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Most of the smaller images have larger versions linked
to them. :: COMING OUT OF HIBERNATION My life has basically become a daily routine of cleaning dog feet and cleaning up dog barf off the carpet. Almost every time Aiko goes outside she comes back with mud caked between her toes (see picture). If the day gets above freezing, they all usually need their feet washed when they come in. Since the faucet outside is frozen during the winter, I've been using a small bucket which I put their feet in. You would think I was dipping their feet in boiling oil. Even though we do it almost every day, only Aiko has gotten slightly used to it. Sammy and Buster spend a lot of their time outside digging and come back with dirty paws and noses. They're getting better and better at catching and eating voles. The less voles the better, I say, but then they get sick--usually in the house. The lawn is all torn up from the moles, gophers and voles, and then the dogs digging to try to catch them. Voles are new to me. I understand they are tunnel makers but I haven't figured out which tunnels are which. Voles look like field mice with short tails. The dogs also enjoy sneaking into the pasture and eating any stinky smelling disgusting thing they find. They love eating fresh cow poop at any opportunity (which also makes them sick). It has been better since the cows were moved to other pastures but the problem will return when the cows do. Why they insist on eating things that make them sick, I can't figure out. They get more than enough food. We spoil the heck out of our dogs. Most people around here just leave their dogs outside all the time. Either running loose or stuck in small kennels. Probably because they don't like cleaning dog feet. :: WORK MoDot has asked Danny to come back to the sign shop again starting April 1 and through the summer. I have had spotty work and not much success finding more. I am very grateful to those of you who have given me work lately. Sure, the cost of living is less here but not by much. Food and consumer goods are about the same. Gas prices are a little bit less but we have to drive farther to get anywhere. :: PROJECTS The days go by so quickly, it is amazing how little gets done. We have a long list of items that need fixing around here. There are a number of details left to complete the shop but they await warmer temps and cheap lumber deals. It's been too cold to work on fixing up the barn, but Danny did replace the struts in my car. And I replaced the retracting antenna that was misbehaving. At the end of Fall, I took the riding mower out to do a last mow for the season. This is usually Danny's job and it wasn't clear to me that the oil needs to be checked each time it is used. Shortly after I started, I heard a very loud. bad noise and a big puff of smoke and the engine was dead. After pushing it back to the barn, we found a large hole in the side of the engine case. Not good. I began researching replacement engines and Craftsman wanted $1,000 for an 18hp Briggs and Stratton. That was more than the $800 we paid for the entire used mower last year. We had all winter to get it repaired so I kept my eye on a new 20hp replacement engine on Ebay. The guy had a few to sell and listed them one after the other. I bid on them until I won one at the starting bid of $300 (+ $50 shipping). Danny easily removed the old engine and put the new one on. He opened up the old engine and found the bent and broken connecting rod. Amazing what a lack of oil will do. I figured I got off fairly easily for my negligence. I will take care to check the oil from now on. :: AUCTIONS Earlier this winter I went to an auction to look at an old hoosier style hutch that was listed. I was thinking it would give us more storage in the kitchen. It was pretty beat-up. Painted with yellow wall paint, warped doors and water-damaged sides. I bid on it anyway not knowing what it might be worth and ended up winning it at $110. See the rest of the story. At the end of the summer Danny let me go to an auction alone. I was pretty good until bidding started on an item I hadn't even noticed. I was in the market for a rototiller but this item intrigued me because it had several attachments. I won the bidding and then wondered if I had just paid $60 for a bunch of old scrap metal. See the rest of the story. We have witnessed several real estate auctions. One house in Marceline went for $5,000. Sure it was small and needed lots of work, but the lot is worth more than that. Recently a pair of homes in Brookfield went for $11,000 and $9,000. They also were small and needed work, plus they were RIGHT next to the railroad tracks with a motocross course across the street. :: HEAT :: HOME IMPROVEMENT Our next job was fencing it to keep the cows out before they returned. It took a surprisingly long time--almost a month--to finish the 210 feet of fence. We used the old 3-point post hole digger we bought when we got the place, on the tractor to dig the holes for the corner posts. Then the tractor made short work of pushing in the intermediate steel posts. Danny made a fancy gate for it. The ground around it is still bare but my father sent us a bunch of wildflowers seeds and I think this would be a great place to plant them. The kitchen sink and washer line had been running to the front of the house and the plumbers tied that in with the rest of their work. It was our responsibility to tie in the bathroom plumbing. We started it just in time. The very morning we planned to start, the toilet backed up and flooded the bathroom and basement. We had a little trouble getting the old cast-iron apart and taking the fitting off the shower drain. Once that was done everything we had dry-fit glued up quickly. We couldn't find our hole saws so Danny had to run to the store to buy one so we could drill the toilet vent pipe through the joists. Still, we had a functional bathroom by that evening. The toilet ended up too close to the back wall so I had to cut a hole in the wall to get it in. Just another additional to our classy country style. (I just saw the same effect at one of the houses up for auction). :: FISHING :: ANIMAL UPDATES Sadly, Bootsie did not make it through the winter. She finally got used to the dogs and begin to come inside when it started getting cold. Unfortunately she really wasn't box trained. She did at least go on the basement floor instead of in the house. We tried to fatten her up with wet food which she loved but she did not improve. It was difficult for her to walk and go up and down stairs. She was often breathing heavily. When we finally took her to the vet, he suspected feline leukemia. He gave us some antibiotics for her wheezing but she did not improve so I took her to be put down in November. She will be missed. She was a very sweet cat. I guess feline leukemia is a guessing game--who will get it, who will carry it, whether vaccination does any good. We will have to wait and see if it will affect Kitty-Kitty. Life just rolls on. We still love being out in the country. It is getting warm enough to sit on the back porch and watch the birds fly and the garden grow. Also check out my portfolio website: I Like It Design.com. |
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