11-10-08

Randy's work on the house right now is to get space made in the shop for doing work inside this winter. He will need someplace to set up the table saw and he's made lots of progress. But too, he's working on the garden fences. In the east garden, the back fence was completely down. He's been out with the brush cutter clearing the area to put up the new fence. Several fence lines can stay as they are still fairly stable.

I am needing to get the grow lights up and going to move the house plants and aloe vera plants moved in. The house plants are getting no light right now and the outside aloe vera is getting way too much sunshine. The lettuce is giving up and looks bad but will do better inside with some good old TLC. The freezes have already killed the Zinnias but the tiny tomatoes inside the greenhouse are doing great. They just didn't like being out in the garden staked with so many other tomato plants. I have to remind myself that all that growth is from one plant.

So, now is the time for making plans for next year. We are becoming more frugal in all that we will do. It is beginning to look like we'll need to find a way to do without so many things just to survive. I can see doing with much less electricity but how to do without it.

When the price of gasoline was so very high, Randy made a point of driving slower. It cut his use by nearly half and he is still proud. The cost is down but he keeps the speed down as well. We can again consider going to town on the weekends so I can do a little shopping. We're planning a trip for Thanksgiving to have dinner with his mother. That will be nice.

For a while, I was having to throw away out extra eggs. With 22 hens, there were a lot of extras. Beau loved the daily meal of scrambled eggs but when he died, I was left with no use for so many. We discovered that Randy's mother could use or give away all that we could send her way. It's nice to make folks happy and not waste what we have plenty of.

 
09-10-08

It's been a summer of gardening. With lots of tomatoes and cucumbers, well worth all the work and fertilizing and watering. Now that everything is finished, it is raining and raining The weeds are growing so very well. But I had just been wishing for some good soaking rains for the Pine and Cedar trees. This is doing them so much good. I won't have to figure a way to drag the hose out and soak them for the winter. That's when they do all their growing.

It's time to get with Park Seeds and order what we will need for this coming season. Randy did so much work on the 3 gardens this past season that we should have plenty of space for what we will be growing.

We have a visit from the county appraisal district yesterday. To make sure they knew of any changes. When we get moved into our house, the tax will go down since the house will be smaller and this old house will be storage. I did point out that she had parked under a tree that was fast falling down. She stayed only long enough to see where our new house is and ask a few questions. It was pouring rain but I had to tell her no, she could not pull around to the top of the driveway. No one had done that in years. She would have scratched up her car and made it fine by backing up. I need to put up a barrier to keep anyone from getting as far as she did.

The weather has changed. The heat is not so bad. We've had a day not out of the 70s, down to the mid 50s at night and most pleasant. Rain, rain and more rain. I can't find when Fall begins.

Randy's birthday is the 18th and I heard from a little bird that his daughter and granddaughter plan to visit him. That means I'd best get the house cleaned up. It could be that they would visit him in town where he works. No one lets me know anything.   

07-21-08 Just wanted to post a few notes and the "clipboard" was full so I was unable to use the Click Art at all. Oh well. This will do just fine. 

It is so nice that Randy is getting his strength back and can be working on the house. As soon as the outside is finished, we can get the doors and get them up and the house secured. The caulking is almost finished and then the sealer and paint.

With the house sitting open for 2 years, the wasp had taken over. Randy had brushed up against a big nest and received over a half dozen stings all at once. They don't usually bother him so the effect was minor. Scared me though. He found a great spray and I tried it on a big nest I discovered quite by accident. I had gone to move a piece of corrugated metal out of Beau's way. Surprise, I was instantly surrounded by angry wasps. I stood still and then slowly began walking away. They went back to an odd spot in the leaves and were an easy target with the spray. They all died right away and none came back to the spot or to the nest.

Right now, we have a tree in the driveway falling down. It's the huge Wall of China tree and it's split in half. Randy can't drive the truck up the driveway to the house so it will be most difficult to bring in building supplies for the house. He thinks he'll have to cut down most of the broken tree as well as the oak tree it is falling into. Click here for photos.