages of the Trinity has done.

If we are to have any hope of having truth, then something in and of itself must declare it, wholly; and if salvation is indeed to be had, and if we are to know how to love and worship God properly, then those must be revealed as well. Thankfully, according to His graces, God has provided us with His truth in His Word, the Bible, which in and of itself contains the whole truth necessary as God would have for us. It then, and it alone, must be our measuring stick, otherwise truth becomes relative, which then cannot be trusted as truth.

By its very nature, truth is absolute: a truth can only be truly one thing at one time. If a thing is entirely the color green, it cannot also be the color blue. There is no such thing as "my truth" or "your truth"; there is only THE truth.

Also by nature, the truth divides, showing what is true and what is not true. Not having the truth is having a lie. Jesus Christ, being the truth Himself (John 14:6), was a divider: Matt 10:34-35 - "Think not that I come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."

The Bible says that the Lord Jesus is the Word (John 1:1) and, as noted, the truth. It follows then that, if we do not have the truth as described in the Word of God (ie. we have a lie), then we do not truly have Christ. Therefore, it behooves us to make absolutely sure that we have the truth as it is brought forth in Scripture.

Paul says in 2 Cor 13:5, "Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith..." Being in the faith does not just mean having faith versus not having faith. It also refers to which faith we have: whether our faith is an alive faith versus a dead faith (Jam 2:17,20,26), whether we believe in another Jesus versus the true Jesus Christ (2 Cor 11:4), or whether the Gospel to which we hold is the true Gospel or not (Gal 1:6). And so to discover whether we are in the faith or not, against what can we examine ourselves? It must be against something that shows the truth of our beliefs, so that we can know whether our faith is a true faith, our Jesus is truly Jesus Christ, and our Gospel is the true Gospel. Since God's Word contains those truths, we must examine ourselves against it.

Is the way to heaven via a false faith, false Jesus or false Gospel (ie. via a lie)? How can it possibly be? And so examining our beliefs is of great importance. We had better have THE truth, or it could be to our eternal detriment.

Further, when we examine ourselves, can we say that we have a love of the truth? The Bible declares a love of the truth is given by God: 2 Thess 2:10 says, "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved." We therefore need to pray for a love of the truth, for our benefit and because of the warning that follows in 2 Thess 2:11-12: "And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

May God's graces and mercies in this regard be with us, may God grant us a love of His Truth and Word, and may He grant us the desire and ability to honestly examine ourselves in the light of His Word.

-- David

Operation: Chicken Peritonitis - Update

This is a follow up to the first post on the procedure we did on our chicken with peritonitis.

The week following the first two weekly procedures, her abdomen was filling up again; and she was starting to waddle and stand up straight. And so I went in with the needle, and pulled nearly 70cc of fluid again. This time though the hole didn't leak anymore. I tried to extract some more with another needle insertion, but nothing came out.

She seemed not too bad after that; but over the next several days, she was still walking quite a bit upright; and on the third day after the procedure, she lost her appetite. It is my experience when chickens get like that, the end is soon. Regardless, I force-fed her some goat milk; and in the evening, she was eating some food scraps on the ground and chicken scratch from my hand, and even drinking the goat milk, all on her own. However, as I said, they're usually in a bad way when they generally stop eating; and by the next morning she was dead. The Lord was merciful in allowing it finish quickly.

I'm not sure what happened: perhaps I punctured something internally in her; perhaps I introduced bacteria or otherwise during the procedure; perhaps her immunity was low and she caught something; perhaps none of those. I tried to be as antiseptic as possible during the drainings, but perhaps something still got by.

It's sometimes a little difficult when you try to care for something, and it doesn't work out the way you had hoped, or worse, you worsen the situation. Also with this chicken, I used to be able to "talk" to her by making chicken sounds; and she would respond, which was fun to hear. And it is just an animal, but it's also God's provision. Still, it was her time according to His will, and we're thankful she went quickly; for the allowing us the provision of her; and for what the Lord would teach us, spiritually as well as temporily.

Death -- eternal, spiritual and temporal -- are a result of sin, and my sin; and I try to be reminded of my sin when I'm around death. And that reminds me to plead the blood of Christ for His atonement as He is the only way of redemption from the wages of our sins.

May He continue to teach us, and we pray and are thankful for His guiding hand in our earthly pilgrimage.

-- David

Operation: Chicken Peritonitis

Recently, one of our hens started walking upright like a waddling penguin instead of the horizontal way chickens typically walk. I thought one of our chickens might have had something like this in the past; and so in this instance, I tried to do a little research on the Internet. I discovered that there is a condition called peritonitis, which in general is a swelling of the abdomen; and in chickens, it can be caused by a yolk missing the "funnel" (called the infundibulum) that "catches" them as they move from the ovary to the oviduct. They fall into the abdomen, which causes the peritonitis, and a build up of fluid in the area. Thus, the condition is called egg yoke peritonitis; and there are two kinds: sterile, where bacteria hasn't developed in the swollen area, and the chicken still has an appetite and doesn't die quickly; and septic, which is the opposite.

Besides our chicken not having a problem eating (which basically required that we lift food up to her), I examined her abdomen; and it was much like a water balloon; and so I suspected we had our diagnosis. Here are a couple of pictures showing her condition. At this point, she had one foot back and would sit on the other foot, and all she was able to do was slowly scoot around in a circle (we kept her isolated in our mini chicken tractor, to keep her from being picked on or hurt by the other chickens, which they will do to weak ones):






But then, with the problem identified, what to do about it. Some of the articles I read talked about draining the abdomen with a catheter, but that seemed pretty complex and involved. I did find a video though, which shows a person draining a chicken with peritonitis using just a needle.

It so happened that some friends of ours had just given us some large syringes and needles a few days before; and so, I decided to "operate." The needle I chose to use was 1/2" long and 1/16" in outside diameter. Here is a photo summary of the procedure. I made very sure that everything, from the syringe, to the needle, to my hands, were as sterile as could be, including cleaning the syringe and wiping it with, bathing the needle in, and wiping my hands with rubbing alcohol.

Here I'm just getting her into position:




And then I flipped her onto her back:




I cut away the feathers around the area where I was planning to insert the needle:




And then I did so. I tried going at an angle parallel to the skin as much as possible to avoid puncturing her internal organs, but couldn't seem to pull anything out with the syringe; so I found I needed to insert the needle at a steeper angle. Once I did, the fluid extracted pretty easily; and I was glad it was clear and didn't have pus in it:




I pulled about 40ccs worth before stopping. One of the articles I read said to only pull half of the fluid out because the loss of too much could cause shock:




When we were done with the draining using the syringe, the hole continued to leak fluid; and over night, she lost quite a bit more. However, after it was all done, first, when I would pick her up, she was noticeably lighter than before; and second, she was able to bend over and eat and drink by herself somewhat, and was actually walking around. This went on for a few days, but her underbelly seemed to start to grow again. I decided to try the procedure again, and was able to pull out around 70cc. I tried going in again a couple more times, but couldn't seem to find any more fluid -- I tried keeping the needle at a flatter angle again, because there wasn't nearly as much puffiness to her abdomen as before, and I believe I might not have been getting past the fat layer as it was basically impossible to extract anything out. However, I didn't want to puncture any organs; and so I stopped; but it ended up that at least one of the needle holes continued to leak similarly to first time we drained her.

The next day she was doing much better, and was almost walking around like a normal chicken. Here is a video of her (the "other one [that] was only a still frame" that I mention refers to the fact that the "before" pictures were only still photos -- the ones shown above):

Chicken with peritonitis walking around after draining fluid from her abdomen.


A couple of days later, I took a pair of toe nail clippers and clipped the tip of her beak as it had started to grow past what looked to be normal as compared to the other chickens. My guess was that it had grown more since she hadn't really been able to use her beak normally for some time.


I don't know what will further happen with this situation, but it was neat to see her act like a chicken again and be able to "do chicken things." It does seem that the liquid starts to collect in her abdomen again as the days go by, and perhaps we'll have to continue to try draining it. However, we are thankful the Lord granted us this opportunity to learn about and care for the chickens, and that I didn't apparently infect her myself when performing the procedure, nor poke her internal organs; and hopefully, if God is willing, she will once again become a productive member of the flock.

-- David

(Please see our chicken peritonitis update for more information.)