Coffee anyone ?

[Niele da Kine]

Hard to get good Texas BBQ around here, I'm jealous!

Replanted the chicken ravaged garden and it was probably a good thing that was done since I didn't find anything other than one bean seed while replanting. Now I have to order more seed since I'd planned to save seed for the next round. But I was reading about saving corn seed and they suggested seeds from 100 ears mixed together. Ack! I just grow a little bit all the time, never 100 at a time. So, perhaps I'll have to keep ordering seed and adding in some grown here. Seed is inexpensive when the garden is small.

I do need to build another one, though, since I could use one just for tomatoes. These are small raised bed gardens, part of their purpose is to stabilize a hillside and keep tall grass from growing in places that are hard to mow.

Well, today's project is rejuvenating a window.

The house was built in 1953 and those windows are 8 feet wide. Two of them in one corner doesn't leave much to hold up the roof, especially as it's 'single wall' construction. "Single wall" is an odd Hawaii construction method where the walls are made of vertical boards face nailed to the floor platform. No insulation, no interior wall sheathing, just those vertical boards edge to edge. The entire wall is just a 1" thick board, the electrical wires go in wooden channel made especially for this type of construction.. The horizontal stripes are structural 'belly bands' that hold the vertical boards together. That pretty much means a lot of the trim is structural. The roof is original from 1953 and is aluminum so it doesn't weigh much.

We have to get it ready for a renter right after Thanksgiving, good thing we're not planning much for Turkey Day this year.

 

[Baymule]

We went to Feed store, hour away, went to Walmart and TSC. Altogether got 1350 pounds Feed. BJ waited in the truck. Then home, lunch, unload Feed at Sheep barn, transfer Feed to mule and unload at horse barn. BJ got to fuel the truck from the farm tank and drive the mule. Now a shower for him, clean jammies and a nap in his recliner.

 

[promiseacres]

Coffee is on.
Election day. Orthodontic appt for my son then we hit the polling place. Tried to vote early last week but was too long of a line for my time frame I had available. But at least I only have to take one kid. And at 12 I think it's so something good for him to see the process. Need to get groceries too...
Horses behaved for their trims, Richie's hooves are growing down instead of out as much. hoping we are over a hump in his hoof issues. No lameness for several weeks now. Sunset last night

 

[Baymule]

We early voted the day BJ got out of the hospital before we went home. I went inside and told them my husband just got released from the hospital after having hip replacement surgery and he wanted to vote. They brought a voting machine to the car and we both voted. Done.

To everyone voting today, go vote!

 

[Baymule]

Finished my first cup of coffee. Gonna go start the big pots, canning chicken broth today. Our best customers and friends have Covid, they are doing ok. They are buying all the chicken breast I have, 21 pounds. Will leave it on their back porch on the table. Gonna give them some quarts of chicken broth too. Taking it to them at 10:00, will turn off burners while gone, resume when I get back home.

 

[Mini Horses]

Voted this morning! No lines and only 3 deep inside. Of course I am at a rural location and it is usually fairly steady but I've never seen a line of any real size....generally heaviest at way to and from work times. TV shows me how lucky I am!!! Plus only 2.5 miles away. There has been a huge early voter activity this year.

Had a truck start issue but fixed that before...of course, duh! Worked on the positive battery cable. Pretty chilly in upper 30s again. Mid 60s expected. We have sun!!! Yah!

So now I have the day to be able to do what rain and wind limited past few days. I'm gonna have some leftovers from last night before anything else. Chicken and dumplings plus brownies. Had to make for oven put some heat into the house -- so a method to my indulgence! Yes took some of both to DD & DS...who were both around. Used some of my previously canned chicken so it was a pretty quick meal. That was great.

Need to make a quick run to town before I get involved with farm work. Better go.

 

[Niele da Kine]

Mmmmmm, coffee! Arrgh! My cup is empty. (insert pause here) Okay, now there's coffee in the cup, didya miss me?

We voted weeks ago when we got our mail in votes. The entire state is doing vote by mail. They have drop off centers and I think a few in person voting places, but our local polling places aren't there anymore. Used to be fun to hang out and chat with everyone else while voting, but no hanging out and chatting this year.

I am liking the vote by mail, though. It's a whole different experience to be able to vote with a computer and ability to look stuff up instead of trying to remember each candidate's stance on any particular issue. The other interesting thing about voting really early is not having to pay attention to political ads for the few weeks before the election.

Even if we were voting in person, we're the last state to vote so most times it's already decided before we get to the polls anyway.

Today will be another work on the windows day. All this started because I wanted to hang some curtains. Now I seem to be glazing windows and repairing the frame instead. The windows seem to have previously been glazed with Bondo as well as some sort of tub caulking. Glazing putting is cheap and easy, why didn't they just use glazing putty?

This whole house renovation has been a study of 'why did they do that?' There was the hole in the bathroom where a chunk of 1/2" plywood was plopped over it and then the unlevel floor 'fixed' by putting tile over it. The front porch post holding up the corner of the roof was in the way so it was just removed. However, they forgot to put the anti-gravity unit under the roof cornice that the post was holding up. The roof corner was down by about 4". The big front windows originally didn't shut since the front post under the house had rotted out at the bottom so that was down by about 3". They'd put the 4x4 post directly on concrete so moisture constantly wicked up into the end of the post and rotted. That's like 'duh'! It's been fixed and now the windows can move again although there's still a lot of window repair.

At some point the entire windward wall of the house (the end with the two bedrooms) was replaced and the nice double hung sash weight windows were replaced by louvers. Which would be okay, except they were just kinda randomly stuck in the wall. Not the same size, shape or even height of the other windows. Not even matching window trim. Arrgh!

It's just a rental so I didn't replace the louvers, but if it was a house we were going to live in, that whole side of the house would have been reframed most likely. Well, off to go fix windows. Wonder what interesting 'why did they do that?!' will show up today?

 

[Larsen Poultry Ranch]

Mmmmmm, coffee! Arrgh! My cup is empty. (insert pause here) Okay, now there's coffee in the cup, didya miss me?

We voted weeks ago when we got our mail in votes. The entire state is doing vote by mail. They have drop off centers and I think a few in person voting places, but our local polling places aren't there anymore. Used to be fun to hang out and chat with everyone else while voting, but no hanging out and chatting this year.

I am liking the vote by mail, though. It's a whole different experience to be able to vote with a computer and ability to look stuff up instead of trying to remember each candidate's stance on any particular issue. The other interesting thing about voting really early is not having to pay attention to political ads for the few weeks before the election.

Even if we were voting in person, we're the last state to vote so most times it's already decided before we get to the polls anyway.

Today will be another work on the windows day. All this started because I wanted to hang some curtains. Now I seem to be glazing windows and repairing the frame instead. The windows seem to have previously been glazed with Bondo as well as some sort of tub caulking. Glazing putting is cheap and easy, why didn't they just use glazing putty?

This whole house renovation has been a study of 'why did they do that?' There was the hole in the bathroom where a chunk of 1/2" plywood was plopped over it and then the unlevel floor 'fixed' by putting tile over it. The front porch post holding up the corner of the roof was in the way so it was just removed. However, they forgot to put the anti-gravity unit under the roof cornice that the post was holding up. The roof corner was down by about 4". The big front windows originally didn't shut since the front post under the house had rotted out at the bottom so that was down by about 3". They'd put the 4x4 post directly on concrete so moisture constantly wicked up into the end of the post and rotted. That's like 'duh'! It's been fixed and now the windows can move again although there's still a lot of window repair.

At some point the entire windward wall of the house (the end with the two bedrooms) was replaced and the nice double hung sash weight windows were replaced by louvers. Which would be okay, except they were just kinda randomly stuck in the wall. Not the same size, shape or even height of the other windows. Not even matching window trim. Arrgh!

It's just a rental so I didn't replace the louvers, but if it was a house we were going to live in, that whole side of the house would have been reframed most likely. Well, off to go fix windows. Wonder what interesting 'why did they do that?!' will show up today?

My first house was like that. Apparently the original owners wanted the layout just like their house back in Germany, and then it kept getting modified by each new owner, but diy and NOT to code or even common sense. I'm so glad I sold it and no longer have to deal with that. We made a bunch of repairs but it would have cost a fortune to fix it all.

Now I'm learning about modular homes, which apparently have particle board for subfloor, and no ducting for the furnace, just metal sheathing between the floor joists. Which is somehow accessible to rodents..

 

[Baymule]

I've lived in real nice houses and real terrible ones. Big, small, in good shape and almost falling down. 1 bathroom, no shower, space gas heater in one room that never heated the whole house, and leaky roof. Our old house that we sold 6 years ago was a 2500 square foot brick house with a 2 car garage, nice home. We bought this place, a double wide mobile home. @Larson Poultry Ranch I get it about the mice. Even had an exterminator plug up the holes under the house. It worked for about a year. Now I just toss rat poison under the house. I use Just One Bite and no more mousies.

 

[Finnie]

I voted today. DH and DS voted early and tried to get me to as well. Seems like there was a big push here for early voting. They had two locations, the courthouse and the fairgrounds. I would drive by and see huge lines out the doors. Traffic jams blocking the square from all the people trying to get to the courthouse. I said No Way. I will just wait because on voting day there will be no one left that needs to vote. And I was right! When I got to our usual polling place, there was NO LINE at all!! There was one person leaving the building, one person voting, and me. I’ve never seen anything like it. Best voting day ever!