Pump the brakes

Jun 24
5 min read

Welcome back family and friends.

We have been experiencing very high temps and humidity, so the progress is slow going. We work in the morning and the evenings, and take it easy mid day. The blessing is it has been cool at night so we leave the windows open, so we can enjoy the respite. We enjoyed a few days of rain. One was just a drizzle all day. The other, well we got 5 inches of rain in 24 hours. Majority of it in the first 8 hours.

Kitchen update....Rick got all the shelves inside the cabinets done. He also got all the doors made and installed. Lastly, he built out all the drawers and got them installed. There was a lot of cussing on the drawer day. They were just not mounting in there right. They were not pulling in and out smoothly. He finally had to walk away for the rest of the day. He went back at it the next day. He saw the problem and got them fixed. Now they work like a dream. We just need to stain all of them. After that we need to mill some wood for the shelves we will be adding. Those will be stained pecan with really creative mounting brackets. You will have to wait and see. The window needs trimmed, and I need to make curtains and get a rod. After that we need to create hooks behind the wood stove to mount the cast iron pans. We will then be able to unpack all things kitchen. We will not be mounting the heat shield on the cabinet until we lay the flooring.

It is most interesting how creative you can be when finances are tight. We keep a tarp in our side yard that houses all the scraps from other projects, items we never used and things we have acquired for cheap for free along the way. It has been a blessing to us. Also a blessing is neighbors who share tips on where to get things for free or cheap. All of our cabinet doors were made from pallet wood we received from a neighbor that moved out and some we collected from local stores.

In preserving news, Our onions and other garlic patch did not do so well. The bulbs were tiny. I went ahead and processed them up. I canned the onions and froze the garlic. I received a blessing from our friends. Two walmart bags of beets. I got the beets canned. I also canned some of the greens and pickled the rest. I also canned up some rhubarb for future cakes. Yum.

The garden has been keeping us busy. We have harvested green beans 4 times. The kohlrabi and turnips are done. I have some in a basket to use up. It freed up some valuable planting space. I also harvest some rutabaga. The leaves were getting destroyed by bug pressure, so in the basket they went. With all the available space, I planted sweet corn, watermelon, green beans, climbing beans for drying, peanuts, cantaloupe, replanted some zucchini and a second patch of sweet corn. I also created a new culinary herb garden by the cabin. I transplanted by parsley plant, and added seeds from 12 other herbs. We will see how they all do. I have to be very vigilant in the watering with this weather. One of my medicinal herb gardens is doing really well, the others so so.

Let's talk nature. We have been enjoying the fire flies. They are putting on such a light show. Our hummingbirds have mostly moved on. We have seen a few flying around. We found a huge slug in our drive way. I made Rick get rid of it. The last thing we need is that nasty thing destroying my gardens. The birds have been so chatty lately. We love listening to them. Watching them with their mates is amazing. We have some beautiful flowers blooming round here. Some day there will be a lot more. Flowers make me happy. Now the down side. We have a major knat problem. The cat box, our toilet, compost bucket and my wet wipes are just drawing them in. They drive me nuts, but when the maggots come around, they gross me out.

We have been working on a lot of little projects. We put a lot of things off, but then take a day we can just knock out a lot of little things. The cats needed their claws trimmed. They box needed dumped and refilled. Rick replaced the metal on the roof that was damaged in the ice store. He also has been running tests on our electrical systems to figure out how to fix an error that keeps happening with our bluettis. He thinks he has it figured out. We removed 9 more stumps in the yard today. We are slowly getting them all gone. I have been making bread and desserts lately. It is good to be baking again. Mostly testing recipes that I have collected over the past few years. I have found some keepers and some that I will not make again. Still in search of a great bread recipe. I did get the family photos printed finally. I got all black and whites to go with the frames that I have. Rick got them all up on the wall with my tree of life. I am also officially doing all the laundry on site. It uses a lot of water, but it gets the job done. No more collecting quarters.

The most trying time of the last couple of weeks, is the brakes on the jeep. We took the jeep in to get the wheels balanced. Some of the weights fell off. The tech told Rick that some of the pads were at 40%. Which stumped Rick. He replaced the pads in the last 4 months or so. A gentleman overheard the conversation and informed Rick that there is a flaw in the brake lines in jeeps. It was never declared a recall. The metal on the lines rust and corrode. It causes the lines to collapse. Rick immediately ordered parts to completely overhaul all the brakes. Meanwhile we had to stop driving the jeep. One of the brakes was very close to locking up. We waited for the parts to come in. Rick took two days to get the job done. Now it works like a dream, but he was tuckered out for a few days.

I lastly wanted to say Happy Belated Father's day out there to all the dads. I hope you had a great day filled with love and were spoiled rotten. Also my oldest baby turned 30 yesterday. She is about 32 weeks pregnant with our grandson. We are looking forward to meeting him in August when we head to Michigan for a week. We are also looking forward to visiting with family and friends while we are there. My body is not looking forward to the long drive back there. lol

Thank you so much for stopping by our blog. We love keeping everyone updated on what we are doing. We also hope that we inspire somebody to take the leap into this lifestyle or to take the leap into a dream they have been thinking on. We hope you have a great week. If you have not done so, please subscribe. We do have an amazon wish list. We also love getting comments. All links are below. Take care and we will talk to you soon.