Compassion

See ourself in our neighbor. 

           https://youtu.be/-6p-zCifdkM         

Relation

 St. Joseph, the Spouse of Mary, pray for us!

           https://youtu.be/A4Snmn9Ygnc         

Twisted Gate

The gate saga continues. This time, one with character. 

There's no better place to spend a couple of free hours on a cold snowy spring day, than in the shop. 

But if you're going to be productive in the shop when the weather outside is wild, you have to think ahead.  At the first sense of a norther blowing in, you better load the shop up with material. 

Then, when it hits, you can get to work. This is a simple 15' gate on the end of our riding arena. One thing different is that we only put one brace in the center instead of two. For a filler, we chose some of Grandpa's finest bowed 1" water line. 

Then weaving them together, we built a bent gate. 

From the front, it doesn't look too bad. 

From the top, she's twisted. 

I like it. Gives it character. And if there's one thing this world could use more of, it's character! Plugging away in the office is good, especially when it's blizzard like. But there comes a point of diminishing returns. Thanks be to God for the shop! Here's where creativity is turned into rejuvenation. Taking time to recreate can seem like an inefficient use of energy. However, when done right, it rejuvenates a guy to work even more efficiently. Stay tuned for more tips on how to live life with peace and purpose. 

Humility

Follow our Lord's example. 

           https://youtu.be/Rc2mdPIrwak         

Gun Rack

Part of properly outfitting the rectory is getting my cowboy corner sent up. I've made a few strides, but I had yet to find the right place for my rifle. Until now. 

 I got this idea from my uncle's gun rack, which used to hang in our basement. Repurposing at its finest. 

Old horse shoes have a place. Done right, they can look cool. Done wrong, they can look tacky. Let's see where we land. 

First step is to knock the backs of the nails off with a grinder. 

Then take a punch and drive the rest of them out. 

This is a good time to take a wire brush and clean as much rust and dirt off as you can. A wire wheel on a grinder works good too. 

I just picked the top of the first nail hole as a good height, and welded the second shoe on. 

Once cleaned up and primered, I shot them with black. Flat black works the best. Keeps the rustic look, but also doesn't highlight the pitted old shoes like gloss would. 

Next, I wrapped them with some old leather. 

Pretty simple, I just tucked the ends down in the last wrap. Leather is pretty forgiving, it likes to stay put. 

Once I found the right hight on the wall, I just used horse shoe nails and set them in place. 

Giddy up. 

This is a happy home for my .454 Casull. Looks good above the mantel of the ole electric fireplace. The cowboy corner is coming along. You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy!

Communal

When someone else sins, we sin. 

           https://youtu.be/zzE3uLHctSc         

Exodus

Jesus' exodus is also our exodus. 

           https://youtu.be/KPcHa_q9a2k         

Spring Fun

As providence would have it, my brother called early Saturday morning to let me know that our cow had calved! Ole whitey came through once again. So I grabbed Uncle Phil, and a few of his grandkids, and we headed down to see what God had given us. 

I like Charolais cows. Mom is a cross with a red Angus and baby likely has a black dad. This calf will probably be grey for a while and turn more white by fall. 

We were pretty excited to see what sex it was. I was hoping for a heifer. And praise God, it was!

Once we had little buddy caught, we put a tag in her ear. Left ear, for heifer calves. Shouldn't be hard to spot, though. Luke pretty much runs all black. 

Let the good times roll!

I love calving. It challenges a cowboy's skills. Sometimes the moms what to eat you for touching their baby. Other times, they want nothing to do with their kid. Sometimes cows calve with natural ease. Other times, a man has to straighten out a breech delivery. It's all fun. We'll have to see what the Lord has in story for this little grey girl. So far, she's brought joy to at least one cowboy's life. Ranch on!

Gates Again

Mom always said, A job worth doing is a job worth doing well. True. I also like to say, A job worth starting is a job worth finishing. I have no intentions of leaving loose ends on our new corral system. One by one, we are checking all the gates off the list. 

Two more this time. Roughly 16 footers. 

For this sized gate, we turned to our 1.90" pipe. This stuff is sought after. Handy size to work with, but fairly uncommon in the oilfield world. It was a common tubbing size back in the coal bed methane days, which is where this string came from. 

Two 4' gates were to be built. So we cut eight 44" uprights. 

We just laid the the 16' top rail below and on top of the 44"ers. This gave us a roughly 48" tall gate. My buddy Devlin came over to help piece them together. 

For the inside material, we used Grandpa's bent up water pipe that we took off his old round pen. 

Because all of this pipe is small enough, we chose not to saddle the joints. However, when you do this you end up with some pretty good gaps to fill. 

There's a couple ways to tackle this. I usually implore the pulse method, of stitching the weld back and forth by pulling and releasing the trigger before the weld gets too hot. I'll usually work one side and then the other, until they meet in the middle. With a mig welder you can make this dance happen.

Not the strongest weld. But for our application, it serves the purpose just fine. 

Another method is to lay a lone bead to help fill in the gap. This works well in an inverted position, where gravity isn't in your favor. 

Cool. 

Vertical welds are a friend of mine. I almost always run down hill. You can get better penetration running up hill, but it takes more skill. And with a gap to fill, down hill is your best bet. 

Again, I just pulse back and forth until it is all stitched up. 

Should work. 

Then Darin and I threw them on White Horse. 

Up and over. 

These are pivotal gates to our corral network. The east heads out into the pasture, while the north goes into the arena. 

There's a lot weighing on these hinges, so you want to get the best weld you can. Grinding off the rust is the first step in the right direction. Don't worry, the rusty patina will grow back!

Because we want this gate to fold completely back on itself, we offset the hinge bracket to make it turn a clean 180. 

By doing so, it sits flat against the corral fence. Because cattle will go in and out of here from the pasture to water, we want to tie it open tightly to the fence.  

Woking on hilly ground with gates is tough. We pretty much just shot the middle with this bad boy.  Low on one side, high on the other. 

It opens good and wide on the side that we will use the most. 

The other direction is only about 90 degrees before it bottoms out. Uncle Lloyd says it’ll do. 

However, it is enough to align the two gates if you needed to run critters from the arena directly into the pasture, or vice versa. 

Giddy up. 

A gate is only as good as the method that is used to mount it. These posts are not concreted into the ground, but they are welded firmly to the rails and posts that proceed them. This will give them plenty of support when they are running in line with the rest of the fence. Off to a 90 degree angle, hanging by themselves for very long, might become an issue. Time will tell. As for now, I'm satisfied. Let's ranch. 

Ask, Seek, Knock

We seek God by seeking our neighbor. 

           https://youtu.be/qhpSeaLN280         

Repent

Turn back to the Lord!

           https://youtu.be/Hj-A--LxiwI         

Forgiveness

 Forgiveness is an act of charity. 

           https://youtu.be/0_GQ3TbEM-k