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.

Getting Back on Track

It’s time to get back to what this blog was originally supposed to be. A chronicle of how, on a limited budget, we were going to get down to West Texas and live off grid . That budget has gotten even smaller than when we started talking about doing this and bought our land in Terlingua. While we were trying to get it together, we were also fighting the state to keep this place. The hope was that we would be able to sell it and have a small nest egg to use to start over in Texas. As it has turned out, we can keep this place by paying the state $500 a month for the next 5 years. It doesn’t sound like much, but now, more than ever, I’m ready to get out of this evil place. There is no way we could make any of that money back. The place just isn’t worth that much. We agreed to the deal because, yes, it’s cheaper than rent anywhere else. The good news is that I’m not starting from scratch as far as research goes. I have a rather large binder full of info I have collected over the past 3 or so years. When I was getting started with this blog the best information I was getting was coming from the survivalist folks. The election and politics seemed to have become a distraction for them. I had my own thoughts about that stuff and was not interested in getting in any discussions nor reading about politics. However, I am going to list some of their blogs back here on mine again.
Can I say I’m getting back to my roots? Nope! I’m a Houston girl. I never minded roughing it on the weekends, camping, sleeping on the boat in foul weather, etc. But, doing it long term is something else entirely. I can say, I’ve gotten some experience living with less. Humans are very adaptable. Damn good thing!

A couple of notes:
I called the fire chief. Nobody is coming to check it out. We can get rid of it as soon as we want.
Ruby has gotten more spoiled than normal.
Oh, and nobody is talking to me as of yet. Maybe they think I have the bird flu, or whatever the newest pandemic threat is?

No new news. The burned carcass of the van is still sitting in the yard. And it stinks!!! After not hearing anything from anyone, I sent an e-mail to the fire chief Thursday. He was the only one that left contact information. I’ll call Monday. I’d like to get that thing out of my yard soon. Seriously, every time I walk anywhere close to it I can smell it. It smells like it’s still burning. I get a knot in my stomach and have to walk over just to make sure. There’s not much they can do, but I want it written up as arson, not an electrical fire. I think I’m over the initial shock, but now, when I do sleep, I’m having nightmares. I know I’ll get over it. It was just a stupid van. I just want to move on and not worry so much that something else may happen, and that it might be worse.
As I said before, we’re taking this event as yet another sign to get out of here and head south. Now it’s just a question of when? Tomorrow would not be too soon enough for me! I think we’re going to have to spend another winter here. I don’t think we can get the funds and everything else together before it starts getting really cold (snow & ice).
I’m a little concerned about Ruby with the snakes and scorpions, but I’ve heard there are classes you can go to that teach them to stay away from snakes. I’ll worry about that one later. Right now the focus needs to be getting things organized and prepared for the big move.

Ruby the Wonder Dog!

Well, Ruby, with all her annoying antics earned her keep this morning. At some point last night Randy let her out. She has a habit of barking at nothing. Usually, she’ll go out for a little while. Then, when she’s ready to come back in, she’ll bang on the screen door once or twice (the lower half is metal) . This morning I awoke to frantic banging and scratching at the door. My first reaction was a groggy “What the hell?” So, I get up to let the stupid dog in. I open the door and notice an orange glow. “Is it that early/late? Wow, that is some sunrise.” It was 3:00AM. “Oh shit, fire!!!”
To better understand, the view out my front door is the pod. About 30’ directly in front /along side is the van we bought from Randy’s work about 3 months ago. It was the van that was on fire, along with the super dry grass under and around it.
I ran back to the bedroom, got Randy up, shoes and shorts on, and out we went. As I ran out to get the full view of what was going on, I saw about 5 people standing in the road watching this fire. I was grabbing the hose while they were taking turns yelling at me to get away from it. “It’s going to blow up.” Pissed, and all adrenalined up, I yelled to Randy to turn the water on and get my gun. Ok, I hope you can understand, I was seriously freaking out. How the hell does a van in the middle of the yard catch on fire? And would you shut the fuck up! After this guy yelled at me that if the fire hit a fuel line it was going to blow up in my face I nearly lost it. I remember yelling back at the guy, “One more fucking time, ‘cause you’re not looking real good right now!“ (I was pretty sure he was from the gypsy camp behind us.) Needless to say, Randy did not get my gun. They all evaporated when they saw the flashing lights coming down the street. Gee, thanks assholes. Were they just out there to view their handy work? I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at the ass-fuck that kept running his mouth. It was still dark and I was a little busy.
I knew that the van was a lost cause. What I was really worried about was the dry grass around it spreading the fire to the pod and/or the house and my car. So, Randy had the hose putting out the burning grass and I used up 2 of our fire extinguishers. Note: Those things are about worthless. But, I guess we should buy a couple more, just in case we ever have a nice small fire to put out.

After the fire was out, I was talking to the fire chief and sheriff’s deputy about what happened and what the cause might have been. That was interesting. The fire chief says it was a short in some wiring near or in the heater coil. Ok, so here’s my problem with that theory. We haven’t driven or even started that van in over a week. I don’t know much cars and electricity. But, if there was a short seeping juice from the battery, wouldn’t the battery be dead after more than 7 days? I guess that’s my big question. The fire chief almost has me convinced, but I’m still having trouble with it. Take a look at the pictures.
After looking at everything in the daylight, I’m pretty sure someone put something either on the tire or in the tire well on the passenger side to start the fire. We’re going to pursue this one. Fucking cock suckers! Oh sure, we’re taking it as a sign to get the hell out of here. But in the mean time, those assholes better lay low. ‘Cause this bitch has had enough!!!

The distance b/w the pod and the van. It's closer than it looks.



That fire was hot and movin' fast!!! (Looks like may date & time on the camera is still messed up.)

Doesn't look like a short in the enginge compartment to me.

Good dog, Ruby!

I’m melting…, I’m melting…

It’s Hot !!! Maybe not as hot here as it is elsewhere, but hot just the same. Not much is getting done around here. Randy has been working a lot of extra hours as of late. That’s good, since they had cut back his hours a while ago. As usual there has been talk about staying here or leaving. We’re both on the same page as far as getting the hell out of here. Now it’s just a matter of how and when. Shelling out an extra $500 bucks a month to pay off the DSHS lien is really putting a dent in our plans. The idea of staying here another 5 years is daunting, to say the least. At some point I said that we could do everything we wanted to here ( off grid, etc.). The thing is we’re really not far enough away from our neighbors as we would like to be. Every other day, if not every day, one of them is on their riding mower mowing their lawn. When they’re not doing that they are watering in the middle of the heat of the day. Most of the water is immediately evaporated or sprayed on the road or driveway. It’s ridiculous! This also causes the humidity to go up so much I feel like I’m back in Houston! I guess what I’m trying to say is these people are wannabe suburbanites, mixed with white trash and meth-heads, not country folks
Pardon me while I digress for a bit…
Ah, the joys of county living.
So you move into an area that you think is in the country. It takes 25 or even a little more minutes to get to the closest grocery store. Sure it seems rural enough. “ Hey, I can have chickens and/or goats. I‘m in the country now!” It seems like that. The problem is, so does every other dumb-ass in the country. “Hey, this would be a great place to cook meth without the po-lice noticing.” Living in the county isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. So, you anti-tax paying, survivor guys, what exactly are you going to do when the real bad guys come a‘callin’? At some point you’re gonna run out of bullets. Trust me our government is not your problem. It’s not great, don’t get me wrong. But, there are others that are way more armed than you, and they are begging for riots in the streets. So ya'll go 'head on... In the mean time, me and mine are hunkerin' down.

I took another little break, (well, not so little) from my blog. I just haven’t had much to say. We’re still, slowly but surely, working on our remodeling. My computer station is no longer where it was, or even as big as it was. Since we are going to be staying here longer than expected, we went ahead and bought a cheap used couch off Craig’s list. Previously, our seating amounted to Randy’s dad’s broken down recliner and the little rocker that came in the pod. We moved the entertainment center where my make-shift desk was. The new set up works a little better. Plus, it’s nice having a couch. There is still a hole in the roof/ceiling. Fortunately, there have not been any really big rainfalls. I’m really not sure how we’re going to fix it. When Randy got on the roof to pull out the stove pipe, I was inside and watched the ceiling move. So, it may end up being me up there on my belly. Who knows? If worse comes to worse, we’ve got a giant tarp that can cover front to back of the trailer. I bet that would look pretty! A bright blue tarp bungeed over the middle of the roof. Ha! Our neighbors would really love us then!

Speaking of neighbors... The one across the street is adding another metal building to his already oversized workshop. Yes, of course, we're envious. Anyway, he asked Randy to help him put up a couple of the windows. It gave us a chance to look at the structure up close. It was pretty cool. I've been looking at DIY metal buildings as a replacement for this old trailer for a while now. I'm even more excited about doing something like that after seeing this one as it goes up. I have a feeling we're going to be over there helping with the roof and siding, so it looks like we may be getting some hands on experience at constructing one of these things. It should be interesting.

Some success...

The wall is gone, carpet down, and my new computer/work station set up! Don’t get me wrong, there are a few more things to do to finish it up. But, it’s getting close. No pics. My new desk is the door from the little room. The computer hook ups run through the door knob hole. It actually looks pretty nice. Ok, once I get the desk organized, I’ll take a picture. I did take a before picture. I always like before and after pictures. The hole in the roof is going to be interesting. No pics on that one at all. Maybe one day I’ll admit what we did to fix it. At this point, the less evidence the better. As long as hornets and birds aren't flying around, I'm happy. What we really should do is get an attic turbin thing to move air around. That's on the list. They're not as popular around here as they are in the south. I'm guessing because of the snow. Oh, we'll figure out something.

The lawyer gave the ok to go ahead and sign the papers!
It’s been really warm here lately, but there have been some sweet, cool, breezes. So, yesterday I looked around and saw some things to be thankful for. Randy’s mom’s roses. They are going crazy! We got lazy and didn't cut them back this last winter. There is really nice ground cover under them with pretty little white flowers. I forgot to mention that I am actually growing something! In the container are some little red potatoes. If they produce even smaller ones, that’s ok with me. The foliage is nice too. So, even if they don’t produce, I’ll have a nice little plant.

The dates on the pictures are wrong. I took these yesterday. The quality isn't great because I have to reduce it so that it only takes 10 mins. to upload each one. One day I'll figure out a better way to do it. I did change the date on the camera. That got screwed up when I changed the batteries.

I just wanted to get something posted and get back in the groove. There is so much to do around here, I'm sure I'll have much more interesting things to talk about now that the leagal issues are pretty much settled.

In celebration of being able to stay here, we took out a wall in the house! I call it a house. It’s really an old mobile home. The wall was between the living room and a tiny bedroom. The bedroom had become a big closet full of junk. It really increases the living space. The cats aren’t too happy though. They have lost their hidey hole. Too bad, kitties! As usual, this brilliant idea has turned out to be a bigger project than anticipated. That’s alright. We’ve got more time than money. There’s now a hole in the ceiling, and one in the floor where the pellet stove was. The stove is now against the wall, where the hallway was, awaiting a hole to be cut in the wall to vent to the outside. Randy says it will be better than pushing the air up the stove pipe. Sounds good to me.
Next…Old carpet out! We have left over carpet from when we re-carpeted the living room and our bedroom. Randy’s old boss gave it to us when they remodeled at his work. It’s kind of funky, but if it’s free it’s me! Plus, it’s heavy duty commercial stuff. Rubber backed, no pad needed.
Oh yeah, I think Randy’s dad dropped me an Indian head penny 1907 (face up). For those that don’t know, people that have passed on often drop coins. That’s what they say anyway. I found it in our pathway in the yard while I was talking to Randy on the phone. We’re going to go with the idea that it’s good luck. Hell, we can use all the good luck we can get!