It'a Raining and other Mundane Matters Written Nobember 21, 2013

It is a cold rain....pretty heavy and 49 °.

I slept until 4 AM.  My method of stopping coffee after breakfast seems to be helping.  I started back on glucosamine because my knees were telling me to.

Yesterday we began another project out side.  Since the bad ice storm and  tornadoes of a few years ago, we are very conscious of trees near power lines and the house.  We decided to have a dead Elm along the drive taken out and the lop-sided Ash tree on the east side of the drive.....then DH said to get the other Elm at the front of the drive while they were here. Elms are the blight of any homeowner...these were what we called Chinese Elms but I think are really Siberian  Elms.....whatever you call them (and I have called them worse!)  They draw elm beetles  and Japanese beetles and constantly drop small  twigs and limbs.

The utility company had recently limbed one of the old, hollow soft maples along the road in front of the house  and left it looking extremely lopsided and ugly even when in leaf....out  it came too.  They ground all the stumps and even got a couple of old stumps we had left from previous removals....So, 4 large trees, 6 stumps and  complete  cleanup, even down to raking and I get all the chips and sawdust I want, total charge $1800.  We thought that was very reasonable (of course, once again, there went my new sofa!)  I hope we have a large load of calves  to sell and I can still squeeze in some inside things.......time will tell.

I took pictures through the rain this morning.  The guys were going to come clean up today but the rain will stop that.

This is taken from the dining room porch and shows the elms and the ash tree removal



The old damaged maple  out front,




You can just see the edge of the chips out by the cellar in front of the sheds,



I think we will  run some errands  while it is raining.  Walmart left part of  my things bagged on the carousel and also made a double charge on an item.  The clerk made two other double charges on the ticket but caught those and  corrected them......we will be avoiding her in the future.  Makes me wonder how many errors we have had in the past; I don't pay close attention....I will in the future.

Missed Posting - Another Project finished

I missed mentioning this project and  found I had written about it on Open  Office and just forgot it.

So, here it is.  I can't believe I forgot about it since I have wanted it done for a long time.

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Up at 2 AM; the time change is killing me! Fell back asleep in my chair so made up for some sleep loss.

Breakfast

Milked half Willow; let black calf nurse first until he was full then turned her baby in too.

Neighbor came down (Dennis )DH got up several of the herd and I looked them over....possibility of butchering the scurred bull...4 yrs old in stead of selling him for cull.  I am nearly out of meat in the freezer.

We took a break and then cleaned off the foundation plantings and the vining euonymous that had climbed the brick chimney and through the decorative roofing and was nearing the real roof. We  have a trailer load to haul off.   Lots more chain saw cleanup needs doing. Several seedling maple and elm and Golden Rain trees need cutting.

I do the chain saw work and got tired so decided working with the saw wasn't a good idea. My dizziness makes it harder if I am on uneven ground and I was.

Yesterday he was finally able to haul off the mess.  

 

 The foundation is now bare but I want to kill out the vining vinca before attempting more plantings.

You can see some remnants of the vine clinging to the chimney.  We will have to wait until they shrivel completely before pulling them down.

The vine had a serious stump that was too close to the foundation to cut closer to the ground.  I will have to wait until it decays.

While getting the picture of my helper, I spotted the llama way down by the fence and using the zoom got a picture of her.  She has a horrible shaggy winter coat.

From November Blog

It is a good thing I took this picture of  my October Glory Red Maple because within a day of color, the leaves began falling and it is now bare!

 

Note:  I left this in its original journal entry prose.......very short and to the point.

A Few Days Ago

Daylight savings time has ended . I  am not loving it! I hate feeling by 5 PM that it is bedtime  and that is how I feel.  You would think by now my body would adjust readily to these annoying time changes....

It has rained for the last two days;  not heavily but too wet to be outside.  I think another 1/2 inch.  I am glad I got my garlic and onions planted before this round hit.  I found enough turnips to cook for me today.  Several didn't make bulbs....I don't know what causes that.  I thinned them heavily.  I will leave all of them in the ground and see if they every make anything.

The maintenance for the all-farm generator got canceled because of the rain....they will try again Friday when it is supposed to be dry.  We have already had an hour outage since the battery went down on it.  What are the odds of that!!  It was no big thing, but I am nervous now.  I got very complacent about power outages since we have had it.

Today's plans are errands.  I need to return a library book and we need  to pick up coffee (this is our most critical commodity!).  I also need to go to my King Arthur flour source (a Kroger store, Dillon's) for bread flour and regular flour.  I am also low on sugar; I should have picked that up at Sam's.  I wish I could find a good local source for real lard, not the Armour product with additives and partially hydrogenated lard in it.  Walmart used to carry one but then switched to Armour! 

Note:  I missed posting this one so will just to keep my journal in order.

Random dog Picture

Sugar has been a bad girl lately; she has discovered the neighbors have dogs and she runs off to visit after going to the field with DH.  I am checking into buying the wireless fencing for around the house.

Sam's Club Adventure - Our Changing Fall Colors

More rain yesterday, about 3/4 inch and a dreary, dark day.  When the sun did pop out it almost blinded us.

We decided it would be a good day to check out the much touted Sam's Club.  It is about a 40 minute drive for us.  We live north of Springfield; it is south of Springfield.

DH wanted to go ahead and get the $45 membership before we looked around so we did.  It took us over an hour and we still didn't cover everything.  I bought $139 worth of food items....we had a special $20 coupon  so  it made it a good bargain. My impression:  I was underwhelmed!  I  guess we will get our money's worth when we need laundry and paper supplies.  We will see.

I agree with my daughter:  At this stage of our life it isn't so much about saving money as the  whole shopping experience!  As experiences  go, this one didn't rate high.

We have taken two day-trips to see  fall color and realized  that we have some pretty spectacular sights right here at home.

Yesterday afternoon we made a run to the library to pick up a book they were holding for me, The Anatomist's Wife by Anna Lee Huber and then "drove around the block" (actually two roads north and then circled back south to the house).