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!