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!