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Jean's Blog of Life, Farms and Everything

Tag Archives: farm

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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Billiam’s List: Patio Dining Table

16 Saturday Aug 2014

Posted by Jean in Home and other Repairs, Rural life, Uncategorized, Wood Crafts

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Tags

DIY, farm, garden, home decor, home furniture, homemade furniture, landscaping, outdoor furniture, patio furniture, wood craft, wood furniture, yard

Turning back to wood after the tie-dye fiasco we had much better success. My niece will be in town Labor Day weekend and for that special event I decided to unveil the new backyard to the entire family. The only small problem with this is that the patio isn’t finished. I still needed a table and more chairs. This is a bbq event and it’d be nice for the family not to have to sit in the hot gravel. I also had wanted to build a cabinet around an existing old table, and a counter top for meal prep by the grill. If all John and I had to do every day was dink with the patio all these things might get done in spite of the Arizona desert summer. Unfortunately, John doesn’t get enough time off, and it’s way too much for one old woman in this heat. Best we’re going to do is the table and more chairs. The rest will have to wait until the temps dip back down into the low 90s and preferably the 70s.

We decided to tackle the table first. I’ve gotten so good with the chairs that I can whip out two a day by myself, even with frequent breaks to rest my back and hips. The table is too big a project for two hands and we wanted to succeed at something new to get that curtain out of our systems.

2x4s make GREAT, heavy duty, stand up to the test of time, furniture and they’re the cheapest wood buy out there. However, here are a couple of things we’ve learned about them: 1. They’re cheap because they are generally used where no one can see them and it doesn’t matter if they’re warped, twisted or bowed. You have to lay them down flat and be sure they stay flat on on four sides.  You can actually go through a whole stack of 2x4s at Home Depot in order to find twelve straight boards. 2. Once you’ve checked them thoroughly for chewed up spots, warps, twists and bows, you need to use them within a very few days or they will get warped, twisted or bowed even in the dry desert.

The plan for this table is fairly true except that we found the overhang to be less than 2 inches on all sides of the table top. You can find the shopping list, cut list and instructions here: http://www.morelikehome.net/2012/10/day-18-build-homestead-dining-table.html

diningtablecuts

The table looked like a large, fairly complex project, until we saw the cuts laid out on the ground like this. These are the boards, cut and ready for an 8 foot table. Seriously. That’s it. There are ten 8′ boards still in the garage, but if you get 8′ 2x4s you don’t need to cut them.

Because this table will be painted (I’m almost as sick of stain and urethane as I am of dye.), I was not going to waste time with a ton of pocket holes. However, if you prefer staining pocket holes are your best bet so you don’t have to worry about screw heads showing everywhere.

We began with a basic frame to hold the table top. Just a big rectangle with the side boards attached to the ends of the front and back boards.

diningtableouterframe

Into this outer frame, we added 4 support boards.

diningtableframefinishedThe plan for this table calls for two legs at each corner. This adds to the stability when you find a team of percherons to drag this massive table from one place on the patio to another because it’s not about lifting it, and it also adds a bit of architectural interest to a simple design. Because the extra set of legs attach to the table top (this time we did use pocket holes) and to the leg support board, we added them to the frame last.

diningtablelegsOnce we attached the leg support board and the stretcher, we could attach the second set of legs, and all but the table top was done.

diningtablelegsstretcherThis shot of the table top part of the build is interesting in a couple of ways. 1. Like duct tape, baling twine has a billion uses around here. In this instance, it is being used as a simple twist style clamp to hold the boards together at each end so they could easily be screwed into the frame, and also because we waited too long to use these boards and a couple of them became slightly bowed to the side. This straightened them right up and kept them from moving while the boards were attached. 2. That legitimate store bought clamp you see on the left was used to tame the boards that were twisted and warped when we left them in the garage for a couple of weeks after purchase. Because there was little room for the boards to attach at the outer edge of the table top, we did drill pocket holes about every 15 inches so that the boards could be attached not just to the frame, but to the adjacent boards as well.

alwaysneedhaystring

Several views of the finished table. Once the chairs are completed all the wood furniture will be sent to the barn where we will learn how to use the paint sprayer.

patiodiningtablefinishedpatiodiningtablefinished3patiodiningtablefinished4We got a late start on this table which added to the heat exhaustion problems. Because apparently aliens have developed an insatiable taste for 2 1/2″ screws, John had to run to town for a bucket load and we didn’t start cutting until a little past noon. The patio temperature had us both running and dunking in the pool every time our clothes dried out which was about every 20-30 minutes. I personally guzzled 3 liters of water and a gigantic fountain diet coke in 4 hours and still got a heat headache. In spite of plastering spf 80 sunscreen on my skin, I still managed to burn red, or I guess it could have been bake red. But, in spite of the heat we managed to get this table done from cutting to ready to paint in a little less than 5 hours. That’s how simple it was.

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A Day in the Life

26 Friday Jul 2013

Posted by Jean in General Farm Stuff

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Tags

farm, horse, miniature horse

This is actually from an old blog from several years ago.  My father was in poor health and mentioned he wished he could have seen our little horses. We spent a day working to put a picture in stories together for him. He passed away just a couple of weeks later so I’m sure glad we got the idea to do this for him. A year later we lost my beloved “Honey”, the buckskin mare in the good grooming picture, and just this year our much loved Anniedawg passed away on Easter Sunday. My big brother lost his war with cancer, but my wonderful husband emerged victorious over Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Things got tough and scary in the years since I wrote this blog post, but the little farm goes on with fresh hope, new furry faces and cherished memories.

Here at the miniature horse farm we rise at around 5:30-6:00 each morning, creak our way slowly out of bed and stumble toward the coffee maker. We wake up via caffeine I.V. while checking email and reading news on line, then we head for the medicine cabinet and hit the dated, categorized, carefully compartmentalized pill boxes that we’re told keep us living. Then we dress and sit dumbly on the edge of the bed, as if our boats fetched up in mud, while our engines try, re-try and try again to turn over. Mostly what we get is that “tick, tick, tick” sound of a bad battery. Eventually, however, we sputter to a start and mosey out to the barn to feed the horses around 7-ish.

goodtobeshortblog

Being short has it’s priveleges.

Then we feed horses. Horses who today are standing out there, tapping their toes, and not at all happy that breakfast is late. Rowena is determined to chase William down for her bowl because as you can see the poor baby is emaciated.

gimmemyfood2

Handsome is turning himself into a giraffe trying to inhale his feed straight out of the scoop before I can dump it in his feeder.

feedinghandsomehossblog

William and John handle the heavy chores around here, lifting those bales, toting that poop and such. (Imagine Green Acres theme playing in the background)

merikangothicblog

John also handles the WHW (Wittmann Horse Wrestling) duties whenever anyone gets out of line.

desiwrestlingblog

desigoesdownblog

While the horses eat we check the garden for ripe veggies so the rabbits and squirrels don’t make off with them first. The rabbits have finally gotten desperate enough to eat zucchini. Looks like we’ve been raided overnight AGAIN.

rabbitetzucchiniblog

Gol-durn rabbits! We’ll show ’em!

durnrabbitsblog

Then, it’s time to ride out and check the fence lines.

rideemoutblog

Good grooming practices are part of the daily routine, at least for the 4- legged residents. Folks wouldn’t recognize me without hay in my hair.

propergroomingblog

William tries to explain the concept of rabbit hunting to Elmo and Anniedawg. They just want their biscuits and bacon thanks.

baconhuntersblog

On weekends we love to watch the televised PBR events after the evening chores.

watchinpbrblog

watchinpbrtooblog

And that’s pretty much our day, minus the tractor work, house work, nap and writing!

DISCLAIMER: No herbivores were harmed during the making of this blog post.

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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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