HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE

Not a single trick or treater again this year in our neighbourhood and it's raining. The closest thing that feels like Halloween are these photos that my daughter Christine sent me tonight of James and Daniel, herself and her husband Joe. This is a family who really knows how to enjoy Halloween.

Christine and Daniel in their costumes

Joe and James at the agriculture museum

James  going to the Agriculture museum Sorry, the photos are out of sequence.

 Joe and James putting googly eyes on his pumpkin. James loves googly eyes. Can you tell?

So many pumpkin to choose from. James pulling on a pumpkin wagon

James the little tiger loves Halloween and has been very excited all week about the whole thing.

Daniel and James digs this green pumpkin.

Pooh Bear versus Sqully. Daniel seems to prefer Pooh.

A Martian pumpkin

James resting on a pumpkin. Looking for just the right pumpkin can be very tiring.

Wow, that looks like a big pumpkin in the foreground while James is still resting. Pumpkins makes the best seat don't you think?

Mommy and James looking like cute pumpkins too in the sunny reflection.

Christine made this costume for Joe to represent Kevin Flynn of the Movie Tron but the picture doesn't do it justice. Light can really play tricks in photography.

This is Kevin Flynn from the Movie Tron.

I hope that you all had a Happy and Safe Halloween.
Good night and thanks for visiting and leaving a comment.
JB

A TIME FOR TEARING DOWN ENDED IN A CLOUD OF DUST

I decided to post the tearing down of our second silo for the benefit of my family and for those who are interested. If you haven't seen my previous post, I've showed some photos of after the first silo was torn down but this one shows you how it was done

The steel cables were cut in several places around the silo.

Holes were pounded through with a heavy mallet to tie a chain and haul the silo in a safe direction.

The chain is attached to the  New Holland tractor at a safe distance. The pasture is wet because we had two days of rain this week.

The cap or dome  from the first silo is rolled out of the tractor's way.

More holes need to be hammered out with the big mallet to weaken the structure so it will collapse in somewhat a heap. My grandson, Liam looking to see how it's done.

Notice that I have moved safely way out of the way so everything looks smaller.

The cement has deteriorated so it's fairly easy for the strong men to poke holes with the mallet. The silo is not anchored in the foundation, it is just standing over a strong cement base and is held in place by weight alone. More holes needed to weaken the structure to make it fall in the pasture and not on the road. Archie in the white shirt is a big strong young man and wow, can he swing that mallet....

Archie is in need of a rest so Reid  in the black shirt is taking over pounding.

The tractor pulled on the chain and the cement blocks crumbled around where the chain was attached and left an open gap but the silo didn't fall as expected.

Archie pounds some more cement blocks and hears the silo groaning... and starts to runs to safety.

The silo is now listing heavily and has started to crumble. Notice that the silo is already shorter as you can see the white chutes are close to the ground when you compare it with the previous photo.

Coming down nicely.

like in slow motion as I'm clicking away on my camera at a far distance.

Getting shorter...

and shorter... and the dome is coming detached

 The silo is being reduced in height as it comes down

while my husband in the yellow vest looks on,

pleased as could be. The cloud of dust is rising...

and the silos are no more, just a pile of rubble and steel rods and crushed metal.

Emerging from their safe place to survey the result as the cloud of cement dust rises.

The only mishaps this morning was that my husband lost his Smart phone before the silo was being being worked on. Everyone looked and called his cell number but it kept forwarding the call to our house phone so we could not hear  his smart cell phone ring.  That's a bummer.

Hope that you enjoyed viewing how the men  demolished the second silo. The cleaning up of the second silo has begun and is half way done. I chose to mow my lawn and mulch some fallen leaves as the lawn has been neglected these last couple of weeks so I didn't lift cement blocks today.

Someone was asking what we did with the rubble and metal. We will sell the metal .
We have been approved and given a permit by the Dept. of Environment to use the broken cement blocks  along the river's edge where we have severe erosion to our land during spring flooding. The unbroken blocks have been saved and put on pallets to be recycled.
Thanks for visiting and leaving your comment.  Happy weekend everyone.
JB

ONE DOWN AND ONE MORE TO GO...

I've been so preoccupied these last couple of weeks doing some much needed Fall cleaning around the farm. The place has been rundown and trees growing against the foundations and stuff just leaning against the buildings. I usually clean around the house in the Fall but that will have to wait for later.

I didn't take any photos as I work throughout the day  until it's time again to go feed the calves and then it a mad rush to get supper on and then it's too dark to work outside. The weather has been perfect to work outdoors this October so I have a lot to be thankful for. It's been perfect...

On Saturday after  lunch, I was in the office checking my emails when I heard a huge a big Kaboom... and the ground shook.  My first thought was, the silo has fallen.... I grabbed my camera and went out locking the door behind me and ran to the farm and this is what I saw as went through the hedge,  only one silo was standing. I knew that they were supposed to come down sometime this Fall but I didn't knew when. Just the day before I had cleaned that area inside the small entrance between the silos. It's the entrance to where the calf barn is. I had asked my husband if he had given any thoughts as to  how he was going to get those silos down. He told me that he had talked to a farmer who had taken several silos down. He never told me that he was doing it himself... the next day...

At this point I didn't know what I would find. Were there heifers hurt or dead as they are usually around the silos, were my calves OK as their barn is right beside the silos and worst, was there anybody hurt???

This is what I saw as soon as I came through the back hedge, only one silo standing. Our silos have long been a landmark for the airplanes that flies over. We live near the airport.

As I got closer, I saw a ladder that wasn't there when I left the farm this morning. It was leaning on the gate.

Then I saw the men standing and smiling and not looking worried and I saw the big New Holland tractor in the back and I knew that he had pulled the silo down. The silos are 60 feet high  and are huge. Anything could have gone wrong but thank goodness it didn't.  Needless to say, the flock of pigeons were quite dismayed that one of their favorite roosting place was no longer.

The top, the chute and the filling pipe all over the place

Tons and tons and tons of heavy cement pieces and heavy steel rods and twisted metal all over the place. The steel rods all have to be cut in manageable lengths to pull them from the rubble.

It's difficult to really see the monumental amount of cement blocks that has to be cleaned up before the other silo comes down.

The roof over the entrance where I enter the calf barn has partially come down. It was between the two silos.

The men admiring their handiwork.

This was a picture I took last year of the two abandoned silos.

And a closeup of how deteriorated the silos were. They were built in 1968 and were 45 years old.

I help my husband and son load up the heavy pieces into tractor buckets and we are almost finished cleaning the first silo. We are using two tractors with big buckets to make the job go faster. It's back breaking work and I'm getting a good work out. As soon as 4:00 o'clock comes it's time to feed the calves and clean up the barn etc.

More photos to come as the job continues...

Thanks for visiting my blog, I hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
We are still eating turkey, it's a good thing as I sure don't have time to cook these days.
JB