Bloating?

My one steer has a problem.  I am not entirely sure what the problem is.  Perhaps it is just that he is a glutton.

A few days ago I noticed that he suddenly gained a lot of weight.  In fact he looked like he was pregnant.

He looked like he could be bloated even though he doesn't have access to fresh alfalfa..  He had the signs of bloating: sudden weight gain, the left side more protruded than the right.  And the weight gain up higher on the left side.  Working against the bloated theory was that he seemed fine and was not lethargic.  He was relaxed and chewed his cud.

To be on the safe side I put him in the loading corral in the early evening so he couldn't get any more food.

Here is how he looked the next morning.  Yup.  He slimmed down nicely overnight.

Photo 1 is him with all the weight and photo 2 is the next morning after he lost it.

I checked on him in the early morning Tuesday.  I left him in the loading corral until the other cattle had a chance to eat the new hay bale I put out for them.  That way the steer wouldn't be tempted to pig out on the fresh hay after a night of fasting.

I let him out of the corral around 1 pm.  Throughout the day I noticed he was at the feeder. I gave the cattle another bale around 3:30 pm.  Around 6 pm he was still at the feeder eating and I noticed he gained a lot of the weight back.  What's going on?  Was he at the feeder the whole afternoon eating?

I put him back into the loading corral.  He didn't want to go as he didn't want to leave the feeder.  Even though the hay left in the feeder was the stemy stuff, he wanted it.  I had to chase him around the feeder a few times before I got him into the loading corral.

Today I left him in the loading corral all day to be on the safe side.  He has water and I toss him some hay when I feed the other cattle.  Maybe a few days of rations will get him back on track.  He is alert and active - it just seems as if the switch that tells a body they are full is not turned on.

Dan came by Wednesday night to look at the steer.  To Dan he looks fine - albeit with a full belly.

He is such a nice sweet steer I hope he gets better.

After the weight gain he did more than his normal grooming.  I wonder if his sides were bothering him from all that weight gain.
 

The other cattle visiting him "in jail".

2012 cattle corral jailbreak

So much for my new 8 ft corral gates.  This afternoon, after we returned from returning more unneeded bathroom remodel stuff, I spotted the cattle in the NE pasture.  Not where they are supposed to be!

I jumped out of my pickup and yelled for Tammy to come help.

Fortunately the cattle were still clustered near the open gates.  I was able to get several cattle back into the corral by the time Tammy arrived.  With Tammy blocking an escape path the rest of the cattle reluctantly were herded back into the corral.

This was a similar jailbreak to when Tammy first visited me a few years ago.  This time Tammy knew more of what to do and the herding was easier.

How did the cattle get past the gates?

Shh!!    Don't tell the heifer checking the bar out but... notice where the bar ends on the left side.  There is not much space left of the bracket.  The same is on the right side of the bar.   The cattle pressed against the gate in an effort to reach more and more green grass.  The bowing of the gate was enough that the bar slipped out of the bracket and with a little wiggling the bar tipped and slid down enough to be in only one bracket and the gate opened.

Here the cattle after they were herded back into the corral.  Once I left the gate area they sneaked back over to the gate in an effort to do another jailbreak.  This effort failed as I moved the end brackets in to eliminate the slippage from the brackets when the gates bow out from the cattle's pressure.

Remodel Bat

I'm still here.  The bathroom "remodel" turned out to be much more than a remodel.  I don't know of the right word... "reconstruction"?  "Re-build"?  "Re-invention"?   Whatever it is called I am sure it would have made great TV for those home remodeling shows.

The bathroom ended up being stripped down to just the studs, a hidden wood ceiling, and the sewer pipe.  Everything else was removed.  Here is much of what was removed along with some left over stuff from the work done so far.

I am not done with the bathroom - far from it!   We all thought the work would mostly be done by now.  After nine long days of hard work my uncles Curt and Larry had to return home due to previous commitments.  They are in their late 60s and are amazing as they did the work of men much younger than their years and were a great help to me.

I've been too busy to blog about the progress but I'll try to get photos out again.  I'll probably set each blog's posting date to the date of the work, so the post may read funny as over a week has passed by the time I get to posting it.


Here is a photo from May 6.   When we disconnected the exhaust pipe from the double oven we found this at the top of the oven.  It looks to be a bat skeleton.

Demolishing the bathroom

The first full day my uncles were here (Sunday) we demolished the bathroom.  And judging from what we found at the end of this evening, we are not done yet with the demolishing.

We went full at it: cutting, pounding, pushing, pulling and cutting some more.

A saving grace is where I discovered the wooden ceiling above the fiberboard.  I didn't discover it until I had cleared some of the loose insulation from above the bathroom.

Here is how I get up into the attic and over into the old original house section where the bathroom is located.

I cleared part of the way of insulation so I could get to the bathroom ceiling on the left.

This is after I cleared and swept some of the original loose insulation under the batts I had added years ago..  This is where I discovered the boards.  I went back down to the bathroom and then pulled down the fiberboard and found the wood ceiling.

Here is the south view:

Here is the north view.

Notice the double oven is gone.

Here is where the sink used to be.  The square with the flashlight and blowtorch is where the medicine cabinet used to be recessed into the wall.

Uncle Hurricanes

My Uncles Curt (aka Louie) and Larry blew into town today.  They arrived even earlier in the evening than expected.  Now you'd think they would be tired after their long drive.  But no, they were all excited to get on with the bathroom remodel (especially the demolition).  We had barely shook their hands (me) and gave them hugs (Tammy) before they were in the bathroom with the tape measure to survey what needed to be done.

Before you know it they wanted to smash the bathtub.  The tub was cast iron and pounding on it with a sledge hammer would break it into pieces.  Tammy has been itching to take a sledge hammer to the bathroom.  I think she has watched too many home remodel shows where the remodel begins with a sledgehammer.  I am not that type of guy so we haven't used a sledgehammer so far..  But with my uncles the next I knew Tammy then Curt were bashing the bathtub.

It is not as easy as it looks on TV.  After a few blows and dings to the ceramic coating Tammy quit.  Curt took over and was able to break a few pieces.  It was left to me to destroy the tub.  Curt and Larry cheered me on.

The downside of this method of destruction was all the shards of ceramic and small cast iron pieces that needed to be cleaned up.  The stuff flew everywhere including out into the hallway's red shag carpet.  Those shards were a pain to vacuum up.

It turns out this was about the only way to remove the tub.  The drain pipe from the tub was a male that went into a female T section.  The stud at the head of the tub prevented a person from sliding the tub down so that the male end would come out of the female joint.  It was only after I broke the tub into the pieces seen below that I was able to wiggle the male out of the female.

Here is a 34 second video of Curt smashing my bathtub.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33HfDwiJyBM&feature=youtu.be

More bathroom demolition

I worked more on my bathroom demolition.

I stripped the north wall down of everything but the studs supporting the double oven.  I had hopes of getting rid of the studs as the left one is right against the corner of the bathtub.  The cast iron tub is very heavy and even though I unscrewed the drain pipe connection, the pipes still stay together when I attempt to move the tub.

As you can see I started to remove the inner 1 by 10 boards on one wall.  It is slow going as the nails are tough to remove and if I am not careful the boards will split.  I think the boards are classic and worth keeping.

This used to be an outer wall.  No insulation is inside the wall.  To seal the cracks they stapled cardboard to the inside of the wall.

The photo below shows they also used newspaper to seal the cracks.

Friday my Uncle Curt called and tried to say something came up and he and Larry wouldn't be able to come help.  I know my uncles so I didn't fall for it.

Bathroom remodel - north start

Here is the north wall.  On the other side of the wall is the kitchen.  Once I started the demolition you can see part of the backside of the double oven - which is also slated for removal.

The reason for the two laminate floors is that I had to replace part of the floor some years ago due to dry rot from an old leak.  The laminate floor was suppose to be a temporary fix because:

• that was all the flooring I had gotten free from a store's remnants, and
• I planned on remodeling this bathroom sooner than now.

Bathroom remodel - west start

Here is the west wall with the 1 x 10 boards over the studs.  Whoever did the last remodel of the bathroom cut out part of the wall to have the inset into the wall next to the bathtub.  The "outside" 1 x 10 boards are what is on the other side of the studs.

The reason the wall was not cut out behind the toilet is because that is where the pipe venting the sewer is located.

I kind of like the rustic wood look. Tammy doesn't like it.

Bathroom remodel - south start

I have started on the the demolition of the bathroom in preparation of the remodel.  If my uncles don't show up this weekend I am screwed. 

 Here are photos of the bathroom's south wall:

Oh... the window? The south and west walls of this room used to be the house's outside walls before the additions were added to the house. That is why the window is there even though now a bedroom is on the other side of the south wall. Tammy wants to get rid of the window.  I like the natural light that the window lets into the room.

As an outside wall that is also the reason that the west wall has 1 x 10 boards on each side of the studs.  Now I know why these walls are 6 inches thick.

Bathroom fixtures

Tammy and I are going to completely remodel the house's bathroom.   The goals are to get rid of the pink fixtures and to put a shower inside the bathroom.  My uncles Curt and Larry are driving here to help us as they are experienced re-modelers.  They plan to arrive Saturday night.  Next week we will be hard at work.

Because my uncles will be here a limited time I wanted to make sure we had all the new fixtures.  If the fixtures are not in stock it takes a week to ten days to arrive - too long to wait.  Tammy found the fixtures she and I like at Lowes.  I spent over a thousand dollars   and got all the major fixtures:

• mirror
• sink
• vanity to hold a sink
• two piece linen closet, and
• a toilet

While there are fiberglass showers one can buy, a combination of

• they did not appeal to me, and 
• my bathroom's small size 

 led us to try to build and tile a shower.

Even though I have a well for water, I am still interested in saving water. So we bought an American Standard duel flush toilet. 

Not including the toilet which we got a few days earlier, here are fixtures.  A full pickup load.  Good thing I have a full sized box on my pickup.

The day we got the fixtures it was rainy.  I brought a number of tarps to protect the boxes from the rain but by the time we got to the store the rain had quit.  I guess it was meant to be for me to get these bathroom fixtures.

Graupel

The weather was all over the place today.  Some sun, some clouds, some wind, some calm, all cold.  For a while this afternoon lots of graupel fell.

Water trough hole

After I got my cattle I discovered the water trough I had filled when they arrived, was dry the next morning.  I was surprised but I thought it may have been because the cattle were thirsty after their busy day at the auction.  I refilled the water trough.

The next morning the water trough was dry again.  Hmmm.... something is going on here.  Two days in a row is not a coincidence.

I put water in the water trough and then checked underneath it.  I found a good sized leak.  I have some rust spots in the trough, and apparently a combination of standing and rusting over Winter and my using a wire brush to clean the tank this Spring before the cattle arrived, wore the rust spot so thin that once the trough was filled the water weigh completed the hole.

Good thing I have a second water trough as I filled that with water and then emptied the trough with the hole and dried it out.  I have some leftover JB-weld and used that to patch the hole.  It appears to have sealed the hole, which is a good thing as I really like my unique old fashioned water trough.

Before and after photos: