May 15, 2012

It's been interesting lately, to say the least.  Work's been busy, Quentin was on vacation alllll last week (and you can hear my sarcasm on that, can't you?), his van is sitting till he gets a paycheck again, we may have to move sooner than intended, and much was accomplished at the trailer homestead.

I won't comment much on work except to say I'll be glad when we are moved, so if we have short days, I can volunteer for overtime a day or two a week in another department.  These half-days are killing my paychecks.  They are helping a lot with the property, but we still have a lot to do.  Fix the deck, install a screen door, switch out the outlets and light switches, and dig up that blasted splice and fix it.  I've a bad feeling as hard as the ground is that we're going to have to invest in a pickaxe to break the ground up enough to shovel it out of the way.  It's just THAT rock-hard.

The reason Q's new-to-him van is sitting here instead of being driven is because it had to have a tire replaced.  There went his gas money for the week.  Sigh.  But he can ride with buddies till he gets a paycheck, so that's still good.  Just kind of weird to look out the window here and see the thing.  I'm still getting used to the idea that we own a VAN.  I should take pictures of it for here, right now, but I'm tired and I've got shoes and socks off and I don't want to put them back on today.

I'm feeling better than I have in days.  Last week wasn't fun.  The sinus drainage thing I had going on culminated in a major blowout of my system (literally) Tuesday night.  I got just enough sleep to go into work Wednesday and got through by the skin of my teeth.  I don't want to take a sick day unless I have to, especially when I'm the only paycheck for this week with Q having been off all last week.  Grr.  It's a use-'em-up-or-lose-'em policy where he works, so he had to use some up.  Balls.  Just leaves us tight financially till I get paid Friday.

And we may have to move sooner than expected.  We currently live in a renovated "extended stay" hotel/RV campground.  The hotel rooms were all turned into efficiency apartments, which is fine, except that the local health department apparently considers them all to still be hotel rooms.  This is okay as well, in general, barring that we heard end of last week from two reliable sources that the county health department is trying to get some of the extended stay motels in the Branson area shut down.  No idea if where we're at is one of them, but we're not taking chances.  We're pushing hard on getting things done that HAVE to be done, figuring worse comes to worse, we can live with just the bits of furniture we've added to the place on our own, and a bed and dresser while getting everything else we want/need for comfort as we go along, either through Wal-Mart's "Mainstays" cheapo knock-together furniture, or through the local secondhand shops.  Worse comes to worse is one of two scenarios.  Either A - we find out this place is getting shut down (the "motel" part anyhow) and we have to move somewhere that will accept cats (preferably the homestead!), or B - this place doesn't get shut down but someplace with less-than-savoury characters DOES and some of them come HERE.  Either way, we want to be gone before it comes to that.

So, updated photos of the place!!!!!!  I do love sharing what we're doing with y'all.  It's loads of fun to let people see what we're doing and realize that homesteading CAN be done on a budget if you're willing to put in a heck of a lot of sweat equity.  And I do mean a HECK of a lot, lol.

Hey, look the living room floor's cleaned up again!  I moved all the stuff from here that was trash into the smallest bedroom for temporary storage until we can get up there with the van and make a dump run with the junk.  Ugh.  In among other things, I found a TV and record player which I don't know if they work, a rack with some largish glass jars on it that I don't know if I want to keep them or what, and a set of four glass candle sconces.  The bucket is one that Q is sitting on while he replaces outlets, so he has a place to park his behind other than the floor.  But a clean floor looks much better than a pile of trash.  I'll be glad to get all that crap out of the bedroom that will eventually be my home office!!!!

One of our new outlets, installed by Handyman Quentin, my hubby.  We can tell the new ones as they are white, and the old ones are either dirty, have scorch marks (goodness only knows how much wiring Q will have to cut back from those to find good wire, if he can), or are nonexistent.

And one of the new light switches!  This one's in the kitchen by the door.

When the crap wasn't so overgrown a few weeks ago, we found this in the Merlot out back.  It had doors on it that we hated, but we liked the look otherwise.  So doors off, some light paneling on the back (again, Handyman Quentin to the rescue!) and a good washing up and it looks nice.  We have an etagere' for the bathroom once the toilet's replaced!  (That's a fancy way of saying "bathroom organizer that goes over the toilet."  Heehee!)

I tried to chuck the old doors off the thing into the trash outside, figuring what the heck, it can't make it worse than it is.  One stuck to my glove, and landed on the deck. We opted to go no doors, and I think the etagere' looks better without them.

Hey, ho, whaddaya know?  We have a kitchen floor now!!!!!  Still needs scrubbing, but there's a FLOOR there.

And COUNTERTOPS!  Again, needs scouring down, but still, a VAST improvement over what was there before.

 This is that basket thing from the original photos.  We're going to put the camp stove on top of it and use the drawers for storage of things like pots and pans.

 The built-in pantry is cleared up ....

 As is the broom/coat closet.  All it needs is a hangar rod.

 Hey, presto!  There's even a floor in the front bedroom!!!!!

 Looking out the window of the front bedroom toward the Fleetwood (back) and Merlot (front with the blue shutter), you can see how overgrown things have gotten in just a few weeks.  The property's suffered benign neglect for years, so you can imagine how bad this REALLY is.  I also found out the briers are wild black raspberries.  So, with that in mind, we'll cut them back a LOT after they're done fruiting (I'm snacking frequently on the ripe ones ... oh YUM!) and put in some kind of border to "enclose" them as much as you can ever enclose bramble berries.  Then we'll let them come back fresh next year and see what happens with a little care and time.  Maybe bigger berries cuz these are about the size of my pinky fingertip!

 This is on the wall of the kitchen next to the doorway to the living room.  No idea what it is, has a little shelf inside.  Q thinks it's cute and we should keep it.  I'm dithering, cuz I can't see a use for it right now.

 And this is Q's big surprise for this upcoming weekend.  While we don't have a weedwhacker yet, and it likely will be a couple weeks before we have one, we were both getting pretty tired of wading through waist-high grass and weeds to get back and forth to the trailer.  So, trusty grass shears in  hand, I went out side and chopped this down to make a path ...

 and this down to keep it going ....

 all the way out to the road.  Now he can drive the van almost all the way up to the house if he wants, just he'll still have to wade through grass to get out and around the van, lol.  But here you can also see the beginning of all the hard work we've done to clean up the forest.

 This was where he was clearing things up the last time and there was a lot of downed stuff in there.  I spent part of the week clearing it up and dragging it down the hillside closer to the drive, to be sorted into brushpile (needs loads more trimming before turning into logs), stuff I can cut up, and stuff he has to use the chainsaw on.  You can see in the sunshine on the left, the power company easement.  We're even clearing that up, because there's some primo downed stuff in there for the woodpile.  Still a long ways to go, out of 5.18 acres, I think we've managed to clean up the .18 acres, lol.

 More of the same area.  You can see how much nicer it looks than it did previously, in the original photos.  All the saplings that were growing in huge bunches, three and four to the same space, are gone to leave room for better, straighter trees to grow.

 Of course, this means that my job of the brush pile has grown considerably.  I've a LONG ways to go with this ... I'm pretty sure even as small as some of this stuff is, that the stuff that qualifies as "log size" is enough to at least make a cord of wood out of this mess.

 This is Quentin's sawbuck that he made from a piece of tree trunk he found lying about.  He cut a notch in the top so he can just stick a log in there and have it hold still while he plants a foot on top and chainsaws off a two-foot piece.  Why two feet?  The woodstove we've got picked out holds logs up to two feet in length.  So, two feet for the logs.

 Yesterday, Monday, after a half day at the plant, I spent the other half of the day at the trailer turning a pile of these (only smaller) ...

 Into THIS.  You can see that the woodpile has grown CONSIDERABLY with the efforts we've put in.  WHEW but that's a lot of hard work.  Wood really does warm you twice.  The cutting is fun though!  Sone of the larger stuff on the top row, left, I did with a Kobalt 15" handsaw.  The packaging for it said it had an "agressive tooth design."  If by "agressive," they mean "cuts through a two-inch tree slicker than dog spit," it's agressive.  Even with my fibro, which is often pretty mild right now, I can cut larger logs for the pile without putting the whole burden on Quentin for the bigger stuff.

 My little job of sprayed insulation to attempt to keep things out of the trailer by the dryer vent has failed.  Something chewed right through it and scattered pellets of chewed stuff on the floor.  GRRR.

 And last but not least, our toity.  The top is a camp stool made by Reliance, and it's good for what it does, but the legs aren't NEARLY tall enough, hence sitting the whole shebang on a bucket.  Plus keeps the bag from scraping on the floor and will keep the cats out of the thing.  The short legs are the only real downside to it.  It sits well, if a bit shaky on the bucket ... at least till 225-pound me sits down a bit too hard and snaps the back legs ... we were trying to do that anyhow.  It now sits much better on the bucket.  The doody bag does keep down odor really well, too.  I have to say, it was well worth the $30 we spent on it.

Anyhow, that's this week's update.  I'm off for supper and a nap, now.  I'm pooped.  I think I wore myself out writing about how I wore myself out!