A few pictures

Pics as promised:

Ugly Russian olive trees coming up in the middle of the yard. Those are not going to be easy to pull out.

More stupid Russian olive trees, with a nicely mowed path for Ruby. Those really tall, really green trees in the background are poplars (sp?). They grow really tall and super fast. Then, they die and fall into our backyard. What we need is a good chainsaw. It's nice wood, and we've got a big one taking up space in the backyard.




It looks all lush and kinda pretty doesn't? Well, it's actually knee high weeds growing under an over grown Russian olive tree. Oh, did I mention those babies have 2 inch long thorns on the branches? They grow fast too. But, only part of them falls. And then it keeps on growing into a big thorny mess.

Hey look, there's another one, growing right into our fence. Notice how green and lush it is at the fence line? The ground is starting to sink over there too. Hmm...? And, it is directly in front of the house across the street. Oh well, too late to do anything about it now. I think we should plant some hardy shrubs over there and not worry about it too much.

On a more pleasant note... The apple tree. It cleaned up pretty nice underneath. I didn't get a before picture. The weeds were pretty tall. Definitely in need of a trim on one side.

That's it for now. One day, I'd like to post some pretty "after" pictures. That may take a while.

It’s Starting to Cool Off

It’s cooling off a little and my foot is doing a lot better. This weekend Randy and I finally got out into the yard and did some much needed work. Despite Randy’s terrible allergies, he seems to enjoy wackin’ the heck out of those tall weeds! (We really let the yard go this year.) My job is to follow behind with a rake, pile it all up, and dump it in the make shift composter/garbage cans, or use the grass clippings to fill any weird holes in the yard. It works pretty well.

With composting fresh in my mind, I finally noticed all the fallen apples under the apple tree. Duh? No wonder that tree does so well, even though we don’t do anything to it. And I mean nothing. Ok, we’ve cut a few limbs, just to get them out of the way. We don’t spray the tree, so the apples get kinda buggy. (I’m feeling pretty stupid/lazy right now.) I don’t even want to mention the other fruit trees here that Randy’s dad planted years ago, that we’ve ignored. We could have a freakin’ garden of Eden here if we did a little work. Oh yeah, and with some money. I always forget that one. (Yeah, right) The other thing that keeps me from beating myself up too much, is that more than a year ago, we were just sure that the state was going to boot us out of here.

Hey, now that things have settled down a bit, maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to some of the stuff we‘ve neglected. I’ll warn you though, we are both really good at making excuses. So, don’t get your hopes up too much.

I took some pictures today. I'll get them up tomorrow. It takes a while with dial up and I don't feel like doing it right now.

Nice and boring around here, at least for now.

It’s been pretty hot, but at least there’s nothing exciting to report. I’m sick of bitching about the neighbors anyway.


I haven’t ever mentioned it before, but I used to have a hobby. A long time ago I used to make things out of polymer clay (Fimo & Sculpey). When I broke my toe, and couldn’t really do much, I started thinking about it again. So, I drug my stuff out and started messing around with it. This is dangerous for me because it gets me thinking about selling my little creations. I’m pretty sure I have a fear of success, as well as a fear of failure. (I even ran in to those fears with this blog. I freaked the first time somebody left a comment.) I still haven’t figured out what I’m going to do with the stuff I’ve been making. Maybe you’ll see it in a future post? Or, heck, I might even start an Etsy thing. Who knows?


I’ve been wanting to get my creative fix by using junk around here. Not to sell necessarily, but more to clean things up around here without throwing a bunch of stuff in the landfill. That way I could kill 2 birds with one stone. Plus, we could end up with some cute/cheap/free stuff to use around here. The broken toe really put a damper on that idea. I’m still hopeful though. As my toe heals, and the weather gets cooler, maybe I‘ll be able to get outside and get some stuff put together, or torn apart. I just love tearing things apart! It’s the putting things together that gets me into trouble (eek!).

Shoes and a little news

I can finally wear shoes again! I can’t say I’m totally healed, but it’s much better. I still have to be careful.
Monday I got an official e-mail from the county about the mess behind us. I already knew he had been denied the kennel permit. The e-mail just went into detail why he was denied. And of course, our names and e-mail were mentioned in opposition. It looks like they had plenty against him without us saying anything, but the planner guy really wanted me to send something.

As suspected, we were the only people in the neighborhood who had anything to say. It was disheartening to say the least. It really makes me feel like going into isolation mode and not helping anyone around here the next time they need it. No more chit chatting on the side of the road. No more smiling and waving as they drive by. I know, it makes me as bad as them. I just don’t care any more. Randy tried to tell me, but I hoped he was exaggerating. Nope. They suck.

On the bright side, some of the meth-heads appear to be moving out. They don’t have much choice now that code enforcement has finally gotten involved. I’m sure we’re not done with this whole thing yet. So, stay tuned.

Coincidence? I don’t believe in ‘em.

Previously, I mentioned the lush, high weeds growing on the road side of our fence, and why. Well, guess what happened the other day. The county came out and trimmed it all up. I wonder who called? Perhaps the across the street neighbors? Hmmm…?
I don’t care. According to Randy it looks like crap. Damn the bad luck! Now they have some hacked up dry-ass weeds to look at instead of the lush green stuff that was happily growing there. Guess which way the wind usually blows (heh, heh, heh)?

Ouch!!!

No work going on here. I broke my pinky toe Thursday night. I got up in the middle of the night to go potty and kicked the crap out of a chair leg next to the bedroom door. The chair leg resembles my little toe, minus the swelling and bruising. I’m not sure if the crack I heard was the chair leg or my toe. Today, I can walk around bare footed (a little) without too much pain, putting weight on my heel and big toe. So, no outdoor work and very little inside. It’s driving me crazy! I may be admittedly lazy, but having no choice in the matter is another thing!


Summer has shown up here. It’s hot! No excitement from behind us. They are laying low for now. I am (and most likely the county) giving them until the end of the month before the next move. I’m not sure what exactly that’s going to entail.


For some reason, unknown to me, the folks across the street are avoiding us like the plague. Yeah, that’s a major concern for us right now. Although, it could just be the indigenous flora (weeds) we have allowed to grow on the street side of our fence. It’s growing like gang busters out there with no water. Hmmm…Why is that? A funny thing happened when we were digging post holes for the fence in the area that’s growing the best. We found all these round rocks covered it black stuff. Randy told me not to handle them bare handed. Long story short; apparently their leaching field for their septic tank comes this way. This used to be a truly rural area. The whole neighborhood was once owned by one family. The Weidles, and yes, they are relatives of the folks that live across the street. Randy got lots of history from his dad, who was friendly with most all the people around here. Seriously, there is not a happy little spring over there. It’s run off poop water. The plants seem to like it. Plus, there’s not much we could do about it at this point, even if we really want to. I say hey, let the guy across the street enjoy his parents’ handy work. I don’t really care all that much. It’s the furthest corner away from our place.


We’ve talked about planting some trees over there. Not fruit trees of course, but something else maybe. Right now we’ve got Russian olive trees coming up. We already have a couple of full grown Russian olive trees. Those things are a pain to deal with. They break and keep growing, creating a tangled mess. They have thorns on the branches, making them hard to trim. Then, what do you with the trimmings? Blah, blah, blah, we hate ‘em. I’ve rambled on long enough for today. I’m just sure something interesting will happen tomorrow.

Denied!

Big shocker there. Today I talked my new buddy at the planning thingy. He was not a fan of the applicant. We’ll have to wait and see what happens next.

As expected, Ruby was a basket case during the fire works. I wish I could get her some drugs to calm her down. I feel so bad for her. I’ve tried different things to calm her down. Nothing seems to work. I’m just glad it’s over, for the most part. There have been a couple of leftovers, but not too bad.

Although the weather has been really nice, we haven't gotten much done in the yard. I’ve been day dreaming while looking at blogs and sites on the internet. The neighbors across the street like to keep their lawn like a golf course. They both mow every other day, sometimes every day. Then, of course, they run the sprinklers in the heat of the day. I’m thinking they aren’t aware of the concept of conservation. I’m not big on the whole perfect lawn thing. I’d much rather have other, low maintenance, and interesting things going on in the yard. I pulled up the bike eating monster. He just wasn’t working anymore. The bicycle guy is still out there though. Here are some yard art ideas that I like:

I don’t have the tub. But I do have an empty toilet and sink. It’s not a pedestal though.

I think I have the materials I need to do something similar. The question would be where
to put it? Bulbs work great here.

I may have a chair that would work for something like this. Maybe I could create a whole “green” living space? That would be fun. The only down fall on that idea would be the maintenance.

Here’s another fun idea.

I love this guy.

For now I'm going to have to be happy with circles in the lawn. Pictures to follow.

I’m baaack...

I’ve neglected this blog for so long I’m not sure what to post anymore. Oh, I’ll think of something.
I’m not looking forward to tonight. Ruby “the wonder dog” turns into a vibrating idiot when she hears loud popping noises.
The only real excitement we’ve had lately is the jackass behind us tried to turn his meth-head camp into a dog kennel. Apparently the Sheriff’s Department got tired of coming out and turned him in to Code Enforcement. So, he applied for a special use permit. I’m not sure why exactly. He says the people back there are moving out and taking their dogs with them. If that’s the case, then why would he need a special permit for 3 dogs? Since the county planning department took the time to let the neighbors know about the application, and asked for any comments or objections, I thought I’d go ahead and put in my two cents. After talking to the senior planner a few times, with a bunch of questions, I decided to send an e-mail giving my thoughts on the whole thing. It was pretty short. I just felt like, given the opportunity, I should say something. Here’s what I sent:


The concern we have with the entire property being considered a dog kennel is the fences. The property described is behind our property. To our knowledge, the owner of the property only has three (3) dogs. Our back fence is not very secure. It is functional for keeping our medium sized beagle mix inside our yard, but we know it is not strong enough to keep out a larger dog. And, for that matter, especially not a small dog. On more than one occasion various dogs living on the property have gotten out and on to our property, as well as neighboring properties. The most secure fence we have on our property is the fence along the easement. That fence was built in an effort to keep the people living on the property from harassing us, leaving us without the use of the easement. We really do wish we had the funds to build a more secure fence behind us. But, we don’t.

Regardless of the dog issue, our major concern is the criminal element living on the property. Although, we have enjoyed our numerous visits with the Deputies, we would rather they not have cause to come out so often.


Our thanks to Code Enforcement, and the reporting officer for addressing this issue. There are plenty of issues here on the infamous Weidle road, but this has been a big one for a long time.


Not much, but something. I still don’t know for sure what they decided. I think I’ll call Tuesday to follow up. It should be interesting to see how this all pans out.

May already?

I can’t believe it’s already May!

So, let’s see. What’s been going on around here? Not a lot. The weather has been odd this year (cooler than normal). My tendency to procrastinate has paid off, as far as gardening goes. I have my seeds and egg cartons ready, but I’m glad I didn’t sprout them yet. The wind and chilly temps would have killed anything I might have planted. The plot is not ready either. I’m thinking though, with it being almost the middle of May, I better get it in gear!

I’ve been checking out all these blogs about fixing stuff up and making junk look cute. It’s frustrating though. There’s so much to do around here, I feel guilty thinking about doing something frivolous and kinda fun. That may be the reason I have neglected the blog for so long. It’s a vicious cycle. If I do something, then I have something to write about. If I don’t do anything, then I don’t have anything interesting to report. I get tired of bitching about the neighbors and this area in general. So, I better do something. Oh, don’t worry, I’ll still bitch about the neighbors.

With the weather being pretty good, I’ve been outside quite a bit. It’s just cool enough to slow down the hornets. I can wear a long sleeved t-shirt ( just in case) and still be comfortable. The spiders? Well, you just gotta keep you eyes open for those suckers. That’s what the gloves are for. They only get you when you get in their hidey holes. The hornets come after you for seemingly no reason. We’ve got a lot of bitey- stingy bugs around here. So, we keep the After bite xtra close at hand. That stuff works great. I don’t know what’s in it (don’t care). It works.

The last few days I’ve been working on uncluttering the back porch. Yes, Again. It’s just too easy to throw crap out there. Out of sight, out of mind. Well, with my renewed creative streak, I need some work space. Thus, it makes it my responsibility to clean some of that stuff up. Of course, it’s not all my fault. So, Randy is doing his part too.

I have also found a new appreciation for what I call the “truck shed.” Randy’s brother in law built a shed on the bed and sides of an old international truck. I think it would be cooler if the cab was facing the road. Well, maybe not. He did a pretty thorough job of building a big ole shed. Although, it’s not totally finished, there is a lot of room in that ugly thing. I have hated that thing in the past. But, while I have been going through all our junk, I have to find somewhere to store and organize the stuff that has potential. Of course, I don’t know for sure what the heck I’m going to do with all of it. That’s not the point. Well, I’m not entirely sure what the point is. I’ll figure that out as I go. In the mean time, the cab of the truck gives the cats a hidey hole if the neighbor’s dogs get into our yard again (another story for another day).


A big hidey ho to our buddy Billy!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Spring seems to be springing around here. The sunshine has done wonders for my mood. We’ve actually been doing stuff around here! Some of it was mandatory, but we’ve still been having some fun. We had to replace the water pressure tank (well water). It turned out to be no big deal. The water pressure is much better.


I’ve gotten no response on my new yard art, via internet or neighbors. That’s cool. I know it’s not that great. Randy has obviously gotten on board with the yard art thing. As long as he doesn’t have to do anything but critique, and I’m happy, he’s ok with whatever I do. I think his theory is…”Hell, at least she’s doing something, and she‘s in a good mood when I get home. I‘m good with that.” Plus, it’s his idea to make the old water tank into a bumble bee. I’m excited about that one! He’s the master with spray paint. So, apparently he’s totally on it now. Yippee!


I think I might be finally getting into my grove with living here. I figure that the powers that be won’t let us out of here until we just suck it up and get over the idea of leaving. Sometimes it works like that. You want something so bad and it seems to be out of reach. Then, you relax, and it just comes. I don’t know if that’s going to happen, but sitting around and being miserable is no way to live. We are still working on some other stuff around here. We’ll see what happens. In the mean time, I need to start spouting some seeds!

It's official! I have lost my mind.

I guess I can't make any more "white trash" comments now. The following are pictures of my latest yard art projects.


Bicycle guy jumping over the pump shed. Yep, that's an old Wal-mart ball for his head.


This the rust monster he is running from.

Close up of why the bicycle guy is happy to be getting away from the rust monster.

I had a little putting the rust monster together. Thanks kitties!

Oh, it’s on now!

After perusing a few junker blogs, I think I’m getting on to it. Rust is good (a.k.a. patina). As a matter of fact, there might soon be a rust monster skulking through the front yard! I’ve known for a while about patina on antique stuff, but didn’t really think about it beyond that. I always thought rust was a bad thing. Apparently not so much. Who knew? Ok, I kinda knew. I’ve just been so busy thinking about getting out of here, and down to Texas, that I didn’t take the time to just have some fun with all this junk we have sitting around. So, I’m going to start making lemonade out of all these lemons! If the neighbors don’t like it, too damn bad. There ain’t no HOA here! We’re out in the county. If they want it all groomed and pretty, they should have moved into town. I could go on about which is worse, the meth-heads vs. the wannabes, (white trash with money), but why bother?

Still chilly, but at least the sun has been coming out more regularly.

The sunshine is great for my mood. The chill is good because we can go out in the back yard and look through the junk without being ambushed by the hornets. Most of the stuff hanging around, I have put my hands on at some time, just moving it out of sight, or in an attempt to organize it. I get overwhelmed every time. I see potential in a lot of it. Thinking about that makes my head swim as well. Do I want to just have a junk sale, and let other people do what they want with whatever they find? How would I price junk? Can I fix something up and sell it? Is there a market for fixed up/repurposed junk? I see that people are doing it. But, are they making any money at it, or just doing it out of love? Anyway, you can see, lots of thoughts bounce around my head on this subject.
So, just for fun, I’m using some of that junk for my yard art projects. Yep, that’s plural. Right now I’m working on a scarecrow type guy on a bicycle jumping over the pump shed towards the soon to be garden. Maybe he’s trying to jump over it? I’m going to go with some suggestions I received, and not worry about what the neighbors think. I have too much other stuff to worry about. Plus, it’s fun for me and makes me smile. I’ve done a couple of things in the past, but I’m ready to kick it up a notch. I'll try to takes pic.s as I go.

Note: You gotta watch that country music. Some of those songs are depressing. So, I just move up and down the dial.

Still up and running

Thanks to a couple of days of sunshine, no computer, no daytime tv to distract me, and listening to some country music, some things have become a little more clear to me. (I’m not real sure if it’s a good thing to give me too much thinking’ time.)
Here’s some…In this journey, Randy and I are on our own, and that’s ok. People we hardly know, and some we’ve never even met in person, are and have been better\more helpful to us than our family and friends. Hey, nobody will f*ck you over like family. Again, that’s ok. It’s good to know where you stand with the folks closest to you. No worries if you’re one of those folks reading this, we’ll still help you out when you need it…well, maybe.

Something else: I started to think that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Boy howdy, I can’t wait ‘til it gets hot ‘round here and I start workin’ in the yard in a tube top and cut offs with half my ass hangin’ out. (It’s not that pretty anymore.) Then of course, it dawns on me…That just might undo all the good/hard work I’ve done to repair the reputation of this address in the neighborhood. And I’ll tell you what, it’s taken all six years I’ve been here, and I still feel like I have to work it every day. So, I figure it’s just me. I may be from Texas, but growin’ up in Houston, perhaps I’m just city come to country. Yeah, well, it could be something else. In our neck of the woods, we’ve got countrified vs. west coast citified and sprawl is becoming apparent. Unfortunately, this place tries to play both sides.

Ok, you can see that I’ve been listening to country music. Yeah, so what? Always forgive, but never forget. That’s what. Oh, some other stuff came to me, but I gotta save something for the next post.

Technical Difficulties

We lost power on half of the house/trailer, which included the computer. Apparently it's some kind of circuit distribution thingy, too much on one side and not enough on the other. I don't know. One thing I'm pretty sure of is this shit hole is old and most likely built on a Friday.

Ok, I'm over it.

I have decided to keep this blog in it's relative original state. I'll play with my creative stuff on my own for now. To be honest, the stuff I added was distracting to me. I never made any promises on what the blog was going to be about, although I feel like it was implied. Our major goal was and still is to get out of here and down to Texas. I'll just get back to that. That's really what I need to be focusing on anyway.

Reasons not to bitch too much

Everything is starting to turn green around here, even things that are not supposed to. We’ve got sprouts on my back steps! I’m starting to wonder if we haven’t moved to Seattle. We’ve got moss growing all over the place! Regardless of the reason, weather has definitely been weird everywhere. Sure, we’re glad we don’t have to deal with the snow, but the rain has slowed down any work we can do around here as well.

So, what did we decide to do with our down time? We took our little poop-head (Ruby, a.k.a. Pookey) for a walk in the dessert.

This is right up the street from us. She’s in there somewhere.

Junk and more junk

We’ve got more junk around here than “Carter’s got pills”, as my mother used to say. That was before my time, but it’s a lot of junk. So, I’ve been checking out blogs about people actually buying junk and fixing it up or repurposing it. Sometimes they sell it and sometimes they keep it. Anyway, it inspires me to do something with my junk. Randy won’t let me plant flowers in the old toilet in the back yard. Oh, I would just love putting that thing in the front yard full of pretty flowers. What joy it would bring me to aggravate the across the street neighbors with my kooky yard art. How I do loves me some yard art. People are always trying to kill my buzz. Don’t feel too bad for me. I’m already planning my scarecrow for the garden. I may sneak in a couple of other things too. Just don’t tell Randy.

Some stuff

I'm still working on organizing the blogs I check out. Some of them can be put in more than one category. So, I guess I'll just put them in the places that have the info I want. Oh, I don't know. I have my old standbys. I haven't decided if I want to move them around or not. Does anybody care? Probably not. You can always check out whatever you want. I most likely got the link from one of the blogs you read.



The fish are fun though. I haven't played with the seasonal veggies and cooking thingies yet. Speaking of cooking... I added a vegan cooking blog/site. There is method to my madness. I've pretty much decided that it's not cost effective to raise animals for meat/dairy/eggs. I have been off meat for some time now. I am still wrestling with the eggs and dairy. The biggest issue I have is, of course, the cost of going vegan. So, here we are. Although, there are always goats, they're small and will eat weeds and just about anything else. Although, they have hooves that have to be trimmed. I'll have to look into that a little more. That could solve my dairy issue. We do love our cheese.

Winter Blahs

The sun has been peeking through every once in a while. But it’s been mostly grey and rainy. The only thing green around here is the moss growing on the naked trees.

On a happy note, flocks of robins have shown up. They make me smile, and feel hopeful about spring coming. Dreams of gardening dancing in my head…
With all the crappy weather, not much has been getting done around here. I have been focusing on
A: How to make living here more pleasant. And,
B: How to get down to Texas and make that work for us.
It sounds contradictory I know, but there’s gotta be a balance in there somewhere. Right now, I’m just trying to find that balance. So, I’m making some small changes and adding a few things to the blog. I’m not ready to jump into creating a whole new blog on any specific topic at this point. Plus, for some reason, I feel like it gives me more topics to touch on.

Wow, that was some year.

I for one am glad it’s over. Of course, there are a few loose ends hanging on. But, I feel like I can look ahead a little better prepared (mentally, anyway). I’ve got lots of big plans for this new year. I’m trying to keep them real. I had big plans for last year too. Most of those didn’t work out. So, this year I’m scaling down and keeping them simple.
As I was writing this, being in a good mood, I noticed 2 sheriff’s police cars parked outside my gate. Yet, another reminder of why we were trying to get out of here.
So, I was chowing on left-over pizza and stepped outside to check out what these guys were up to. I knew full well that it had something to do with the scene behind us. I moved over a little to let them see me. (Gee, I’m so helpful). The one guy on my side waved me over. I was still chewing. I went out into the middle of the yard to make sure he was waving at me. Yep, sure enough he was. I grabbed the gate key to let myself out , and let them in if need be. Oh yeah, it was raining here in our little piece of paradise. No matter. Hey, I’m here to help. Well, anyway it was an officer I had spoken to before. He was very nice, and apparently showing the new guy the ropes around here. They were looking for some chick that lived in the gypsy camp behind us. Yeh, yeh, I keep up with all the jackasses that live back there. Ok, I didn’t say that. I said I didn’t know who all was there now. They are still trying to figure out how to get back there with out a warrant. Man, I wish I could be better help, but I seriously do not want to make anymore contact than I have in the past. I’m just thankful for the preparations that we have, given the potential danger that I have made clear to any officer that will listen.

Hey, I trying here.

Been a While…

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. It’s been busy around here with little, and somewhat big projects. We’re not going to be able to move anytime soon. Thus, I’m trying to make the best of our situation. We have been busy working in the kitchen. We took out the pantry, and put up shelves.
The top cabinets out! It really opens the kitchen up. No pics yet. I still want to paint the walls and the bottom cabinets. We’ve got lots of other little projects going and coming up too. I’ll get back to writng as we go. In the mean time you my get to enjoy a few of my rants and general wanderings.

Hey, I’ve got to release it somewhere!

Miles of piles

I love it when a plan comes together. The last couple of days we have been busy shuffling things around the ole homestead. The garbage can is full. There is still plenty of room in the back yard for more stuff. We are making an effort to keep it as organized as we can. So, right now it doesn’t look that bad. Even though we are far from done, the front yard looks a whole lot better. I’ve been taking pictures as we go. I will most likely put a little album together. I love before and after pics, but I think it will be a while before there is a real “after” situation.
It finally dawned on me why we get the most work done in foul weather. It’s the wasps! One of the days we were outside working, it warmed up, and those suckers were buzzing around like crazy! It was so bad we had to give up and go inside for a while. We have both been nailed a few times, and it’s not fun. So, I guess you could say I’m almost looking forward to more crappy weather.
We are making progress. I still have to be conscious of my attitude.

Sunshine! Well sorta...

Ok, the most sunshine was yesterday. We got a little bit today. Although, it was mostly rain. Randy was off today. So, I put him to work! I had previously moved a bunch of crap into the front yard thinking we were going to have a yard sale. Best laid plans and such. Anyway, we decided that we should give the assholes behind us something to look at (hee hee). Yep, we are going to pile that stuff up so that we don’t have to look at it, and give those meth-heads something else to steal. The other idea behind it is to block off the path in and out. Oh, it will be glorious! We are So not even done! It will essentially be a junk fence. Hah! Hell, putting all the junk in one place could help when we get the opportunity to get rid of it. I don’t know. Putting it somewhere that I don’t have to look at it is all the better as far as I’m concerned. Now, tomorrow is another day. Maybe, I can get some more work out of him! We’ll see...

Attitude Adjustment

No more back and forth over here, for now anyway. I have to keep in mind that it is only five years. Plus, it’s one full acre. That's a lot of space. I guess it’s a matter of perception, perspective, and all that kind of stuff. We are going to have to be a little more creative to get the things done than we would have liked. But, we are going to stay focused on working on this place for a while. So, I‘m going to concentrate on the positives.
The big thing that works to our advantage is that you can grow just about anything here. We already have a few neglected fruit trees (2 apple, 1 plumb, and 1 sad broken down pear). I don’t know if we can bring those poor things back or not. I have a few ideas about maybe taking some cuttings off of those and planting them in better locations. The other thought is to take one of the fruits and start from there. I’m going to have to learn some more about doing that and proper organic care of the trees and fruit. The people across the street have walnut trees. I know they take time to produce, but we can get free fallen walnuts and start from them. I would really like to get some nice trees (not Russian Olive trees) in the front yard. The less lawn the better! I’m already dreaming about next year’s garden. Right now, I’m going to go outside and fill up the garbage can. Tomorrow is trash day!

Flip flop, tick tock.

It’s a daily occurrence for me. Everyday, often more than once a day, I go back and forth on what I should be focusing on. There was a time when I really liked it here. We had a garden. The lawn was regularly mowed. Randy and I were working really hard on cleaning this place up, inside and out. We were both thinking that we could make a pretty good life here. Although, the estate recovery issue was always looming in our minds. After about 3 years of hard work, and hoping the state would forget about this little place, it became a real issue. I have talked about this before, so I won’t go into it again. I think at some point in this process, we just gave up on staying here and making any more improvements. Every little thing that went bad became a Huge problem. (Ok, the van burning up really was a big deal.) But, even before the van incident, I had decided that any obstacle that came in the way of us staying here was some kind of sign to get out. And hey, maybe it is/was? I just don’t know. Crappy stuff happens anywhere you live.

Oh wait, it gets better. So, when the good stuff happens, and surprisingly enough, it does. Am I supposed to take that as a sign to stick it out and try to make this a better place? Here’s another one. Maybe we should be working harder on honing our off grid skills, as well as cleaning this place up. Then, when we do decide to head out, we’ll have good working skills and the place might be worth something when we can sell it. The only problem with that one is that we have to stay here another 5 years or come into a lot of money.

And there it is, I said it… Money. I know it’s not all about money. But, it sure can make things easier. You know how it goes. “If we didn’t have to spend money on this, then we could spend it on that.” “If we didn’t have to use the money to do this, then we could spend it doing that.” “If we had not spent it on this, we could have spent on that.” And so it goes. on and on.

It all makes my head spin. Or, is that the beer?
I’m sure I’ll be writing on this topic again. Because, as I said, I flip flop on this issue everyday.

New resident?

The other night while I was waiting for the one picture to load up on the blog, Ruby starts freaking out. She was sniffing and scratching at the bottom of the screen door, high pitched scream barking, the works! I was sure something was out there. We have had a problem with skunks in the past. Don’t want to let her out if one of those critters is hanging around! So, I decide to take a peek before I let her out. Good thing. It was a big ole’ raccoon! It was the biggest, healthiest looking ‘coon I’ve ever seen. I don’t know if it was a big male or a soon to be mama. It seems we got a little lazy about picking up the cat food we leave out for the neighborhood cat, Thomas. He’s the only outsider Ruby lets hang around. No problem. We’ll just pay more attention, and pull the food in the evenings. As much as I like raccoons, I know they can be trouble. It will just have to find somewhere else to get free grub. Sorry, no pics. Hopefully, I won't get another chance.

The joys of fall in eastern Washington.

It seems like everyone is having weird weather in their areas. Ours isn’t too off. We had a long soaking rain yesterday. It is the first one in a long time. You might be wondering about the hole in the roof left after we took out the chimney pipe for the pellet stove? I was too embarrassed to say what we did as a temporary before. Well…We stuck an upside down bucket up through the ceiling. Don’t judge too harshly. Hey, it worked pretty good for a while. Plus, remember, Randy almost fell through the roof the last time he got up there. Anyway, we’re going to have to do something else, and soon. Of course, it leaked. But not too bad really. Don’t think I was kidding about the big blue tarp! I seriously do not want to spend any money on fixing this place up. Money would be better spent having the thing hauled off. Hell, I’d be happy with a FEMA trailer, formaldehyde and all. Open the windows, let that sh*t gas off. Then, sheetrock it. Oh, I don’t know. I’m just sayin’ …

Oh yeah, I was talking about weather. Usually when we have a front come in the wind blows like crazy. It does the same as it goes out. It’s funny like that here. I’m used to (in Houston/Austin) it getting breezy as a front comes in. Then it just kind of goes away. Today was a fun filled day of wind and little bit of a sand storm. See below.

That's not rain or fog. It's the middle of the day, very dry, and windy. After I ventured out and took this picture, my eyes were crunchy and I was chewing on grit in my teeth. Yuck! Finally, it has slowed down.

October ?!

What happened? Have I been asleep this whole time? Nah. It’s starting to get chilly at night. So, we’ve been doing a few things around here to prep for the fast approaching winter. It’s boring stuff so I haven’t posted any of it. I have however, been keeping up on the blogs I read regularly, plus a few others. I have also added a some that seemed interesting to me. I’m sure I’ll add more as I find them.
Given that we will be staying here at least until the spring. Things need to be taken care of in preparation for a long cold winter. So, we’ve been doing some long needed work around here. The last few days have been spent on working on the back porch area. The wind blows right through there, so there was a lot of sweeping, spider web abatement, and general organization. The porch is also the walkway to the shop. We worked on cleaning/organizing the shop a while back. It actually has stayed in pretty good shape. Unfortunately, when we were cleaning up the shop, a lot of stuff got shoved out on to the porch area. It’s been a lot of work.
Randy has more of a hard time getting rid of some of the stuff than me. I seriously purged a bunch of my crap before I moved here, and before I even knew Randy. My mom dumped a bunch of her stuff on us when she and her husband moved into their motor home full time. So, when they got a house, I returned the favor. Now we are having to go through what’s left of the things that were left here by Randy’s parents, his sister, and worse yet, all the junk his brother in law accumulated while they lived here. And, of course, not all of the stuff my mom left got sent back. It’s not as easy as they make it look on TV. At least, not without professional help. The majority of the stuff is truly garbage. Getting rid of trash isn’t free. So we’ve been pecking away at it, little by little, one garbage can at a time.