Officially, it will be here at 3:44 PM, about the time I actually get this thing posted. It feels like it, too, already. Chilly mornings, cool evenings, warm days. I'll be our fall color this year is going to be spectacular. It's already cool enough that I have to run the heater in the car on the way to work, to thaw out my toes, lol. We are prepping for the cold this year with better plans than last year's last-minute rush to figure out a way to heat things. We've got our radiator heater that we'll put in the bedroom to keep it and the bathroom warm, while shutting the hallway door and mostly blocking the bathroom door to the hall, so that the boys can get back and forth to the food bowls and litter box. The tool room is blocked off (we mostly shut the door but we're putting heavy blankets on the inside of it), the front bedroom will be closed off soon the same way, and that leaves us just the kitchen/dining and living areas to heat. We found a small heater from Mr. Heater at the local farm supply store, Race Brothers in Harrison. It will work out well for the front of the house, and with a bit of hookup with hoses and such, we can get it to work on the 20-pound tanks to start. We'll get a 40-pound or 100-pound tank later to last longer, and store them under the deck for keeping them outside. No more huge electric bills for us, nor worrying about if the power goes out. One more step towards being off-grid, whether here or elsewhere.
Because, yeah, the landlords are still dithering over whether to sell us the place or not. Yeah, we love it here, but if we can't buy it, we aren't putting a small fortune in money into it to fix it up nice and all like we have thought about doing. Not a lot of sense to putting money into a place if you aren't buying it, after all. I just hope we can finish getting enough stuff cleared that I can get some kind of garden in next year and get the water situation worked out so I can have water for it without hauling it in from outside. I'll be happy with either the well OR the cistern, long as I can water my garden!
On a sad note, a dear friend passed away this past week. John Plunkey was a good friend. For many years, he was one of Mom's clients (and mine, when I worked for her for over twelve years), and he was a fantastic mechanic. He also served on the police force for my hometown, Mt. Morris, Michigan, for 25 years, retiring as Deputy Chief a few years ago. I'll bet his funeral was wall-to-wall blue. He was lost to lung cancer. Mom told me last Sunday night that he'd been in a few months ago to finish up the corporate paperwork for his mechanic shop, so that when he went, there wouldn't be a whole lot for his wife, Patty, to deal with other than selling the place and finalizing the last corporate tax return. At that point, he only had half of one lung left, and Mom told him she expected to see him in the new year for his taxes. Sadly, he didn't quite make it that far, but he fought a good fight. Requisat In Pacem, John.
On a brighter note, our darling daughter, Amber got her first real paying job in her chosen field, while still in college! Okay, so she's done work study the last few semesters in the music tech lab, which is a job in her chosen field of music, it's a college job, and she didn't consider it a "real job," because it was on-campus. She's worked in a couple of fast-food places, still does at one, and now has a very small job at a local Presbyterian church back home singing for them once in a while, with extra payment for special services like Christmas Eve and Easter. We are so freaking stoked over this for her, and so proud of her. (Yeah, typical parents, lol - so shoot us. *giggles*)
And I may be promoting this week at work. I put in a bid for a job in a different department a couple of weeks ago, for something that is tougher to do, rehanging the birds on a shackle line after they come out of the chiller. It means not a lot of moving around from place to place like I've been doing on x-ray line, but it does mean some good things. Like a 55-cent an hour raise if I can hack it (I have till the end of Wednesday shift to decide for sure and let my current nimrod supervisor know if I'm staying with it.), and a bit earlier stop and start time, so when Quentin rehires and goes to second shift, and starts at 5 PM, I'll get a very few minutes with him before he has to clock in to work after I get done. Every little bit helps at that point, to keep your relationship sane and solid. It's tough working separate shifts, even contemplating it, but he'll make really good money that way and he LIKES working nights. Me, not so much. I like sleeping when it's dark, and when things work out for the farm like we want them to, as much as we can get them to do, then I'll need to be awake during the morning, not sleeping it away. Farmer's markets don't exactly tend to be open in the middle of the night, lol.
The baby outfit is coming along, with the sweater almost done, finally. Still a long ways to go, so it's a good thing I'm making it for a six-months size, because by the time I get it done, that little baby may be about that old! There's a long way to go and not a lot of time to get there. But at least movie night means a lot of knitting, because there's the time in the truck on the way around running errands, there's the time in the laundromat waiting on the laundry, and then there's the three or four hours we spend watching movies after dinner to keep our "date night" going. That makes about six or seven hours all told in one day for knitting or crocheting or whatever I'm doing that I'm dragging along on the driving part. I'm not the fastest knitter in the world some days, and most weekends I'm uber-slow because I keep stopping to talk to the hubby. I need to knit more and talk less, but I like talking with hubby most of the time, and I like knitting too, so they interfere. LOL. It'll all get done, just in dribs and drabs!
We are also working on tearing insulation and paneling out of the Merlot, along with the water heater door and it's frame from there, to fix up the water heater compartment on OUR trailer. No sense letting the cold in through uninsulated walls when we can fix them up and use it for a storage area unless/until we put in a water heater (which requires running water and pipes and all kinds of other things that run about $3000 to put all together properly). So - insulate, panel, and storage that also helps keep cold from leaking into the tool room and the bathroom (and thus the rest of the house). Pictures on that project as it gets worked on!
So that's this week's news. We are keeping busy and keeping warm, and happy to have our lives starting to go in a good direction again. Eight weeks to go and he can rehire, yay us!
FREE KINDLE BOOKS FOR THIS WEEK
As always, these and other goodies are also added to the Bountiful Farm Astore, and I'm so busy with all kinds of things going on that I sometimes wonder how I manage to get all this done. This is just a big sample of what I added this week, so have fun looking there, too. Happy homesteading folks!
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