A little more organized

 After running to Show Low earlier in the week to return my shelving, I finally got the shelves up to house my cookbooks. There is a desk in the kitchen which I thought was the best place to put them. For years, I have kept a little bulletin board in the shape of a house so was happy to finally put it somewhere I could use it. It was originally some kind of display piece that I rescued  years ago when I worked for Alpha Beta. That was in the early 80's!  I also got to put up an antique letter/bill holder made of tin. In order to keep the books from falling off the shelf, I bought corbels and attached them to the top side of the shelf to use as book stops. Works like a dream. Hmmmm, I have a lot of cookbooks for someone who hates to cook. My big problem is that it seems that in every recipe, there is something in there that Pa will not eat so that gets a bit discouraging. Me? I'll eat anything except eggplant and buttermilk altho I will use buttermilk in recipes.

I dug out my wolf pictures and put them on the wall between my shelves in my craft room.

 A couple more of my wild life goodies went on the remaining wall in my craft room.

 Originally there was a valance over the bath tub in the master bath. I guess it was to give the illusion that you are looking out the window while you are soaking in the tub. I took that down and put a shelf above the mirror. I will probably add some greenery to give it an exotic look.

 Once again I was so sure Pa would be excited to have his own man cave but he doesn't seem the least bit interested in organizing it.

 We are getting used to the way the living room is organized. At first we had the sofa under the window but it interfered with watching tv.

 The sofa now backs up to the entry way. We figured that dirt and dust would fall off our shoes by the time we walked the length of the entryway on tile and stepped on the carpet. Time will tell!

 My plans were to sand the dining room table down a bit to get rid of the water spots but I decided to just apply the varnish and see what would happen. Fortunately, it did the trick and the table now looks brand new. The dining set used to belong to Pa's mom. One day we were at her house and I mentioned how much I loved the rose picture she had on the wall above the dining table. She stated that I could have it when she died but I would have to take the dining room set along with it. She was always going on and on that she wished Pa would put his name on the things he wanted after she and her husband were gone. On one visit as a joke, we got a stack of post it notes and put Pa's name on it and after his parents went to bed, we went around and put post it notes on everything, including the toilet. The next morning, his mom said " Well, I glad you finally let me know what you want." She was totally serious and never got that the whole thing was a joke. Pa and I laughed and laughed about that.

 This is probably one of the only times this table will be completely empty. I also varnished the top of my oak buffet and it looks as good as new.

 Pa cut the trim around our home made kitchen table so I stained and varnished it also. I still need to fill the tiny space between the trim and tile. I'm thinking I'll just get some tan caulking and use that as the space is too tiny for grout.

I bought this old cow bell at a garage sale before we left Vegas. I love the sound of it so hung it outside. When the wind blows, the bell rings. It is such a comforting sound to me.
Yesterday, Pa and I went down the road to the mountain of horse poo and got another truck load. I unloaded it this morning. Just as I got started, the wind started up. Lesson for the day: DO NOT WEAR LIP GLOSS WHILE SHOVELING HORSE SHIT. I think the reasons are obvious!

 SNAKES ON THE PLAIN

 This big beauty was basking in the sun this morning. He and his buddies live under one of the storage sheds. He was so beautiful!

 He is a little shy so back under the container he went.

After I came back in to down load the pictures, Pa said the snake came back out to sun himself again. They are great for keeping the mice down. It will be interesting to see what the dogs do when they see him.
My 50 strawberry plants arrived yesterday so I must get them planted soon. If this darned wind would ever stop, I will borrow Big Tom's roto tiller and get things going. Lots of my horse poo has already blown away and I need to get it worked into the soil before the rest of it disappears.

Caught up on laundry

 Pa made me some clothes line poles. As soon as the cement sets, he will add the clothes line. I won't be able to hang the clothes out on windy days unless we want our clothes full of sand. Breezy days should be ok. Some people don't like clothes that have been hung on a line because it makes them too rough but I really love the outdoorsy smell.

 Pa put some turnbuckles on one end so we can keep the lines tight. He did such a great job on the poles. He is always concerned about using up our stored power in our batteries so this should  ease  his mind somewhat. We are having an issue with our generator. It keeps blowing fuses. And guess what? Since we are using it for backup in case our batteries get too low, it is not under warranty!!! It is only under warranty if we would use it as a backup if we were in town, hooked up to regular power. What a bunch of crap!!! We would have bought a different kind if we had known that. We have a huge investment in this generator so can't replace it. I'm going to dig out the paperwork and see if it says anything about being off the grid.

 Anyhoo, I had two weeks of laundry to do so I used the dog pen fence as a temporary clothes line. I secured the clothes and towels to the fence with clothes pins and it worked quite well. It was breezy and everything dried quickly.

Guess what this is. It is a mountain of horse poop. Someone further down the road from us had to give their property back to the real estate company due to a divorce. We heard that there was a mountain of horse poop left behind and it had been sitting there for 2 years. Just what I need for my garden. I grabbed my shovel, some trail mix, water and my gun and headed over in my trusty truck. It took about an hour to load the back of my truck. This poop has been sitting here turning itself in to perfect fertilizer. It was like digging up peat moss and smelled like a bag of Miracle Grow. I got half of it unloaded once I got back home and ran out of energy to unload the other half. That is on my list of things to do today. I want to go back and get one more load. Hopefully I can talk Pa into helping.
   Pa found two snakes making whoopee right in front of our storage container. He said they were about 4 feet long. He ran in to tell me to get my camera but by the time I got out there, they had slithered under the container. He thought they were King snakes which will help keep the mice down. Since moving into the house, we don't get to see our birds in the morning. I moved the bird bath in front of the kitchen window and they either haven't found it yet or don't like being so close to the house with no trees to perch in. I scattered some bird seed around, hoping to attract them. I'd like to cut down one of the dead trees on our property and stick it in the ground by the bird bath to see if that would entice them but Pa says no to that idea.
   That's about it for now. Sorry our life isn't more exciting but at least you know we are still alive out here. One of our friends called yesterday and asked Pa if I was still alive. She said she would never come to visit us because we didn't have street lights out here. She is definitely a city girl. She doesn't know what she is missing.

I'm a happy camper

 Our new kitchen floor was installed yesterday. Dave and his crew arrived at 8 in the morning and left at 8 at night. They were so exhausted by the time they were done. I picked out this floor off a picture sent to me via email. When they hauled it in and we unrolled a bit of it, every one looked at it and said " What in the world were we thinking when we ordered this?" It's hard to tell, but there is a shade of orange thru out. It's a much better grade of linoleum than what came with the house. After it got all laid out, we discovered that we loved the floor. Even tho it is darker than the original, it makes the kitchen look bigger. It goes great with our cabinets and with the tile I installed in the entry way and around the fireplace. Dave and his crew did a wonderful job, even better than the factory job. The only downside was we weren't sent enough to do the back porch so we have two colors of linoleum in the house. I will just have to keep the back door closed to the laundry room.

 Maggie and Harley both approve of the new floor

I had just purchased the rug in front of the sink on Monday and by Thursday, it no longer matched the floor. It has a lot of red in it. Oh well, it will have to do until it wears out.

Look! I now have baseboards thru out the house! They also redid the seams in the carpet in the hallway and into Pa's cave and you can no longer see the seams. They did a great job. Then they went all thru the house and fixed all the places the original carpet layer flubbed up. So now instead of having a gap between the carpet and baseboard, the carpet goes right up to the baseboard.

 Here is my garden. (In minature) The biggest plants are broccoli. My green peppers don't seem to want to sprout. Only one has come up so far.

 This is my lilac that I ordered from Hirt's Nursery thru Amazon.com. The plants arrived in great shape and both lilacs are doing well.

 Here's my watermelon. My mouth is watering already for a tasty bite.

My squash (yellow if I remember right) and my tomatoes and pepperocini (why can't I spell that right?). Anyway, my tomatoes have blooms on them already. They can't go out side for another month yet! Pa said we will just have to bring our tomato cages into the house and put them on top of the pots.

This is why we can't plant outside yet. Would you believe this was just a few days ago? Since then we have had beautiful weather, and yes, winds. Today dawned bright and clear and cold. Oh, did I show you our batteries? I had to take pictures of our solar system to send to our insurance guy.
   I had to run to Saint Johns yesterday to pick up the mail. When I got back, I discovered the dogs had been in my craft room helping themselves to about 1000 pieces of card stock. It was strewn all over the room. I think they thought they heard a mouse and decided to investigate. I managed to save a lot of the cardstock and some of the pieces with teeth marks in them can be cut down and used to make smaller cards. The ruined pieces made a nice fire in the burn barrel. I moved the card stock to a higher shelf and put stuff on the bottom shelf that they can't ruin. Blimey, some of that stuff is expensive.
  We've tried all the suggestions on how to check on why Pa's side of the bed is leaking. He is still camped out in the guest bedroom. It will cost under $100.00 to order him a new "air chamber". I guess that sounds better than "air mattress". Select Comfort will pay for 55% of it and we pay 45%. Now my question is, if we can get a replacement "air chamber" for around $200.00 without the warranty, why in the heck did the original bed cost almost 2 grand? The base is plastic. We could have just ordered two "air chambers" then duct taped them together, thrown on a mattress cover and called it good.
   Oh my gosh, we actually got to watch Dancing with the Stars on Tuesday night. Thank you Dish TV. Please don't bother sending a bill..... I thought we would stay glued to the TV for at least a week since it has been so long since we have been able to do so but we have only watched one program a night so far. Even tho we have a choice of movies. I'm sure we will watch more in the winter. Pa goes to bed by 8 most nights so I will pretty much get to watch what I want.
  Well, you are all caught up now. More later

"They call the wind Miriah" I call it crappy

 Once again, it is windy. Whenever the weatherman says we will have gusts up to x amount of mph, he really means we will have constant winds at x amount of mph. Here is David putting the wires together for our solar panels. I don't know how he can figure this all out but he seems to have done it right because we are generating like crazy.

 Here's Pa putting in his two cents worth. We were so fortunate that what ever the guys forgot to bring, we had it so there was no delay and a couple of things we didn't have, our local Ace Hardware had on hand for a change. They usually say, "we can order it for you."  I really don't know how they stay in business.

 How do they know where to stick what wire? He really didn't have to look at the schematics too often to figure it out. He did have to call the factory a couple of times tho

 Due to our cold winter weather, the factory guy said we should hook up the panels a different way so they are sending a couple more breakers and wires. We have 3/4 of the panels hooked up and they are more than sufficient for our needs so you can imagine our power output when we have all 12 hooked up.
After blowing up our Select Comfort bed, thinking we would get a good nights rest, I woke up the next morning to discover Pa was missing in action. After looking at his side of the bed, I could figure out why.

 All the air went out of his side of the bed and he was sleeping in the guest bedroom. Jaz doesn't seem to mind the hammock effect. We checked the air hose and couldn't find any leaks. The next thing to do is  blow up the bed, disconnect the air hose and plug the connection with the plugs they provide. That way, we can tell if it is the hoses, connections or the mattress leaking. Guess what? I can't find the plugs and I just had them in my hands the other day. I hope I didn't accidentally throw them away. I will call the company and have them send me more plugs. Our bed is still under warranty so if we have to get a new mattress, we only have to pay 50% of the cost. It's hard to believe we have had out bed for 10 years already.

Yo! what's wrong with this bed?
We were supposed to get rain and snow today but when we woke up, it was partly cloudy and windy so Pa decided he would take the water truck to town and get a load of water. It is such an adventure, we call it Mr. Toads Wild Ride. When that water gets to sloshing around in the tank, you feel like you are getting pushed forward and backward all at the same time. Then when you turn a corner and the water sloshes from side to side, you think you are going to tip over sideways. There is no way I could ever drive that thing so I hope Pa stays in great health forever. Or that we win the lottery and can put in a well. Like that will ever happen.
I am hoping we can go to Show Low tomorrow. I found a cheap way to make our raised garden beds on Ana-White.com . She lives in Alaska and makes knock-off furniture. She had a post on there using cedar fencing to make the raised beds. I checked with Lowe's and they had the fencing for $1.77 each so I can make 6 inch raised beds for under $8.00 each plus the cost of compost , etc or I can make 12 inch beds for a tad more. Although we have about 6 more weeks before we can plant outside, I'm feeling a sense of panic at not being ready in time. I started my seedlings on the 27th of March and my broccoli is doing so well, I will have to transplant it into bigger pots soon. The bell peppers and golden peppers haven't sprouted yet. It's so neat to see things grow. I moved the bird bath close to the house but the birds haven't found it yet. With the wind, my bird  feeder has blown into the next county. I want to find a big stump and put it in the yard and nail the bird feeder to it . Then just the bird seed can blow away. We moved the dog pen so now the doggie door leads straight into the pen. The dogs aren't happy about that but we are. We don't constantly have to be on the alert as to where the dogs are. Eventually we will enlarge the dog pen so they have room to roam and use the current dog pen for the chicken yard.
Hey you out there! Keep in touch, will ya?

We have POWER, POWER, WONDER WORKING POWER!!!!

Just a quickie to let you know we now have power and water! God sure has blessed us with wonderful friends. PA's friend sent two of his workers to our house from Vegas and had them hook up our power for FREE! What a total surprise that was. Not that they were coming but that we won't be getting a bill. I don't know why God is blessing us so much but we sure do appreciate His mercy and blessings.
Pa is in the process of putting in the chimney for our instant water heater so we can have long showers tonight! We blew up our Select Comfort bed and can sleep on it tonight! How exciting is that? He also installed an electrical outlet for our freezer in the back porch. Since the weather is warming up, our freezer is having problems keeping our food frozen. It has been sitting outside ever since we moved here. We've been keeping everything frozen by running the generator in the motor home for a while in the morning and awhile in the evening.
The dogs are pretty excited about getting their Select Comfort bed back. Yes, they think it is theirs.
The finish crew is supposed to be here next Wednesday. By golly, it's about time. They will have to move the fridge, freezer, washer and dryer out of the way but really? I don't care. We have been waiting 4 months to get the house finished and they will just have to work around us.
Anyhoo, you can start putting in your reservations for when you want to come and visit. If you are bringing your camper or travel trailer, reservations won't be necessary but if you want to stay in the house, they will be. We'd love to see you!

Due to Circumstances Beyond Our Control...

Our solar panels have not been hooked up yet. Hopefully it will happen Monday. Nor have the finishing guys showed up to put in the kitchen floor or living room window. Our sales man says they will show up on Monday also. Yeah, right. We will see.

I had a request to show the hands toilet paper holder so I took pictures and here it is!

 Here is the hand towel holder. Someone will probably grab the towel and tear the hand off the wall.

 These are the hands of Pa, my mom and me that we had cast in wax. I painted them to look like they were the color of patina copper. Ok, maybe they look like dead hands. What do you think?

 Here is a side view of our solar panels. See that tree behind them? I made the comment to Pa the other day that it is my favorite tree on the entire ranch. It has such a nice shape. Ya know what he said? "Too bad I have to cut it down. It puts shade on the solar panels."  I said tough sh@$%#@. It isn't coming down. Maybe some one should have planned better. He could have put it in the same area but forward a bit and we wouldn't have this issue.

Here is the front view. I'm right proud of those puppies and the fact that we put them up ourselves in spite of the lousy directions they gave.
The weather was outstanding today. I took the dogs on a ride on the GrannyMobile. I put my two lilac bushes in their pots in the sun today. They are doing really great inspite of one of the dogs breaking off a little limb. My broccoli has sprouted in my table top green house! How exciting! I should take a picture of it and show you. It can't be planted outside until the middle of May which is good because we haven't even started a garden plot yet. We haven't decided where to put the garden yet anyway. Then we will have to fence it in so the cows won't trample it and then we have to put chicken wire around the bottom so the bunnies can't get in. And then we will have to put shade cloth over it so it won't burn. Good grief, maybe I should just go to the store and buy some frozen veggies and just forget it. Ha Ha, just kidding. It is April Fools ya know. That's about it for now!
  Oh, thanks to my sis in law, our mysterious bird that runs around on the ground has been identified. It is a Towhee. There are two kinds, the California Towhee and the Chaparral Towhee. I think ours is the California one from the looks of it. I should say them since there are two of them.