November 12 2018 Visit to Moody Gril Farm

This will be a short post.  I drove up to Moody Girl Farm yesterday.  The weather forecast was for 26⁰ Monday night, 25⁰ Tuesday night and 28⁰ Wednesday night. 

Right after I bought the property my friend M helped me get running water into the bathroom.  We dug around and found where the pipes ran, and found the break in the pipe.  As a quick fix, we ran the new PVC pipe over the ground.  It was April and I expected to have all new water lines put in by late fall.  That didn't happen, thus the trip up there yesterday to cover the pipes. 

The line running from the street is 1/2 inch pipe so that's the measurement I used to purchase those gray foam insulation tubes.  Unfortunately, I forgot that my friend M used 3/4 inch pipe when he did the repair.  Fortunately, I bought 14 of those insulation tubes so I was able to put one wrap on and then use another one to overlap and cover the gap.  I taped it in place and hope it will be enough.

 

 

I also bought a 25 ft by 4 in insulation roll that I used to protect the faucet M installed in front of the porch.   The shut-off valve was also wrapped and then I put the valve cover over it.

Again, I'm not a professional and only had a few hours to get this done.  The water is turned off at the shut-off valve and I flushed the commode twice while I was there so there's no water in the tank or  bowl.  I left a small electric heater in the bathroom turned on to the lowest setting.  When I came inside once during the pipe covering exercise, I heard the heater come on and then shut off after about five minutes. 

 

 

It was 40⁰ and blowing 15-20 mph when I left at 1:30m.  Hopefully I can get back up there next week.

 

Moody Girl Farm Update September 1, 2018

Here's a quick update.  I drove up to Moody Girl Farm Tuesday, a one-day trip, to make sure everything was ok.   I was an hour into my return trip when I realize I hadn't taken any photos.  Not one, and every time I walked past the crape myrtle bush I told myself to be sure to get a picture of it because it was blooming profusely.  But I didn't, not one.  Oh, well.

There's been no new activity/work on the house since my last visit, but there wasn't supposed to be.  The only activity I saw was that more trash had been dumped onto my 'burn pile'.  And this is trash that did not come from my house.  There was clothing and furniture, and other junk.  Since the burn pile is behind my house and not visible from the street, I guess they thought no one would notice a little more junk.  So, I've asked my handyman/junkman Jesse to haul off all of the stuff back there - the new trash and the original burn pile.  My county has been under a burn ban for 3-4 months and there's no telling when it will be lifted, so I decided to have it all hauled off.  There was some good rain earlier in August but not enough to lift the burn ban.  I also asked Jesse to put up 'No Trespassing - No Dumping" signs.  If it happens again, I'll have to report it to the sheriff's office.  They probably won't be able to do anything about it, but I do want it on record that this is going on.

As I mentioned in the last post, I wanted to try to visualize where my gardens and chickens will be on my property so I took some 12" stakes with me.  The ground was so hard that I couldn't get the stakes into the ground for the chicken coop/run more than an inch or two.  I spray painted them bright yellow.  I only did the one area, it was too hot to be out there.  Maybe next time.

Gee, I hate to end this without at least one photo...  My 'Sweetie'.

 





Till next time, never surrender, never give up, and may all your dreams come true.

August 14 2018 Update Moody Girl Farm

Here's a quick update from my one-day visit to MGF on Tuesday.

There be siding!
I can't say how happy I was to see the progress.  As I pulled up to the house, I noticed that the siding wasn't on the porch, and was very pleased when I walked around to the back and saw this.

I'm sure my handyman Jesse doesn't read my blog, but I now have stones around the base of the cistern cover.

Most of the remaining stones were placed on the ground around the house.  When W.T was still removing the back room, he mentioned to me that he thought there was a raccoon family under the house.  Hopefully this will discourage them from coming back.

My little town got lots of rain this past weekend. Heavy rain fell Saturday, Sunday and Monday.  You can see the extension cord partially buried in the mud, as was some of the PVC piping under the bathroom.  I'm hoping those stones also kept some of the water from running under the house.

 

Panoramic view of my property.

My sister and brother-in-law are visiting me this week, thus the short post.  The one-day trip on Tuesday meant I didn't get to layout the gardens, hopefully next trip.  I'll go back to MGF in a couple weeks and will have a longer post after that.

Until then, never surrender, never give up, and may all your dreams come true.

Avon stole my idea!

Back in July 2016, I wrote about two new perfumes I thought would be great. Read that post here:
http://charboord.blogspot.com/2016/07/yum-smells-good-i-have-idea-for-couple.html

As I glanced through the latest Avon booklet yesterday, I saw this:

So...which 'Perfumer' at Avon was reading my blog and also thought this would be a great scent?  Should I ask for royalties?

July 29 2018 Update Moody Girl Farm

I don't particularly like day-trips up to Moody Girl Farm; driving up in the morning, staying a few hours, and then driving home later that afternoon makes for a really long day.  However, that's what I did this past Sunday just so I could check on my little homestead.  It's been a month since I was last here.

 

Again, I was expecting more progress (I obviously wasn't graced with much patience, but it seems God is determined to help me learn it!), nonetheless I did see a few changes.

 

I now have a covering over the cistern.  When I was working on the little kitchen window, had to be extremely careful not to step back onto the old piece of plywood that covered the opening to the cistern.  There were 2x6s laid across the opening and the plywood was on top of that, but it wasn't something I would have voluntarily stood on.  My handyman, Jesse, had been telling me that W.T. was going to build a low platform to cover the opening, something that might double as a seat if I was so inclined to sit.  When I first saw this I couldn't help but smile.  As cheesy as it looks, I actually like it and it protects the cistern.  Everything except the 1x12 siding pieces came from the materials from the back room demo.  He used leftover metal roofing pieces, and he even installed a pulley and a bucket.   I still need to place some stones on the ground around it to cover the parts of the opening not covered by the structure.

As you can see, there is still no siding on the back of the house.  Surprisingly though, when I arrived at 11:30am and went inside it wasn't that hot.  Yes, it was 85 degrees, but it was cooler than outside.  Before the back room was removed, when I came up here and opened the front door the living room was quite a bit cooler.  I suppose all of that space in the back room created an insulating barrier between the old back wall and the current back wall.  Anyway, the two new air conditioners cooled it down to 81 before I had to leave at 2:30

Jesse did buy the siding and stacked it on the porch.  During the month of July, eighteen days have been 100 degrees or hotter; it was 110 on July 23rd.  And as much as I would like to have the siding installed quickly, I couldn't expect Jesse or W.T. to work in that heat.  I've told him all along that there was no rush.  I guess I need to keep telling myself, too.

I purchased a twin bed frame ($35 on Google Marketplace) before Christmas to give to my grandson's roommate, but he ended up not needing it.  So I brought it up to MGF.  You can see the old roll-away frame on the left.  It was really bouncy.  I wasn't sure if the mattress was actually twin bed width - 39 inches- so I also brought some 1x6s to lay across the frame if necessary.  But it fit just fine.  Before I come up to stay overnight again I want to get a couple of those carpet samples to put beside the beds.  I still won't step on the carpet barefooted so I keep my slippers on the desk/cabinet next to the bed.  It would be a wee bit more convenient to have them on the floor.

 

In May, when Jesse was still dismantling the back room, I noticed an old wood burning stove on the trailer he was using to haul away the debris.  I asked him about it, but it was already promised to someone.  He told me he had access to another one, in better condition, if I was interested.  So, sight unseen, I paid $150 for the other stove.  He finally delivered it.  It'll need a lot of cleaning up.  It looks to have a new handle to open the front, and the damper looks like it'll work ok.  It's not in the photos, but I also got the little handle to lift the 'burners'.  The Vogelzang company is still in business but they don't sell this style stove anymore.  As much as I would love to use this for my heating and cooking, I plan to get a new propane tank installed behind the house and use gas. In the meantime, I haven't figured out exactly where in the house this will go. 

  

 

 

 
I don't know what this screen is for.

                        

 

I took the photo below to show the two trees to the right of the house, near the railroad tracks.  I didn't realize just how dry it's been until I saw how brown everything looks.  The county's burn ban is still in effect.

                           

 

 

 

The trees are just outside my property line, they're on the railroad right-of-way, but I'm eventually going to create a sitting area under them, and plant roses around them.  My mother always had roses wherever we lived, even down on the barrier island along Alabama's coast.  I have eight rose bushes that were salvaged from the museum where I work when the gardeners brought in the new 'spring color' this past May. They're still in the one-gallon pots they stuck them in for me and all I've done is water them.  A couple of them have bloomed, so I guess they really want to live!   

 

I also have some trees in pots in San Antonio: two Mexican Olive trees, three avocado trees, and a pecan tree, plus the blackberry vines.  They're all in large pots for now but they'll end up here eventually, just not anytime real soon.  The problem, of course, is that I can't be here often enough to be able to water them enough for them to survive.  Another lesson in patience, thank you Lord.

 

And speaking of San Antonio, I harvested my carrots last week since the tops were beginning to turn brown.  I think there were a dozen little orange squirts.  I was able to clean up three to take with my lunch.  They tasted good, like...carrots.

 

I'm planning my next trip up to Moody Girl Farm in two weeks, I'll probably stay two nights.  I need to walk around the yard and figure out where the gardens will go, and the chickens, and my trees, and the greenhouse.  I should take some short wooden stakes to put in the ground, spray paint them bright green and pink and orange so I can step back and visualize everything.

 

Until then, never surrender, never give up, and may all your dreams come true.



Moody Girl Farm Update July 13, 2018

I was expecting to see more progress on the back of the house when I arrived in the evening Sunday July 1st, but it looked about the same as when I was here two weeks ago.  My junkman/handyman Jesse told me he hadn't bought the siding because a friend of his (a local builder) told him Hardie board would not be a good choice because when I finally get the house leveled his friend said the Hardie board would crack.  So Jesse didn't buy it.  Which is a very good thing since I did not want Hardie board for that exact reason.  In addition to the fact that you must use special screws in holes which must be pre-drilled, and a special saw blade if you need to cut it, each piece weighs 77 pounds!  I gave Jesse a piece of paper with the description of the siding I wanted, but his friend apparently didn't understand.  So I wrote the information on another piece of paper and told Jesse to show it to the salesman at the big box store.  The closest store that has the siding I want is 80 miles away. 

Jesse did get more of the debris cleaned up so it looks a little better than last trip.

 

In the meantime, I worked on several projects inside.  When the front door is closed it has a gap of about 1 1/2 inches on the bottom and one inch on the top.  Since the house is not level, I'm wondering if maybe the previous owners trimmed the door over the years so it would open and close easier.  On top of that, the threshold itself is 3-4 inches lower than the concrete porch in front.  So I used 1x4s, 2x2s, some plywood, and 3 1/2 inch screws to build up the threshold even with the porch.  This closed the gap at the bottom of the door. 

To close the gap at the top of the door, I used a door 'sweep' that normally goes on the bottom of the door.  It attached with a sticky strip, but I added three screws for extra support since I know it will get hot inside the house when I'm not there and I don't think the sticky strip will hold.  I still need to get weather-stripping for around the door.  It's not so noticeable now when warm air blows through the gaps, but in the winter the weather-stripping should keep the cold air out.


The window air conditioner you can see in the photo of the front door is an 8,000 BTU unit.  Right after I bought the property I installed a 5,000 BTU unit in that window.  However because of the poor-or-no insulation in the walls it barely cooled the room to the upper 70s even after running all night.  And the little AC unit in the bedroom that came with the house put out even less cool air.  So I purchased this larger unit for the living room and moved the 5,000 BTU unit to the bedroom.  Wow! what a difference!   An interesting note about installing the air conditioners here, the window in the living room is only 24" wide.  That's what limited me when I purchased the 8,000BTU unit.  I wanted a 10,000 BTU unit, but none of them would fit my narrow window.  The 5,000 BTU unit that came out of the living room window barely fit the 21" window in the bedroom!

Next, I drove 30 miles to the nearest big box store to get the Plexiglas for that window in the kitchen.  They had plenty of Plexiglas, but they don't cut it.  The store where I shop in San Antonio has a cutting station and could have cut the 24x30 inch piece down to the 15x27 inch size I needed.  I didn't buy the Plexiglas.  When I arrived back at the house I saw the stack of windows that Jesse had saved for me when he tore down the back room.  I thought I would be able use them when I build the chicken coop and greenhouse later on.  I looked through the stack and found one that looked good and cleaned up really nice.  It was too big for the opening though.  So, once I removed the 'funky' broken window I measured and cut some 1x4s to build a frame around the opening that I could attach the window to.  Let me say right now I am no carpenter.  I'm not afraid to cut and drill and hammer, but my work barely merits amateur status.  Plus, this is temporary and all I'm shooting for right now is functional.  I caulked all of the seams the best I could so it's as waterproof as I could get it, and now I have LOTS of light!  This job took all day to complete.  It was 104 degrees that day; I had to come inside every 15-20 minutes to cool down.  And I drank a ton of water.

I had a visitor to Moody Girl Farm as soon as I arrived Sunday afternoon.  She belongs to a family across the railroad tracks and I'm told she get out occasionally.  She was friendly, but wouldn't drink from the pan of water I put out for her.  Probably just as well.  I'll definitely need to put up a good fence around my gardens when I put them in.

I wasn't able to come up with any reasonable ideas for getting water into the kitchen area.  So in an effort to reduce my dishwashing requirements, I had cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, and brought frozen microwaveable TV-dinners to eat in the evenings. 

And speaking of water, the shower that my friend M installed was pretty much a waste of time.  The water pressure here is really low and what came out of the shower head was just a little more than a trickle.  It was enough to get wet with, but not really strong enough to rinse completely.  The water from the tub faucet, however, filled the 5-gallon bucket with warm water quick enough, so I was able to get a bucket shower and wash my hair.  The water line from the meter at the street to my house is just 1/2 inch PVC.  I need to replace all of the water line with 3/4 or preferably one inch PVC to give me decent water pressure.  But I want to wait until I level the house so I don't have to redo the lines into the bathroom.

I was there by myself for this 3-day trip, my friend M can't always get away from his business.  And it was really, really quiet.  I brought several gardening/homesteading books and a deck of cards and my Bible.  I slept much better this trip, too.  I guess I've finally gotten used to all the creaks and groans the house makes at night.  Plus it was much cooler with the new A/C units.



I'll be working extra hours/days for the next two-plus weeks so I won't be able to visit MGF until the first week in August.  Hopefully by that time there will be siding on the back of the house.  I can only hope!

Moody Girl Farm Update June 13 2018

I enjoyed my visit to Moody Girl Farm last week.  I was pleasantly surprised at the progress that had been done since my last visit. 

I liked the way the house looked when I first saw it.  I liked the tall roof and the big porch across the front.  And the room addition on the back seemed to balance it out.

 

But since I've had the back room removed, I like the shape better.

 



Once the back wall was exposed, I had an insulating water barrier put on.  By the time I go back for my next visit in a couple weeks, the exterior siding will be installed.  The siding is already primed, but I'll still need to paint it with a good exterior paint.  The existing shiplap siding also needs painting - I need to preserve what I have, even if it's not going to be the final covering.  And those metal roof panels have been re-secured.

So, I have a much smaller house now.  The bedroom hasn't changed; nor has the living room.  It's the "kitchen" area that looks different.  I painted the plywood wall that M helped me build and the wall with the funky (and broken) window, and hung the curtains.  I'm going to take out that funky window and put a piece of Plexiglas over the opening.  It'll give me more light, and now that it's summer, I probably wouldn't want it open anyway.  I can install the other window when it  begins to cool off.

I moved the dining table out at an angle from the corner so when I'm eating breakfast I'm not staring at the wall. 

With the exception of the rocking chair and the lamp next to it, all of the furnishings you see were already in the house when I bought it, even the curtain material.  When my junkman was beginning to haul off the other furnishings, I separated these items to keep.  I knew I'd need a few pieces and really lucked out here.  It's slowly becoming a comfortable little camp house.

Next I need to create some kind of actual kitchen, with a sink with running water.  That'll take a lot of 'thinking about'.  Maybe the next time I'm up there I can put something together...

Town Garden Update June 10 2018

My garden here in town has not done very well.  It's been sooooo hot that some of the plants are already bolting!  Last week we had temps around 100-102 degrees, this week it's been in the upper 90s, and next week will be in the mid 90s.  Too hot, too soon!

The lima beans are working their way up the trellises, but the dill (seen in the opening between the trellises) has gone to flower, as has the cilantro and basil (on the left side of the bed).  It's been very difficult to keep the Bermuda grass out of this bed.  I've used scissors to cut it down and then sprayed it carefully with Roundup, but it keeps coming back.

The corn is barely two feet tall but half of them have already grown tassels.  This usually doesn't happen until the plant is 5 or 6 feet tall and it signals the plant to begin making ears of corn.  A couple of the plants with tassels have little 2-3-inch ears growing.  If they don't grow any larger than that, I suppose I can eat them as 'baby corn'.  (That's Orange-Cat and Kirk discussing the garden)

My cucumber vine growing on the tomato cage is looking good, except that there are no cucumbers.  It's made a bunch of flowers, but I think none of them have been pollinated.  I think the reason for that is because I only have the one plant and maybe it needs another separate plant for pollination.  I've started a couple more seeds, but it may be too late, especially with the heat.  (That's Princess)

The tomato bed in the back yard has done a little better. It doesn't get as much sun.  You can hardly see the tomatoes because of the sunflower plant, but it probably helps shade the tomatoes.  I've only started two types of tomatoes - regular slicing tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. (And that's Little Girl's back end)

I have 5 or 6 tomatoes on the two Burbank plants.

These are Blue Berries Cherry Tomatoes https://www.rareseeds.com/blue-berries-tomato/.  They'll have purple-ish skin and will be very sweet.  I've read that fruits and veggies with purple skins are high in anthocyanins which are good for you, so I thought I'd try these.

San Antonio is currently in Stage 1 water restrictions, which means I can only water with a sprinkler once a week (my day is Monday) and only before 11am and after 7pm.  I can hand water anytime, and I do in the evenings.  I didn't expect to have a large garden this year anyway because of the time I expected to be spending at Moody Girl Farm, so being able to hand water what little I've started works out well.

I'll be up at Moody Girl Farm this week and will have photos and a progress report when I get back.

Moody Girl Farm Update June 3 2018

I didn't mean to go so long before posting again, but here I am.  I've been up to MGF twice since the last post and I have photos and a progress report.

The first of the two visits was a one-nighter, by myself.  I wanted to see how the clean-up after the demolition of the sheds was going, plus I needed to pay Jesse, my favorite junkman and all-around handyman, for the tree work.  He had done a good job cleaning up the rest of the junk and putting it onto the burn pile and cutting back the branches so none were within 6-ft of the house.  And while I was there I wanted to find someone who could cut the grass around the house and out in front.  Jesse to the rescue!  He said his son had a riding mower and could take care of the grass.  Since it had gotten so tall, he said it would take two passes to get it done, so it was going to cost $100.  I thought that was fair.  My county currently has a 'burn ban' (it's been really dry and hot) so I needed to get the grass cut to keep the fire danger away.

I also asked about removing the rear portion of the house, the addition with the 7-foot ceilings.  The more I looked at the construction of it, the more I realized it was not salvageable.  Jesse said he and his crew could remove it for about $1,100.  I told him the price was ok, but not to start until I came back in two weeks.

My second visit was this past week and my friend M went with me.  We stopped at the title company in San Saba to ask about the survey, and the lady asked if I had gotten any damage to my house.  I asked why and she said there was a tornado reported in my little town.  So of course we hurried to the house and thank the Good Lord the only damage I had was one piece of the metal roofing had come off. This is the link to an article my sister saw and sent to me.   https://www.gosanangelo.com/story/weather/2018/05/30/severe-storm-roars-through-san-saba-county-inflicts-dramatic-damage/655443002/   I did have hail at my house, I believe it was only golf ball size from the pockmarks in the ground and the dents in the corrugated metal roof on the house.  It came from the north so anyone with windows on the north side of their houses/businesses had those windows busted out.  I have only one window on the north side of my house, the backdoor from the kitchen has a window, but the screen door protected it and it wasn't broken.  I think the Good Lord realized I really couldn't afford any new repairs on this house!

Since I was planning to remove the rear portion of the house, I needed to close up the 8-foot opening between the utility area in front of the bathroom and the kitchen in the addition.  Tuesday we drove up to Home Depot and purchased 2x4s, nails, screws, a 3'x5' window, and plywood.  I chose plywood for the interior wall so I could hang shelves; I'm thinking the plywood might offer better support for the shelves than sheetrock would have.  Because the house still needs to be leveled, we had to measure for each upright stud, and the measurements ranged from 81-to-83 inches: the ceiling in the utility area is 7 feet, give or take an inch.  I would have preferred an exterior door in that wall rather than a window, but I needed light, and exterior doors with windows, even cheap ones, were too expensive.  Later on when I can afford the door I want, I can use this window in another room.  In the meantime I have plenty of light and I can open it and get a breeze through the house - when the weather cools down, of course.

This is the new kitchen area.

I brought a 3ftx3ft piece of plywood for the refrigerator to sit on, I thought it might be safer than having it sit on the carpet.  There's a small window on the end wall that needs to be framed in better.  It's a little sliding window I used to have in the utility room at my house in town. 

It'll give me more light and air.

 

The back room is empty and ready to be taken down.  You can see the plywood we put over the new window to protect it at the far end of the room on the right.  Once Jesse removes the addition and that sheetrock he'll put exterior siding up.  The original exterior siding that was there before the addition was built is still there; it was 'board and batten' construction.   The 'battens' were removed when the addition was done, but the 'boards' are still there.  The siding Jesse installs will go over the boards and give more protection to that part of the house, plus add a tiny bit of insulation.

I had called Jesse Wednesday morning and asked him to come by so we could finalize the demolition project.  He arrived shortly after and brought his helper, W.T.  I realized later on that W.T. lives across the railroad tracks from me.  He has a very tall antenna on his property, I need to ask him if it's for a CB or Ham radio.  W.T. easily looks to be in his late 60s; Jesse is 63 I think he said.  Anyway, while M and I were inside building the wall, W.T. got up on the roof of the addition and began to take it apart.  Jesse brought his granddaughter to help remove some of the siding.

One last thing M did for me was to install new PVC pipes and a new shower head. 

I apologize for the blurry photo.

Although I do not yet have a working hot water heater, I found that in the afternoons the water was quite warm, almost hot.  Apparently the water lines are not buried very deep and with the sun's heat the ground gets warm and heats the water in the lines.   So, it seems I will be able to get a warm shower after all, at least during the summer. 

With the back room being torn down, I had to move all of the furniture into the front rooms.  The refrigerator went into the utility area next to the door to the bathroom, and the remaining furniture went into the living room.  I'll move some of the 'kitchen' things into the new kitchen area next time I go up, but in the meantime, this is the new normal until I can get the house leveled. 

I plan to go up there every two weeks to check on the house and do a little cleaning and organizing.  After the next trip I'll have photos of a much smaller house.