October 25, 2010 - Oh what fun!

Howdy, y'all! Welcome to my new blog!

There has always been a tendency in my walk through this life to get myself into all sorts of interesting jobs and hobbies. Those who know me will look me up just to ask, "What are you doing now?" Well folks, this latest gig is pretty fun, lots of work, and may put me in the State Hospital before it is done. With permission from my new employer I am launching this blog to keep everyone up to date on what I am doing, sometimes in excruciating detail! I hope you will enjoy it. 

 Beg pardon? Oh, you want to know what I am doing, do you? Let me tell you! I was contacted by a friend of the family who wanted to know if I would live in a house she owns. Rent? No rent. At least until I get the job finished. And what is the job, you ask? The house she is offering me was being used as a soap, candle and skin care products manufacturing plant. She wants it turned back into a house. A home. She hasn't decided yet if she wants it to be a bed and breakfast (as she has one of those right up the road from this one) or if she just wants it to be a regular rental property. Either way, it needs bunches of work. Never having been one to turn down a challenge, I took her up on the deal. Let me show you my first look at The Cabin.

It took a few days to decide to blog about the experience and I have done some outdoor work already, so the first thing to do is catch you up on what's been done so far. 

The lane the landlady wants me to use has been left untraveled for quite some time, and I have an itty-bitty compact car. There are cedars growing wild all over the property, including the road, and my poor little car had a hard time making down that lane with cedar babies as tall as her hood. My first job was to cut down the little trees, grass and weeds. The lane is exactly .1 mile from the highway to the cabin. 

(Sorry about the inaccurate date stamp. It took a bit to figure out how, but I will have it turned off in later pictures.)

I had to find the two cattle guards and then figure out how to get to them in order to open and close them. The top picture shows how the first cattle guard and gate looked. There was a weed growing up through the guard right at the latch to the gate, so I had to fight the weed to get the gate open. For you folks that have never been around such things, a cattle guard is a metal gizmo laid out in the road at fence lines wherever there is a gate, or as folks around here call it, a gap. Cattle won't, or at least shouldn't, cross them as they can't get their footing on the rounded bars. These metal tubes are laid out in rows across the road, usually over a ditch dug just for the purpose. The middle picture just shows what the road was like heading toward the second cattle guard. The darker clumps spreading out all over are the cedars. Like I said, they are everywhere! The bottom picture shows the road, and yes, that is dead wood all strewn out on that road. I will talk about that more later. Right now I want to show you what the first cattle guard looks like with it's new hair cut.

  Doesn't that look much better? I can get to that post on the right to get the gate unlocked now! Notice the lawn mower is in the wheel barrow. I discovered you can't push a lawn mower across a cattle guard. The wheels are too small and fall right through just like a cow's foot would. Or a gal's tennis shoe, sigh. So I picked that booger up, loaded it in the wheel barrow and charged across the guard. Never stop in the middle or you'll not get the rest of the way across. Oh, you will, as you can see, but it takes a bunch of muscle! We got it done, though. 

Side bar: When out in the country doing 'yard work', don't let Kinky Friedman (or anyone else, but he was my choice that day) sing to you from the cd player in the car. 

Luckily, I have a grandson with a new driver's license that is always glad for an excuse to drive out and help! 

I finished the front gate. Next was the road. I did mention how small my car is, didn't I? She is small enough that you can't fit a wheel barrow in the trunk. Nor a lawn mower. But I figured it out. I would move my car up to the next shady spot, then walk back for the wheel barrow and gas can and push them to the car, then walk back and get the mower and mow all the way to the car, then start over again. 

It took awhile. I would guess I walked at least 5 miles that day. Believe me, folks, this is not a normal country activity, but a girl makes due with what she has in the way of tools and gets the job done. The end results were worth it, though I must admit I chanted "I can't believe I am mowing a road" the whole time I mowed. Here is a shot of my lane after I did some cleaning on it. 

I worked that Saturday until I got to the second cattle guard. When I saw it my back tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Look here, you can clean this up if you want to, but I'm going home." Wise words from a back! I stowed the lawn mower and gas can under the wheel barrow for the next day and went home with my poor ol' back. The cattle guard is under all that tall grass behind the lawn mower, in case you were wondering. I could barely find it myself!

Sunday morning I was up bright and early and headed back out to the country. I worked and worked on that cattle guard, but gave up after I had a little more than half of it cleared.

Oh, some of you might say, it can't be that hard to clear a cattle guard. I refer you back to my remark about using whatever tools are at hand. This is what I had to clear the danged thing with, yep, hedge clippers!

 It's a fun job, but somebody has to do it! Once my back started complaining again, and since the end was clear so I could walk across and get to the latch, I made an executive decision. Every time I go out to the cabin I will cut the grass out of one strip until I have it cleared. The landlady is bringing Round Up so I can spray it in both cattle guards (and on a few patches of poison ivy I've found) to prevent it growing up through there again. 

Meanwhile, the mower was still getting it's workout and started running ragged and sluggish, so I stopped and cleaned the carburetor.

Nothing like a good cleaning to make a mower run right! It was back to moving the car, walking back for the wheel barrow, then back again for the lawn mower until I got to the wood pile. Remember I said I'd tell you more about that dead wood pile later. Well, now is later, people!

I couldn't find the white gravel that had marked the road up to that point, and I knew it had to be there somewhere. Sure 'nough, folks, it is right under the scraggly pile of wood that never quite made it to the big pile. The big tree trunks are barely far enough apart to get the car through, now that I moved the big one. I can honestly say I moved a tree all by myself! Deferring to my back again after that feat of strength I took a vote and it was unanimous. We will move a little of the scraggly pile each time we go out to the cabin until we have the road cleared, after we have cleared one strip of grass out of the cattle guard. The three big tree trunks - yes there are three, but two are laid together - can mark the other side of the road, as soon as I can talk someone into going out there and helping me move them, because I have done that once, ain't gonna do it again by myself! Once that is done, I will have a tree-lined lane, won't that be the pips! Not exactly the way we all think of a tree-lined lane, but I will have one all the same.

I started this blog 5 days into the work. Tonight I have covered the first two of those days. Tomorrow I will cover two more, until I am up to date. Coming next - I'll teach you how to fix a wooden fence that is falling down! I can't wait, I'm sure you can't either!

Meanwhile, if you like my writing style, please look up my book, listed over there to the right! Thanks, I appreciate that!

And for now, good night, everybody! Sleep tight!