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01/13/2009: "Working Inside, Looking Outside"

The photo above shows the wheat which is growing out in the pasture; there's not much to be done for it, except to be patient and hope that a harvest will follow. It hasn't grown much lately, with the cold and the snow, but I have hopes that it will start to take off as the weather warms up this spring.

Meanwhile, I've been busy indoors. Once the house was empty there was a lot of clean-up and fix-up to be done. I spent one whole day shampooing carpets, and another day working with Ben of Eccentric Acres doing electrical fix-ups. Ben was conscientious, and I recommend him highly if you have a need to hire someone in the Valley. Then I replaced the back storm door, and re-hung the outdoor closet door. Cleaned out a bunch of stuff left from previous occupants. There has also been a fair amount of time getting the shale tile around the woodstove trimmed off and looking reasonably neat, and fixing the handrail on the stairway... the list goes on and on. With regard to the last posting, it turns out my frostproofing was NOT 100% successful: despite having a protective cover, the hose bib on the front of the house froze and cracked. Luckily, I had shut off the water pressure, so no fountain.

There has also been progress on some of the larger projects as well. The roof on the house is getting replaced, and none too soon. I finally connected with the directional boring fella, and he put in a pipe that runs from the back door all the way out to the pasture! Hopefully it is all downhill, so that I can direct water from off the roof and out of the cellar into the pipe and have it all flow away, away, downhill.

Fortunately, I've been working with a new tenant to live in the house, and he has been very handy. He's taken on a lot of the small jobs like patching holes in various walls, and painting some long-neglected parts of the house.

With luck, the house repair front will settle down to a dull roar, and I can go back to farm infrastructure development: saving the barn, strengthening the shop, putting in new water lines. Tearing out blackberries. Getting in some tractor time! That's what I'm talkin' about!