When is homesteading EVER boring? I keep trying to find ways to come up with something to say this week. It's been a bit nutty, because work's kept us rather busy most of the time, the cold's kept us in the time we aren't busy with work, and there's not really a whole lot going on this past week. I'd hoped to have an update on the well, but it's just not happening as fast as I'd like. Ditto on clearing up the yard. About the only thing we accomplished is getting the trailer tagged finallly, and getting a cordless 18-volt drill for the hubster so we can accomplish things outside that need a drill, once it's warmer.
It has just plain been frigidly cold. Even hunkering down in the living room hasn't helped a whole heck of a lot. We had nearly a whole week of temps in the teens at night, and which barely reached freezing during the day. Too cold to snow, even, though one morning we did get up to some icy conditions, though not enough to worry about other than trying to NOT slide around on the deck and stairs. Good thing our work boots are non-skid, because it was pretty slippy out there! The house barely stayed warm enough for living in, and in the mornings when we'd get up, it'd be in the mid-forties. Yeeeeesh. BRRRR. But we made it, the days are starting to get warmer and longer again, and in a few more weeks, we can officially say we survived our first winter homesteading in a metal box.
Hopefully, we'll manage to get a woodstove going this summer. We found a boxwood stove we like in a recent Harbor Freight catalog of the month, but by the time we tried to get one, they had sold out, and it was an item they were discontinuing. Irksome, to say the least. Then we got lucky. We had to go to Miller Hardware in Harrison for something one day, and it turns out THEY have the boxwood stove there in stock all the time. So we have a choice of the small one for $200 or the big one for $300, or the one from Race Brothers for about $250. We don't know for sure which one we'll go with at this point. I'm aiming for the $300 model, as the eyes are set a bit further apart on it, so cooking on it or canning would be a lot easier, and allow me to do two pots at once with ease. The smaller one, not so much. The mid-size one from Race Brothers would allow it also, so I'm hoping I can talk Quentin into at least the mid-sized one.
I got my seed and nursery catalogs this last couple of weeks. It's been a while since I've had a garden in, so I have to start from scratch with getting on mailing lists again, and that means I'm kind of low on the totem pole for getting catalogs. Two favorites are Pinetree Garden Seeds and Stark Bros. Pinetree specializes in northern varieties of things, which here would be good. With a north-facing slope to grow on and the possibility each year of summer's heat turning into a drought that would kill a garden anyhow, short-season crops are pretty much a necessity here for the garden. I've picked out veggies and herbs, and the one flower I love to grow a ton of, marigolds. Mainly because the cute little buggers tend to help keep a lot of pests out of the garden.
We did have to help a friend from work get to the Huntsville tire shop Friday afternoon, and I got a surprise there. They have lots and LOTS of dead tires they give away sitting there. So if I need to, I can go there on a weekend when they're open and grab three or four, stick 'em in the back of the car and haul 'em home for more free garden beds. MUCH easier and cheaper than trying to get wood that rots eventually together to build the things, and tire beds heat up better in cold weather for growing in. Only problem is, hubby won't stop on the way home from work and let me put a bunch in the back of the truck. He doesn't want to mess up the truck, he says. *sniff, sniff* He's an old meanie, I'm telling you. And the truck is officially well below half-paid for ... we owe a whopping $1200 on it yet, but within four to five months, I hope to have it paid off so we don't have to deal with that money going out anymore. That's money we can use around here, or save up to get a third vehicle for backup in case one of the others goes down, once hubby is hopefully back to work at Tyson's and I have to drive myself to work again.
We got the battery for the car Friday, too, so now Victor is officially back on the road, and I can at least get to McDonald's on Sunday afternoons for a few hours to get mail and do things I need to do until somehow, stuff gets worked out at the house for internet. I hate to drag the laptop out and about on the mountain road and our driveway, but hopefully I can pack it up safely enough if wrapped in a bunch of towels for padding, that it won't bounce it too much. When we moved here, I stuck it in the middle of the big tote of clothes and it did okay, so I have hope. If I'd know that would work, and I surely hope it does as I write this, I'd've been doing that all the time after we moved instead of trying to get everything done through the library! Much as I love the free wifi there, they limit you to using it for an hour a day on their computers, and you can't always accomplish what you want to do that way very well.
The afghan I started a few weeks back is coming along, and with my ports working again, I can show you pictures of how I started it! It's pretty simple, really, and if you're an inveterate knitter like I am, but the technique I use can be confusing if you have no clue what someone means when they use knitterly terms. I've got several inches of it done, and it's coming along in a nice, boring, easy-to-knit manner. It's also slowly using up all my scrap balls of yarn that fill several medium boxes in the one corner of the kitchen right now. I've got one box nearly half used up, but when you have five or six boxes to go through, errr, they kind of take up a lot of room. Can't tell I like yarn, can you?
But now it's time for me to go finish pulling together so I can go to McDonald's and hijack their wifi for a few hours, get some research done and a bit of ordering of things done for the homestead. And Quentin, he's getting ready to go help the landlord and his wife with a horse and horse trailer that need moving, because their van doesn't have a trailer hitch and Sheamus does. He needs to get out and busy for a bit today anyhow, because he got a phone call earlier this morning from his cousin Ricky's wife, Cheryl - Aunt Jolene (the one who was married to Uncle Louie that died in the house fire right before Thanksgiving) is in a bad way. She's on 100% oxygen, in the hospital with pneumonia and her kidneys and liver are failing. She's got a lot of moments where she's not lucid right now, and keeps pulling out her catheters and IVs. We can't take time off work to go to the eventual funeral, but we'll be there in spirit, so hubby needs to get out and about to take his mind off it for a bit. Cheryl and I told the menfolk after Louie's funeral that Jolene wouldn't last too long - they'd been together so long that Jolene just kind of lost the will to live afterwards. She was alive, but not living, and it wouldn't be long before we'd lose her, too. It's sad, terribly sad, but we all know she'll be happier and in a better place once the inevitable happens. Cheryl will at least be mailing us a flyer from the funeral for the family scrapbook once that happens, so we'll have that.
And here I thought I didn't have much to write about this week. Wrong as usual .... every time I think I have nothing to write about, I have a ton of stuff to write about. But since things have to get done, including this getting posted, stuff researched and dishes done when I get back here, it's time to close for now. Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment