hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[sumi]

I would love to get gas @$3.53 a gallon! We pay average $1.70 a LITRE for gas here at the moment…. You guys are lucky.

I'm so glad I got to raise my son on a farm for his first few years. He knows exactly where his food is coming from. It saddens me when city kids (and adults!) don't know about food production. It's wonderful that they get to go out to a farm and see these things and get to ask questions and learn about it.

 

[Britesea]

I wonder how many of these kids go home and announce that they won't eat meat anymore, because they can't handle the idea of the animals being killed?

 

[hqueen13]

@NH Homesteader that's awesome!
@Britesea I actually did have a little girl come up to me as she was walking out of the chick area and said she was going to become a vegetarian, which I told her that was totally fine if she wanted to do that. It was really cute.

Well, we had some steamy sticky days, and then finally got some rain. If yall have been paying attention to any news, we've been in the news again for epic floods. The area south of us by about an hour was flooded again, after receiving the same type of flooding two years ago in what was called, then, a "thousand year flood." Well, it ends up looking like BS when it happens again 2 years later. Some of these businesses that are washed out a second time JUST reopened. And most of them are tiny businesses owned by people just like you and me that struggled to rebuild and survive for the year+ without the income. And now it's all gone again. If you want to see local encounters, just search #ECStrong on FB and you'll find lots of videos and photos from people who are there. My heart breaks for them and the beautiful historic town that the flooding ripped through.

Thankfully, we're way up on a hill, and we didn't receive near as much rain as they did. There are varying reports, but most of them agree on 7-10" in about 2 hours worth of time. Nobody can handle that kind of water, let alone when the town ends up being a funnel to the river because of poor development up hill. It's horrifying.

It's brought the pollen count back down again which makes me happy. I'm hoping that we're over most of it for the year, but I guess we'll see. It's a little early to be done with it, but we haven't had torrential rains like these in a spring that I can remember. It's been a strange spring.

We ended up hanging out with our neighbors 2 doors down quite a bit this weekend, which was fun. They're very cool people and are excited to meet others that they can spend time with in the area. They haven't lived here that long, and with a kiddo that's only 2 1/2 and jobs, and a house that needs lots of work they haven't met anyone around to do fun things with. We really like them, and I think we'll be able to share some resources and things, as well as help, which should be really cool. They also have a young newfoundland who is adorable even if she is the slobberiest dog EVER. I think I'll end up dog sitting for them when they go away in August, which should be interesting. Hopefully by then she'll listen to me and won't get so excited when I go see her and slobber all over everything.

Otherwise, not much is happening. Still no a/c. The bad thing about no a/c is that it doesn't make me very motivated to do much of anything because it's so hot when I get home that I just don't feel like it. We finally cleaned the basement this weekend, which was long overdue, so that's good. I also took all my bulky stuff (and the regular laundry, too) back to GH's house to use her GIANT washer so we could avoid using our own washer since it's about to die, too. Fun times. So every time I go check on the horses I move laundry around... nothing like having a private laundrymat.

That's about all the news from around here. We just keep chugging along.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Horrible news about the flooding. Weather patterns are screwy everywhere! Glad ya'll aren't in the way of all that.

Sorry about the AC and the laundry issues! Kind of a PIA when that happens - especially at the same time.

I'll bet the Newfie is absolutely adorable....maybe minus some of the slobber, lol.

 

[baymule]

I have lived without AC many times. Get a spray bottle, mist the top bed sheet and turn a fan on. It will be cool, almost cold, and you can go to sleep.

I saw the flood on the news. I heard a man say that they would rebuild. It is a tragedy and I am sorry that they flooded. But durned if I would stick around after that. My sister lives close to a river in Conroe, a town close to Houston, Tx. When hurricane Harvey hit, they got 8' of water in the house. It washed the bricks off the outside walls. This is not the first time they have flooded. I have begged her to sell and move to high ground.

 

[sumi]

That is so sad about the flooding

 

[hqueen13]

Whoa, @baymule that's crazy! Yeah, I wouldn't want to stay there, either.
The trouble with this area is that this type of flooding is actually new. The town has flooded in years past, they actually have measurments and dates on one of the bridges, but this flooding is different. Instead of the flood coming from the river rising at the bottom, so bottom up flooding, it is top down flooding, which you can clearly see in the videos as the street became the river channel. There has been building on the hills above the town in the past decade, and obviously the water management was not properly addressed. To compound that issue, both of the storms that caused the flooding (this one and the one in 2016 that did the same thing) were pop up thunderstorms that SAT on top of the town, dumping 7+" within an hour or two, which is a CRAZY amount of rain. Obviously it's easy to identify where the water management isn't up to par, but why are these storms just SITTING in one place dumping SO much water all at once? Any area will flood if it receives more than 5" of rain in an hour. Most areas aren't equipped to handle that kind of water that fast realistically. We had it happen one year when we got double hurricane rains that came through back to back, the remnants of the storms that came north, and it caused flooding, but it didn't do that to the town, and that was probably 5 or 6 years ago. The hardest part is that when it's just a thunderstorm that rolls through there's just no way to prepare. There's no way to know that what's coming through is going to sit on top of you and gush. At least with hurricane rains, you know it's coming (like Angelo is headed north right now). We're supposed to have rain for about the next 5 days, so I really pray that they've got things sort of stabilized in the town and that we don't get too much too fast again or it will undo everything they've done this week. I did see a report that some water management things were recommended from some government agency that came out to assess at one point (I think possibly even prior to the 2016 flood), and none of those recommendations were ever done. And now they're paying the price. It really reminds me of Katrina because they clearly know this is a problem now, and yet they can't do anything to actually mitigate the problem. Nobody is going to want to do business in this beautiful historic town if they're worried that some random summer storm will wash out their entire basement and first floor.

Enough prattling about that. lol

Got the paychecks organized, and it's a 3 paycheck month for the BF which means we should be able to get the A/C soon. We just need to come up with about $500 more and I think we'll have it. I think we can scrape that together from cash we have stashed, I hope. I'm going to encourage the BF to go ahead and start removing the old stuff so that when we make the purchase he doesn't have to deal with doing that and getting the new system in. I also need to look up with our power company and see if they have any bonuses or tax breaks for upgrading the a/c system. It might be wishful thinking, but I'd rather not miss out on any discounts or opportunities! I need to look up an see about getting the old freezer that we have that's broken hauled away, too. The clip on the bottom of the door broke off, and kenmore doesn't have a replacement part. I read in a flyer in the power bill that the power company will come haul off any old working freezers and give you a $50 credit on your bill. That'll help for the future, and it will get the freezer out of the way! It's been sitting on the back patio since we moved.

So, not much else happening around here. It's going to be cooler, thankfully, after today or tomorrow, with all this rain, so that will make the lack of a/c easier. It sure will help the power bill, too, I'm sure!

 

[baymule]

AC is a good thing to have. I hope you can buy one soon before it gets so hot. Having a new energy efficient AC will help on the bill too.

 

[hqueen13]

Me too, @baymule As much as I don't want to dump the money into it right now, I'm happier to not have to run the dinosaur of a unit that was there. I am SURE that the new unit will pay for itself quickly, if not this summer, then definitely by next summer for sure.

We spent Saturday lazing around. It was still sticky humid and rained on Saturday afternoon again. We ran some errands in the morning and had brunch together, which was fun. We stopped by Home Depot to get the new ridge cap ordered to fix the chicken coop so we can get the blasted thing SOLD. I want the cash and I'm so ready to move that thing along! We finally got home after errands and then took a nap after we ate some lunch. We woke up way too late, and then ended up going out for dinner, which I didn't want to do, but we went back down to one of our restaurants that we used to frequent before we moved, and it was great to see all of them. We know the owners fairly well, and they were all worried about where we had been. They also had home made fettuccine noodles made by Grandmama and they were AMAZING. The best noodles I've ever had. Seriously, they had so much flavor, very different from boxed noodles.

Sunday I got up and headed out to do chores, then came back home. We managed to get the vacuuming done, and got some things cleaned up. I headed out to check on Cowboy and Coyote and then ran by the grocery store to grab a few things for the week while the BF got dinner started before I got home. We were in bed early, which was really nice. Most of the afternoon we had soaking rain again, and I think it must have rained more overnight, too. It's cool, so that's a good thing!

It's supposed to stay pretty cool for the rest of the week, which makes me happy. GH and SH get home tomorrow night late, so I will actually be able to go about my life like a normal person for the rest of the week. I won't have ANYWHERE to go on Wednesday, and I can't wait! I'm so stinking excited!! The BF is going to take my truck to work to do some work on it, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to sleep until I wake up, and I'm going to take my time with my day and do things that make me feel good! I need to catch up on the financial tracking for last month and then work on some other biz stuff, too.

So not much going on this week, and I'm TOTALLY ok with that! Hopefully the BF can start work to get the old unit out of the attic and removed so that he can get a jump start on getting the new one installed as soon as we get the funds together to get it!

 

[hqueen13]

I knew we needed to get a part replaced on my truck, we picked up what the BF thought was the part that needed to be replaced from the store on Saturday. The truck was getting noisier and noisier and I could feel a shake in the steering wheel. Not a huge deal, but it was getting urgent. I was going to let him take my truck to work so he could work on it in the shop there on Wednesday since I don't need to go ANYWHERE on Wednesday (I'm so stinking excited!). On the way home yesterday all sorts of lights came on the dash, and it said something about Replace RSC Now or something like that. Okkkk.... I texted a picture of it to the BF while I was at a stop light. He texts me back and says "Will it start?" And I'm like, um, yes, I'm driving home! He texts back again (read at another stoplight) "duh, I can see the tac......" I was gonna make fun of him for not noticing that. LOL.
Luckily he was already on the way home, and beat me there, and did a little more research to find out that the part we bought wasn't the right one. Sure enough, he shoved on the tires when I got home and found out it wasn't the drivers side, but the passenger side wheel bearing. And lucky me, on my truck you have to buy the ENTIRE assembly which includes the ABS or somethingrather. So instead of the $65.00 part, we had to buy the $225.00 part. We stopped by his parent's house to grab a couple tools since his tool box is still there, and then grabbed the part and headed home. Then he couldn't get the old one OFF. Thankfully our neighbor heard him banging and came outside to see what was going on. Have I mentioned how much I love our neighbors?? He went and got a couple different tools for the BF to try to get the part off, and finally he was able to. I was SO grateful because if he hadn't then he would have had to drive back down to his parent's house to get other tools and then back home, which would have taken over an hour of precious evening light. The new part went on quickly (imagine that) and then we drove it down the road and around the circle to make sure it was running right. It's SO quiet now!!!! We thought the noise that we were hearing originally when I bought it was the tires since they have a more aggressive tread.... apparently it wasn't at all! It's all fixed up and running again, which is great! I'm SO thankful he can do that kind of work because it would have cost me a small fortune to pay someone in a shop to do it. And he was just able to do it right then and there, otherwise, I might have been without a vehicle for a day or so which would have been awful!

I puttered around the yard a bit pulling weeds and things while he did that. He helped me get the crazy grapish vine out of the corner bed where I didn't want it growing. Dang thing was REALLY in there. I know I'll be pulling it for a while. I couldn't get to all the roots, so I'm going to very very carefully paint the ends that we couldn't get out with weed killer in the hope that it will take care of some of the rest. We'll see.

Tomorrow I have ALL TO MYSELF! I can't wait! No alarm! No where to be!! I'm SO excited! I plan to get the financial tracking caught up (I should print that stuff out today while I'm in the office speaking of such...) for May, and do some yard work outside, too. I'm going to get the weed killer and trim back some of these nasty invasive vines that we have popping up in a few places, and then paint the cut edges with the weed killer in the hope that I can get rid of them that way. They're trying to take over the azalea, and a couple other things, and I don't like that! So we'll see how effective that is. That's just about the only use for weed killer that I have. I detest the stuff otherwise. I'd rather be patient and pull stuff, which is a lot more effective in the long run. Right now I'm just focusing on those crazy vines (I don't want them to get any stronger than they already are!), and the one bed that we have mulched. I figure if I keep it simple then I can continue to work into a larger area over time. I don't want to over whelm myself like I did at the last house. I have a couple small potted things that need to go outside and get put into the ground, and I need to wash down the trash can. I might even wash my car tomorrow if I feel adventurous. We'll see about that, LOL

Not much else happening right now. The weather is gorgeous, and I'm really enjoying it! It's a pleasure to have the windows open right now!