Ridgetop - our place and how we muddle along

[Mini Horses]

Hay vs cattle sounds like a win/win to me!

Less fence and hay for you. Both good. As to the house renovations, they make me think you can feel comfy in the house....better than you thought before! Settle in!

 

[Ridgetop]

Having this smaller house, even with 4 bedrooms, makes me realize that it is time to do less housework, and more other stuff. Like my hobby of renovating!

My other house is finished and DS2 can do the next round of stuff like building more patio and putting in an outdoor kitchen. He also has plans to redo the kitchen counters and change something in the bathroom. Go for it, Son! The fact that I don't care when he says he is going to rip stuff out and renovate tells me that I can move on.

The living room and dining room are actually not any smaller than the family room at our other house while the kitchen is much larger. I can finally have an island kitchen! Both my last kitchens were galley style kitchens. That was fine while the kids were younger, and I was the only cook. Now everyone cooks and the kitchen gets crowded.

After I finished scrubbing the cabinets out yesterday (they are extra deep and I feel it in my back and shoulder muscles today) I watched a little TV with DH and DS1. I got restless sitting, and the borders started closing in on me. I decided to see how tightly they were stuck on the paneling and Surprise! A section just lifted right off. Naturally I did "just one more piece" and this morning have only "one more piece" to take down in the living room. LOL I will get to it today, then get back up on my step stool with some warm water and wash down the left-over pieces and glue. DS1 is going to Walmart today so I will have him pick up some Pledge or Old English wood polish. One more item off the list of things to do! It really makes a difference. I need to take a photo of the last bordered wall and then afterwards.

BTW, I checked the tub again and it didn't feel as narrow as I originally thought. The problem was the towel rod mounted over it which makes you have to lean out when standing in the tub. I will remove that today and check again. Maybe we can just go back to the original plan of Miracle Method coating the brown tub with white, and installing the shower piping. I can get a bid on resurfacing the mustard counters in the kitchen too. I can put in quartz counters later when I am not spending my lifetime savings and firstborn grandchildren on fencing! By now I would have to give them DGSs 5 & 6, and DGD 3. They are still cute and not able to argue!

Jeremy thinks our 2 fig trees died in the last freeze. I won't replace them this year. After sitting on the back porch I realize the orchard should have been planted closer to the house along the property line where the trees could be seen blooming in the spring and shield the view of the neighboring 39 acres that is for sale. I made add more fruit trees next year. The owner bought it to develop and changed his mind he has it listed for $479K. The house is a tear down with the floors caved into the basement. Black Mexican buzzards nest in the house through a huge hole in the roof, and the outbuildings need work. Cody was interested but not at that price. We told him that if he decided to make an offer, we would like the 14-15 acres behind the short arm of our L. Or if we can scare up the money, split it with him. He is interested but not at that price. It is a great hay farm though and they usually make lots of good rolls off it. I gave him the owner's name and # and he is going to see about getting a lease to cut hay.

 

[Ridgetop]

The estimate on the fence came in from Levi on clearing and installing our 6' perimeter fence. $18,800. We buy the posts and wire. The posts will be slightly cheaper because Levi said not to get the 10' posts as they would just bend before they could be driven into the ground the requisite 2'. I have cancelled those posts and will order 8' posts, 1.33 lb/ft, which are much heavier (stronger) and will support the fence. He said that we only need 300 posts instead of the 400 I was going to order. He is welding the braces out of 2 3/8" oil stem pipe. The 16' gates into the hay meadows will swing on heavier pipe. There will be 2 gates - one in front of the pond and one behind the pond, so 2 on the short part of our L. No fences other than the barbed wire perimeter on the 30 acre hayfields.

We will be going with this estimate since we are buying the wire and T-posts on our credit cards (which give us Costco dollars) and allows us to pay them off in several months. Fronting the month on $30-80K for fencing was a no go financially without a longer term loan. We can afford the $18-19K for clearing and install on the 15 acres now. Levi said he can start the fence clearance in a week or two. He does construction of metal buildings and other construction and is hoping to start this while most of his crew is working in Yantis now. Naturally he knows Cody Hunt and his dentist is Mrs. McDonald's grandson, Danny Lawrence. I LOVE SMALL TOWNS!

Yesterday I washed down the paneling where I removed the wallpaper border in the kitchen and back hallways. I had to wet and scrape some left-over paper backing but only had one area that was tough. Lots of ladder work and my knee was killing me by the time I quit. But since there is limited stuff I can do for the remaining days here, I figured I might as well get that done. I still have the LR/DR border areas to scrub today, along with the border behind the pole rods over the two windows. I will do a thorough paneling clean and polish when we return. I have revised my opinion about the cabinets and paneling. I think they are actually oak. Without the wallpaper border they have very pretty grain in a natural light color. That is, of you like oak, which I do. In the meantime, I feel like I accomplished a lot while here. I also installed smoke alarms in the bedrooms. There were none in the house! DS1 and DH said it was foolish to buy and install smoke alarms when we would not be here - since no one would hear them if there was a fire. I agreed but pointed out that our insurance policy probably required smoke detectors and if so, they would not pay off if there WAS a fire while we were gone. DH bought the smoke detectors on one of his trips into SS for supplies. I put one in each BR but am not sure where to put one in the LR/DR/kitchen "great room" since the smoke detectors need to be 20' from a point of ignition like the stove or the fireplace. I will have to get out the measuring tape. We don't need CO2 detectors since the house is all electric, but I will probably install at least one this winter when we start using the fireplace. I bought a door sweep for the kitchen door since there is a fairly large gap under it and I don't want mice to come in while we are gone. Unfortunately, I didn't bring a hacksaw, so we have to buy one to cut through the aluminum. Another trip to Lowe's. The bathroom towel rods need to be higher as well. We are using beach towels, and the rods are very low causing them to hang onto the ground! Ugh. Quick fix.

I am so happy we got the washer and dryer and have already used it several times. GE, only 4 years old and one of the new large volume models with no central agitator. Love it. Not a stacking set so don't know where the freezer will fit in the laundry room, but I will figure that out next time.

So far, so good with few or no unexpected problems. DH (the electric plug and separate circuit fanatic) keeps pointing out where the lack of an outlet might be problematic, but I told him we can remove the double plug outlets and install quad outlets. No need to rip down walls. YET!

 

[farmerjan]

Sounds like things are falling into place faster and better than you were expecting and that is good. How much longer are you staying before you have to head back? Are you getting together with @Baymule this trip? Guess you will have to and go see the new lambs she is getting.

 

[Baymule]

They are coming here tomorrow, spend the night and Sunday go to pick up their puppy before going back to Cally-for-ni-ay!

 

[SageHill]

Fabulous news on the fencing!!! Sounds right too - similar to what we did last year.
And the house - it's the gem you thought it was when you first saw it - and the beginning of a great new adventure.

 

[murphysranch]

Smart to get a CO2 detector, since you've got a fireplace. Its code where I've lived with all electric everything else.

 

[Ridgetop]

Yes, our children would be really angry of we spend their inheritance to move here, then died from CO2 inhalation over the winter.

Signed the fencing guy up yesterday. Checked on the 8' 1.33lb/ft posts - "the orange" ones and they were priced less at the co-op than the regular ones at TSC. Ordered 300 and they will arrive in about 4 weeks so everything will be on the right time schedule. (The Co-op did not call back with a price on the Sta-Tuff fencing and it turns out I could have gotten it $1000 cheaper from the Co-op. The person I talked to didn't sound too interested in pricing it for me, so I didn't call back. my bad. Apparently I did not talk to the right person. I have her name now and she said just call her. I will get the rest of the shorter fencing for the sheep pastures from them probably. Fence Guy Levi said he can pick up the posts if necessary, so I added him to the persons allowed to pick up order at Co-op. They know him well there. Levi is very nice and said to call him since he has a small list of GOOD trades to call on for any work - pond cleaning, plumbing, etc. Good call to go through local people when hiring since a recommendation from a local is best anyway. Also lets us meet local people we will need. BTW, Levi's dad raises goats and sheep.

Everything seems to be coming together now. The fencing is in line to be installed. The 30 acres of hayfield is mostly Bahia with spring rye coming up now. It is getting 80+ tons f chicken poop on it in the net week or two. (DS1 says that it is a good thing for our noses that we will be heading to CA during the poop time! LOL) Cody will cut and bale the 30 acres. He estimates 60 round bales per cutting. DH was surprised and asked Levi if that was for the year or per cutting. Levi said it sounded right per cutting and both he and Cody thought this year you would get 3 cuttings. I will have to buy hay this year for winter feeding, so I will talk to Cody about buying Bahia from him, and he can just move the round bales behind the barn for me. I still need to do soil tests on the property to check the selenium levels and other minerals.

I finished stripping all the wallpaper border from the paneling in the kitchen, halls, and LR/DR and washed it a bit to get the remnants off. This paneling is good oak wood paneling, not the cheap printed paper paneling you get now. Luckily, or removing the glued on wallpaper would have taken the paneling paper right off. It is actually 1/4" plywood paneling with an oak veneer on top. There is no drywall under it though. The large "built in" cabinet awkwardly located in the corner of the room will be movable after unscrewing it from the wall. I THINK/HOPE. It interferes with proper furniture arrangement and is very deep. Pete MacDonald built it for his kids to keep their 4-H and FFA trophies in. It is a nice piece of furniture with glass doors, just in the wrong place for me. If I can't move it, I will deal with it.

The former tenant, Larry, really shopped around for stuff when building his house and said he has a couple good places to buy whatever. He said he has a good, reasonable countertop guy. I wonder if he also knows a good tile person. I can do the shower tile myself though, so why pay someone else to do it if I can save some $$ for countertops. Or fencing. Or a carport. Or . . . .

Heading off to visit Baymule soon. We will laugh a lot, go to dinner, eat Blue Bell & Coke floats, have fun, and spend the night. Then tomorrow lunch with Erick in Leander and pick up the new Anatolian puppy, then back to Yantis, and load our stuff to leave for CA home early Monday am. While DH, Baymule, and I are kicking up our heels (as far up as people in our primes can do without injury) DS1 will be vacuuming the house, locking up tools, doing last laundry of sheets and towels, hitching the gooseneck, putting away everything that is staying here, and getting everything loaded for Monday am. The puppy will travel back in the truck with either DH and I or DS. We have a crate with us for nights in the motel. We will pick up 80 bales of Arizona alfalfa on the way back. It is $22-24 bale. Cheaper than we paid last summer. We have about 200 bales left on our account at $26/bale - not enough to last the end of the year. We are coming home with an empty flatbed trailer so makes good sense to pick hay up on the way home.

Very happy that everything is coming along here. I have a list of stuff to be=ring back next time. A desk lamp is one item. I have my card table in one of the bedrooms - not a comfortable height for the keyboard, but really need a desk lamp.

Gotta go! No more BYH until we arrive back in CA around the 17th.

 

[Baymule]

I just went to the store and got Blue Bell ice cream.

 

[SageHill]

I just went to the store and got Blue Bell ice cream.

And you had to say Coke floats yesterday?? Now I have a taste for a black cow!! Dang you!!!