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Category Archives: General Farm Stuff

January Cure 2016- Plan a Party and catch up

15 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, Home and other Repairs, Home Decor, January Cure 2016, Rural life

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

DIY, do it yourself, farm, home decor, home organization, January Cure, January Cure 2016

The assignment for today was to plan a get together. Took about 10 seconds to realize the backyard is not going to be ready for entertaining because I have the office to contend with. My end of the Cure party will instead be held sometime in March after the office/guest room/craft room is finished.

My freeloading chickens have finally begun producing 2 eggs a day, so I used the 10 eggs collected this week to make a cheap and easy breakfast casserole to sustain me while I catch up to where I should be on the office and the hall closet. I even ate some of that casserole. I’ve never eaten fresh eggs before and knowing chickens as intimately as I do, especially one of them, this took a bit of courage. The casserole is delicious and I did not die from it.

Just as an aside, a friend told me that chickens are immune to the capsaicin in peppers, so if I feed them lots of hot peppers, their egg yolks will be red and spicy. In a fit of giggles I asked her if sprinkling a lot of Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning on their layer feed would work the same way. I’m thinking that would be a time saver in the kitchen. (Note: This is a joke people. Too much salt can kill a chicken.)

fresheggsLook at those pretty little eggs! They’re still pretty small because my hens just began laying, so it took 10 to make a 9 x 13 casserole.

fresheggbacncasseroleFresh eggs, bacon and biscuit casserole! Heat and eat breakfast all weekend.

I also still have a couple of bowls of zuppa left from last weekend for quick heat and eat lunches and some frozen slices of turkey and ham left from the holidays to cut up on fresh lettuce from my garden for suppers. I can turn all my attention to the bedroom assignment and the office. Well, I can after I pick up a new battery for the tractor.

I completely emptied the hall closet, wiped down shelves, swept the floor, pitched two sets of old place mats that were stained, saved one every day set and one special occasion set, washed the guest linens, emptied two shelves in the office and a drawer in my desk, organized office supplies on a shelf in the hall closet and took pictures of some of the items in my outbox to see if I can sell them online rather than trying to haul them to the corner swap.

Tada! My lovely organized hall closet. The linens will be on the top shelf with the blankets once I finish folding them.

hallcloset

On the office agenda this weekend will be to rearrange the craft items in the office closet so that there is a space for guests to both hang clothes and lay folded clothes. Then I will box up my toy collection and William’s computers so they can all be safely stored while we remove all the furniture. Then the room will need a thorough cleaning and paint. Then, at long last, we can build a bed frame and the wall mounted counter space for crafting and computing.

As for my bedroom project, I just need to wash the curtain and bed linens and give the room a thorough dusting. It’s also time to haul a lot of clothes to the donation bin.

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January Cure 2016- Work on a Project

14 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, Home and other Repairs, January Cure 2016, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

DIY, do it yourself, farm, January Cure, January Cure 2016

Ohh the best laid plans…

Tuesday the assignment was to clear a closet. We all saw how that turned out. Wednesday’s assignment was to work on my “project”. This was great luck because my big project is the office, which is right next to the closet I wanted to clear on Tuesday and both are related to my end game plan. I knew I could catch up. Like Bullwinkle the Moose when attempting to pull a rabbit out of his hat, I thought “This time for sure!”

“The Crew” that the air conditioning company promised to send out Wednesday morning to clean my ducts, which were threatening to kill my brand new AC unit, turned out to be one guy. One guy who apparently thought I lived in east Egypt and so decided to allow a couple of hours for a drive that only takes 35 minutes. He arrived an hour and a half ahead of time. I hadn’t even glimpsed the bottom of my first cup of coffee, much less straggled outside to feed the animals.

After rousing John and corralling the dastardly, technician eating dachshunds I let the guy in. Turns out he was a talker. This girl can’t formulate a complete sentence until an hour or so after her second cup of coffee. The dachshunds yelling their warnings at the dude, his words bouncing around in my empty head and the noise of his machine had me just about ready to launch myself to a new planet in the first 30 minutes.

That’s when it became apparent that this was not going to be a three hour job as the AC company had promised. As the clock turned the fourth hour he’d completed four vents. There are TEN in the house. I could barely get to either of two bathrooms, much less the office and closet I needed to be working on. I spent a good portion of the morning whining on facebook about this.

acchaos

It took 8 full hours to finish the duct cleaning, plus the AC cleaning. I was feeling a bit on the miffed side, but then darned if that young man didn’t turn my lousy attitude right around. Turns out he is also a mechanic and just loves older engines. He’d seen our vintage tractor and asked about it. I told him it had worked great up until a few months ago when it decided it wouldn’t start. After he finished his AC work he asked if he could take a look at it. Sure.

He asked what it did when I tried to start it. I told him. “I bet I know the problem”, he said. He popped off the distributor cap, exposed the points and said “Yep”. With a screw driver he scraped some carbon off the points and darned if that tractor didn’t start right up! I am reunited with the most important piece of equipment on this farm all because the AC tech who enjoyed talking my ear off for 8 hours on his birthday took the time to check out my old tractor and do something nice. If I’d won the lottery last night, he and his wife would have never had to worry about paying a house note again.

Needless to say, I neither worked on the project or the closet, BUT I have a working tractor which is really much more important. In the words of Scarlett O’Hara “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

 

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January Cure 2016 Assignment 2- Make a Project List and Chicken

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, Home and other Repairs, January Cure 2016, Uncategorized

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Tags

chickens, January Cure, January Cure 2016, to-do lists

No, I’m not going to make a chicken dinner from Her Royal Fowlness. I am thrilled to report that the chicken has left the building! After 3 days in the guest bathroom getting warm tub soaks, eating oatmeal, enjoying celery leaves, having bowls of chicken food and water all to herself and a warm cozy bed of fresh hay thrice daily, she had still not produced an egg. She was happy, she was perky at both ends and was deemed healthy enough to go back to the rest of the flock. I have no idea what was wrong with her. Maybe she just wanted a spa weekend. I do not know whether to be more disturbed by the fact that my finger had been applying Vasoline and Perparation H to a chicken’s egg plumbing or the fact that my finger had been applying said goo to a chicken’s egg plumbing for apparently no reason.

Today’s assignment was to go room to room and make a list of 3 to 5 items in each room that need cleaning, repair, de-cluttering and/or re-organizing. I’m happy to say that last year’s Cure really worked well in most places. As a result, there are only a few spots that need major work. My bedroom is still working well, as are my linen closet, cabinets, laundry room (yay! that was the biggie last year) and kitchen. A little de-cluttering will do in most spots. Mainly what I’m dealing with this year is stuff I need to take to Goodwill and too much furniture I don’t need, where I least need it, and not the right kind of furniture where I do need it. We have power tools, we can deal with this.

My Project List

Master Bedroom

de-clutter nightstands
sort clothes for donating
fold and put away lump of laundry on bed
declutter master bath counter

Kitchen

declutter buffet
organize baking cabinet
clean window sill
clean pot shelf

Dining area

stow Mom’s china
empty 2nd china cabinet
sell or donate china cabinets

Den area

Clean window sill
dust books
organize shelving for CDs, DvDs and games
dust
Sell or donate piano

Office

THE OFFICE
Yes the whole thing lol. That will be my big project as it just needs to be completely emptied of everything. I will keep one shelving unit and we will try to re-purpose wood and shelves for use building a bed and 10 to 15 feet of wall mounted counter space to serve as craft and computer desk. Last year I griped about THE OFFICE while my son and I fought the laundry room into submission. This year THE OFFICE gets it’s due.

Laundry room

Still working great just needs a quick sweep and wipe down

Guest Bath

Now that the freeloading chicken is no longer in residence there, a quick sweep and tidy will do.

(Note: My finger has received hundreds of deep cleanings and sterilizations since Friday so I have removed that from my list although I am still slightly afraid of it.)

 

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January 2016 Cure Assignment 1

01 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, January Cure 2016, Uncategorized

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

chickens, egg bound, hens, January Cure, January Cure 2016

Momma said there’d be days like this… well no actually, she didn’t. There is no way in my Momma or Grandmomma’s wildest imaginations they could have envisioned a day where I’d have a chicken soaking in a warm bathtub rubbing Vaseline on her egg production *facilities*. I told friends earlier that as long as she doesn’t request a glass of wine, bubble bath and candles I’ll deal with it.

I think she is egg bound, but I can feel no egg. That doesn’t necessarily mean she isn’t egg bound apparently, it just means the egg that may be stuck didn’t get stuck far enough along her plumbing to get hard. I know this is more than I ever wanted to know about chickens so I’m going to assume it’s more than you wanted to know and move along. Suffice to say, she has had two tub soaks, oatmeal laced with calcium and has been well lubricated with Vaseline. I did not want to go there. Now I wait and keep the house quiet so she will hopefully get this out of her system.

In the meantime all I can do today is read the posts from the other folks setting up their flowers, fruit bowls or fresh greenery, shuffling piles of stuff around, vacuuming, mopping and shuffling the piles of stuff back. All things I need to be doing. All things I was looking forward to. But no. I’ve been babysitting a down in the mouth chicken and twice had my finger where my finger should have never had to go. Thus, my New Years Resolution has become “Never get more chickens. Ever.” This will be my resolution for probably 8 years because chickens can live that long. However, if the other 5 freeloaders begin to lay, I can probably get 20.00 each for them and lemme tell you how tempting that is after today.

So, tomorrow, I have to get out and get hay which means I will be relatively close to a grocery, which means I will be able to pick up a small bouquet. If the hen hasn’t delivered by the time I get home, I’m cranking up the vacuum anyway. For the floors! Not as an aid to egg production!

chickenintub

Chicken having a nice warm soak. No bubbles, but she did get

a snack of oatmeal laced with calcium.

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Memories from a happier time

05 Thursday Nov 2015

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff, Grief, Rural life, Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

MVC-015SThat Facebook app “On this day…” hasn’t been happy lately. I’ve had to try to ignore the posts from this time in 2013. This morning I skipped over the sad memory from that day and landed on this from the year before. We used to have such fun and be able to laugh at the calamities.

So, from November 4, 2012 I give you the Great Pony Escape

The continuing saga of life on Jean and Billiam’s farm. With an unhappy goat constantly bleating for tree trimmings in the background, John dismantled the panels along the west side of the barn. I’d moved all the ponies to the back corral earlier. Billiam cranked up the old Ford tractor and scraped all the stalls down to dirt, then shoved dry dirt piles back into each stall. I chopped up hard packed dirt on the edges where the tractor couldn’t reach and then spread the fresh dirt around in the low spots with John helping. I scrubbed out the water buckets with steel wool while John and Billiam put the panels back up.

The little blind and deaf dog was barking incessantly inside because we were outside, the goat outside was still making our ears bleed with her incessant bleating. I got the leaf blower and blew out all the dirt and dust that had been kicked into the feed bins and Billiam and I came inside for Aleve and a NAP while John put the finishing touches on the panels. I woke up two hours later and my FIRST thought upon waking was “OMG did someone close the corral gate?? DID SOMEONE PUT THE PONIES BACK INTO THAT CORRAL BEFORE CLOSING THAT GATE?”

I grabbed shoes and went outside. All seemed normal. Goat was bleating bloody murder. Then I noticed that this time she was bleating bloody murder at a small herd of horses under the tree next to the goat pen, who were gorging themselves on dried mesquite bean pods. “John!!!!!” “JOHN!!” “SOMEBODY!!!!!!!!” I grabbed a bucket of feed and coerced Desi back into the corral but he kept following me in and out while I tried to attract the attention of the others. “JOHNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

At this point Billiam and John appeared. The village idiot horses, Blondie and her child Poppy, made a break for it and headed toward the barn. THAT gate, unfortunately was closed. They wheeled about and raced out into the open backyard. John decided to try and get them all in the corral gate, while I was trying to get them into the barn aisle. Billiam, thinking John’s plan was THE plan, herded them away from the barn at the same time I was trying to get them to go to the barn and our miscommunication caused ALL the horses but Lucy (still gorging on mesquite bean pods and not giving a hoot about the chaos around her) to charge off through the backyard and around the house into the front yard where one neighbor had JUST passed by riding his stallion and ponying another horse. After sucking all the oxygen out of the desert, I saw that he had safely crossed the dry wash and was on the opposite bank, well away from my rampaging fools.

John tried to herd them between the house and the barn but the ninnies broke out and went careening up the road and across the 5 acres between us and our nearest neighbors’ property. This caused the horses in the neighbors’ back yard to freak out which caused our horses to become even more gleeful in their wild escape. Ours were bucking, cavorting, pawing the air and having a GRAND old time, which convinced the neighbors’ horses that a pack of crazed hyenas was on the loose. The village idiot horses were the leaders in this escapade, with Desi charging along behind them egging them on by biting their butts. Blaze was running along just because she’s Blaze and is more than willing to do whatever the other horses are doing because they must know what they’re doing right?

Lucy finally looked up from her bean pod bonanza and walked over to me. I put a lead rope around her neck, kissed her forehead and led her into the barn. I sat in my wheelchair watching the rest of the hairy goofballs head off across the countryside and thought “Yanno, at this moment, if Desi weren’t among them I might just close all the gates, wave goodbye and go inside.”

John managed to turn them before they got halfway down the street and they came rampaging back around the front yard where they got side tracked by the mesquite pods on the ground by the garage. I planted myself just past the barn gate. John went around the house and surprised the ill behaved children by blocking their access back to the front yard. They stampeded toward me but between my airplane arms and the look on my face they decided to make a sliding 90 degree turn and go into the barn. I’m thinking the look on my face probably reminded them “I DO HAVE A FIRE PIT”.

We closed the gate behind them, had a chance to breathe ONE quick sigh of relief when we realized “OH hell the hay room door is open!” right about the time the village idiots and Blaze tried to cram themselves into a small hay area filled to the brim with 100 bales of hay. John managed to get the village idiots backed out, but Blaze suddenly forgot how to back out or just didn’t want to and leaped up on some of the lower bales. I was waiting for the sound of horse legs breaking as she jumped off the bales onto one of the empty pallets below, but thankfully she managed to extricate herself. She did make one feeble attempt (thank god it was feeble) to squeeze through the not even horse width space between the fence and the stacked hay, but thought better of it and scrambled over the freshly opened bale by the door, scattering it to hell and gone.
After the village idiots stopped gaily sprinting from one end of the barn aisle to the other, they were caught and everyone was locked up early for the evening.

We cooked out, sausages over the mesquite fire again, for supper. It was a peaceful evening, well, except for the little blind and deaf dog barking incessantly inside because we were outside. Billiam said “We could pretend he’s wild life.”

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Current woes, tall tales, and lessons learned

  • Here are the mutts.
  • January Cure 2018- Flowers and Floors and Stuff
  • January Cure 2018 Day 2- Make a list
  • January Cure 2018- Day 1- Clear and Organize a Drawer
  • January Cure 2018: But first a word from our sponsor
  • January Cure Weekend 1- Flowers and Floor
  • Day 3 January Cure 2017- Purge the Pantry vs Cabinet Cleanout
  • Day 2 January Cure 2017- Making a List (humming- checking it twice)
  • January Cure 2017 Day 1
  • Billiam’s List Bedroom Tile: Pat us on the head!

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