On Worrying and Wood Stoves

While I slaved away in the kitchen today making homemade bread and sausage kale chowder, Farmer D and his dad did the really hard work…they started installing the new wood stove.

Our new addition…

I should have known they’d get ideas…this Classic beauty magically showed up the day after the guys went to the Farm Science Review. (Though Farmer D and I had discussed eventually replacing our ancient, inefficient, and often-repaired old stove. I just did expect it to happen that fast.)

…and where the old wood stove used to stand

Let’s see…Farmer D, his dad, and A went to the Farm Science Review on Thursday (and didn’t get home until well after supper time.

By the time I got home from work shortly after 5:00 on Friday, they had the old stove torn out, the new stove sitting in the driveway, the old cement pad torn out, and the frame built to pour the new pad.

My guys don’t waste any time.

But the stove remained in the middle of the driveway until today - I think it took them that long to figure out how the heck they were going to move it.

Any excuse to play with the Auto Crane

First Farmer D got out his pimped-out dump trailer with the Auto Crane on the front. Though they tried a couple of different angles and arm lengths, the stove wouldn’t budge.

(And I watched from the kitchen window in case anyone got squished.)

They then decided to head over to the farm to get the forklift. Naturally, when they it started and got back (from all the way across the street), they discovered they were out of propane.

(And I had a hard time not laughing…if I did something like that, they Farmer D and dad both would have lectured me.)

Once they got their act together and persuaded me to help steer the hanging stove, we carefully moved from the driveway to the side of the barn.

Getting the job done

And after a few adjustments (and some pushing and shoving), we got the wood stove placed on the pad.

I wonder if we now have to paint the barn to match?

What you don’t see in the above picture is the look of terror on Farmer D’s face that he was going to drop the new stove – perhaps even on his wife.

This would make a few of the stepchildren entirely too happy.

With that done (the stove placing, not the wicked witch squishing), the guys decided to work on hooking up the wood stove tomorrow.

And that they were tired…and hungry.

Good thing I had the soup made.