Today

Outline of the day: Emptied car. Menard's for pipe to be used as curtain rod for pantry. Saw CJ and  Chris Foley. Went to grandma's where mom was working on dealing with estate. Kind if sad and missed grandma. Got pitchfork. Looked at garden cart. Worked at Holland. Saw CJ again as he drove by. Dealt with anger over the deal falling through because buyers were assholes and inspection seemed fraudulent. Also angry of having to waste my time working on that place when so much needs doing here. Came home. Read a bit. Went to Kroger's with Jette. Sushi and boneless wings. Read more. Another night in.

Return of the BLOG?

The blog died when my computer did but I downloaded an app to my smartphone. Will this be the triumphant return? I miss blogging and even mote so on a real keyboard. Perhaps I will try voice to text.

My latest thing is that I've gotten back to baking bread and had the idea to make some extra money selling it. Profits will go toward the expense of this garden barn I decided to purchase. The existing big barn is in very poor shape and may collapse anytime. I need a secure place to store my agricultural tools and lawn mower. The long term plan is to repair the big barn so it can be used to help support livestock. Also, I decided that a percentage will be donated to my Aunt's cancer fund to help with mounting medical expenses.

The issues I am working on are how best to distribute the bread, what to charge, and which types of bread to offer. This is not intended as a full time job and delivering sounds impractical. I am experimenting on how long it will keep as it never lasts long before being eaten! I would like to have people come pick it up but I want to make sure I have it when they get here so taking orders may be the best way. I am open to suggestions.

In other news we have put in orders to both the Fulton County and the Lucas County Soil and Water Conservation Districts for many trees and shrubs. Most if them are food bearing but I am too tired to type them all out.

It is good to be back. Wish me luck and come buy my bread!

Happy Beef Day

Hi there.  It has been a few days.  I had a long stretch of blogging every day even when I did not want to.  It is a good time to slow things down and only write when there are good, positive things that I did or when I feel like writing about a more serious topic.

We had our first measurable snow last night.

The guy who was going to help with the attic worked a double shift yesterday and was not feeling up to it.  I can understand that and would rather not have exhausted help.  We rescheduled for next Sunday.

The big thing yesterday was that we split a side of beef with the Clingo family.  It is grass fed Dexter and it always is good to have a supply of quality beef in the freezer. I feel very blessed.  The farmer who raised it, Brian Stout, delivered it to my friend Bryan's house.  Bryan is splitting a half too so there was a small crowd. There was a good energy there as both Brian and Bryan are great guys and everyone was very excited about the beef.  Events like this evoke a sense of community.  Nothing builds bridges from people to people like food can.  It transcends borders and cultures because everybody eats.  Go break bread with people!

Other things I did include getting the broken lawn mower into the barn.  It was undersized for my needs but got the job done until a better one came along.   I was able to get it started but a tire is flat.  Jim still has my air compressor; this is why you should never loan out tools.  The drive chain on the flat side seems jammed up too.  All of this led me to hooking on a tow chain and dragging the thing into the barn by hand.  Good thing I am strong.  For dinner I cooked some sausage patties that were bought as a fund raiser for a cousins teeball team.  They did not make a lot of smoke but it reminded me that I have failed to install smoke alarms even though they have been purchased.  This was corrected after dinner.  I also added a hook on the outside of my wooden gun cabinet.  I hung a boot puller from it.

Jim came over to watch football and the Packers won.  He ate way more Chexmix than I anticipated so I had to make more.  This annoyed me more than it should have but I should take it as a compliment and a sign that it is good. It is our contribution to Thanksgiving along with apples and cider from Johnstons Fruit Farm.  We actually made four different varieties including traditional, muddy buddy/puppy chow, salty honey nut, and buffalo ranch.  

This may be my last blog for a while but I am not abandoning it.  Soon enough I will be writing more about farm ideas.  This winter I am going to build a beehive!

Have a great holiday!

Attic

Now that the electric work is done I am moving forward with the final insulation.  Many of the wires are ran through the attic and I did not want to bury them in insulation. I found someone to help me with installing the insulation.  I have enough material to do behind the knee wall.  That is where I need the help as I am too large to get behind the knee wall and crawl around there.  When we tore out the ceiling a mountain of blow in cellulose insulation fell down.  It was a terrible mess; animals had been living and dying in it when the house was abandoned.  There were signs of racoons and by signs I mean pile of racoon poop.  The previous owners put mouse poison up there which led to many mouse skeletons.  We have cats so hopefully they will control the mouse population.  It is much cleaner up there now as I removed as much of the old mess as I could.  Jim worked with me for a day on that where we swept and shoveled it into bags.  Between that and what Paul helped me clean up off the floor we must have had enough to fill a 20 yard dumpster.  Recently I have been cleaning up the finer dust and the nooks and crannies with a shopvac.  The new insulation is r19 fiberglass between the ceiling joists with unfaced r30 laid across the top.  According to the United States Department of Energy, which creates no energy, recommends r38 to r60 for my region.  My attic will have around r49 with both layers.  I am looking forward to having a more energy efficient house.

I've been slacking

Since the time change I have been going to bed so early and updating this thing is usually one of the last things I do before sleep.  It has been very hard for me to organize my thoughts as I've struggled to come to terms with all the evil in this word. There is so much hate and I do not want to be a part of it.  The events around the world do scare me but I don't think more killing is ever going to stop terrorism.  I just don't have the answers so I don't know WHAT to write. One thing I have noticed on Facebook is that the people talking the loudest about letting Syrian refugees in are also those who are strictly anti gun.  There have been a few exceptions to this.  I am not writing this in judgement; it is an observation.  The past few nights I have had little good to say and decided it is just better to go to bed.  Even on days where I got a lot done I have not been adding pictures.  I think I need to stick with it if for no other reason that to keep a log of what I have done.  However, I am planning to take a break from writing around Thanksgiving.

The electrical work is all done now so I can move on to projects that were waiting on that.  This place is really starting to look good!

Jette and I met friends for dinner at Tandoor tonight.  It was excellent as usual.

One of those days

Sorry, nothing to report today.  No one is reading anyway.

I don't really feel like typing what I am thinking about because I just don't understand what is going on in this world.

Another make up post

I went to bed really early last night and didn't post anything before.

Jim had two flat tires yesterday and I went over with an air compressor and truck jack and stands to fix it.  We were able to locate the holes and plug them.

We cooked a turkey in the oven but it was a late dinner because of the tire ordeal.  I burned most of the Bittersweet I tore out while waiting for food.

Part day

The electrician was here again today but not for a full day. I had no idea it would take this long. He is still not done.  Its all good though. Will be nice to have it done.

More power

Jesse, the electrician, was back today.  When the estimator came out to bid this work he thought it would be done in a day or maybe two.  Jesse is coming back tomorrow so it looks like the estimator needs to go sharpen his pencil.  I am relieved that we bid the job and are not paying hourly.  Paying hourly never seems to work out well.  So far I have been very pleased with Jesses work.  I know enough about electrical work to be dangerous but there is much more that I do not know.  Perhaps I could have read about it or watched some instructional Youtube videos but I have no problem handing off something to a professional.  It would be much more expensive in the long run f I was to hurt myself or start a fire.  If all goes well, which it rarely does, the electrical will be done tomorrow.

The next big project will be getting more insulation in the attic.  The electric work needed to be done first.  I don't think I need to explain the benefits of more insulation.

I wan't to learn how to fish so I can stock the freezer.  When I was high school age I had a fishing buddy.  He made his own boat out of plastic barrels.  We launched it at his grandpas small pond and dropped some lines.  It was catch and release but I never caught much.  I worked on his dads farm.  Our friendship fell apart as he got more and more into drugs and got weirder and weirder.  His parents risked everything on a farming gamble and lost.  They would want me to come and do more work but then got sketchy about paying me.  They went as far as accusing me of being a drug pusher to their son.  Crazy stuff.

Sparky

The electrician made it out today.  Well, technically yesterday because I was too tired to write last night.  He did not get it all done but he pulled the wires.  We added a pull down attic staircase in the middle bedroom and he is adding a switch there.  The other attic access is in the garage and that is where the old switch is.  We are doing the same thing by the trap door to the Michigan basement.  The crawl space access is in the garage and again, that is where the switch is. There is one outlet and one switch that does not work and hopefully he can get the operating.  One of the back porch lights has no power so that is on the list.  We are adding plug to the floor by the couch, some on the wall where I will build cabinets for the stereo, and one on the bar wall for a TV.  This will be huge to have these things done.

While he was here I cleaned out the master bathroom.  It was gutted months ago and then left alone.  We decide to focus on getting the hall bathroom done first and with just the two of us here a second bathroom is luxury and there are many more things to do before I tackle that.  It was full of dust and demolition debris and now is swept and all the nails sticking out are pulled.  I am going to use it for my painting room as it is now too cold in the garage to do so.  There should be enough room to get trim in there to paint.

Finally curtains

My mom came up for a week and we spent the whole day making curtains.  It was great and they look great.

I suspect that no one was really upset about Starbucks red cups.  Do you remember how Chic-Fil-A's business soared when people decided they wanted to boycott it?

finished the casing in the kitchen

Netflix, why you suck so bad?

Seriously, I am so over you Netflix.  We pay you monthly to deliver on demand content and you have failed me for the last time.  We have been trying to get caught up with Supernatural season 10 so we can then watch the first few episodes of season 11 on the WB page.  We were able to limp through all but the last two minutes of the episode with near constant breaks for loading.  There was nothing I could do to make those last two minutes play. I did everything I could think of to get it to work.  I turned everything off and then on again.  Uninstalled then reinstalled the Netflix app.  Nothing worked.  Sometime it could not even connect to Netflix.  Why should I pay you so that all I can see are, "Sorry, this content is unavailable. Please try later or choose another program" or some other sorry ass excuse for not working.  Jette called them and the best they could come up with was to unplug the Wii because it sounds like a buffering issue.  It is a damn food thing I wasn't on the phone or it may have ended up in the TC screen.  Yes, I have anger issues.  I would have no problem if I had to wait a few minutes for things to load.  It still is not working today and we will be cancelling soon and demanding a refund for the last month.  For what it is worth we had no problem streaming content to both of our computers.  Netflix just does not care about supporting a Wii I guess.

Today was spent wrenching on a lawnmower and working on getting the workshop area of the barn cleaned up.  I have just been piling up my belongings in there since we closed on the place.  The lawnmower broke down this Spring because it got bound up with clipping.  Honestly, the weeds were too tall for it to manage and I kept at it anyway.  It is my fault for trying to placate the neighbors who bitch if it gets too tall.  Their allergies are sooooooo bad.  Anyway, I think I fixed what was wrong but it would not start due to a dead battery and no gas.  I charged it up and it tried to start but all I had was a splash of gas.  Hopefully with more gas it will run.  This has not been a big priority because we upgraded the lawnmower when this one broke.  It is undersized but regardless of that it will be good to have it running as a back up or for times when I just need a smaller mower.  At the very least it will nice to be able to drive it into the barn so it does not sit out all winter.

sunday

On Wednesday my mom is coming over so I can help her make curtains for the kitchen.  Basically this means that I really need to get this kitchen cleaned up.  We do a good enough job of cleaning up from the usual kitchen functions , you know the cooking and eating.  However, we are real people and the kitchen is the hub of the entire house.  By entire house I also mean on-going remodeling project.  I remember when I was an old girlfriends friends house where her parents were doing some remodeling.  It was so funny to me that the kitchen was full of power tools.  I get it now.  There are also a few boxes of cookbooks that have yet to find  a home.

organized and reorganized drawers and some cabinets in kitchen

get counter cleared of stuff

bad pizza

My kind of fun

We had a fun day today.  We went to two estate sales.  This first one was in South Toledo, Heatherdowns area.  It had many cute pieces of furniture.  I got out of there with a chair, a small hammer, 2 saws, and digging fork.  I have a few digging forks now.

The second one was out a bit further outside of Moline.  It was an older farmhouse with a wide variety of furniture.  I like the old farms because sometimes they have good tools.  The highlight of this sale was the milking parlor in the barn.  I should have taken a picture.  The best pieces of furniture was not for sale and everything was picked over.  The second day of these estate sales traditionally offers half off.  That may have been the reason for the picked over feel but I think most of the good things were taken even before the sale.  That is how it goes with these things and the fun is in the looking.  I like to look at the houses and when it is a farm sometime I can walk around and look at the layout of the buildings.  One never know where a good idea could be found.  I did buy a book on plant propagation; the library hoard grows.

I may have noted this this before but it is interesting the types of people you meet at these sales.  Some are friendly and will start telling you all about their life if you slightly acknowledge their existence.  Others look at you like they are ready to fight you for some trinket they want that you happen to be looking at.  It is a strange dichotomy.   This may say something about my character but I can't help but see the irony when very very old people are buying things there.  It may be for gifts or a personal collection, I have no idea but I always joke to myself that they are just trying to round out their hoard so they have a good estate sale when their number is up.  To be fair, I am thinking the same thing about myself.  This just now makes me think that I really should not worry about things so much and try to be happier and enjoy life more.  After all, it is just a matter of time until all my stuff is going to be pawed over by strangers.

Between the sales we stopped to visit my aunt Sue.  We had a pan to return to her.  On the way back home from the sales we ate a late lunch at Perrysburger.  I would go back.  We made it back home and Jette had a nap while I messed around in the barn.  A little after 4 we went into Oak Openings for a birthday party of my friends child who turned 5.  All three of their children were thrilled to see us.  That always feels good.

Jim stopped over in the evening and he left right before Doctor Who came on.  Watched it and The Last Kingdom.  The Graham Norton show is on now and we are all caught up.

Also, Amy Schumer is amazing.  I have heard the name but never have seen any of her work.  Amy, where have you been all my life? hahaha. She is on tonight's show and has been very entertaining.

Also also, I had an idea to incorporate the wooden stocks from broke firearms into furniture.  A firearm chair, if you will.  

Oak Island

There is a show on the History Channel called he Curse of Oak Island.  It is about an island off Nova Scotia which they belief has treasures.  I saw a few episodes of the first series but did not see it through.  The new season starts Tuesday so old ones are being aired back to back.  Do I know how to party on a Friday or what?  Going out rarely interests me.  I'd rather spend money at an auction or an estate sale than drinking.  The show kind of drags on but is interesting enough to keep tuned in.

Nothing major happened around here today.  I did put a new water filter in.  It has been more than 6 months.  I unpacked some more things and painted some more casing.  Basically, I didn't get nearly enough done this week and now it is going to get cold.  One of the big things I wanted to get done is insulating the garage and getting it organized.  Sometimes these things are just too much to do alone.  Maybe I am just making excuses but help wold be nice.  Even if it is just someone to bounce ideas off of or to help me decide to get rid of things.

Days like this I do a lot of thinking about things I want to do here.  This is an addition I would like.

Errand day

Jette was off today and now that we live a little farther from the city we write down all the things we need to do in town and try to get it all done in one day. Lots of driving and buying. Such a good little consumer.

The trailer that my brother and I put the new tires in needed a plate so we can actually use it without being a scofflaw.  That is one hassle I don't need while hauling something around!  We went to Wauseon for that because we figured it would be cheaper; our car renewal is cheaper in Fulton county. We also stopped at the post office to mail out bills and finally the change of address cards.

We had to head to Toledo next which meant passing through Swanton.  We stopped at our favorite local breakfast place called Mom's.  If you are ever in the area in the morning I suggest stopping here for the blueberry pancakes.  They are huge!  Jette ordered what they had on special: eggs, toast, and meat.  She got scrambled, rye, and bacon.  I decided on a 1/2 order of sausage gravy with biscuit and one blueberry pancake.  The half order is plenty big.  We also got an order of deluxe potatoes to split.  They come cover in cheese, bacon, an sauteed onions. Quit a filling breakfast; neither of us was hungry all day and we even had leftovers to bring home!

Next we stopped in at the Holland house which is still for sale.  Then we decided it would be good to visit my grandma.  She is in a rehabilitation facility to regain her strength.  She eventually may have to stay in the assisted living area but for now it looks like she will be able to go home soon.  Not bad for someone in there mid 90's!

In our kitchen we have a NSF stainless steel shelving unit for a pantry.  It is filled with square Cambro containers of various sizes.  They are tough and have tight fitting lids.  In the past when I was making bread I liked to use a 12 quart polycarbonate container for proofing.  Now that we are finally moved and somewhat settled I would like to get back to baking bread.  Alas, we used all the 12 quart units for storage.  Fortunately there is still a restaurant supply store in Maumee so we stopped there after visiting grandma.

Menards is one of my favorite places to shop.  I wanted to get another chain so I can secure the trailer to the barn.  Actually, I am going to use the chain that is around the lawn mower for the trailer because it is longer and put the new shorter one around the mower.  I also got a hitch lock.  No security measures are foolproof but these measures will slow any would be thief down somewhat.  I also grabbed some jerky, windshield washer fluid, and some electrical wire connectors. Jette picked up some driveway markers with reflectors at the top which are useful in heavy snow.

Both of our phone are old and we went to Verizon to upgrade.  She stuck with iPhone and I upgraded my ultra sturdy and dependable Samsung Convoy 2.  Hopefully I wont regret getting this Droid thing.

The next stops were to Costco and then Meijer mainly for groceries.  We didn't get home until after 4 p.m.  It was a long day and that did not include unloading.  We did not do too much the rest of the day other than making and eating dinner.  It get dark so early this time of year.  I abhor the time changes.

Measuring wheel and maps

This morning I talked Jette into operating a measuring wheel so we could get some measurements of the farm.  It is 7.3 acres so it did not take days.  I had a clip bard with paper and set places to stop and take a reading.  We marked out where the house and barn started and stopped as well as the location of utility poles.

The whole farm fits onto a standard graph paper sheet at a scale of 60 ft to 1 inch.  The sketch includes the driveways, septic tank, leach field, and some of the trees as well as the ditch.

Graphic!

While I was figuring the scale for the map Jette went to the county auditors page to see where the property lines lay.  The lines online are from the utility poles in.  The distance from the poles to the white stipe of the road is 20 feet online and it was accurate when I measured it.  From the online border it looks like the neighbors planted a treeline partially on out property.  We need to talk to them and the other neighbors to the north about where they think the property lines are.  It would be nice to come to an agreement without paying over One Thousand dollars for a professional survey.  I also need to talk to the township or county to see what if any hoops there are to jump through.  I do not want any problems with my fence.  I was ever reading parts of the ORC to see if I could learn anything.  It is questionable if I learned much.

Most of the rest of the day, nearly to dark I removed more of the invasive Bittersweet.  If you really want to stop it then you have to dig up roots.  There was also some garbage in the vicinity that I removed.  Taking this vine out of the landscape give a less obstructed view to the barn.

Big day of running errands and shopping tomorrow.  I need to visit the DMV for a trailer plate.  Jette thinks it is time for new phones so it looks like we are going to the Verizon store.  I still have a Samsung Convoy 2l it is a flip phone that has been through a lot.  On Verizon's website it shows they have the Convoy 3 but I doubt they will stock them at the store.  It may be that I will walk out of there with a smartphone.

First Tuesday

Did you vote?

It was unseasonably warm today and I decided to do some outdoor electrical work.  A long time ago my brother and I set boxes and ran wires for perimeter lighting.  Somewhere between then and now I mounted one of the fixtures.  These are simple outdoor flood lights made of gray painted metal with 2 bulbs.  They are not easy for me but it is done now.  On the eastern most one I connected a light sensor so if they are left on all night it will shut off at dawn.  They are controlled by a switch in the kitchen but it was not connected to the lights.  I had to go up to the attic to tie it all together; the switch wire was stubbed up there as it was switch was set up before drywall.  

This is the porch light and it too was problematic to install.  We had sever of these stolen when we were robbed.  At least I was able to find more on the internet but I may always wonder if I bought my old stolen lights.  I doubt it but you never know. 

On the way home after voting I stopped at Johnston Fruit Farms and got a 1/4 peck of Mutzu which is among my favorites and 1/4 of Wine Sap which some people said were their favorite when I was talking about choosing what to plant on Facebook.  They have a great flavor but the skin is on the thick side.  This may mean they store well which is a plus. I also bought a gallon of the regular cider and a 1/2 of Wickson Crab cider.  They are both excellent.

another monday

Not much to report on today.

I learned that fire safes are built with fire resistant sheetrock inside them

I read about bees being bred to fight off mites.  Varroa mites have been a plague for beekeepers.  They suck blood from the bees.   There are some chemical controls but the mites are becoming resistant.  It is important to know that whatever you expose the bees to will be in the honey.  These beekeepers chose queens with low Varroa count and drones that have Varroa with missing limbs.  They have noticed that some bees have adapted to limb removal to survive as the Varroa are too round and hard to be affected by the stingers.

Persephone did go back to the vet this morning.  Dr. Roger wanted to check up on her after her surgery.  It was mostly a waste of time because she has been doing very well.  I think he also wanted to see her because we didn't see him post surgery.  He didn't charge us for the check up at least.

Tomorrow is election day.  There is the township trustee race.  I still don't know who is telling lies about some township issues.  Sad that such a fundamental level of government has to get political.  There are 3 constitutional amendments.  I plan on voting no on all three.