Just a week???

It’s hard to believe that it was only a week ago since my last post, but it was. I know I didn’t get it posted right away, but then again I never do. Somehow something always interrupts, in spite of my best intentions. We’ve had such fun this past week I just don’t know where to begin. Let’s start with the wonderful job I did on the hose splice. I’m not quite strong enough I guess to do it properly, because the pasture hose leaks. On top of that the hose is too short. I tried putting the foam tubing on the hose only to have it spray water everywhere. That was fun, or it would have been if it was summer, and hot instead of 50 some degrees out. The problem with cheap hoses is that they’re cheap. It makes perfect sense to me. The female portion of the hose spewed water everywhere if it wasn’t going straight down. Since I wanted the hose as short as possible, it went down, and then up over to the tank, which is higher than the faucet. That curve put too much pressure on the hose end so it leaked, big time. The other hose is all wrapped up so I have no clue if it leaks or not, we’ll pretend that it doesn’t.

Our wonderful neighbors came back, and for two days we had absolutely no water, then just as suddenly we had plenty of water. Their pump died. Once it was fixed we had no water again, but for a day it was wonderful. Now I have household water but little else so I’m hauling water for the horses again. The difference is it’s freezing cold out. I’m trying to find out if there is any way I can stop them from filling their pond. The amount of water allowed per well is way more than they are using. A friend of mine looked it up on her well permit, and you are allowed 3.0 water acres per well, and they have two.  That works out to over 5K gallons per day so that’s no help. The only thing might be that nowhere on the permit does it say you can fill a pond. I’m going to the permit office for Lincoln County, and see what their permit allows. I might be able to stop them that way.  Barring that I’m going to have to haul water whenever they are here. We have no problems when they are gone.

I also managed to cut more wood, but it disappears so fast. All I have available to cut is very, very, old (over ten years), very dry, and very small. Tomorrow in-between loading, and unloading hay I’m going to have to find time to cut more. I have nothing left but kindling, and the days, and nights are very cold. I did get one big project done. We moved the pellet stove (it died, how dare it) into the back room, and the wood stove that was there into the living room. The challenge was converting the stove pipes from pellet pipes to regular stove pipes. The pellet stove uses a 4” double walled pipe, and the wood stove has 6” single walled pipes. It was quite a challenge, and once again I had to become creative. Valerie from the Mercantile let me borrow a crimping tool so I was able to customize some of the pipefittings. We took the brick from the back room, and used that for a base. I was going to use the base from the pellet stove as wall backing, only it was home made, and very crooked. Every time I came out of the bedroom, all I could see was this off balanced slab of rockwork. I couldn’t stand it so I bought more red brick and made a very interesting backdrop. You see Rudy never did show me where the mortar blades were or how to use them. In order to stabilize bricks that are not cemented in I had to come up with a pattern that interlocked to certain a degree. I’m not sure if I will leave  that way or once I find out how to cut bricks go to a more traditional pattern. I kinda like it the way it is so it might just stay that way.

I had to move the stove a bit to line up the piping, and discovered I’m a lot stronger than I thought. The biggest worry was whether I would have enough draw since I went from a large pipe to a smaller pipe, with an S curve in the middle. Turns out it has better draw than our other wood stove in the computer room. The living area is quite open. There’s the living room, the TV room, the dining area, and the kitchen with no walls in-between save for a dividing wall between the living room, and the TV room. That one little stove (same size as the stove in the computer room), has the whole area up to 60 degrees. That’s impressive, or at least it is to me, and quite comfortable. Now all I have to do is clean up my mess, and do some re-arranging. I found a good use for the rock base that was under the pellet stove too. April came over, and of course I just had to show her what I was doing. She told me she wanted something for her little wood stove in her bedroom. I told her she was more than welcome to the one I have, and am not using. It’s better than trashing it, and she needs something. Besides then she can go crazy instead of me. Actually it’s not that noticeable when it’s on the floor. Because it was standing against a white wall, (it has black metal trim), it was glaringly evident that the angles were all wrong.

Speaking of April, she has three more weeks before she can go see the doctor, and find out if her hand has healed enough so she can start using it again. I’m going to have to rein her in when she can start doing things here though because I know good, and well that she is going to overdo it. Not being able to use her hand is driving her nuts. She needs, and is used to a very active life. Once she gets the go ahead, she’s going to want to do all the things she’s been wanting to do for the last six weeks.

The 28^th or the 29^th the hauler is coming for Cupid, and Aulina. Two fewer horses to feed Yeah! When they leave I’m going to put Rigalo, and Santa Fe in their stalls. I’ll get my arena back, and I can make repairs to the loafing barns. They have had a gay old time chewing the wood. A lot of the chewing was out of nervousness, and boredom, and it seems like they’ve slowed down, or it could just be wishful thinking on my part. The other good thing is that when I work one or the other they won’t get so panicky if they are with the rest of the herd. For one thing they will be away from each other on opposite sides of the barn. They will also have neighbors so they won’t feel so alone. All they know at this point is each other so new roomies will be good for them.  I just wish I had the time to ride them they way they need it. I’ve been so tied up with projects, hauling water, cutting wood or the weather has been bad so I haven’t been on their backs since I first rode them. The thing is I’m really excited about riding them, and teaching them the ropes so to speak. Pretty soon I will have to start working on tax preparation, and then I’ll have even less time to ride. It will all work out eventually, I just have to be patient. That’s what I tell Rudy all the time, I guess now it’s my turn to be patient. Ain’t that the pits!