Winter Blues, Spring Greens and Picking Up Sticks

It was a cold, cold winter! The pipes out here froze twice. Once for 3 days and for 2 days a week later. The floors definitely need to be sealed, as I had to keep my feet swaddled, and mostly up off the floor, too, for most of the bad weather. The cold would just seep in. 

 

Some things to remember if the weather man says the word ‘freezing’. Go fill up the bathtub. That’s right, folks. Fill up the bathtub. The reason to do this is that if it does freeze and you don’t have any water….you can get a bucket of water out of the tub and pour it rather briskly right into the toilet bowl and the toilet will flush itself. Never forget this.  If you have little ones, be sure and keep the door closed, so we don’t have any drownings! Also fill up all your pitchers, big jugs, whatever you have at your house, to have water for cooking and teeth brushing and such. Just in case. If the pipes don’t freeze you are out one tub full and a couple of gallons of water. If it does freeze, you have the bases covered.

I went out during one of the frozen pipe days, to make sure water wasn’t spewing out from some outside source, and discovered the skirting on the house where all the pipes are was missing. Well, it was too cold to be hunting for and putting up that metal, but there were numerous 5 gallon buckets scattered around the backyard here at the cabin, some full of ice. So I stacked them up along the opening to block some of the frigid air blowing under there, stacked the ones full of ice in front of those so the wind wouldn’t make light of my efforts, and corralled the rest of the buckets and lids while I was out there.

Notice the wheelbarrow full of sticks. That load was just stuff I would pick up that was in my way. Just wait until you see what I found when I got busy on those sticks!

Spring finally sprang, and it was green, green grass growing all around, all around, yes, the green grass grew all around.

 (Where the black widow spiders and the scorpions live. I will wait until I have a rake or some other tool before I finish cleaning that area!)

 

One fine day, with the sun shining, birds singing and grass growing, I decided I’d best get out there and clean up the lawn before summer bears down on us, so I started picking up the sticks scattered throughout the yard. Here are pictures of some of the loads I carted off. I counted 8 before I was through - or as through as I could get at the time. I did NOT get these loads all done in one day, but rather through the course of Spring. 

 

You may wonder where I put all these sticks. Well, I’ll show you. I would take them out this side gate.

 From the gate to way out there to the wood pile seems flat in this picture. 

 It isn’t. Landlady owns a dog that loves to dig. That particular puppy spent quite a bit of time out here when the soap shop was in house. There are holes everywhere. So pushing a wheelbarrow full of these sticks could get a little bouncy-swervy. We prevailed, though. If it ever starts raining again, I must have a bonfire party, I swear!

I didn’t take pictures of all the mowing that went on, but one day the lawnmower died…and so did her machine. Actually, I’m proud to report I didn’t die; however, my arm decided it would not pull the rope another time hard enough to start the mower. I just left the lawnmower there, sort of a monument to the number of times I did get it going. Perhaps one day I will try again.

 

It was during these wonderfully mellow days of Spring that I went up and opened the windows at each end of the attic room. Let the heat out, the breezes in. The barn cats have shredded the door screens, so I can’t leave the doors open during this mild temperature season, but I can get some fresh air circulating! Of course, Landlord did warn me of creatures settling in the attic, but I haven’t seen a wasp or bee anywhere, so maybe I am safe.


Meanwhile, in another life, I have taken a full-time job as well as my part-time job at the soap factory. It isn’t easy juggling everything, but time to start working inside this old cabin. Spring is getting hotter.

I’m going to tackle the bathroom next. Watch for the reports on that project!

What I did on my winter break - Part 2

The second day of our Trolley Moving adventure dawned cold and blustery. James, Vanessa and I tackled cleaning up the trolley. It had been used for storage for some time, and the cats and raccoons had been in to rearrange things to their own tastes, as well. It was rather chaotic, to say the least. Here is what we had to secure before moving the trolley. Vanessa and I attacked the inside of the trolley.

Meanwhile, we had another issue…tires.

Yep, they were just a little bit flat. Well, not quite all of them. Only three of them were flat and they were only flat on that one side. We had thought we would have to take the tires off and maybe even have them replaced, or at least patched,  but decided to try airing them up first. There was an air compressor at the cabin, so we pulled extension cords out there and gave it a go. This is James working on the tires.

Once he had all the tires aired up, James came inside where it was a little warmer, and the wind wasn’t cutting right through. He pitched in and helped with the inside cleanup while checking the tires occasionally to see if there was any pressure loss. It took a little bit of elbow grease, but we got it cleaned up, sorted and stacked for transport. Looks nice, doesn’t it?

There were two wooden units sitting on the porch of the cabin that needed to go over to the new house, as well. We backed James’ truck up to the porch, pushed the shelves into the bed of the truck, then backed to the door of the trolley and pushed the units into the trolley.

 

To make sure nothing slid out of the doorway in route, we pulled one of the units against the door, and then it was time to pull up the stairs.

And with that we called it a day. Will start in fresh in the morning.


Next day …. The day before the end of the year. Cold, cloudy. It would be just James and I today.

After making sure the tires had stayed pressurized, some discussion was held on what route we would take to get this monster from point A to point B. After a bit, I said, “Show me.”
James and I loaded up in his truck and headed out. We finally decided, after much roaming around the countryside, and judging tree hangovers and one lane bridges and sharp corners cut through mini-forests, to go seek expert help. James’ grandpa had been in this county long enough to know all the back roads. He had a map for us, too! He gave us excellent advise. Many thanks, Mr. Van Dresar!

Back at the cabin, we hitched her up. Of course, there was a giant fire ant bed right where we had to be. Poor James had his hands full with backing up to the hitch. I am not a very good signal person, I am afraid. But we did manage to get the truck lined up right. Finally.

And we are off!

I do not intend to show you each and every picture of the entire 4 hour long, 18 mile journey. It was harrowing to both James and I because of all the scary things we had been told. Do NOT back up, it will tear up your truck. Go slow lest the trolley tip over. Watch for tree branches! They will rip the roof off the trolley. I will say I was never so glad to see the end of a journey, and that’s no lie! Here are just some highlights for you…how about a single lane bridge with trees over it? Will he make it?

YES!

More trees! I am ducking my head, like that will help.

Made it again!

Oh, saints protect us!

 

It even looks like the trolley is leaning to miss those branches, doesn't it?

We did go extremely slow. Here were the high and low mph. We were just speeding along, weren’t we?

 And then it happened. Turn right, turn right, turn right!

Nope, didn’t turn right. Now what do we do? We can’t back up. The map indicates we will go right out to the highway if we stay on this road, which we are violently opposed to doing. I got in the car and drove on down the road, praying for a parking lot or some such. Nothing. The only thing I found was a field that the ditch around it was very shallow. It would have to do. I went back and led James to the field and he turned the trolley around. Sorry, Mr. Farmer, for messing in your field. We tried to be as tender as we could!

 As Willie Nelson says, on the road again.
We caused quite a small stir amongst the few people we passed. None of the pictures came out, but we did get enough waves along the road that I fancied us being a slow moving parade across the landscape. Saw some interesting sights, too. People weren’t the only ones curious. I know you can’t see him, but there is a dog behind that fence post in the second picture.

What? The Ponderosa is out here?

We saw almost no traffic. The first squeamish moment came when we met a semi rig. Sorry for the blurry picture. I think I was shaking for James at that moment. You can barely see the white rig up ahead of James and the trolley. I am sure it looked gia-normous to James at that moment.

It got a little annoying to other drivers when we had to get out on the highway, luckily for only about a quarter of a mile.

 

The best turn of the day! We are there!

Watch out for the mailbox!

And here we are! There had been much discussion about where to put the trolley. It had been decided beforehand that we were to just get the trolley to the site, and it would be moved into place once that place had been decided on.  So, pull in, find a place we felt was flat enough that the trolley wouldn’t roll, and we would be done. Right? Not quite. We couldn’t get the pin out of the hitch.

James assesses the situation.

We finally figured out the trolley was on a slight incline, which was causing it to pull back on the hitch, causing too much pressure on the hitch pin. James pulled up just a bit more. We also put blocks behind the wheels so the trolley would no longer roll. And we got the truck freed from it’s burden.

Let the stairs down.

 Push the shelving unit out of the way.

And the time?

Day 4 of this adventure started with much energy but no pictures. It was another cold day. James and I went to the cabin to pick up some more shelving units, this time the bread racks. After we had loaded the truck full of these marvelous wonders, we headed back to the trolley.

Somewhere during the trip over to take the shelves to their new home on the trolley, the tailgate on the pickup decided to stop functioning, so when we got to the trolley we had to reach over the side of the bed of the truck and lift the frames out over our heads, as the tailgate refused to go down. We got them unloaded. However, my back was very opposed to these actions and cinched up like m’lady’s corset.

Just to make things interesting, I had taken that full time job on top of my other duties, so had to put in 40 hours a week there. Luckily the soap factory was still closed.

I stayed on a heating pad for quite a few weeks, punctuated by fighting my back during work hours. Not recommended, but did you know if you wrap yourself in a cocoon with an electric blanket and turn it on high, it covers just about every spot that ails you? For long after a back seizes up you are very wary to not let it ever do that again! Of course, winter didn't help.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how I spent my holiday break. Hopefully the rest of our story so far, from the new year until July, will unfold rapidly on this blog. Meanwhile, in case I missed telling you then…

Happy New Year!!!!