Sorry I missed last weekend

But I wasn't in a good mood and everything I tried to write came out sounding pretty craptastic, so I deemed it much better to NOT write anything. The last couple of weeks have been fun, more or less, with the weather, because of the ice storm (ha!), snow, and general cold. Photos in a bit. On the other hand, it's been a year since I started at Butterball, I worked nearly 50 hours this last week (which makes up for the previous week's mere 21 hours), and in about a month or so, it'll have been a year since we took over the property and began making it a homestead instead of a private landfill.

There's been so many changes to the place in that time, and while we haven't accomplished nearly everything we wanted to get done, we've managed to get a lot done in retrospect. The house got cleaned up so we could move in, we moved, the electric got fixed and turned on, the deck got repaired, a screen door got installed, the window with no screen got a screen on it, the A/C hole got repaired, a lot of trash got burned (so the piles by the deck and the easement are half of what they were), a bunch of trees and brush got cut down and cut up for the woodpile or burned, the woodstove corner got started, we found the cistern and wellhead, the water level in the well got figured out, the bicycle windlass got started, and this past week, Quentin ginned up a worktable for himself in the smallest bedroom till we get a toolshed going for him. Put that way, it's a heck of a lot. Still a long ways to go, but that's a heck of a start.

I feel blessed to have the life I have, despite the fact that I have to work outside the house right now so we can get things going the right way. It's worth it in the long run, because I know that the hard work both at the plant and the property will come together to make a sustainable and profitable homestead that gives a good life to us.

So, anyhow, pictures!!!!

Looking down the easement (yes, I know, I take a lot of shots like this one, but it shows things all the way down the mountain towards the main drag, and the neighboring ridgeline, and it's so cool to see the changes over time). This is right after the "ice storm" we had, which actually hit further south than originally expected, down around Little Rock and Hot Springs. We got about half an inch of ice, which shut the plant down for a day, and the cold kept the ice around enough on Friday that I couldn't get off the mountain to the clearer main road to get to work, and had to call in. Hence the really short check that week. Considering that we're at 1700 feet of elevation, anything much below us on the road gets pretty much nothing in the way of weather, while we get it all. I'm not kidding, we get fog, and Cliff's drive, 500 feet or so down the road from us, all the way down to the main road, it's clear as a bell. We get snow or ice, Cliff has nothing. So this shot was right after the "ice storm" of the 21st of February, when it had started melting off.

Bouncer enjoying a game of "kittyloaf" in Quentin's chair, currently in the one side of the kitchen since we're still using the living room for hunkering down in for a few more weeks till it warms up a bit more.

Smudgie in the bowl! One of my big mixing bowls that Quentin uses for washing up in the morning, sitting on the defunct freezer by the big kitchen/dining room window. Smudge likes to sit in it and read the kitty newspaper out the window, or even curl up in it to sleep when it's not got water in it. Silly kitty.

The trailer now that Quenin's got high sides built and installed on it that he can take off if needed for a flatbed. Again, right after the ice storm. Kinda looks pretty on our place, doesn't it?

A rear view of the trailer, you can kind of see how he's got the latches put together on it. Just simple gate latches, but they work to hold the back on when it's full.

A shot of the woodpile back towards the bluff behind the house, after the ice storm. It doesn't look quite as pretty in the picture as it did in reality, but it's still prettyish.

Quentin fixing my car. We figured out what was wrong with the Aveo, in that I blew out the thermostat and housing and part of the upper radiator hose. Of course, with all original parts, it's inevitable that things are going to go blooey off and on from now on, but this was unexpected. The rubber gasket in the thermostat got stuck in the spring, and stretched out so badly that the spring couldn't move, thus blowing out the housing, too. And it was all plastic, so the new thermostat is ...

metal. That's the new parts! The car's now all fixed, though the upper hose seems to still leak a bit where it connects to the thermostat, and I personally think Quentin needs to move the clamp a bit closer to the thermostat, but he says not. So I keep an eye on the fluids, and call it even till I get off work in time, I'll stop by a regular mechanic and have them take a look. Not that I don't trust Quentin, but if it's fixed, it shouldn't be still leaking, so there's something there I'd like to have a regular mechanic check out for me.

Part of the woods/brush off the deck looking rightish between the deck trash pile and the walking patch to the easement, after the snow we had earlier this past week. The trees look like fairyland! Soooo pretty.

More of the fairyland, straight out from the deck, towards the old sewage lagoon.

And finally, from the deck towards the other trailers. Where all the brush is, is where I'm planning on putting a garden if it ever gets cleared out. But this picture is just so pretty with all the snow on the trees.

So that's this week, and with any luck, things will go well enough that next weekend, I'll have more to tell you!!