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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SCREAM 3

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I think this is a true life thriller marathon week.

So Michael and I are reclining next to each other on the couch working some math problems on a very large write on/wipe off board.





Michael says, "Look at that", and points to the near, upper corner of the board I've got propped up in my lap.

All I remember is seeing two long antennae. The next few seconds are a blur.

I seem to remember it suddenly leaping down onto the arm of the couch that I was also reclining on, and heading down, where I was also.

Michael, who lost a couple of hero points with me this morning, nimbly leapt up and off the couch, safely away from the creature.

I, in an effort to put some distance between me and IT, raised myself up off the couch in a bridge position, feet on the ottoman, shoulders on the back of the couch.

However, this put me in a dangerous position. Now, I could not get off the couch without dropping back down again. An even more horrifying predicament emerged, I realized my over sized shirt was dangling down beckoning to anything looking for a dark cavernous safety zone to hide in.

I have no idea how I got off that couch. I seem to remember yelling for Michael to help me (and watching him move WAY to slowly), flailing from side to side (I have no idea where the dry erase board was at this point) and frantically wondering where on earth that thing was.

Mind you this had to only be a couple of seconds but it felt like a good hour, life-and-death struggle to me. I finally ended up on my feet and standing next to Michael, both of us peering at the couch and seeing nothing.

Then, I feel it.

AAAAaaaaauuuuuuuugh!

You know bugs are ok. As long as they are in their own zone and out of mine. But there are certain times when they have crossed over the zone that I've had to utilize my God-given authority to squish them.

There have also been very few instances where I've had to strip naked, but this was one of them. Fortunately for Michael, the closet was within 10 feet of me because I ran in there and stripped, faster than a renegade sergeant loses his stripes.

Sure enough, shaking out my clothes, out drops a c.... c..... I can't say it.

Shoes! That's what God made them for!
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Just so you know, this entire episode from beginning to end was paralleled with a non-stop verbal haranguing of my poor non-existent hero. "I TOLD you it would get me! I TOLD you to help me up!!!!"

He said he doesn't like bugs.
Blood and death are OK, it's bugs he doesn't like.

sigh...

I'm going to have nightmares for weeks.

~Faith

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Something Wicked This Way Comes..

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So I'm minding my own business, and I hear a strange sound coming from the opposite end of the house.

It's crinkling, rattling type sound, sort of like if someone were playing with a couple of large empty potato chip bags.

I think, "Grrrrr, must be another mouse." I tip-toe my way across the floor,





wishing my bare feet didn't make a sticking noise every time I lifted them up to take another step.

The crinkling goes on. I attempt to take my steps during the loudest crinkling sounds.





I get all the way to the utility room where the back door is and the washer and dryer. The sound is really loud now. And coming from somewhere around the dryer.





Whatever this is, it sure sounds big. Could a possum or somethimg somehow have darted in when I went out the back door?

I slowly and quietly unload the junk from the top of the dryer... a laundry basket, a small bucket of paint thinner, which always makes the room reek (why haven't I gotten rid of that, anyhow?), a toolbox, rattling is still going crazy back there, a little hex wrench, the detergent bucket....

You have to have a clear floor in every direction. You never know which way a creature may choose to run across your body as it tries to escape, so you want to be prepared for every eventuality.

I am finally prepared. I climb over the top of the dryer and peer behind, expecting to see an opossum or small raccoon. Instead I see nothing. But the problem is clear.





There is something in my dryer vent hose.

How did it get in there? Inside? Outside? In between?

I decide to do the only logical thing. Turn on the dryer and make the new digs more like the Sahara Desert than a nice vacation spot from the rain.

.....mad scrambling.... good... it's not happy.... more scrambling..... quiet... it's thinking about its options....

.... more scrambling....

BAM!

Silence.

Silence from the scrambling, and even worse, deathly silence from my dryer! Not good.

Now its my turn to think. I cautiously peek inside the door, nothing visible in the barrel. I try to turn on the dryer. Won't come on. I try to move the barrel. It's not free moving like it should be.

So. I can take on yet another project - which I love to do and learn by - but add yet one more stress to my already overly full life and schedule. Or I can call a hero. Yes. That's it. I need a HERO!

Michael is off with friends today. My dad is sick. So I call a repair man. He's going to be here in a few minutes.

I hope it's not too messy.

~Faith

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Country Means Something Different.

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This is one of those humor pieces that some people will crack up about willingly, crack up about unwillingly, or will hate. I was in the first category, and in my group of friends, I have people of the other two categories. So watch and see where you fall. ;o)



~Faith

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Whoops! Hip-Hop! Tilling up the Garden

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Some friends dropped by while we were celebrating Shabbat by doing nothing but relaxing and practicing some hip-hop. Here's Michael working one out.





I didn't take any photos of my friends doing hip-hop moves, but I did take a photo of the scarf project I finished up. Elaine wanted to know how to do the fringe, so I demonstrated on one end and she tackled the other. Here is the wildly successful new fashion statement that came about as a result of being very deep in conversation - the "Off-Fringe".

What you can't hear is the hysterical laughter taking place as we all gathered around.





This back porch is getting quite adventurous! I am going to have to start buying a few pieces a week so I can build something back here.





This front yard excavation is 7 years old. Still nothing will grow here, not even weeds. Beyond hauling in truckloads of topsoil, I have no idea what to do. I will have to get out an old video I recorded of Elliot Coleman turning soil like this into good soil within a year. I don't know how expensive it will be, but maybe he is very creative about it. I seem to remember Daikon radishes being part of it...





After a couple of days of clear weather, the soil had dried out enough for Michael and I to begin tilling in the garden. He's putting the cover back on after installing the new belt.









While he did that, I mowed the weeds over the area we are going to plant peas.





I found several items still growing from last year.





Swiss chard.





Large onions, thought not very large.





A bunch of bunching onions.





Two different types of leeks. I'm very excited about these. I love leeks for soups, and hate to pay the grocer prices.









And this is why we mowed first, to eliminate getting weeds wrapped around the tines.





The sky was beautiful. The weather fairly balmy, though very windy, so we needed jackets.









Soaking up the sun.





Getting the knack for starting it up. So often you have to play with the choke, backing it off, bringing it up. Each engine is a little quirky. We figured it mostly out within about 20 minutes.





What shoes are you wearing, Michael?





That's better!





Since the garden is mostly sloped at the top, we decided to tier the beds up here. So after Michael went over the lower side of the bed to break it up, I spaded the upper side and tossed it onto the lower side. This also made it easier to keep the tiller going in a straight line on a hill. They like to wander downhill while you are struggling to make beds.









Found a praying mantis egg sac in the branches of one of last year's pepper plants.





We're going to let this sit for a couple of days, letting the weed roots resprout, then til it again. Probably do that one more time to make sure they are worn out, then plant peas by the weekend.





We dug up some of these giant frustrating weeds. The roots are massive and you can hardly kill them. I hope we got all the roots.





Coming back up we see the wind has taken out the shoe bin, again, and all the patio set along with it. I've got to do something else. I've had it with that thing. Currently, it is propped up against the back of the house with a step ladder and cement blocks holding it all still. Not pretty.





But this incoming storm sure is!





Crazy weather year, hasn't it been? I guess we'll all see where this year takes us. Happy garden planning!

~Faith

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