The ranch – and most of the Pacific Northwest – has been hit by several storms in the last couple of weeks. It has been a snowy winter thus far. Currently there is over three feet of snow on the ground with drifts well over six feet. 
These photos are from last winter when there was probably 8 – 10 inches of snow on the ground. Now another two feet! I wish we could be there to see it. Our friend John has been keeping an eye on the place for us while we are away. He wasn’t able to get in with his Bobcat and had to get a loader to clear the driveway.
So, while the ranch is snowed in and we are still in California, we will take you back to fall when we started construction on our new garden shed / chicken coop.
The boundaries are staked out. You can see the remains of our summer garden.
Rick dug out the whole foundation by hand with his shovel – not.
He had quite a bit of help from John and his excavator. Imagine trying to dig that whole thing by hand – in all those rocks!
A load of gravel was delivered for the foundation.
John dumped scoops of gravel with his Bobcat and Rick spread it around.
John dug a trench to tie in the utilities from near the mobile home out to the new shed. We managed to find the phone cable first thing, it was only about 6 inches deep.
Amazingly enough, Rick wired most of the wires back together and both the phone and fax worked like that for three weeks until the service guy came out and fixed it.
What a guy.