Body Bags, and A Good Idea Gone Bad.

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I have been saving up boxes toward the end goal of being able to sell on eBay and ETSY. I haven't had any time to pursue it yet, but I wanted to use the opportunity I had to collect shipping boxes.

This has led to some stress. My guest room was bad enough when it turned into a slash/canning room. Now it has become a guest/canning/box storage facility.





Some friends came by yesterday and helped us reduce my stress level, by straightening up that room. Ashlee is back behind those boxes somewhere, working hard.

They helped me with another project; organizing my sewing stuff which had completely taken over my closet floor. Those boxes came in handy after all!






I've also been working on trying to make a custom fitted dress shirt for Michael.





It's slow going, and I don't really know what I'm doing, but I work on it when I get the chance. Sadly, this is what the family room has looked like all week.





We did some target shooting last Saturday, during the brief, 4 hour sunny period.





We made a smaller set of parallets.





We flipped over the false table top I have on my little Mediterranean set. It was getting droopy.









That's better!


And I love these huge in-the-way leaves we chopped off a houseplant.









It had been drooping on the floor, so we cut it off and, on a whim, I put them in a vase. So far they've lasted a week.



We put the handle on the pommel trainer.





The little apricot tree is blooming.





Unless you read the comments, you never heard what was in my dryer vent. It was a bird. Here is the body bag.





Here is how it got in. I have no idea how the whole cover of it was broken into a lot of pieces on the ground.





Today's focus is going to be beginning to replace the non-functioning electric fence system for the horses with a newer, more expensive, and currently more stressful system. However, the reduced stress in the long haul should be worth it.

This took a big chunk out of what I'd been trying to save for a rainy day, but you know what? It's been raining.









This was cheaper than the solar powered chargers we've been trying to make work. We just don't have a power source nearby which means an extension cord for the foreseeable future. I have been asking around for people who would like horses, but the market is very low right now.

Ready... set... read the manual.





As I do, I realize that the way my husband set the grounding system up, it was doomed to failure from the beginning.





This grounding is going to take a lot of work, so we better get started.

~Faith

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Ah, the Ups and Downs.

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Browsers down again.

Well, honestly? We have not been doing much for the last few days. I'm getting a little nervous about going down to the garden area for fear of what I might find.... ;-)

Thursday, Friday and Saturday we spent doing outdoor things that spruced the place up visually. You can't have a bang-up Fourth if your place looks a mess. Then we did lots of housework and cooking.

The Fourth was terrific! Great friends, who are really more like family. Lots of fun and games, chatting and eating, swimming and the like.

Sunday I had a surprise day with my oldest sister. She was in town when I was not expecting her until the last minute, so we didn't go to church but spent time visiting, and she helped us clean the dental office. Hooray! Can't beat that, now can you!

I happily took leftover food to town with us so we could 'host' a BBQ lunch for her birthday, and that helped empty the fridge somewhat, and we've been eating way too much.

Today has been rough. Only got 3 hours of sleep last night. Tossing and turning. My only daughter will not have much to do with me. She was at the party, but her rejection is always painful. It's hard to keep up a smiling face when all you want to do is know why things are the way they are and you know you will not be told.

So..... more lemons... I can get good at this!

OK, we had some wonderful homemade lemonade on the Fourth, brought by Leah. It was very tart, made you pucker. And so delicious! Not that overly sweet kind, but the kind that wakes you up and says, "Here I am! A LEMON! Now what are you going to do with me!"

I'm going to drink deeply and enjoy the sugar and friendship that make it all worthwhile. :)

I finally got up and got busy, but I'm really feeling yucky today. Several calls with my lawyer, and a meeting tomorrow.


But on to more farm-like news!

We got our studio cleaned out and organized again. YAY! That's usually a yearly thing, and with only us here, we don't make too much of a mess. The worst things were the ladybugs that had all died from a bug bomb we'd put in there last fall.

Probably a half gallon of carcasses were swept out. Glad they are gone. We should have used a bomb in there years ago, it really cut down on those malevolent ladybug impostors.

Michael is proving to be mechanically inclined. We attempted to repair our air compressor and I was about to give up a couple of times and throw it out, but he would take the tools and - Presto - accomplish what I could not. The young man is a gift to me. LOL

We just now took the motor to town, hoping they could tell us what part we could buy and replace, but the motor is frozen, so sadly, looks like it's junk. Will have to see if anyone has a use for a tank.

Sorry no pics. Would have liked to show how to take apart that compressor motor so someone else can just do it, rather than flail away at it needlessly. ;-)

Heading out to cut sunflowers for a bouquet again!

~Faith

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Double Trouble

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( EDIT - Having issues with my two main browsers, so had to go through IE to post pics on last entry. Whew! Took me 1/2 hour. )

I had just decided to put my pictures on manually since the browser coding issue had not been resolved yet, but discovered that I cannot even do it manually.

Here, in my editor, all the html icon links above are working.... except the "Add Image" icon. Is anyone else having this problem?

So I don't know what's up, but I hope the issue is resolved soon. Without pictures my posts are way too wordy.

Yesterday we weeded and tended the herb, strawberry, and flower beds. I ended up with two large bouquets of sunflowers. The June bearing strawberries are laden with green fruits, that the birds are even eating now. We harvested another large basket of basil.

We began gathering branches to make bean teepees, as the corn did not come up sufficiently to do so. We will do more this morning.

Last night, until about 10 pm, we cleaned out the tool shed. It's done but we need to find a place to store all our sports equipment. The year before DH left us, was the year Michael and I focused on his sports. We spent several hours each day doing a variety of sports as part of his school. We had the back of the minivan packed with equipment and just carried it around with us.

However, we've not had time for sports at all any longer, and are hauling all kinds of farm stuff around in the van, since our truck doesn't work. LOL So the sports equipment has been in the tool shed, taking up a good deal of room. We've got to find a place for it all.

I am selling a tennis ball throwing machine that I had found thrown away and had wanted to repair.

Still have a box of cukes, a large basket of summer squash, and the basil from yesterday to process today. And go up on the hill to cut and strip red cedar saplings for bean poles. Perhaps we can get to cleaning out the studio today as well.

I haven't even got to the pool yet.

And this is too wordy. ;)

~Faith

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