What are you up to today???

[LizStreithorst]

It's cleaning day today. I'm not doing it. I 'bout can't do any cleaning myself. The girl I hired it working hard, but she brought her cousin with her. The cousin is plum tuckered and is down in the fishroom with me, wanting to chat. I don't want to chat. I just want a clean house. But right now, I'm stuck with the woman I have nothing to say to. Doesn't bother her sitting down here in silence, unfortunately...Thank God, she's gone, leaving me in peace again. It's not that I'm antisocial. At least I don't think I am.

Once these ladies are done, I'll give the joint a good look and decide if or when I'll have them back. If I'm careful with my money, I thought that I could have the hard-working one back every 2 weeks.

I just took a look around, and my hard-working cleaning lady has done a good job. She quoted me $125 this time but since she did a good job and brought a helper who at least cleaned my windows and maybe more, I gave her $150. The good news is that she said that if she came back weekly, she would only charge me $40 a week. We have a deal. Finally, I'll be able to have a clean house without having to pay more than I can afford.

[Second Hand Pat]

Great news Liz, a clean house makes me feel good and I imagine it makes you feel good too. Like a giant weight has been lifted from your shoulders.

On another note I decided to see what commands Angel may know and she seem to know sit and lay down. I kept the session short. For the next session I will start with sit and lay down and will be try shake hands. I also discovered that Angel is gun shy meaning she is deathly afraid of loud noises. I am making an vet appointment with a mobile vet (comes to the house) so I can continue her heartworm/flea/ticks meds but will also ask for some sleepy meds to use on the 4th of July.
Pat

[brewmaster15]

Found a guy in the area selling green firewood. ..$200 for a really good oak maple mix. Seasoned wood here runs $275-300 cord and can be junk. So I spent the day stacking. Forgot how heavy green oak and maple is.

Figure I will get another few cords over the next few months as I can. I already have 3 plus cords seasoned set up.

[danotaylor]

Nice Al. I got some nice seasoned oak, maple and ash this past winter. Really good price, $180 for what’s pictured. Finally took it off my trailer 3 weeks ago

[brewmaster15]

Nice Al. I got some nice seasoned oak, maple and ash this past winter. Really good price, $180 for what’s pictured. Finally took it off my trailer 3 weeks ago

Nice Danny.. that should burn wonderfully for You. It's so hard to get good wood in the winter when you need it. You scored some nice wood there.

[brewmaster15]

By the way.. have to ask, that light string, ever have the squirrels eat the wires? I can not hang that stuff here, every time I do the squirrels eat it! Cut it to pieces and carry it away. I even caught them on the game cam carrying a light bulb away.

[danotaylor]

By the way.. have to ask, that light string, ever have the squirrels eat the wires? I can not hang that stuff here, every time I do the squirrels eat it! Cut it to pieces and carry it away. I even caught them on the game cam carrying a light bulb away.

Not that I have noticed Al, they’re to preoccupied with eating their way into my chicken feed barrel inside the cabin
Additionally, I ran over the end of that light string w my mower 2 years ago and have just never taken it down

[Second Hand Pat]

Kids are coming over today and doing steaks on the grill (for dad's day). I want to finish the mowing (front yard) but we are finally getting rain so we will see how the day goes but really need the rain. Angel is doing well but insists on digging up one of my flower beds which is not good.
Pat

[brewmaster15]

Kids are coming over today and doing steaks on the grill (for dad's day). I want to finish the mowing (front yard) but we are finally getting rain so we will see how the day goes but really need the rain. Angel is doing well but insists on digging up one of my flower beds which is not good.
Pat

Mmmmm Steaks on the grill sound great . Hope you have a nice day still for Tom's Fathers Day.

I highly recommend trying the braggot to compliment the Steak.

[brewmaster15]

Not that I have noticed Al, they’re to preoccupied with eating their way into my chicken feed barrel inside the cabin
Additionally, I ran over the end of that light string w my mower 2 years ago and have just never taken it down

Lol

Found my thread ...

https://forum.simplydiscus.com/forum/non-fishy-stuff/you-talking-to-me/110166-thief

[brewmaster15]

So today I am probably working on my pop-up camper. I repaired the mouse chewed screens and cleaned it out. I need to put a new floor down, probably just do vinyl tiles,it's such a small area. I need to redo the solar/electrical system in it. We camp at a local state park, Hammonasette for a few weeks each summer and it's getting close. This year I will need to Rent a uhaul to tow it or lowes/homedepot rental, as my truck died since last summer and we haven't replaced it yet. I'd love to fund a cheap old beater truck for towing it but seems you can find old beater trucks just not cheap old beater trucks where I am lol.

I need to plant a bunch leafy veggies now as well... Pretty easy stuff to grow.

Lastly , I need to brew a batch of beer, thinking West coast IPA, or possibly another Hazy.If I brew today, should be ready mid July.. camping time

[AquaticNerd]

By the way.. have to ask, that light string, ever have the squirrels eat the wires? I can not hang that stuff here, every time I do the squirrels eat it! Cut it to pieces and carry it away. I even caught them on the game cam carrying a light bulb away.

We have those style of string lights hanging out on our back deck, and it lasted a whole season before squirrels chewed through it in several places.

Today, just catching up on a lot of chores that I've been slacking on. Still need to clean up a bunch of branches that came down with the storms we had a few days ago, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow now.

[jwcarlson]

The foundation walls for our addition have been poured, they were poured Thursday. Hoping they can get the slab poured this week, but I haven't checked in with them to know if they're thinking the same thing.




Have had a productive weekend so far. Had Friday off. Went to Menards (home improvement store), bought three new ceiling fans. Replaced two in the main room and added one to our bedroom. Also bought a new light to replace the third ceiling fan that's over our sink. Our house is small and odd. There were three ceiling fans in the main room. Down to two now and they move more air. Also much better lighting now, it's been a complaint of mine since we moved here... the lighting is AWFUL.

Replaced the toilet fill and flapper valve, that had randomly started running on/off about a million times per day.

The cellular internet we have (the only option where we're at except satellite) was purchased by T-Mobile. So, T-Mobile sent us a new receiver, the instructions could have been better, but I got it figured out. It must have a way better antenna array than the old one, because it's leaps and bounds better. At least so far. Hope it keeps up.

Today, I got the latest batch of rabbits butchered. Just 10 of them. But it's my last batch before work goes crazy here in about a month. I'm trying to get "ahead" (haha, when is that ever going to happen?). Will be working 13+ hour days for 45-50 days, so I need to have things kind of sorted out. Going to hopefully start freezing meals, though freezer space is a premium.

Smoked a couple of chickens, got all of my coon traps re-baited with rabbit innards, and thought maybe I'd chill out for a minute.
Remembered that my cheap 14" ten-foot long Vevor gas pole saw showed up yesterday. So, I put that together and did some necessary trimming up/down the lane as some scrapy trees have grown over quit a bit. Opened it up. I was hoping it would work well to cut a large branch off of the oak tree closest to the house, but it's not long enough to do the job without doing some dumb stuff (like being on a ladder in my truck). So, decided to buy a 27' manual saw instead. That will get the job done, though it will be a lot of sawing. Good workout, I guess. The original plan was to rent a pull-behind JLG, but it's $400 or more to rent one. Figured I could get a couple new tools out of it instead. So I'm spending a couple hundred and will have a couple useful saws out of it.

Checked the weather and we're supposed to get 2" of rain tomorrow. Basically raining from sun up to sun down... so it became time to mow. We've had a ton of rain in June, yard is a mess. I planned on mowing just the essential area which takes an hour or so. I hit a rock about 10 minutes in, it bent one of the three blade. No one sells the blades locally. So, I battled getting the blade off which was extra terrible compared to normal. Spent longer than I'd like to admit, but I got it back fairly straight. When I got done, I walked out of the shed I was working in and one of the hens I thought had run off/gotten killed by something was sitting outside of the door with a single day-old chick. *sigh* Got back to mowing and about halfway through, ended up sliding VERY close to going into our pond. Everything is just saturated. Had to strap it to my truck and pull it out. Finished mowing without further incident. The hen didn't seem interested in her chick, but was very defensive of it. Left it alone in the hoop house, so I tried giving it to another hen that's been broody for weeks. Hen seemed excited. Chick not so much. My daughter gave it back to the mom and she ran off somewhere as she wasn't in attendance at the coop when I locked up. If she shows back up, I'm going to put her in a cage with the baby... or something.


I, too, am attempting to get my firewood situated little-by-little. Plenty of dead ash that need to be dropped and chopped up. And there's a decent amount of large oak branches that have fallen that are up off the ground that should still be good wood. I also need to thin black cherry and oak in the timber, they planted these things SO close together when they set up the timber. Probably for "lumber". I don't have much interest in that and the oak will take my lifetime before they're big enough to harvest for wood. Would rather thin it, decrease competition, and have some bigger oaks while I'm alive. There are plenty of very large oaks on the property, I'm not going to do anything to those.



The lawn mower and trailer do a decent job. But man, it will be really nice to have a tractor someday!



Tomorrow is going to end up being a wash for getting things done outside, unfortunately. Things I need to do before the work goes crazy: harvest honey, and kill/butcher all of the roosters that I hatched back in February. There's about ten of them and only four hens (gave four of them to a friend). They're getting increasingly unpleasant with each other, so it's certainly time. They're about 18 weeks old. Part of me wants to fold the hens into the main flock and see if the males settle down without girls around. But, like everything, that's more complicated than it sounds. I think it's been a fantastic honey year. The solar field nearby (about 600 acres) is nearly completely full of dutch white clover and I think they've been making a lot of honey off of that. If that continues, it would be GREAT to have the honey pulled and harvested before work gets nuts and then I can give them back the combs and refill. And then I could harvest late-September again after work goes back to normal.

[brewmaster15]

The foundation walls for our addition have been poured, they were poured Thursday. Hoping they can get the slab poured this week, but I haven't checked in with them to know if they're thinking the same thing.




Have had a productive weekend so far. Had Friday off. Went to Menards (home improvement store), bought three new ceiling fans. Replaced two in the main room and added one to our bedroom. Also bought a new light to replace the third ceiling fan that's over our sink. Our house is small and odd. There were three ceiling fans in the main room. Down to two now and they move more air. Also much better lighting now, it's been a complaint of mine since we moved here... the lighting is AWFUL.

Replaced the toilet fill and flapper valve, that had randomly started running on/off about a million times per day.

The cellular internet we have (the only option where we're at except satellite) was purchased by T-Mobile. So, T-Mobile sent us a new receiver, the instructions could have been better, but I got it figured out. It must have a way better antenna array than the old one, because it's leaps and bounds better. At least so far. Hope it keeps up.

Today, I got the latest batch of rabbits butchered. Just 10 of them. But it's my last batch before work goes crazy here in about a month. I'm trying to get "ahead" (haha, when is that ever going to happen?). Will be working 13+ hour days for 45-50 days, so I need to have things kind of sorted out. Going to hopefully start freezing meals, though freezer space is a premium.

Smoked a couple of chickens, got all of my coon traps re-baited with rabbit innards, and thought maybe I'd chill out for a minute.
Remembered that my cheap 14" ten-foot long Vevor gas pole saw showed up yesterday. So, I put that together and did some necessary trimming up/down the lane as some scrapy trees have grown over quit a bit. Opened it up. I was hoping it would work well to cut a large branch off of the oak tree closest to the house, but it's not long enough to do the job without doing some dumb stuff (like being on a ladder in my truck). So, decided to buy a 27' manual saw instead. That will get the job done, though it will be a lot of sawing. Good workout, I guess. The original plan was to rent a pull-behind JLG, but it's $400 or more to rent one. Figured I could get a couple new tools out of it instead. So I'm spending a couple hundred and will have a couple useful saws out of it.

Checked the weather and we're supposed to get 2" of rain tomorrow. Basically raining from sun up to sun down... so it became time to mow. We've had a ton of rain in June, yard is a mess. I planned on mowing just the essential area which takes an hour or so. I hit a rock about 10 minutes in, it bent one of the three blade. No one sells the blades locally. So, I battled getting the blade off which was extra terrible compared to normal. Spent longer than I'd like to admit, but I got it back fairly straight. When I got done, I walked out of the shed I was working in and one of the hens I thought had run off/gotten killed by something was sitting outside of the door with a single day-old chick. *sigh* Got back to mowing and about halfway through, ended up sliding VERY close to going into our pond. Everything is just saturated. Had to strap it to my truck and pull it out. Finished mowing without further incident. The hen didn't seem interested in her chick, but was very defensive of it. Left it alone in the hoop house, so I tried giving it to another hen that's been broody for weeks. Hen seemed excited. Chick not so much. My daughter gave it back to the mom and she ran off somewhere as she wasn't in attendance at the coop when I locked up. If she shows back up, I'm going to put her in a cage with the baby... or something.


I, too, am attempting to get my firewood situated little-by-little. Plenty of dead ash that need to be dropped and chopped up. And there's a decent amount of large oak branches that have fallen that are up off the ground that should still be good wood. I also need to thin black cherry and oak in the timber, they planted these things SO close together when they set up the timber. Probably for "lumber". I don't have much interest in that and the oak will take my lifetime before they're big enough to harvest for wood. Would rather thin it, decrease competition, and have some bigger oaks while I'm alive. There are plenty of very large oaks on the property, I'm not going to do anything to those.



The lawn mower and trailer do a decent job. But man, it will be really nice to have a tractor someday!



Tomorrow is going to end up being a wash for getting things done outside, unfortunately. Things I need to do before the work goes crazy: harvest honey, and kill/butcher all of the roosters that I hatched back in February. There's about ten of them and only four hens (gave four of them to a friend). They're getting increasingly unpleasant with each other, so it's certainly time. They're about 18 weeks old. Part of me wants to fold the hens into the main flock and see if the males settle down without girls around. But, like everything, that's more complicated than it sounds. I think it's been a fantastic honey year. The solar field nearby (about 600 acres) is nearly completely full of dutch white clover and I think they've been making a lot of honey off of that. If that continues, it would be GREAT to have the honey pulled and harvested before work gets nuts and then I can give them back the combs and refill. And then I could harvest late-September again after work goes back to normal.

Wow Jacob, You have been incredibly busy, and have gotten alot done. Congrats on the foundation work getting started. What will that addition be used for?

14" ten-foot long Vevor gas pole saw

Let me know how how that works please, I have a ton of branches along my driveway I need to cut back , the wood guys always hit them as does my fuel oil delivery truck.. I have not owned anything by Vevor but they actually make the fancy all in one Brewery that my family got me last month for my Birthday....Plan on setting it up downstairs and making a dedicated brewing and canning area so haven't used it yet. Brewing and canning garden goods can be messy

[Second Hand Pat]

Oh man, Mike and Diana brought dinner over for an early dad's day. They brought steak, corn, double baked potatoes, deviled eggs and Tom made salads. We had key-lime pie for dessert. I was going to mow the front yard yesterday but it rained most of the day and we so need the rain. Perhaps get to that today.