They say the last few weeks of pregnancy drags on. They aren't kidding, although I am finding it much needed time to get things done and settled before life changes. It's hard to grasp the changes that will take place, more so because Rachel and Drew are older and independent to the point where I at least don't have to worry about them starving to death in the event I was not here/in the house for half the day or better. Plus, they've long been able to be trusted alone. I don't worry about the changes in store, I just consider the fact it will be a huge adjustment!
Livestock chores are at a bare minimum this time of year for the most part. I was hoping it wouldn't be the case with the hog feed but it looks like we'll need to run out for another load before the new baby is born and I was kind of hoping to avoid that as we won't be totally through the last. I'd much rather have that though than running out while I am out of commission!!! So, between now and a week from Monday we'll run out and get that all squared away.
We also need a bit more hay too. A couple of the rounds we bought were stemmy and/or weedy and they went through it like wild fire. Or, should I say, dumped it on the ground so come spring, the barns will have A LOT of compost material. Fortunately, Jeremiah drags it out with the tractor bucket but it is a job to get in to the corners by hand. We leave it all sit until spring when it warms up because, as horrible as all of this waste hay build up tends to look by the end of the season, it's great insulation and with the manure, it creates its own compost effect and offers a bit of a radiant heating affect.
A radiant heating affect hasn't been needed too much the past week which is quite a bit different than how January started off. One day the high was 16! I hate those bitter days. Last weekend we made it into the 60's and Monday we hit 70 something. Boy was that wonderful! Anything above 32 during the day is pretty nice in my opinion, I think average day time temps are abut 43 this time of year. It seems strange but your body (or at least mine) begins to acclimate a bit and 40's, as long as the wind isn't blowing which is usually pretty often, doesn't seem so bad.
My seeds came in, I have hope to put in a garden and lots of ideas on what to change. Last year the weeds were just so bad but this year I hope to curb that with a few techniques. My greenhouse took a bad hit last May when the horrendous hail storm that rolled through. I don't think we'll have the opportunity to fix it before it's needed but fortunately we got an awesome deal on straw and stocked the barn up with quadruple the amount we normally do. The wheat harvest was short, as in, the plants were short. We did not get rain at the right time and while I think the wheat harvest actually turned out OK, there was a severe straw shortage due to the fact that they had to cut the wheat so short to th ground to harvest the grains. I found a guy about an hour south that had left over hay, masses of it, stored in his barn he was selling dirt cheap. What was kind of ironic is that I was a little worried of what it may look like as he was hauling it up for us due to the amount we bought. I hadn't known it was from a couple of years ago (which may have made me worry a little more) but he did say it was barn stored (which doesn't always mean much) so I crossed my fingers given the amount he was asking and when it arrived, it was some of the prettiest straw I had seen in years!!! I even mentioned that out loud to him (thinking it was this years) and he said well, it's actually from a cutting I did 3 years ago. So, there ya go!
My point about straw is that I intend to do some cold frame and then use the bales to straw bale garden when the plants are ready to go in the garden in May. Kind of a 2 for one use really! We have accumulated a few old windows and 2 parts of a sliding glass door from our rental house that we had to replace that should give me plenty of room to start what I need to. Not as much as the greenhouse would give me but I also don't intend to grow as much as I normally do. I normally start enough to sell & give away on top of what I find places for in every single nook and cranny in my own garden. I really do love seed starting!
The straw bales will start their needed decomp process that's needed to get them ready for planting in by being out in the open and being the insulation and "walls" to hold up the cold frames (windows). In my mind I see it all working out perfectly! I also plan to "no till" the garden. Last fall we put the sow and her Sept. litter of piglets out on the garden and they always do a bang up job tilling it. We had a small flock of chickens in there with them eating all the weed seeds and seeds from left over produce that never got picked so I am hoping between the two, #1 the soil will be nice and loose and #2 what weeds and wayward seeds may have been left to resprout are gone. This no till method is pretty much just that. I will till the rows that I plan to plant in but I will not till the whole thing. The idea is that any weed seeds that are about an inch below the soil are not pulled to the top to germinate. And since I had the animals on it tilling and eating what was 1-3 inches under, we SHOULD be good to go! We'll see!!! I am excited about all of it, as like with any new thing.
Speaking of chickens though, we're finally starting to pick up on egg production mostly due to the late summer born chickens last year I think, the pullets. The eggs are smaller but that's okay! We still have quite a few weeks of winter but some years when winter seems to start in October, by mid-January it can feel like spring fever! Course, it makes for a very long winter if in fact it holds on until April but nonetheless, at least I feel like we've rounded the corner some! I cut back on the # of chickens and got rid of a bunch of roosters (gave them away). Sometime I guess you can get a pretty good price for them at the poultry auction in the town south of here once a month but honestly, it's too much trouble! I don't feel their carcass is worth butchering them over either and aside from humanely putting them down and giving them to the dogs, there's not enough there for me to bother with even if I skinned them with the feathers still on!
The Sept. hogs will be read to go off in Feb/March to the processor. One gilt (female) who has always been the largest of the litter is looking really really nice! I hate to send a gilt off to slaughter but that was always her destiny. I don't need any more sows and the price we fetch for butcher ready is more than I would fetch for her as a breeder so it is what it is. Her brothers aren't far behind and for the use of our boar last fall, we got a piglet in return from an Oct. litter who is finally looking like he's doing some growing!
I had a heck of a time getting the sow and gilt and the piglets to stay apart. it was the piglets who would continue to join the sow and gilt and it wasn't a big deal minus the fact the shelter was not nearly big enough for all of them and there was a perfectly good shelter in the other pasture they woudn't use and secondly, they weren't getting as much to eat as I had wanted them to and the sow and gilt were growing unnecessarily large!
That said, I put up anther strand of hot wire and that did the trick! They haven't been back in since and now I just need to run a few more posts so I can "tunnel: them to the gate. Before we always kept them way back off the gate but that proved to be a bad idea come time to haul them in because it is a CHORE to get them to cross over a place they are used to a hot wire being! If it's the gate "out" that they know to carry a zap, that can be an issue to get them loaded no matter how much food is on the other side! So, the plan is to just put a panel across the gate, mainly to keep the spring born doe kid out (they like to shimmy under and dine on the hog's feed which is making FAT does!!!) and they will know the gate isn't something to fear. We'll back the trailer up, load them and go. Easy as that! We're expecting another litter of piglets from the sow and gilt come end of March/first part of April so the process starts all over again!
Our first doe(s) are due mid-February. I am a little anxious to see how that all works out with a newborn but life carries on and I can only hope for good kidding weather. We have really cut down the herd. I think we have 9-10 does kidding this year, usually it's around 15. We kept 7 spring doe kids back, I think who were not bred so there will be some more cutting back in the fall once they are all bred and I don't think we'll keep many spring does this year. We'll also be cutting back on the bucks as well and selling at least one as I intend to haul one out from Ca. this summer along with 2 other individuals, not sure yet on bucks or does but likely doe/doe kids. They are payment for a barter, of sorts.
Lots of changes to expect this year for sure but they are all exciting and we are looking forward! My days are filled with odds and ends jobs that I have been chipping away at slowly for the past couple of weeks (i.e. making cloth diapers and other such baby gear and painting a pan's worth of wood work in the hallway a day!). I figure with a little bit a day, eventually it'll all get done and it won't seem like huge chore all at once. I'm not sure why the whole painting thing seems like such a daunting chore to me. I don't think I mind it...at someone elses house, but my own I always seem to begrudge the work! Maybe because we live here and I always have to move crap out of the way to paint anything, or sweep, etc. etc. How nice and easy it is not to have any furniture in the way to move along at a good pace, not have a basket of laundry or a humidifier in the hallway!
At any rate, that's what's going on here. I am feeling a bit sleepy as I sit next to the wood stove that has an awfully nice fire going in it. There's about half an hour left before the kids get woken up to get ready for school and I may just try to sneak a half an hour nap in before the day begins for good!
Friday, January 23, 2015
Saturday, December 27, 2014
End of the year plumbing shenenagins
Yesterday was a nightmare!
Let me start off by saying that we are thoroughly enjoying having our best friends here for Christmas and New Years. The boys have made a HUGE dent in the disaster that we called a shop.With everything going on for the past 6-9 months, it became so overwhelmingly out of control I had to wonder how on earth we'd ever get a handle on it. Fortunately I didn't have to worry.
Jeremiah and I started on the insulation and plywood a couple of weeks ago but that was put on hold when the house went up for rent and we spent pretty much every waking minute showing it to perspective tenants. I'm happy to report we have new tenants in but that hasn't come without its fair share of work. Not on their part, just last minute things we needed to get done that turned out to take a bit longer than anticipated. We found a leak in the roof due to the cold cedar shingle shifting. We had considered replacing the leaking part with new cedar shingles but the insurance company much prefers to see asphalt shingles and while the cedar does look nice, in the end it's cheaper and more leak resistant to go with good quality asphalt shingles. The downfall is that this is NOT the time of year to be roofing! Jeremiah spent a Saturday installing about a 100 square foot section to cover the leaking portion and it should be good to go until spring when we can get back up there and do the remaining. It will also be a good time to re-stain the shop as well and I think having some gravel dumped wouldn't be a bad thing either!
So, back to yesterday's fiasco. Well even before that. The tenant moved in a week ago Friday and the shower head upstairs suddenly wanted to spit and do nothing more so he used the downstairs shower until we could get a replacement (next day) but then the valve on the downstairs shower went kaput and was allowing water to flow out of the shower head. Fortunately one whole unit was able to fix both since the shower head downstairs was a really nice rainfall type and all it needed was a new valve and the shower head in the kit replaced the shower head upstairs. Super!
Wednesday I was out grocery shopping for the Christmas meal and Jeremiah and Frank had taken off for Lowes I think. I got back to hear the tenant had called saying the downstairs toilet was overflowing. Jeremiah rushed over there as soon as he heard, pulled the toilet and figured there was a clog in the line. The tenant told him to go home andit could be dealt with on Friday after Christmas. I figured we'd call out a plumber to snake the line to save us the trouble but figured one wouldn't be able to arrive until later in the day being busy after Christmas. Jeremiah scheduled the plumber for afternoon but called to find out if that would be suitable only to learn now everything was backing up including the downstairs shower. We rushed out to buy a snake thinking it may very well likely be roots in the line and could potentially be near the septic.
It turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. we were at Lowes first thing to buy a mechanical snake and new wax ring for the downstairs toilet that Jeremiah pulled and a new valve since it was leaking too apparently. We checked the clean out to see if there was standing water and sure enough, there was a lot! So that meant a clog somewhere from the leach lines forward. We pulled the cover to the septic, it was at a good level and no overflowing which ruled out the leach lines. Dug up the inlet and the main septic line from the house, unhooked it from the septic and sure enough, roots were clogging the inlet to the septic. Jeremiah got that cleared which allowed all the backed up water in the line to flow which we had hoped was the issue. We went back inside to reset the toilet (and I cleaned the bathroom thoroughly with bleach) except we had bought the wrong valve so I had to go back to Lowes for the right one, while I did that Jeremiah installed another receptacle in the laundry. There was just a stacked washer/dryer unit it it before and only one receptacle was necessary. They had a set. When I got back, we reset the toilet, fixed the valve and while the toilet started out flushing a little sluggish, it seemed to pick up after a couple flushes until we were satisfied all was good.
Jeremiah headed upstairs to see what may be the issue up there (if any) and came back with not so great news. That toilet wasn't flushing well at all and the drain in the upstairs shower was slow too. We decided that maybe with everything backing up, there was a clog and it may be best to pull the toilet and snake that line but that meant a new wax ring would be required which meant I needed to head to Lowes...again. By the time I got back, Jeremiah said the snake was stuck which was not music to my ears. After 20 minutes struggling with the thing he was able to get it unstuck but up with it came about a 5 lb. root ball! Not good!! We reset the toilet not wanting to chance sending the snake back down for fear of it getting stuck again, cleaned up and headed back outside to see if he couldn't feed it up through the main line clean out. It meant digging back some on the plumbing to take off the angled portion that pointed toward the septic. We needed to go in the direction of the house. I had to head home to do chores and got back in time to hear that another root ball had been removed, not as big as what came out upstairs but that the toilets were flowing super well now and he was confident everything was good. We got some copper sulfate down the line to help kill any more roots and I hope that takes care of that.
The tenants were in Wichita all day and got home just as we were finishing up, merciful as ever saying it wasn't a big deal. I cannot say I'd be nearly as forgiving given that the whole entire houses plumbing was completely unusable and with 4 boys under 13 including a toddler, that's just not my idea of "no big deal". A major peace offering is in order I'd say and the 2 loads of their towels I washed and dried is nowhere NEAR adequate compensation as far as I'm concerned!
It was cold yesterday (32 degrees) and we were in and out, made some huge holes in the yard getting part of the septic, lines and clean out dug up. I was exhausted last night and when the snake was stuck, it was a pretty low point in the whole day.
Fortunately, everything seems to be flowing and working well and I hope it continues that way. We just weren't putting the normal "strain" that regular household use - washing machine, dishwasher, showers, flushing, etc.- would put on a system so flushing the toilet or running some water down the line was never enough to back it up so we had no idea. By the time we were back, it had all had a chance to percolate through the root clogs. I feel so badly that the new tenants were the guinea pigs for the plumbing! I guess all's well that ends in a well though and hope that no other issue come up. I am so grateful to have tenants who have been so patient and understanding!
This morning has been major clean up after gifts and eating and having 8 people in the house. Our friends headed north for a couple days to visit other friends so it's pretty quiet around here. It's so cold out though and it's only going to get colder. The kids have been very good though and all in all it's been fairly quiet around here!
The electric ("invisible") dog fence has been unplugged for a bit and last night Snow took advantage of that fact and headed up to the garage to help herself to the turkey carcass I had set out there with full intention of taking it out this morning. She broke a glass bowl that was waiting to come in to be washed and overall made a mess! I cleaned that up this morning and plugged the fence back in. It's always something, it seems!
We still have not gotten much wood split! We've sot of been limping along a little on what we had left but overall, the weather has been pretty nice surprisingly! But the next 2 weeks isn't looking anywhere near as nice and we'll need to get something done. The weatherman is calling for wind chills potentially in the negative 20's to 30's. YUCK! The wood stove cannot keep up with wind chills that cold but it can help to keep it burning full blast so ease what propane is used in the furnace. With the wood stove running full blast and the furnace as back up, it stays plenty warm. We save the hedge wood (osage orange) we have split for cold like that because it likely has one of the best BTU outputs of all of the most common burning woods, even over oak (which we don't have), black walnut and locust (which we do and those burn well too). Couple that with most of what we have being very well seasoned and that makes it burn loooooooong and hot.
At any rate, I'll have my last "2 weeker" doctor's appointment on the 7th of January when I switch to once a week. I think these next few weeks will go very quickly and that's a bit scary! I've not had much time to sew and I really had hoped to have at least my newborn diaper stash ready to go! I'm struggling with what kind of system I want, wanting to stay away from fitteds and covers but I just can't help but go back to my old standbys even if I've made 4 dozen accented prefolds to use as lay in soakers already! I've just not been real happy with the All In Two waterproof shells. Maybe in the next 3 weeks I'll have a little downtime yet still and can get that all wrapped up.
We've figured out a routine for the animals to lessen the work on Jeremiah once baby makes his/her arrival. It's a pretty low work load as it is right now but we'll still bite the bullet on waste and just allow the goats free access to a couple round bales. I am feeling tired and it's getting harder and harder to roll over in bed but overall, I feel I have done more than an adequate job keeping up with my workload I maintained before pregnancy.
On side note completely unrelated, I just got up to reheat some left over mashed potatoes and noticed the last of the pies sitting on the stove beckoning someone's pie loving name. I started out making pies from scratching, including crusts, when I was about 12 I guess. I had always made crust with butter and while good, now at 34 I have completely switched to lard and that last few crusts I have made strictly with lard and not butter or a combination have come out far superior, been far less finicky about being warm, are easier to roll because of the temp and come out just as tender and flaky as the old butter crusts. I can only imagine that they will be twice a great if I would have had home rendered lard from our own hog(s) available to use instead of still frozen solid in the freezer waiting to be rendered!
I suppose I'll get back to cleaning and general picking up. Somehow I've managed to stay on top of the laundry despite it all which is not always something I am not always so great at. Jeremiah is over at the other house filling in ditches, I assume. The kids are camped in the living room where the wood stove has it the perfect temperature for taking a nap!
Hope you had a Merry Christmas! We're looking forward to New Year celebrations!
Let me start off by saying that we are thoroughly enjoying having our best friends here for Christmas and New Years. The boys have made a HUGE dent in the disaster that we called a shop.With everything going on for the past 6-9 months, it became so overwhelmingly out of control I had to wonder how on earth we'd ever get a handle on it. Fortunately I didn't have to worry.
Jeremiah and I started on the insulation and plywood a couple of weeks ago but that was put on hold when the house went up for rent and we spent pretty much every waking minute showing it to perspective tenants. I'm happy to report we have new tenants in but that hasn't come without its fair share of work. Not on their part, just last minute things we needed to get done that turned out to take a bit longer than anticipated. We found a leak in the roof due to the cold cedar shingle shifting. We had considered replacing the leaking part with new cedar shingles but the insurance company much prefers to see asphalt shingles and while the cedar does look nice, in the end it's cheaper and more leak resistant to go with good quality asphalt shingles. The downfall is that this is NOT the time of year to be roofing! Jeremiah spent a Saturday installing about a 100 square foot section to cover the leaking portion and it should be good to go until spring when we can get back up there and do the remaining. It will also be a good time to re-stain the shop as well and I think having some gravel dumped wouldn't be a bad thing either!
So, back to yesterday's fiasco. Well even before that. The tenant moved in a week ago Friday and the shower head upstairs suddenly wanted to spit and do nothing more so he used the downstairs shower until we could get a replacement (next day) but then the valve on the downstairs shower went kaput and was allowing water to flow out of the shower head. Fortunately one whole unit was able to fix both since the shower head downstairs was a really nice rainfall type and all it needed was a new valve and the shower head in the kit replaced the shower head upstairs. Super!
Wednesday I was out grocery shopping for the Christmas meal and Jeremiah and Frank had taken off for Lowes I think. I got back to hear the tenant had called saying the downstairs toilet was overflowing. Jeremiah rushed over there as soon as he heard, pulled the toilet and figured there was a clog in the line. The tenant told him to go home andit could be dealt with on Friday after Christmas. I figured we'd call out a plumber to snake the line to save us the trouble but figured one wouldn't be able to arrive until later in the day being busy after Christmas. Jeremiah scheduled the plumber for afternoon but called to find out if that would be suitable only to learn now everything was backing up including the downstairs shower. We rushed out to buy a snake thinking it may very well likely be roots in the line and could potentially be near the septic.
It turned out to be a bit more complicated than that. we were at Lowes first thing to buy a mechanical snake and new wax ring for the downstairs toilet that Jeremiah pulled and a new valve since it was leaking too apparently. We checked the clean out to see if there was standing water and sure enough, there was a lot! So that meant a clog somewhere from the leach lines forward. We pulled the cover to the septic, it was at a good level and no overflowing which ruled out the leach lines. Dug up the inlet and the main septic line from the house, unhooked it from the septic and sure enough, roots were clogging the inlet to the septic. Jeremiah got that cleared which allowed all the backed up water in the line to flow which we had hoped was the issue. We went back inside to reset the toilet (and I cleaned the bathroom thoroughly with bleach) except we had bought the wrong valve so I had to go back to Lowes for the right one, while I did that Jeremiah installed another receptacle in the laundry. There was just a stacked washer/dryer unit it it before and only one receptacle was necessary. They had a set. When I got back, we reset the toilet, fixed the valve and while the toilet started out flushing a little sluggish, it seemed to pick up after a couple flushes until we were satisfied all was good.
Jeremiah headed upstairs to see what may be the issue up there (if any) and came back with not so great news. That toilet wasn't flushing well at all and the drain in the upstairs shower was slow too. We decided that maybe with everything backing up, there was a clog and it may be best to pull the toilet and snake that line but that meant a new wax ring would be required which meant I needed to head to Lowes...again. By the time I got back, Jeremiah said the snake was stuck which was not music to my ears. After 20 minutes struggling with the thing he was able to get it unstuck but up with it came about a 5 lb. root ball! Not good!! We reset the toilet not wanting to chance sending the snake back down for fear of it getting stuck again, cleaned up and headed back outside to see if he couldn't feed it up through the main line clean out. It meant digging back some on the plumbing to take off the angled portion that pointed toward the septic. We needed to go in the direction of the house. I had to head home to do chores and got back in time to hear that another root ball had been removed, not as big as what came out upstairs but that the toilets were flowing super well now and he was confident everything was good. We got some copper sulfate down the line to help kill any more roots and I hope that takes care of that.
The tenants were in Wichita all day and got home just as we were finishing up, merciful as ever saying it wasn't a big deal. I cannot say I'd be nearly as forgiving given that the whole entire houses plumbing was completely unusable and with 4 boys under 13 including a toddler, that's just not my idea of "no big deal". A major peace offering is in order I'd say and the 2 loads of their towels I washed and dried is nowhere NEAR adequate compensation as far as I'm concerned!
It was cold yesterday (32 degrees) and we were in and out, made some huge holes in the yard getting part of the septic, lines and clean out dug up. I was exhausted last night and when the snake was stuck, it was a pretty low point in the whole day.
Fortunately, everything seems to be flowing and working well and I hope it continues that way. We just weren't putting the normal "strain" that regular household use - washing machine, dishwasher, showers, flushing, etc.- would put on a system so flushing the toilet or running some water down the line was never enough to back it up so we had no idea. By the time we were back, it had all had a chance to percolate through the root clogs. I feel so badly that the new tenants were the guinea pigs for the plumbing! I guess all's well that ends in a well though and hope that no other issue come up. I am so grateful to have tenants who have been so patient and understanding!
This morning has been major clean up after gifts and eating and having 8 people in the house. Our friends headed north for a couple days to visit other friends so it's pretty quiet around here. It's so cold out though and it's only going to get colder. The kids have been very good though and all in all it's been fairly quiet around here!
The electric ("invisible") dog fence has been unplugged for a bit and last night Snow took advantage of that fact and headed up to the garage to help herself to the turkey carcass I had set out there with full intention of taking it out this morning. She broke a glass bowl that was waiting to come in to be washed and overall made a mess! I cleaned that up this morning and plugged the fence back in. It's always something, it seems!
We still have not gotten much wood split! We've sot of been limping along a little on what we had left but overall, the weather has been pretty nice surprisingly! But the next 2 weeks isn't looking anywhere near as nice and we'll need to get something done. The weatherman is calling for wind chills potentially in the negative 20's to 30's. YUCK! The wood stove cannot keep up with wind chills that cold but it can help to keep it burning full blast so ease what propane is used in the furnace. With the wood stove running full blast and the furnace as back up, it stays plenty warm. We save the hedge wood (osage orange) we have split for cold like that because it likely has one of the best BTU outputs of all of the most common burning woods, even over oak (which we don't have), black walnut and locust (which we do and those burn well too). Couple that with most of what we have being very well seasoned and that makes it burn loooooooong and hot.
At any rate, I'll have my last "2 weeker" doctor's appointment on the 7th of January when I switch to once a week. I think these next few weeks will go very quickly and that's a bit scary! I've not had much time to sew and I really had hoped to have at least my newborn diaper stash ready to go! I'm struggling with what kind of system I want, wanting to stay away from fitteds and covers but I just can't help but go back to my old standbys even if I've made 4 dozen accented prefolds to use as lay in soakers already! I've just not been real happy with the All In Two waterproof shells. Maybe in the next 3 weeks I'll have a little downtime yet still and can get that all wrapped up.
We've figured out a routine for the animals to lessen the work on Jeremiah once baby makes his/her arrival. It's a pretty low work load as it is right now but we'll still bite the bullet on waste and just allow the goats free access to a couple round bales. I am feeling tired and it's getting harder and harder to roll over in bed but overall, I feel I have done more than an adequate job keeping up with my workload I maintained before pregnancy.
On side note completely unrelated, I just got up to reheat some left over mashed potatoes and noticed the last of the pies sitting on the stove beckoning someone's pie loving name. I started out making pies from scratching, including crusts, when I was about 12 I guess. I had always made crust with butter and while good, now at 34 I have completely switched to lard and that last few crusts I have made strictly with lard and not butter or a combination have come out far superior, been far less finicky about being warm, are easier to roll because of the temp and come out just as tender and flaky as the old butter crusts. I can only imagine that they will be twice a great if I would have had home rendered lard from our own hog(s) available to use instead of still frozen solid in the freezer waiting to be rendered!
I suppose I'll get back to cleaning and general picking up. Somehow I've managed to stay on top of the laundry despite it all which is not always something I am not always so great at. Jeremiah is over at the other house filling in ditches, I assume. The kids are camped in the living room where the wood stove has it the perfect temperature for taking a nap!
Hope you had a Merry Christmas! We're looking forward to New Year celebrations!
Friday, November 21, 2014
Bad blogger
Where I found time to blog in the past I don't know, it seems non-existent now!
Busy times! The "other house", as we call it, is done. I find photos daunting to upload here and to photobucket. Facebook seems to be the way to go but I'll put a few on here just to appease myself, and maybe you, if you care to see them.
The house seemed to take forever. I won't say we bit off more than we can chew, it turned out lovely and we are very pleased. The garage still has a bunch of stuff in it that needs to be moved out but the trailer needs to be taken to the dump across town first! There are also a bunch of telephone poles left from when they hacked down the old shop. I cringe when I think of why anyone would do such a thing!!! It wasn't very old! It was a pole barn style. Telephone poles were set in the ground, concrete slab poured around. Stringers of lumber (likely 2x4's) were attached horizontally and metal siding attached to that. They just took down the metal, lumber and took a skill saw to the telephone poles leaving a concrete slab and probably lowering the worth of the property by several thousand dollars! The problem is that the telephone poles are inside of the slab portion. New poles could be set to the outside, new concrete could be poured to fill in the gap and a new shop could be erected again but why someone would do such a thing is just a...well, it's criminal. Perhaps that was the intention. Given that this house was a foreclosure, maybe the prior residents figured they could make a buck off the metal. Who knows the why's, but it's a shame nonetheless. We are not going to put up a shop, maybe if we were ever going to sell it (which potentially some day down the road) but at least the concrete is there is someone ever wanted to and that right there is worth a small fortune!
The weather has been on again off again cold. Last week I got the carpets cleaned in the house. It turned bitter on that Tuesday. We had the propane guy out on Monday to check the lines. The tank is owned but no company will fill it unless they have inspected everything. Everything checked out. It was cool in the house Tuesday despite it being below freezing but it wasn't bad. I set the furnace to 50 so I could be sure the pipes wouldn't freeze and we didn't get back to the house until the weekend. The furnace hadn't worked all week!!! That could have been a disaster, let me tell you! We know! When we first bought the house and had a plumbing inspector out there he turned on the water and due to frozen pipes at some point before the bank had the house winterized, water spewed from the downstairs bathroom pipes into the bathroom. Ahhhh, the joys of that! A bunch of drywall was removed ASAP to prevent mold.
It's move in ready now and I am glad to be finished. We have things left undone here at our own house having spent every waking minute of the weekends at the other. Winter is quickly approaching and we're down to about 2 weeks left on our wood supply! We have piglets in with the sow and gilt that have to be moved otherwise they will take a year to get to process weight. Lucky we have a pen and pasture for them made up already, and technically we have a shelter we could move in for them but that's just a temporary solution as it's only big enough for one 250 lb. pig and will NOT be big enough for 3 100 pounders. So, we gotta get them something bigger. Which isn't a big deal, that's there the "other houses" telephone poles come in handy. We can drop 4 into the ground, run some stringers top and bottom, attach some rafters and side and roof the whole thing within a couple of hours likely. Anything more than a 3 sided shelter that faces south or east isn't necessary. They do just fine with a lot of good bedding and each other for warmth. The pigs, thus far, have been about the simplest thing to raise!
We'll be borrowing a boar from our neighbor starting Thanksgiving weekend. We sent our own off back in August. No point in keeping one when we can borrow and it helps the both of us out technically. Payment is a barter in piglets and keeping two productive sows is a lot better on the pocket book than a boar and a sow!
This mornings it's overcast drizzly and "cold". It's hovering around 32/33 degrees. I've already been out to do chores but I am telling you, after 4 years of collecting the right type of clothing (none of it is cheap!), I have finally put together the right gear to keep me warm in even negative wind chills. I would trust this gear at -20! As it was, just the insulated overalls, boots and a hat were enough, I shed my jacket pretty early on. I expect within a few weeks I'll have become used to the cold and for a while, anyway, may go back to jeans and a jacket. It's funny how one becomes acclimated to the cold, really truly you do and even in 32 degrees (if the sun is shining), I can be out in a cotton short sleeve t and still sweat...if I'm working =)
Anyway, I feel like our own place has been neglected so. We did get a new roof on in Sept. thank goodness but there is still other damage to the house that needs to be addressed after the first of the year and the shop will need a new roof. The next order of business though, speaking of the shop, is to get that sucker organized. I am telling you, it's a wreck!!!
As for Thanksgiving, after the amount of time we've been away working on the house, I really feel like just locking the doors, so to speak, putting on a turkey and having some nice quiet family time. Though, nothing is ever really "quiet" around here, so to speak. It looks like part of Thanksgiving weekend may be about the only decent weekend left before winter really starts to set in and if we have to pull anything out of that shop, it will have to be done when it's not snowing, freezing rain, windy, etc. etc.
Over the summer I saw an ad for plywood for sale. We made sure it didn't fall off the back of a truck somewhere - ha ha - and bought 30-40 sheets at a fraction the cost of new. I can't remember how many Jeremiah said he needed for the shop but the intention is to put it half way up on the walls, 8 foot full sheets I guess, we bought excess to do the milk barn. I am sure he'd eventually like to heat the shop but we definitely need walls to hang stuff from better! My milk barn skeleton still sits. The electric box is in, metal roof is on but that was about as far as that went! We do have the metal for the sides, another used purchase we made. Actually we bought quite a bit of that metal too! It came off someone elses barn that was re-skinned after a hail storm paid for entirely by their insurance. The pieces we got must have been on the non-prevailing side because there are no dings in it.
Always something to work on. The lean-to shelters are over 40 years old and were the first things erected on this property by the original owner who, admittedly, had never built a thing in his life. He actually did a good job, obviously! They're still standing 40 years later! The only issue is that the poles that are the main supports are rotting at ground level which is bound to happen and so they've got to be deconstructed and re-erected. There are some things that could be done differently. They don't need to be nearly as tall as they are, even for larger livestock like horses which they used to have. Keeping roofs as low as possible keeps more heat in though the height has been nice for maximizing space for square bales when we were still putting those up. This year we went entirely with big round and we just use the tractor to slide one right into the adjoining "stall" on the lean-tos since they are all split in 2 with an adjoining pen. It makes feeding a lot easier as I can get to the feeders without actually having to go into the pens with the animals and the feeders and animals stay under cover.
We like to build with the intention of someday selling which may or may not ever happen but even in 40 years, shelters that are usable for more than just goats or smaller livestock is pretty important in our opinion and that means height and size need to be taken in to consideration so the sizes will likely stay the same. I have really liked having moveable short squaty shelters for the pigs and a chicken coop is a chicken coop is a chicken coop Any pig shelter is likely to work well for goats too so that's a double bonus. =)
Anyhow, there are some pressing matters I need to get to around this house, I suppose. The laundry is never ending, I see painting I want to get done and we have friends coming in from Alaska in December for Christmas that I have vowed to myself to have at least the hall bathroom and laundry room repainted for. Not that they care, but I do! In over 4 years I have admitted done very little to make this place a home for us which is pretty sad to think about!
Busy times! The "other house", as we call it, is done. I find photos daunting to upload here and to photobucket. Facebook seems to be the way to go but I'll put a few on here just to appease myself, and maybe you, if you care to see them.
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| 2nd bedroom |
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| Master bedroom |
The house seemed to take forever. I won't say we bit off more than we can chew, it turned out lovely and we are very pleased. The garage still has a bunch of stuff in it that needs to be moved out but the trailer needs to be taken to the dump across town first! There are also a bunch of telephone poles left from when they hacked down the old shop. I cringe when I think of why anyone would do such a thing!!! It wasn't very old! It was a pole barn style. Telephone poles were set in the ground, concrete slab poured around. Stringers of lumber (likely 2x4's) were attached horizontally and metal siding attached to that. They just took down the metal, lumber and took a skill saw to the telephone poles leaving a concrete slab and probably lowering the worth of the property by several thousand dollars! The problem is that the telephone poles are inside of the slab portion. New poles could be set to the outside, new concrete could be poured to fill in the gap and a new shop could be erected again but why someone would do such a thing is just a...well, it's criminal. Perhaps that was the intention. Given that this house was a foreclosure, maybe the prior residents figured they could make a buck off the metal. Who knows the why's, but it's a shame nonetheless. We are not going to put up a shop, maybe if we were ever going to sell it (which potentially some day down the road) but at least the concrete is there is someone ever wanted to and that right there is worth a small fortune!
The weather has been on again off again cold. Last week I got the carpets cleaned in the house. It turned bitter on that Tuesday. We had the propane guy out on Monday to check the lines. The tank is owned but no company will fill it unless they have inspected everything. Everything checked out. It was cool in the house Tuesday despite it being below freezing but it wasn't bad. I set the furnace to 50 so I could be sure the pipes wouldn't freeze and we didn't get back to the house until the weekend. The furnace hadn't worked all week!!! That could have been a disaster, let me tell you! We know! When we first bought the house and had a plumbing inspector out there he turned on the water and due to frozen pipes at some point before the bank had the house winterized, water spewed from the downstairs bathroom pipes into the bathroom. Ahhhh, the joys of that! A bunch of drywall was removed ASAP to prevent mold.
It's move in ready now and I am glad to be finished. We have things left undone here at our own house having spent every waking minute of the weekends at the other. Winter is quickly approaching and we're down to about 2 weeks left on our wood supply! We have piglets in with the sow and gilt that have to be moved otherwise they will take a year to get to process weight. Lucky we have a pen and pasture for them made up already, and technically we have a shelter we could move in for them but that's just a temporary solution as it's only big enough for one 250 lb. pig and will NOT be big enough for 3 100 pounders. So, we gotta get them something bigger. Which isn't a big deal, that's there the "other houses" telephone poles come in handy. We can drop 4 into the ground, run some stringers top and bottom, attach some rafters and side and roof the whole thing within a couple of hours likely. Anything more than a 3 sided shelter that faces south or east isn't necessary. They do just fine with a lot of good bedding and each other for warmth. The pigs, thus far, have been about the simplest thing to raise!
We'll be borrowing a boar from our neighbor starting Thanksgiving weekend. We sent our own off back in August. No point in keeping one when we can borrow and it helps the both of us out technically. Payment is a barter in piglets and keeping two productive sows is a lot better on the pocket book than a boar and a sow!
This mornings it's overcast drizzly and "cold". It's hovering around 32/33 degrees. I've already been out to do chores but I am telling you, after 4 years of collecting the right type of clothing (none of it is cheap!), I have finally put together the right gear to keep me warm in even negative wind chills. I would trust this gear at -20! As it was, just the insulated overalls, boots and a hat were enough, I shed my jacket pretty early on. I expect within a few weeks I'll have become used to the cold and for a while, anyway, may go back to jeans and a jacket. It's funny how one becomes acclimated to the cold, really truly you do and even in 32 degrees (if the sun is shining), I can be out in a cotton short sleeve t and still sweat...if I'm working =)
Anyway, I feel like our own place has been neglected so. We did get a new roof on in Sept. thank goodness but there is still other damage to the house that needs to be addressed after the first of the year and the shop will need a new roof. The next order of business though, speaking of the shop, is to get that sucker organized. I am telling you, it's a wreck!!!
As for Thanksgiving, after the amount of time we've been away working on the house, I really feel like just locking the doors, so to speak, putting on a turkey and having some nice quiet family time. Though, nothing is ever really "quiet" around here, so to speak. It looks like part of Thanksgiving weekend may be about the only decent weekend left before winter really starts to set in and if we have to pull anything out of that shop, it will have to be done when it's not snowing, freezing rain, windy, etc. etc.
Over the summer I saw an ad for plywood for sale. We made sure it didn't fall off the back of a truck somewhere - ha ha - and bought 30-40 sheets at a fraction the cost of new. I can't remember how many Jeremiah said he needed for the shop but the intention is to put it half way up on the walls, 8 foot full sheets I guess, we bought excess to do the milk barn. I am sure he'd eventually like to heat the shop but we definitely need walls to hang stuff from better! My milk barn skeleton still sits. The electric box is in, metal roof is on but that was about as far as that went! We do have the metal for the sides, another used purchase we made. Actually we bought quite a bit of that metal too! It came off someone elses barn that was re-skinned after a hail storm paid for entirely by their insurance. The pieces we got must have been on the non-prevailing side because there are no dings in it.
Always something to work on. The lean-to shelters are over 40 years old and were the first things erected on this property by the original owner who, admittedly, had never built a thing in his life. He actually did a good job, obviously! They're still standing 40 years later! The only issue is that the poles that are the main supports are rotting at ground level which is bound to happen and so they've got to be deconstructed and re-erected. There are some things that could be done differently. They don't need to be nearly as tall as they are, even for larger livestock like horses which they used to have. Keeping roofs as low as possible keeps more heat in though the height has been nice for maximizing space for square bales when we were still putting those up. This year we went entirely with big round and we just use the tractor to slide one right into the adjoining "stall" on the lean-tos since they are all split in 2 with an adjoining pen. It makes feeding a lot easier as I can get to the feeders without actually having to go into the pens with the animals and the feeders and animals stay under cover.
We like to build with the intention of someday selling which may or may not ever happen but even in 40 years, shelters that are usable for more than just goats or smaller livestock is pretty important in our opinion and that means height and size need to be taken in to consideration so the sizes will likely stay the same. I have really liked having moveable short squaty shelters for the pigs and a chicken coop is a chicken coop is a chicken coop Any pig shelter is likely to work well for goats too so that's a double bonus. =)
Anyhow, there are some pressing matters I need to get to around this house, I suppose. The laundry is never ending, I see painting I want to get done and we have friends coming in from Alaska in December for Christmas that I have vowed to myself to have at least the hall bathroom and laundry room repainted for. Not that they care, but I do! In over 4 years I have admitted done very little to make this place a home for us which is pretty sad to think about!
Monday, September 15, 2014
'Tis the season
Rachel has been congested with a sore throat for over a week now. The sore throat has has to do with her sleeping on her back so I made her change that after day 2 of complaints. Since then it's been major congestion and some coughing. She's been doing some "saline nasal irrigation" - I seriously hate that term- but it works wonders at keeping her sinuses open and makes her much happier. Drew started in feeling sick Friday and I am positive now it's the flu. I am not one for giving medications, we usually ride it out pretty well without but the night time coughing despite being elevated is too much and so 12 hour cough suppressant has been our go-to when everything else in my herbal/natural remedy cabinet has failed.Both seemed perkier yesterday. Saturday they spent most of the day inside but Sunday was gorgeous and I sent them outside to play much of the day and I think it did them good.
Jeremiah and I worked on the "rental" on Saturday morning. I started grouting the kitchen tile. By noon it was time to stop and head over to Lowes. our new roof was finally put on this weekend and the old roof was off before lunch. We met the guys down at Lowes to pay for the shingles (Military discount is AWESOME) and headed back home to relax a bit after lunch. Jeremiah ended up getting up on the roof for the rest of the day to help. I went back over to the house to finish grouting. I got it all done except for the pantry which Jeremiah had just laid the finishing tile in that morning so it was nowhere near dry enough yet to grout. I had hoped to get over there to finish that up yesterday but after all the up and down and in and outside, I was pretty sore and laid up. I did a few odds and ends around here while the guys finished up the roof. We took the extra bags of shingles back around 3, had a bite to eat and came home and made a milk stand.
The weather the past couple of days has been so so nice! Thursday and Friday last week were down right cold but it warmed up and the sun was shining all weekend. A great weekend to put on a roof and a great weekend to enjoy being outside!
Today I am not feeling so great at all. Started in with wheezing and congestion last night and this morning I can feel a fever spiking. I don't normally stay sick very long and quite honestly, getting out and "working it off" feels so much better for me than laying in bed. I can only lay around so long, pregnant or not. I am sure by tomorrow I'll feel much better but I can't help but wonder if my soreness is from all the work Sat. or if it's because of the flu or a culmination of both, probably both. I know I need to take it easy. I made home made soup Friday which, oddly enough, reminds me of Spaghetti-O's every time I see it. Pretty sad since it's supposed to be Minestrone!!! It was very soup-like Friday but I assume the pasta has since slurped up a lot of the liquid. That's fine and it's great soup but for whatever weird reason I have been craving Spaghetti-O's and I don't even buy that crap! I am currently looking up a recipe for a home made version though to satisfy the craving.
I have my 2nd and last as we know it sonogram today and a regular appoint. tomorrow. We're at 20 weeks 1 day today. Time seems to be flying but I am sure the 2nd half won't go nearly as quick. Other than feeling like crap today I have been feeling great. It can't eat nearly as much as I did before, which is probably a good thing. There's just not a lot of room for a full stomach.
I've been looking up a few homemade recipes for Speghetti-O's and what I find most hilarious is that all of them say, "the real deal" or "tastes just like the real ones" but they all contain different ingredients. How is that possible? One has carrots! I don't remember Spaghetti-O's having carrots. They must be pulling my leg. Well, one of these days I'll satisfy my craving and hopefully not have to try a bunch of "real deal" recipes. For now I am going to keep eating my Minestrone Spaghetti-O's imposter until it's gone.
Time to get some work done. Another nice day and lots of weekend laundry to get to.
Jeremiah and I worked on the "rental" on Saturday morning. I started grouting the kitchen tile. By noon it was time to stop and head over to Lowes. our new roof was finally put on this weekend and the old roof was off before lunch. We met the guys down at Lowes to pay for the shingles (Military discount is AWESOME) and headed back home to relax a bit after lunch. Jeremiah ended up getting up on the roof for the rest of the day to help. I went back over to the house to finish grouting. I got it all done except for the pantry which Jeremiah had just laid the finishing tile in that morning so it was nowhere near dry enough yet to grout. I had hoped to get over there to finish that up yesterday but after all the up and down and in and outside, I was pretty sore and laid up. I did a few odds and ends around here while the guys finished up the roof. We took the extra bags of shingles back around 3, had a bite to eat and came home and made a milk stand.
The weather the past couple of days has been so so nice! Thursday and Friday last week were down right cold but it warmed up and the sun was shining all weekend. A great weekend to put on a roof and a great weekend to enjoy being outside!
Today I am not feeling so great at all. Started in with wheezing and congestion last night and this morning I can feel a fever spiking. I don't normally stay sick very long and quite honestly, getting out and "working it off" feels so much better for me than laying in bed. I can only lay around so long, pregnant or not. I am sure by tomorrow I'll feel much better but I can't help but wonder if my soreness is from all the work Sat. or if it's because of the flu or a culmination of both, probably both. I know I need to take it easy. I made home made soup Friday which, oddly enough, reminds me of Spaghetti-O's every time I see it. Pretty sad since it's supposed to be Minestrone!!! It was very soup-like Friday but I assume the pasta has since slurped up a lot of the liquid. That's fine and it's great soup but for whatever weird reason I have been craving Spaghetti-O's and I don't even buy that crap! I am currently looking up a recipe for a home made version though to satisfy the craving.
I have my 2nd and last as we know it sonogram today and a regular appoint. tomorrow. We're at 20 weeks 1 day today. Time seems to be flying but I am sure the 2nd half won't go nearly as quick. Other than feeling like crap today I have been feeling great. It can't eat nearly as much as I did before, which is probably a good thing. There's just not a lot of room for a full stomach.
I've been looking up a few homemade recipes for Speghetti-O's and what I find most hilarious is that all of them say, "the real deal" or "tastes just like the real ones" but they all contain different ingredients. How is that possible? One has carrots! I don't remember Spaghetti-O's having carrots. They must be pulling my leg. Well, one of these days I'll satisfy my craving and hopefully not have to try a bunch of "real deal" recipes. For now I am going to keep eating my Minestrone Spaghetti-O's imposter until it's gone.
Time to get some work done. Another nice day and lots of weekend laundry to get to.
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Long weekend
The weather has cooled down substantially. Last week was in the high 90's and overnight it dropped to the 70's. Friday and yesterday's weather was downright gorgeous.
Rachel came home from school Friday not feeling well. She's been complaining of her throat hurting and a stuffy nose. I suspect allergies and she's sleeping on her back so it's draining to her throat. She didn't look great Friday evening, I gave her some Tylenol and she looked better. The kids and Jeremiah were going to go to the football game but Rachel and I both decided she should stay home and then Drew decided he didn't want to go after all so we pretty much stayed home. She seemed to be feeling much better yesterday but did go to bed pretty early (for her) last night.
Saturday Jeremiah and I were up early. There was some work to do over at the house that was too dusty for me to be there for so I did chores here then went over after he finished. We headed to Lowes for more mortar and interior doors. The pantry door went in easily, didn't need to be trimmed but the doors upstairs, with the ceiling only being 6'10" needed to be trimmed so Jeremiah did that while I tiled. I went as far as I could with the 1 50# bag of mortar we mixed up and we figured out last week we were about 2 boxes of tile too short. That was a dang tile that came from Home Depot in Wichita too so it meant we'd have to go back to get it!!! Not looking forward to that! We hadn't had the pantry in mind when we originally got the the tile anyway so thought we'd buy enough to do that too on the 2nd trip down. By 2 PM we were both hungry so we headed home and decided to knock Wichita out, took the kids down, had lunch, picked up more tile (in which it's been fully restocked and they probably had more than they had last time when they said it was in stock but nowhere to be found!). We were home by 5 and decided there was a lot to do here at the house so spend the rest of the evening working around here.
We still hadn't taken care of the big locust tree that had broken 3 Friday's ago and took out a metal trellis. The blades on the brush hog hadn't been sharpened in a while and the pasture will need to be mowed before winter. The county tries to mow at least one pass along the frontage before fair (which started Friday). This year they went all out and mowed back, where they could, to people's fence lines/tree lines. The brush hogs are wide, at least 10 foot so it's quick but I don't think they have ever mowed that far in and it looks nice all along 4th street all the way to town. I think it's the 3rd time the county has mowed. Our frontage is quite steep and deep and so they usually don't mow way down into the ditch which leaves us a lot along the driveway and the culvert but they did Thursday. I was headed to town, in fact, and saw them working down the road and came home to remove the solar lights. Generally they don't mow enough to bother them but with as wide as it looked liked they were doing, I didn't want them run over.
Pretty much we'd been working since 8 AM solid on through to 8:30 last night minus the trip to Wichita. We didn't come in until after dark. I mowed the yard, which takes forever and that's without moving the lawn furniture. Usually I am in a hurry and mow around but the grass growing up underneath the picnic table made it unavoidable. Some things are becoming eye sores and needed to be put away or thrown away. Jeremiah got the tree taken care of so the front yard looks much better.
It was a really gorgeous Sept. day yesterday. We're in for another really nice day today. It's supposed to heat up to 90 for a couple of days which stinks because I am picking the kids up to take them to the fair tomorrow after school and was looking forward to not sweltering!!! Traffic has picked up majorly in town with it being fair time. Lots of out of towners and trailers, etc. are all over. All the extra people really does make a significant impact.
We're going to get back over to the house today after a couple of errands this morning, shooting for Oct. 1 for this house to be done. Don't know if we'll make it, the "small" last minute things sure add up!
Rachel came home from school Friday not feeling well. She's been complaining of her throat hurting and a stuffy nose. I suspect allergies and she's sleeping on her back so it's draining to her throat. She didn't look great Friday evening, I gave her some Tylenol and she looked better. The kids and Jeremiah were going to go to the football game but Rachel and I both decided she should stay home and then Drew decided he didn't want to go after all so we pretty much stayed home. She seemed to be feeling much better yesterday but did go to bed pretty early (for her) last night.
Saturday Jeremiah and I were up early. There was some work to do over at the house that was too dusty for me to be there for so I did chores here then went over after he finished. We headed to Lowes for more mortar and interior doors. The pantry door went in easily, didn't need to be trimmed but the doors upstairs, with the ceiling only being 6'10" needed to be trimmed so Jeremiah did that while I tiled. I went as far as I could with the 1 50# bag of mortar we mixed up and we figured out last week we were about 2 boxes of tile too short. That was a dang tile that came from Home Depot in Wichita too so it meant we'd have to go back to get it!!! Not looking forward to that! We hadn't had the pantry in mind when we originally got the the tile anyway so thought we'd buy enough to do that too on the 2nd trip down. By 2 PM we were both hungry so we headed home and decided to knock Wichita out, took the kids down, had lunch, picked up more tile (in which it's been fully restocked and they probably had more than they had last time when they said it was in stock but nowhere to be found!). We were home by 5 and decided there was a lot to do here at the house so spend the rest of the evening working around here.
We still hadn't taken care of the big locust tree that had broken 3 Friday's ago and took out a metal trellis. The blades on the brush hog hadn't been sharpened in a while and the pasture will need to be mowed before winter. The county tries to mow at least one pass along the frontage before fair (which started Friday). This year they went all out and mowed back, where they could, to people's fence lines/tree lines. The brush hogs are wide, at least 10 foot so it's quick but I don't think they have ever mowed that far in and it looks nice all along 4th street all the way to town. I think it's the 3rd time the county has mowed. Our frontage is quite steep and deep and so they usually don't mow way down into the ditch which leaves us a lot along the driveway and the culvert but they did Thursday. I was headed to town, in fact, and saw them working down the road and came home to remove the solar lights. Generally they don't mow enough to bother them but with as wide as it looked liked they were doing, I didn't want them run over.
Pretty much we'd been working since 8 AM solid on through to 8:30 last night minus the trip to Wichita. We didn't come in until after dark. I mowed the yard, which takes forever and that's without moving the lawn furniture. Usually I am in a hurry and mow around but the grass growing up underneath the picnic table made it unavoidable. Some things are becoming eye sores and needed to be put away or thrown away. Jeremiah got the tree taken care of so the front yard looks much better.
It was a really gorgeous Sept. day yesterday. We're in for another really nice day today. It's supposed to heat up to 90 for a couple of days which stinks because I am picking the kids up to take them to the fair tomorrow after school and was looking forward to not sweltering!!! Traffic has picked up majorly in town with it being fair time. Lots of out of towners and trailers, etc. are all over. All the extra people really does make a significant impact.
We're going to get back over to the house today after a couple of errands this morning, shooting for Oct. 1 for this house to be done. Don't know if we'll make it, the "small" last minute things sure add up!
Monday, September 1, 2014
Tiling and what not
No new news to speak of really. I could talk about the weather. Things were getting a little dry around here up until about a week-week and a half ago. We had some overnight storm roll through dumping a coupe of inches in total. Thursday seemed rather overcast and sprinkley if I remember right. It's still been pretty warm, in the 90's. The humidity makes it worse! I think we have few more days of 90 degrees before we drop into the 80's and the rest may be history.
Yesterday Jeremiah and I were over at the house house. The weather people predicted strong storms. Most of the time they build out of nowhere, sometimes overhead and head west and sometimes west and they hit hard. The summer storms are quite spectacular how they can just build out of thin air. I've subscribed to a Facebook page called Weather Watchers. They've been a great source of awesome and accurate information, more so than any other other and they are very local. I've learned a great deal about weather in general but more so about the oddity that is weather here on the plains, a place with weather like no other.
Jeremiah worked the concession stand at the stadium on Friday night for the varsity vs. jr. varsity football game. Rachel asked if she could help so I ran her to town and dropped her off. She was very excited to have her first job, as she called it. Completely volunteer. She said she had a great time, she ran the nacho station. Drew and I grabbed an ice cream cone and picked up a couple pizza's, came home, did chores and watched TV.
The kids start school on Wednesday. I'm a little sad about that. It's been a great summer and I will surely miss them! This year, more than any other, it seems they have grown up so much and are so helpful with chores and what not. Not that they haven't been helpful all along but this year more than any other, I can trust they will do what needs to be done by just asking and they are usually very eager to oblige. It's been a really great summer.
The sow was due yesterday. Jeremiah and I moved her over to one of the pens. She was kind of in a foul mood all day yesterday, which, I guess I can't blame her. Some of the piglets are reserved for feeders for others but we plan to raise a few up. We took our boar off recently, he came in weighing close to 500 lbs. or more. That yielded 191 lbs. hanging weight for half the hog!
I've sold a few more goats and the herd, to me, is looking pretty small! I think after these 2 kids leave we'll be down to 20 in all including 4 adult bucks. I was going to keep a younger buck but decided against and he to a family up near the Ne. border. They drove down last Sat. to pick him up. Two other doe kid are reserved with pick up next weekend.
Our milk barn still isn't any more complete than the roof that was put on over the spring but everything in due time, I guess.
I've been sleeping horribly most nights, waking around 1 or 2 and being wide awake for hours. I try o grab a few hours before 7 AM but it's fitful and almost worthless most days. Some days I sleep all the way through the night but most days not. I toss and turn and toss and turn and eventually just get up and sit around.
After few chores around here yesterday morning Jeremiah and I went over to the other house. We sort of lost our drive for a while there to work on it, not to mention there were some serious pressing issues here with the fence that had to be addressed. Now that that's taken care of and we feel a bit more of an invigorated spirit we got some tiling done yesterday. Jeremiah had to take the air chisel to some old mortar to get it up. I swept and vacuumed real good. We let the A/C cool the house down while we came home for a while to grab lunch. The kids were back from church at that point.
We went back and Jeremiah mixed the mortar. He put entirely too much water in the bucket which required the whole bag of mortar. I was near 3 PM at that point and we hadn't intended to stay as along as it would take us to use all that mortar but it ended up we used it quicker than we thought. We got most of the tedious stuff done. Where the bathroom exits into the kitchen there was carpet before along with the first step down into the basement. We tiled all of that which took quite a few cuts. We still have a few more pieces to lay but because we were doing a "patch" job for that area, I had to start at the existing tile and work my way to the wall. I had no choice but to work myself into a corner, so to speak, and needed to leave enough area to be able to jump out. The mortar should be set today and we can finish up that little bit.
The rest goes pretty quickly. We set some tile in the center area where there used to be the island. It was all tiled around the existing cabinet so putting in the new tile makes it a seamless patch job. The bulk is still yet left to do but it's nothing more than laying tile after tile in a row...save for some cuts along the wall, it should go pretty quick! Right now the kitchen cabinets are sitting in the area we need to tile. We had to replace some tile where the existing cabinets were along the wall. We did that yesterday so now the cabinets can be moved in to place. I am hoping to have enough stamina and time today to finish laying tile I can grout on my own some time this week. At the time we bought the tile, I don't think we had intended to put the pantry in so didn't account for extra tile. Now that the pantry is built, I don't know if we'll have enough tile to do that too. We could just put in laminate as well, either way. I don't think it would make a difference either way.
I wrote out a list of "to dos" yet left to do and the list isn't all that big. It seems bigger before I started but it's really not bad. I'd like to be done before Oct. The weather is going to turn at some point and there are things we have to do around here before that happens. We need to replace our back door, at the very least. We've tried all kinds of different weather stripping and nothing is working like we need it to. When that cold north wind hits the house, all bets are off and freezing cold air pours though. Our front door isn't much better, but it's not as bad. Jeremiah hates installing doors but there's little choice.
For years we've talked about putting in a wood burning furnace. The kind that usually go outdoors or in a basement? There are lots of reasons we wouldn't put ours in the basement, #1 being I am not hauling wood downstairs! I think outside would be a good location but Jeremiah keeps mentioning the garage and I guess that would be okay too. I love the wood stove and it works fine but it is a lot of work to keep running and stocked with wood and not that I mind but I think a wood burner would be a lot more efficient and would only require stocking 2-3 times a day. The basement does get kinda cold with the wood stove burning so we don't use it as much in the winter. We still have yet to run duct work from the living room to the back bedrooms though the attic. Jeremiah complains about being cold in the winter. I think most people keep their houses entirely too hot in the winter and I am not really a fan of the cold myself! But I hate sleeping in a hot house or coming in from outside where it's literally freezing or worse and the the house is blazing! Warm is nice, blazing isn't! If only people here would realize it's cold out and winter appropriate clothing would make a big difference! That said, it sure is nice after a long winter to finally go sock-less. But then I look forward to sock winter in the fall too. Funny how that works!
Fall is just around the corner. We have a lot of chores in mind. Back in May we bought a boat load of plywood. Jeremiah wants to put it up along the walls in the shop. Right now the shop is just a wreck! Not that the plywood would change that, putting things away and cleaning up after jobs would change it but that is one of my requests before it's too cold to work out there, that we get that shop picked up!!!
We have got to get metal on the milk barn before it starts to snow. The subfloor won't last long. Working diligently can often times be a problem, keeping at the " to do" list seems a little relentless but I know if we keep at it, we won't feel like we're always playing catch up and if it's not one thing it's another around here! The yard looks nice for now, I mowed on Saturday. The fences are fixed. The processing date or the 2nd hog is made and we have a month to get the other house done!
We're hoping to put a steer in the pasture next year. Prices are sky high though and I cannot fathom spending what they're running! Forking out $500+ for a weanling calf that we'll have to feed for 12-18 months seems daunting. If the rain keeps up there's pasture 4-5 months out of the year but boy howdy, $500 is a small fortune for an animal you hope doesn't DIE! We're near out of beef and will have to buy another 1/4 from someone but the prices are just awful. It's bad all over, of course and I try like heck not to buy a single scrap of meat from the grocery store, organic or not. I bought some grass fed hamburger the other day and I reminded myself why I don't do that often...I really prefer grain finished. I don't see what people see in beef that isn't grain finished. Yuck. We've gotten to the point though of having non-feedlot non-commercially raised meat and honestly, there is no comparison to farm raised! Regular grocery store meat is tasteless, not to mention I shutter to think what's in it! Brainwashed or educated, whatever the case may be on that commercially raised meat, I can taste the difference and that's enough for me!
I hear the thunder roaring outside. It's not storming overhead but it is somewhere close enough by that the lightening is lighting up the house. I think I will try to grab a couple more hours of sleep before the sun's up and the day begins. I'm trying to get a blog post in here and there. None of this news seems very exciting to me/us, it's every day "mundane" but maybe mundane and uninteresting is neither to someone else.
Bye for now.
Yesterday Jeremiah and I were over at the house house. The weather people predicted strong storms. Most of the time they build out of nowhere, sometimes overhead and head west and sometimes west and they hit hard. The summer storms are quite spectacular how they can just build out of thin air. I've subscribed to a Facebook page called Weather Watchers. They've been a great source of awesome and accurate information, more so than any other other and they are very local. I've learned a great deal about weather in general but more so about the oddity that is weather here on the plains, a place with weather like no other.
Jeremiah worked the concession stand at the stadium on Friday night for the varsity vs. jr. varsity football game. Rachel asked if she could help so I ran her to town and dropped her off. She was very excited to have her first job, as she called it. Completely volunteer. She said she had a great time, she ran the nacho station. Drew and I grabbed an ice cream cone and picked up a couple pizza's, came home, did chores and watched TV.
The kids start school on Wednesday. I'm a little sad about that. It's been a great summer and I will surely miss them! This year, more than any other, it seems they have grown up so much and are so helpful with chores and what not. Not that they haven't been helpful all along but this year more than any other, I can trust they will do what needs to be done by just asking and they are usually very eager to oblige. It's been a really great summer.
The sow was due yesterday. Jeremiah and I moved her over to one of the pens. She was kind of in a foul mood all day yesterday, which, I guess I can't blame her. Some of the piglets are reserved for feeders for others but we plan to raise a few up. We took our boar off recently, he came in weighing close to 500 lbs. or more. That yielded 191 lbs. hanging weight for half the hog!
I've sold a few more goats and the herd, to me, is looking pretty small! I think after these 2 kids leave we'll be down to 20 in all including 4 adult bucks. I was going to keep a younger buck but decided against and he to a family up near the Ne. border. They drove down last Sat. to pick him up. Two other doe kid are reserved with pick up next weekend.
Our milk barn still isn't any more complete than the roof that was put on over the spring but everything in due time, I guess.
I've been sleeping horribly most nights, waking around 1 or 2 and being wide awake for hours. I try o grab a few hours before 7 AM but it's fitful and almost worthless most days. Some days I sleep all the way through the night but most days not. I toss and turn and toss and turn and eventually just get up and sit around.
After few chores around here yesterday morning Jeremiah and I went over to the other house. We sort of lost our drive for a while there to work on it, not to mention there were some serious pressing issues here with the fence that had to be addressed. Now that that's taken care of and we feel a bit more of an invigorated spirit we got some tiling done yesterday. Jeremiah had to take the air chisel to some old mortar to get it up. I swept and vacuumed real good. We let the A/C cool the house down while we came home for a while to grab lunch. The kids were back from church at that point.
We went back and Jeremiah mixed the mortar. He put entirely too much water in the bucket which required the whole bag of mortar. I was near 3 PM at that point and we hadn't intended to stay as along as it would take us to use all that mortar but it ended up we used it quicker than we thought. We got most of the tedious stuff done. Where the bathroom exits into the kitchen there was carpet before along with the first step down into the basement. We tiled all of that which took quite a few cuts. We still have a few more pieces to lay but because we were doing a "patch" job for that area, I had to start at the existing tile and work my way to the wall. I had no choice but to work myself into a corner, so to speak, and needed to leave enough area to be able to jump out. The mortar should be set today and we can finish up that little bit.
The rest goes pretty quickly. We set some tile in the center area where there used to be the island. It was all tiled around the existing cabinet so putting in the new tile makes it a seamless patch job. The bulk is still yet left to do but it's nothing more than laying tile after tile in a row...save for some cuts along the wall, it should go pretty quick! Right now the kitchen cabinets are sitting in the area we need to tile. We had to replace some tile where the existing cabinets were along the wall. We did that yesterday so now the cabinets can be moved in to place. I am hoping to have enough stamina and time today to finish laying tile I can grout on my own some time this week. At the time we bought the tile, I don't think we had intended to put the pantry in so didn't account for extra tile. Now that the pantry is built, I don't know if we'll have enough tile to do that too. We could just put in laminate as well, either way. I don't think it would make a difference either way.
I wrote out a list of "to dos" yet left to do and the list isn't all that big. It seems bigger before I started but it's really not bad. I'd like to be done before Oct. The weather is going to turn at some point and there are things we have to do around here before that happens. We need to replace our back door, at the very least. We've tried all kinds of different weather stripping and nothing is working like we need it to. When that cold north wind hits the house, all bets are off and freezing cold air pours though. Our front door isn't much better, but it's not as bad. Jeremiah hates installing doors but there's little choice.
For years we've talked about putting in a wood burning furnace. The kind that usually go outdoors or in a basement? There are lots of reasons we wouldn't put ours in the basement, #1 being I am not hauling wood downstairs! I think outside would be a good location but Jeremiah keeps mentioning the garage and I guess that would be okay too. I love the wood stove and it works fine but it is a lot of work to keep running and stocked with wood and not that I mind but I think a wood burner would be a lot more efficient and would only require stocking 2-3 times a day. The basement does get kinda cold with the wood stove burning so we don't use it as much in the winter. We still have yet to run duct work from the living room to the back bedrooms though the attic. Jeremiah complains about being cold in the winter. I think most people keep their houses entirely too hot in the winter and I am not really a fan of the cold myself! But I hate sleeping in a hot house or coming in from outside where it's literally freezing or worse and the the house is blazing! Warm is nice, blazing isn't! If only people here would realize it's cold out and winter appropriate clothing would make a big difference! That said, it sure is nice after a long winter to finally go sock-less. But then I look forward to sock winter in the fall too. Funny how that works!
Fall is just around the corner. We have a lot of chores in mind. Back in May we bought a boat load of plywood. Jeremiah wants to put it up along the walls in the shop. Right now the shop is just a wreck! Not that the plywood would change that, putting things away and cleaning up after jobs would change it but that is one of my requests before it's too cold to work out there, that we get that shop picked up!!!
We have got to get metal on the milk barn before it starts to snow. The subfloor won't last long. Working diligently can often times be a problem, keeping at the " to do" list seems a little relentless but I know if we keep at it, we won't feel like we're always playing catch up and if it's not one thing it's another around here! The yard looks nice for now, I mowed on Saturday. The fences are fixed. The processing date or the 2nd hog is made and we have a month to get the other house done!
We're hoping to put a steer in the pasture next year. Prices are sky high though and I cannot fathom spending what they're running! Forking out $500+ for a weanling calf that we'll have to feed for 12-18 months seems daunting. If the rain keeps up there's pasture 4-5 months out of the year but boy howdy, $500 is a small fortune for an animal you hope doesn't DIE! We're near out of beef and will have to buy another 1/4 from someone but the prices are just awful. It's bad all over, of course and I try like heck not to buy a single scrap of meat from the grocery store, organic or not. I bought some grass fed hamburger the other day and I reminded myself why I don't do that often...I really prefer grain finished. I don't see what people see in beef that isn't grain finished. Yuck. We've gotten to the point though of having non-feedlot non-commercially raised meat and honestly, there is no comparison to farm raised! Regular grocery store meat is tasteless, not to mention I shutter to think what's in it! Brainwashed or educated, whatever the case may be on that commercially raised meat, I can taste the difference and that's enough for me!
I hear the thunder roaring outside. It's not storming overhead but it is somewhere close enough by that the lightening is lighting up the house. I think I will try to grab a couple more hours of sleep before the sun's up and the day begins. I'm trying to get a blog post in here and there. None of this news seems very exciting to me/us, it's every day "mundane" but maybe mundane and uninteresting is neither to someone else.
Bye for now.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Pork
A cool breezy start to Tuesday morning. We had a nice storm blow though last night which dumped some rain which was badly needed. Rachel was invited to a sleep over last Friday which we were getting ready to take her to before 6 when the clouds rolled in, the thunder and lightening started. I raced to get the clothes in off the line and not a minute too soon because the sky opened up and then we lost power. I had intended to make nachos for dinner but that was out of the question so Drew, Jeremiah and I headed to town to grab a bite. We got back just before 8 and later I found out exactly what happened but not knowing at the time, it looked like all hell broke loose. It's odd how storms can be so strong in one area and non-existent a few miles away. Not 5 miles north after dropped Rachel off there was barely a sprinkle, at our house though and further south, 70 MPH straight line winds snapped power poles along highway 50 which is what knocked out our power, took down a tree in the front yard smashing a metal trellis and plastering the south side of the house with debris.The weather has been extremely hot and heat indexes are topping well over 100. We can't complain too much, the summer has been pretty mild thus far and will cool down again just in time for fair "week". We did not enter anything and are not taking the goats. We'll go just to have fun!
The kids start school next Wednesday. There is an open house next Tuesday night that I plan to attend and I will take them all in on Wednesday morning as we plan to carpool with someone who will be bringing them home. I'll get the low down on what traffic conditions are like and let Jeremiah know so he can better plan the morning and what time to leave so that he can get to work within plenty of time. Mornings aren't generally our forte so it may be harry for a while!
I've been feeling okay, not sleeping well so I try to get a nap in mid-day...or rather most days I HAVE to. I am looking forward to the cool down. We've spend a lot of time at the community pool and at a nearby private lake with a friend. Jeremiah works the concession for the football game this Friday, we have dinner plans with friends Sat. and we intend to take Jeremiah to a Mongolian Grill place in Wichita for his birthday on Sunday. Somewhere in that whole mess we have to fit in tiling at the rental house and hopefully a few other odds and ends.
I best go, I'll leave you with some piggy photos I took yesterday morning. They grew out a bit faster than I anticipated on the new hog feed and the next processing date wasn't until Sept 18. Mama Sow is due to farrow Aug. 31st and the whole process starts all over.
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