Requesting 32 hours in a day please!

Rain?  Are you kidding me?

It's 4:30 AM on a Sunday morning and I'm clumsily punching the button on the Kuerig that says brew.  The big cup.
Crunch!  WTF? Aluminum foil?  Oh crap someone got in the trash last night.  Damn dogs anyways.  I wish they would clean up their mess.
Down stairs we go.  Food, water, pee!
Hubba hears us from inside his coop and starts roostering in the dark.  "Shut up stupid", I tell him.  He doesn't listen.

I look up, peering at the dark morning sky, searching for stars.  My weather indicator for the morning.  I see nothing but black and a little more black.  Damn I hope it doesn't rain.

Back inside I settle on the couch with my cuppa and laptop.  First stop, weather and its radar.
"Shit", I tell the dogs, who have almost returned to a full state of sleep.  Remmi, on his back with all four legs up in the air, jerking every so often while his nose twitches.  No doubt dreaming of chasing the Frisbee, a new found love, or his beloved ball.  Gunner curled up into a tiny ball (amazing how a 108 lb dog can curl up so tight) and snoring while emitting the softest little farts.  I shake my head at them.  "You guys suck", I whisper.  They don't seem to notice.
Radar shows the rain is going to start any minute now.  I hoist myself up off the couch, coffee in hand, I head back downstairs.
I am right in the middle of 30 or 40 different projects and the unexpected rain has caught me off guard.

Friday I started chicken coop renovations.  Trying to get ready for winter.  I needed to build some nest boxes, enlarge the pen and build a new water and food system so I don't have frozen watering devices when it gets cold.  Part of the process was to clean and organize the shed.  I had moved the tractor outside to do so and it was still there.  I never leave my tractor out but for this instance I needed the room and I wasn't done with my coop upgrade.  So out into the dark I went with a tarp to cover the old John Deere up.  As I emerged from the garage it was just beginning to sprinkle.  "Good timing", I thought to myself.

Then I noticed another project that I had left unfinished. (surprise).  Once I had finished working on the coop for the day I needed to cut up some wood that had been piled up on my back property line.  I already had the tractor out so I hitched up the trailer, grabbed my saw and headed for the wood pile.  I was able to stock my campfire rack full of wood and the rest of it I stockpiled under the deck on the patio.  This is one of my projects that is almost finished.  I have been moving a supply of firewood close to the house for use during the snowy winter months.  This way I don't have to carry wood from the main stack when the weather is crap.  Plus it stays clean and dry.  Of course the pile I stacked under the deck that day was left uncovered and guess what?  It's raining.  So back into the garage I go for another tarp.  Now that things are secure outside I head back into the house.

Mmmmm.....smells good in here.    I know what your thinking.  Why would my house smell good at 5 in the morning.  It's because of another project I started and didn't get to finish.  Yesterday morning I took a stroll through the garden and was astounded by the amount of vegetables that were ready to be picked.  I wasn't planning on doing anything that day that involved food but hey it's me!  I do a lot of unexpected things.  I grabbed up my buckets and bins and set to picking.  I picked around 175 tomatoes (Roma) and a bunch of peppers.  I was going to make BBQ sauce and hot sauce, both from scratch.  Little did I realize how time consuming this was going to be.  I had to run to the store to pick up a few ingredients and when I returned I set to work.  Washing each tomato, dunking them in boiling water and then into ice water, peeling them and squishing all their guts out!  Once all those were done I strained them in a colander and put them in a large pot to simmer.  Then I cut up all the other veg.  Peppers, onions, celery and a host of other seasonings were dumped into the pot with the squashed tomatoes and set to simmer.  Once those were cooked down a bit and all the veg. was soft I ladled it out of the pot and into the food processor.  I pureed the mix and then ran that through a sieve into my slow cooker.  This part sucked.  I really need a food mill.  Eventually I had it all strained.  All of the seeds and missed skins and other bits and pieces were removed and I had a nice smooth mix in the crock pot.  Now I had to reduce the mixture to a thick BBQ sauce texture.  The slow cooker works great for this as it slowly reduces it without constant attention.  That's when I got the call.

We had new tires put on Kaitlin's car Friday and when they did it they apparently damaged a brake line somehow.  Luckily she made it home to her Dad's house OK and the puddle in the driveway was a dead giveaway.  So I had to go to the parts store and get a length of brake line and some unions and such and head over to her Dad's house where he and I successfully changed out a section of her brake line and when bleeding the brakes found out that where I removed the old brake line from a prior union it had obviously twisted enough to cause damage on the opposite side of the union that we had just replaced.

Son-of-a-......now it's too late to go any further.  So I cleaned up and Momma and I headed back into town to purchase another length of brake line and grab dinner.  It was now 8 PM.
We arrived home around 9 or so and of course I had turned off the BBQ sauce before I left because I didn't want to leave it unattended.  Went to bed and when I awoke this morning, turned the sauce back on.
That is why it smells good in the house.  Although BBQ sauce is not my preferred scent of the morning (sausage and pancakes would be better) it still smells good.

Damn rain.  I guess I'll be finishing the brake job in the rain this morning.  Damn unfinished projects.  Not sure I'll get the hot sauce done today either.

So here are a few pics to back my story up.  I don't make everything up, just some things!

These are the first two stacks.  The third, not pictured, is the one I had to cover up.

The day's catch!

I let Louie and Hubba into the garden for some treats!

Straining the mixture into the crock pot.

And the brake line.  These are not the fittings I used.  Just because he works at a parts store doesn't mean he knows anything.  You can't fix brake lines safely with compression fittings.  You have to flare the lines and use the correct unions and nuts.

The new nest boxes

I've been so busy I haven't had time to shave!

Remmi Too!

I don't know about you folks but I got stuff to do!

Later,

-Bushman

When Good Animals Go Bad

The air is crisp this morning.  It feels awesome.  It was still a little dark when I let the dogs out for their morning rituals (running hell bent through the woods in search of any creature still lingering about....and pooping)
Inside the chicken coop (shed) Hubba is crowing his little head off.  I prefer the term roostering to crowing.  Don't crows crow?  Then rooster should rooster.

I scanned the small alfalfa field behind the house.  Empty.  Yesterday morning as I stood on the deck with my coffee in hand a Pony came walking by.  Then a goat.  I gave my coffee a glance thinking how in the hell did someone get in the house and slip something in my cup without me noticing?
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.  Still there.  I think he even looked up at me and winked.

So I set my coffee down, put a shirt on (nobody wants to see a fat, shirtless pony herder), donned my best flip flops (the ones missing a chunk out of the toe area from a dog that shall remain nameless) and headed outside.  If you haven't figured it out yet I wasn't stoned it was the neighbors "pets" and their relentless pursuit of freedom, or alfalfa.  Normally it's the horse that I have to chase down but today it was the other two.

I headed out into the field and did the horse noise thing with my mouth.  You know the one you make with your cheek.  Sorta like a squirrel.  Go ahead try it, no ones looking.  Yep that one!
A couple of those cheeky sounds and My Little Pony comes trotting right up to me.  This will be easy I say to the little guy.  He has no halter or lead so I just grab a handful of grass and entice him a bit.  He follows me easily enough until the goat comes running up and steals the grass from my hand which in turn causes the ponies brakes to lock up.  I reach down for another handful of grass and receive a prompt head butt from the pesky goat.  I give him a stern look and shake my finger at him, reminding him how much I like Greek food!  He doesn't seem to notice.
Out of the field and into the neighbors yard we go.  A loony looking parade if I have ever seen one.  A man in flip flops and sweat pants with a paint stained white t-shirt leading a pony with a handful of grass and being constantly ran into by a pesky goat.  Then the neighbors two dogs notice me and all hell breaks loose.

They are notorious barkers and I begin to think this might be good as it will wake someone up and they can come put away their animals.  Oh I didn't tell you it was 7:30 in the morning?  The dogs are barking non stop and it is echoing off everything.  Damn it's loud.  They go for the goat, nipping at his hooves and he starts jumping around and then the pony starts getting a little nervous and wanting to head back to the field and the dogs are coming awful close to my legs and even though their tails are wagging the hair is bristled up on their necks.  This could go horribly wrong.  I'm thinking I should have just left them in the field.  I can just imagine the neighbor waking up and looking out the window at me kicking his dogs and trying to "steal" his livestock.

I make it to the gate and manage to get the chain off and get it open slightly before the pony decides he doesn't wanna go back to jail and begins to head the other direction.  I chase after him grabbing the only thing available which is his mane and try to pull him back to the gate.  That's when Mr. Horse comes around the corner and sees an open gate.  "Oh shit", I say letting go of the pony and running back to the gate.  He isn't a very big horse but still intimidating at 7 feet tall.  I try and shoo him back into the gate like an old mother Hubbard shooing chickens away from her flowers.  I see the laughter in his eyes and he kicks his head back at me the way horses do.  Kinda like he's saying, " yeah I know what you want but buddy it ain't
happening".

Now the dogs are barking at me and the horse and he is beginning to lift his feet up to kick them and of course I'm in between them.  Those dogs have been here before.  They know what they are doing.
So I say to hell with it.  My coffee is getting cold.  I lower my shoulder into the horse and push him back into the pen.  Just like a footballer pushing the sled during practice.  He gives way and I pull the gate closed a tad and turn my attention to the goat because if he head butts me one more time he isn't gonna make it till sunrise.  I get him in a head lock and drag him toward the gate.  He doesn't wanna go at first but finally does.
Now all that's left is the Pony.  He won't budge.  He is a Pony for Pete's sake.   You think I could man handle him.  Nope he is still a couple hundred pounds.  The dogs still won't shut up and then I notice a lady running from the house.  After 6-7 hours (seemed like it) of fighting her animals she comes out to steal the glory.  She asks me," Were they out?"
I wanted to say'", hell no I was just waking up and I though it was a good idea to come over here and take your horse, Pony and Goat for a walk but then they didn't want to go so I was trying to put them back in the pen but was having a hard time because your dogs were trying to eat me!"
Instead I said,  "yes".

She grabs the Pony and turns him around and leads him into a different holding pen and tells me  "The goat head butts the pony and he doesn't like it so he goes through the fence to get away from him".
"I can appreciate that", I say as I rub my thigh where the goat nailed me.
She looks at me kinda funny.
"Have a great day", I say as I turn and walk away.
I glance behind me every few steps to make sure that pesky goat didn't get out again.

That was how my morning started so of course this morning the first thing I did was to scan the field.
Not getting wrapped up in that dog and pony....and goat and horse... show again!

Momma has been working 12 hours a day and I thought it would be nice if I cleaned the house Friday and did all the laundry for her so she could just rest for the weekend.  She slept in till 10:30 on Saturday.  I think she was tired.  Once she had breakfast and dressed we went to the cider mill.  I just love fresh cider and warm donuts.  They also make wine and hard cider there so we picked up a bottle of each.
My daughter also loves going to the cider mill but she was not around that morning so we went without her.  Then I sent her a text message (just to tease her) that we went to the mill and the cider and donuts were so good.  I told her she had better have her boyfriend (Jake from State Farm) take her before they run out of cider and donuts.  She replied back "They are gonna run out?"  I could just see the fear in her eyes.  I laughed for quite some time.  No, I never told her that they wouldn't run out either.  I'm gonna make it real fun on Mr. Jake from State Farm.  She can't go to the mill and just get cider and donuts.  No she has to get a pumpkin and some candy and well, you get the point.  Better bring some extra cash Jake!

Then momma and I went to look at new furniture.  We found a really nice set but it was out of range on our budget so we will wait for a few months.  No sense in going under on a couch and love seat.
After that it was grocery shopping and home to stack wood.  I'm still stacking that never ending pile.

I went up to the cottage this past weekend to see my folks.  Had a nice visit. I even brought home a little project.  You know I like projects.  This is a 1972 Arctic Cat Lynx.  It is in awesome shape.  I hope to get it running and be able to play around on it this winter.

I also finished the install on the stove.

All that's left is brick.

The Sunday I came home from the cottage it was pretty cold and Momma said I need to either light the furnace or build a fire.  So of course I built a fire.  With the new paint job on the stove and the oil film that is on the stovepipe it was pretty smoky in the house.  Once the stove got to 300 degrees the new paint began to burn off, not burn away it just releases a vapor/smoke on the first burn  Kinda like curing the paint onto the stove.  The stove pipe has an oil film on it from the manufacturer so that began to smoke as well.  So for the first hour we had all the doors and windows open in the house to air it out.  Once the smoke cleared I shut the windows.  Then it was really cold in the house.  About an hour later we started to open windows again because it was too hot in the house.  LOL  I'm gonna like this thing.  I only put about 7 pieces of split wood in the stove.  I started it around 4pm and it was still producing heat at 9pm.  Had that been the old fireplace I would have put probably 20 pieces of wood into it to burn that long.

Today I'm going to play outside some more.  Stack more wood, cut some wood up.  Clean up some of the garden.  It's pretty much done now.  I have been making pepper water and I did pick some red jalapenos for making chipoltes but the tomatoes are almost done for.

The early blight this year was kept somewhat at bay but the late blight is really taking hold.  Lots of black spots on the tomatoes.  I have plenty of canned tomatoes now and some salsa in the freezer.

That's enough for now.  Long winded am I.

Happy First day of Fall
-Bushman

The inspector said,"Just leave a Benjamin on the stove".

Hello again!
I've been busy as usual.
Splitting wood and building chimneys!

On labor day I split the huge pile of wood I had been accumulating since spring

Friday I almost finished my chimney

I had to cut and frame a hole in the wall for the chimney to pass through and re-frame it all and re-drywall it.

On the inside I had to put a diamond tipped blade on the circular saw and cut through the brick.  Dust everywhere.  Momma would have shat her britches if she seen what it looked like.  Well, she still will when she cleans that room after I'm done friggin it up!

Then I patched the hole where the fireplace used to be after I framed it in

On the outside I re-framed the chase so I would have an access door.  The open spot will be a sheet of plywood with hinges on it.  I can swing it open, remove the cap on the bottom of the tee and tie a garbage bag around the bottom of the tee.  Climb up on the roof and when I run my brush down the chimney all the gunk will fall right into the garbage bag.  The door will also allow me to do frequent inspections of the chimney system.

Started putting the drywall back up when the guy showed up to purchase the old fireplace.

Momma brought me home the elbow, section of pipe and a damper to connect the stove to the chimney.  I will do that today.

Next is ordering the brick to cover the drywall and building a hearth under the stove.  A friend has some Terra Cotta looking tiles that might go well with the brick.  I'm going to check them out soon.

Now I have to go stack all that wood.  

You wanna help?