September Update

My apologies that it's been so long since I've posted here, but we still have no internet at home. Every time we think we're going to be able to do it, something comes up. Today, it was a new tire for both vehicles so we have working tires all round as well as usable spares. No sense risking losing our jobs because of no spare tire, after all. (Though considering I had to swerve around a jerk from work who jumped out at my car and made me do a serious curb check pulling into the library, I know I have to check tires when I leave in a bit and hope I don't have flats from bent rims! Q would be cheesed off if that were the case!) But anyhow, here's the up-to-date news, split up by date of when I actually wrote the stuff and hoped to get it posted!

And oh, yes, at the end, there are photos, as promised.

September 10, 2012
We've settled in at the property, and are happily beginning "real" homesteading, as a friend of ours recently put it. Almost feels as if what we've been doing up to this point isn't "real" in their eyes, but in ours, it's all been prep work to get to this point. And so far, it's been a blast getting to this point, and with what we've done so far. I've actually got some photos to show off from things I've written about and kept forgetting to shoot, and we'll get to those a bit later on.

The news of late isn't half bad. We're all unpacked and know what few pieces of furniture we still need to eventually get our hands on, which isn't much. We're slowly working on the outdoors, and this weekend, we hope to begin some serious work on an indoor project, our woodstove. We have to prep the corner it's going in first, so we can safely run it. That means concrete board topped by stove board under and behind it before we even get the woodstove and install it. That's not even mentioning all the little goodies we need to keep it going, like the ash shovel, poker, the grate for inside it, and etc. There's a lot more to putting a woodstove in safely than most people think about. Thankfully, with living on 5 acres of woods, there's plenty of trees to cut down, along with stuff that's already downed, that can be cut up for firewood. The woodpile's starting to get a bit more impressive, if rather lopsided, as we've lately been basically just tossing the logs on willy-nilly so they'll be out of the way.

Q found these neat gadgets at Race Brothers in Harrison for stacking your firewood, that are iron braces you hold together with 2x4s, so your wood stacks neatly. It'll sure help out near the house, the rest we think we're just going to kind of stack up without being overly picky about it all. There's just too much to do in that respect to be picky about how the wood is stacked to dry to begin with.

There's been some fun, too, in the wildlife department. The other day, around 930 at night, I heard a horrendous scratching at the door. Looking out the front window (which still didn't have a screen at that point), and using the big flashlight lantern to see what it was, I discovered ... Well, let's just say I had fun with the hubster the next morning as he was eating his supper and I was having breakfast. "Honey, I have to tell you something. Last night, we had an attempted break in by a masked bandit!" The look on his face was priceless. I just dissolved into laughter, and followed up with, "We had a coon try to get in last night. Scratched up the door and even tried sticking his paws under the door. Bouncer had a blast playing 'pat the paw' with the coon." Quentin started laughing himself, admitting that a coon did qualify as a "masked bandit." I should note that the front door has no weatherstripping right now, that'll be fixed by wintertime. This weekend, we at LEAST hope to get the screen door and install it, so we can keep the inside door open when the weather's nice and allow even more crossbreeze through here.

There's also been the local big buck deer ranging around, and he's mostly sticking to the trees, but he did come down and play havoc with the one end of the woodpile not too long ago, which is another reason we're not worried about keeping it neatly stacked. If he's going to keep knocking it down, there's not a lot of point to trying to keep it stacked up right now.

We have a skunk that likes to hang around the junk pile that the former tenant left by the deck. There's nothing there for it to eat, but it likes to come around and rummage anyhow. It was kind of funny the other day, as Quentin went indoors to get the car keys so he could move the vehicles around in preparation for us to go do our Saturday errands. He came out and shouted, "Oh, s**t!! A SKUNK!" ran back inside, grabbed the pellet gun, and came back out to plink the furry little stinker with it and scare it off. Last night, I had to plink the stinker FOUR TIMES in order to get it to go away and stay there. It just doesn't take NO for an answer very well.

And then tonight, there's the armadillo out back, rummaging in that particular pile of junk. There is a LOT of local wildlife, and while it's all very nice, sometimes, I'd like an evening where I just plain get to sit and relax without having to drive off the critters. The boys are highly interested in the critters, loving to get on a shelf or my desk and peer out the windows at them. Good warning for me to check and see if it's that silly skunk or not. We definitely do NOT want the skunk hanging round the house right now, as there's way too much chance somebody would get sprayed! Thankfully, the four times I plinked him last night, he didn't spray, he just twitched and jumped and ran off for a while. He seemed to not realize that he was being shot, but he did learn pretty fast that the door opening and footsteps on the deck meant he was gonna get stung by something that he didn't like.

September 19, 2012
Okay, it's now Wednesday, early evening, and I'm sitting at my living room desk that Quentin found for me for free, and looking out the back windows, and what do I see but a couple of dark green iridescent HUMMINGBIRDS! I didn't even know we HAD hummingbirds here! They're so gorgeous! Q says we'll have to get a hummingbird feeder next spring for them.

All in all, we're pretty content here, and truly enjoying the fresh air (which helps us both sleep a lot better), the ability to listen to the TV at a reasonable level we can actually hear without being yelled at by "neighbors," being able to park without fighting for a space ... we are so enjoying this, and so ridiculously happy. We can't wait to see what each day brings in the way of things going on here. Anyhow, now some photos, because I know you guys are all just dying for more photographs of progress!

Adding a bit more before the photos just because I have more to write. If my spacebar will cooperate, that is. Poor computer's getting a bit worn out and I have to hit the spacebar a bit harder than usual. Next big ticket item round here is probably going to be a new computer for me, after we get the woodstove in. I'm adding this a few days after the last bit ended because there are updates and I don't want to do another whole blog post just for this little bit. We did get the screen door on, but the opening isn't quite the right size and we can't cut the door down to fit, so it's a bit wonky. It works, it's just weird. We're going to start this weekend (the 21st/22nd of September) to haul some of the woodpile in, so it's handy for the woodstove when we get that far.

Right now, for basic heat in the living room only, we've got a small electric heater. We hate running up the bill with the thing, but it's been very chilly lately and we'd like to be somewhat more comfortable. It's a definite temporary thing, as we'll likely be putting straw bales around the house for "skirting" for the winter though not all the way up to the base of the trailer, to help avoid some of the rodent problems the straw will bring. We'll also be hanging heavy blankets over the doors we don't use (back door and a couple of the interior doors we use very little) and the windows to help keep heat in the house. We can always pull the blankets out of the way and tie them off to let light in. There'll also be some throw rugs tossed down for floor warmth - our feet are a bit tired of being cold. We deal with that enough at work!

The boys, aka the cats, have settled in quite well. They love all the windows to look out, and the room to play with their toys, and especially the length of the house, since it sits several feet off the ground. When they go racing up and down the house, or what Quentin calls "Kittydega," you can imagine the noise of a thundering herd of elephants around here.

September 23, 2012
Today was a good day. We've settled into a solid routine here. Weekdays are work, of course, and the fact that I leave about the time he gets home and heading to bed means he pulls in behind me and waits for me to get headed out the door for us to do a vehicle swap. I get home, change out of "work clothes" and into "farm clothes" and head outside while the weather is still nice to get as much done on the woodpile as possible. The fact that I cut primarily kindling and small logs is still good, though many would laugh at it. It's a huge contribution on my part for keeping us warm, because it means Quentin and I don't have to split kindling later on ... we'll already have it so the bigger logs can get halved or quartered or whatever is needed to make them fit the woodstove, rather than chop them into tiny bits for kindling. We need kindling to get the fire going again after one of us has been asleep for several hours, we'll have it already.

Weekends are the busy days. With our work schedules being as different as they are, I'm the one who gets a lot done during the week after I get home, because of working first shift. I get a lot of good daylight, so plenty of woodcutting gets done. The brush pile is clearing out fast now that we're living here. Quentin, on the other hand, working second shift as he does, is getting ready for work and heading in during what daylight he sees during the week, so weekends is about all the time he has to do any major projects around here. Primarily that means Sundays, because Saturdays, we spend doing all our errands in one big loop to get groceries, get building materials for the weekend's project, make the van payment, do laundry, and come home (gosh, that's still such a nice thing to be saying about this place!!), and put it all away.

So this Sunday .... it's been incredibly busy and as I write this over my lunch break, it's only about 130 in the afternoon, and we've gotten a LOT done, with more to come. In addition, I've taken quite a few photos the last couple of days, so this is a photo essay of sorts of the progress lately.

So far, things that have gotten photographed for this particular post are:

This is the stupid little 78 cent piece of electrical conduit that the power company threw a fit over it being broken. Since it came into the box from the top, we really think they should have fixed it, but oh well. Ridiculous that it held up power for three or four days, though. For want of a nail, a shoe was lost and all that.

This is the non-functional ceiling fan in the kitchen that's going to come down one of these days. It hangs a bit low and we really don't like Q having to duck around it so he doesn't bash his head.

This one is the non-functional kitchen sink light. Annoying as all heck that it doesn't work, but I am able to put the globe for it to use. I found the globe in the sink when I originally cleaned it out, and kept it with the intention of putting it back on the light once the power was on. It doesn't need to be up there, so it became a storage doodad on the corner of the sink for things like hanging my dishrag, and storing my scouring sponge when it's wet, and my bottle brush for the bottles I use to carry my juice with me to work. Gotta scrub them out so they don't get nasty, and by using the globe in an otherwise unconventional way, it repurposes it to good use of keeping wet, nasty things off the counters. I have to wash them enough, I don't want to purposely make them messy!

Here's our entertainment area in the living room, prior to the satellite going in. The DVR sits in the shelf area below the TV. We have a LOT of videos but not nearly enough for us to be happy. Things go wonky with the satellite come bad weather, we want to be able to be entertained. This only shows part of our DVD collection, and Q's old VHS tapes that we haven't replaced yet with DVDs.

There's the screen we found out back, installed in the same size living room window. It's been up for a bit now, and it's nice to have the cross breeze through the open windows. The boys like to sit on a bookshelf we put under the window for more movies, and watch out the window for various wildlife. Bouncer especially is fond of it and cries at the wilidlife to come play with him.

This is the plywood we took off the deck that was warped ... well, the bigger piece of it. The smaller piece got cut up to patch a few of the holes in the baseboards and floors for the moment. The flooring is a wintertime project, after the woodstove is installed.

The plywood piece acts as a bridge over this trench we still haven't had a chance to get gravel for to bury the conduit that carries our electrical wires.

This is the woodpile where the deer crashed through it and knocked it over. I give up stacking neatly. We've talked about it and we're just tossing it into a pile, willy-nilly. It'll get stacked a bit better when it comes in the house. Till then, if the deer are going to keep knocking it down, there's not a lot of reason to stack it up. Oddly, they have tons of room to go AROUND the woodpile, but insist on going THROUGH it instead.

Our power meter! It's digital, so it's likely a smart meter without our express approval, but apparently, our power company got rid of all the ones with the spinning disk on them. As long as we have juice till next year's hopeful big project of solar panels (to possibly be paid for by tearing out the Merlot and scrapping it to buy the solar equipment), we'll be okay. Though the sooner we have solar, the better we'll like it.

A look down the easement toward the main drag, now that the easement is greening back up a bit. You can't see the main drag in this photo, as we're about a mile and a half up the mountain road from it, but you can see how the road winds back and forth up the mountain.

Here's Quentin putting in the valance extension over the kitchen sink to give me a light in the kitchen, particularly for cooking and doing dishes. (Reminds me, I need to get them done up this afternoon, as the pan I need to make dinner in is in the dirty dishes. Oops.)

And here he is putting up my flourescent light! It plugs into a surge strip that plugs into one of the wall outlets that I also use for the electric skillet or the hotplate or griddle for the majority of our cooking. It does a great job lighting up the space we need lit the most, and gives enough light that even in the dark, we can find what we need.

The bird's nest I found in the sapling. I have no idea what kind of bird built it, and it looked abandonded. No signs of recent activity and in reality, it looks a bit on the ratty side.

This is Bouncer relaxing in one of the seats Quentin pulled out of the back of the van for more room in it. We put it behind the front door and Bouncer claimed it as HIS spot for naps.

Smudge, on the other hand, at that point, had decided the bookshelf by the window was a perfectly good place to sit and read the kitty newspaper.

This ia a pair of socks I handknit for myself. I like knitting socks, and especially wearing all those nice, warm, woollen things to work. Despite having fuzzy liners in my boots there, it does get rather arctic temperature at times, and without my warm socks, my poor feet would freeze. This is my favorite pair I've made.

This is another pair I recently finished. As I knit to my feet (which are a tiny 5 1/2 woman's foot, so finding storebought socks that fit well is a bit of a problem. I always seem to either have to wear girl's socks, which are usually too small, or women's socks which usually don't come in anything less than a six. With them, I end up with the heel halfway up the back of my leg or the toe tucked uncomfortably under my toes! I long ago learned to knit, and several years ago realized I could make socks for myself that would fit my feet perfectly for length on the foot, fit on the foot and leg, and go far enough up my leg that I didn't feel like they were falling down all the time. I've been making my own socks ever since. In both, you can see the little electric radiator heater we had to get till we get the woodstove in, because there've been some mighty chilly nights here lately, totally uncharacteristic of the Ozarks in late September, and we got tired of freezing our butts off. We only run it a couple hours here and there to take the chill off but it's nice to have it around, despite what it's likely doing to the electric bill.

This is our bed, all made up. I made all the afghans. Yes, I crochet, too. I can do most any kind of needlework, have been doing it since I was a little girl. At our apartment, the afghans were more pretty than functional, hardly getting used, and usually folded up and stuck in a corner somewhere. Here, they get a LOT of use. They keep us warm at night so we sleep comfortably, and the really huge one that is darn near bedspread size for a queen bed I'll likely lay on the living room floor later today for a rug to help keep our feet warm. (Rats, hubster denied that. Though that it upset me enough that I was trying to make things nicer for us and keep our feet a bit warmer almost had him giving in ... he just kept telling me that he didn't want my beautiful afghan going on the nasty floor, and besides, had I thought about how heavy it would be when it had to be washed afterwards???? He won, barely. He admitted after that if I'd held out for another fifteen seconds, I would have gotten to put it down. I gave in too soon, dagnabbit!)

For those wondering how we keep sawdust handy for the toilet, this is how. Quentin took one of our old scoopable kitty litter (our boys are spoiled or we are totally pwned, we're not sure which), cut off the top where the pour spout was, and we fill it from the sawdust bale in the storage room every few days. It sits under the bathroom sink where it's handy but where the boys can't get at it. Q is in charge of changing out the toilet waste bags, I'm in charge of making sure we have sawdust to use in the toity.

We got a little burning done today, too. The one nasty old recliner sitting in the trash pile closest to the road really offended Quentin for some reason, so he put the hitch on the van, tied the rope to the chair and the hitch, and pulled that son of a gun out of the pile. Then he used his muscles and the rope (I wasn't allowed to help, I would have apparently just gotten in the way of He-Man here) to haul the thing to a shallow depression we found near one side of the easement. It's a bit away from the treeline and the power lines, but it does the job of containing trash that needs burning.

We got a bit of other stuff and this week's trash, and set it off. It made a nice, warm bonfire once it was totally ablaze. WHOOSH!!! Yes, I know, burning the foam filling in the chair isn't exactly environmentally healthy, but it's either put that nasty stuff in the van and haul it to the landfill 30 miles or so away and pay a dump fee we don't have all the time, or get trash cans and haul stuff alllll the way down the mountain to the main road and pay $70 or $80 a month for somebody to come get the trash, or burn it. We choose to burn as much as we can, rather than pay to get rid of it. Sure cuts down on the trash around here in short order. The fire looked so pretty, and was what Quentin called an "inferno," because it did get kind of high when the chair really started in going.

We should have done the fire ring first, but hubby got on a roll with the chair and a couple other things and the week's trash, so once it died down some, the fire ring became a me project, while he did another small project he wanted to get done during daylight. I think it's a pretty good fire ring. It's big because there's still two or three chairs and a couple of sofas or love seats at least to toss in the thing and burn. While the fire was going, we kept a close eye on it so it didn't get out of control. Thankfully, it didn't but it sure made a nice chunk of heat for a bit! By the time I got the fire ring done, the chair was pretty much down to nothing but the metal frame and a bit of wood from near the footrest. So much for THAT bit of eyesore.

And here's our wonkily-done screen door. It's funky, but it works. We've got spring-loaded hinges on it, but also a hook and eye on the inside and outside because of the boys. That way, whether we're inside or out, if we have the entry door open, they can't push the screen open and get out and get hurt.

This one is Quentin when he was getting the satellite cable unhooked from the dish and sliding PVC pipe the length of it after running it behind the deck and stairs which the cable guy didn't do, and rehooking the cable to the dish. The TV works fine, but with all the trash around here and rodents, we want to make sure that they have as little chance as possible to be chewing the cable to bits and taking away entertainment. Especially after I saw a ROACH in the house the other night while I was making dinner. We got roach bait this weekend and they are down in the important places. I refuse to deal with those particular little pests any way but killing them, which the one I saw I did manage to squish.

And now it's 200 PM, and I need to get some water heating up so I can do dishes. More pictures to follow, I think, as a later today project is going to involve Quentin installing the clothes rod and shelf in the master bedroom closet tonight after he's done fixing the one back door on the van. He calls it his truck, and I guess it essentially is an enclosed truck, since it's on a Ford F150 chassis, but it does sometimes seem a bit silly. It's got ambulance doors on the back, and the one doesn't want to open properly, so he had to fix it so it would open right again. He just walked in the door and announced he had the "truck" done, and is off to do the ... TA DA! ... CLOSET! The paneling is popping off the walls in a few places, so in the closet, he put some 1x2 pieces up against the bottom of the shelf support already there, and used those to not only push the paneling back on the studs, but to give the rod/shelf brackets a bit more support. I took the photo after barely starting to get things put away. He did a nice job, though he thinks it's not that great. I figure we have a way to hang up all our stuff now instead of dressing out of boxes, so it's all good.

Till next time!