redneck for sure

Well its official, we are rednecks.  We just had a satellite dish put up in the front yard, right by the driveway and road.  You see I have been waiting for high speed internet connection for a while and our phone company sent around a notice saying it was now available.  There was this really good deal on combining phone service, high speed and satellite TV, it worked out to be less than we are now paying for the phone and dial up connection.  So we said yes.

 Yesterday, Sunday, the guy was supposed to arrive and put up the satellite dish between noon and 5pm.  He arrived about 5:30, when it was full dark outside.   Immediately he began grumbling about all the trees around the house.  I apologized but no one said anything about trees being a problem when I called to order the dish.    We haven’t had satellite TV in about 6 years and that dish went on the roof.  The installer said his company used  another satellite and the roof location wasn’t any good.

 He was a tall skinny guy with a foreign accent.  He said he never saw a house with so many trees around it.  Really?  Our house has some mature trees on the south and west but we aren’t really in the woods.  I said it was ok if he couldn’t install the dish, we’d just get the internet and phone.  Oh no, he said, I drove all the way out here-( another sore spot with him was that we lived so far in the boonies)- and I am going to get paid for this job. 

 He looked around with his flashlight and asked if he could cut some tree branches.  I said sure.  He proceeded to get a 20 foot extension ladder out of his truck and climb the tree with a hand saw and a light clipped to his hat.  I was afraid I’d have a heart attack.  The ladder was placed so that it was nearly straight up and down, and he would climb way up it - nearly to the top, hang on with one hand and saw away.  Large limbs fell, some hitting the ladder on the way down.  He actually bounced the ladder to move it a couple times.

 I stayed out in the cold and dark watching him because I was afraid he’d fall and impale himself on the sawed off limbs below him.  He acted annoyed when I would gasp or say be careful.  He sawed away on two different trees for about 45 minutes.  Then he came down, cut them up a little and piled them by the driveway.  He was efficient, I must say.

 Next he had to dig a hole for the pole, mix cement and then trench the line to the house, which wasn’t far.  He had to drill a hole into the house run the wires in and hook up the TV.  When he found out we had a second, old TV in the bedroom (from Steve of course) he insisted on installing a double unit and hooking that one up too.  Its free he said,( it better be)  and there’s no sense not using the second one.  We haven’t used that TV since TV went digital. 

 At about ten pm he was finally ready to leave.  I was exhausted.  He did do an excellent neat job.  I gave him a dozen of our fresh eggs and he was very appreciative.  He said there was no charge for the extra work.  All that work for an installation fee of $34.99.  I hope he gets paid more than that.   So we now have satellite TV which pleases Steve no end.  And I wasted an hour or so this am watching Animal planet. 

 Next week the guy comes to install the computer modem.  I wonder if we should plan on that taking 5 hours too?

Getting ready for winter

Winter coming always inspires some crazy hoarding thing in me; it has to be an ancient instinct.  I want my cupboards and hayloft full.   I start buying groceries to pack the pantry, butchering for the freezer, canning and baking with frenzy.   Now we have been stranded in winter for a few days, unable to get out, but we have never been anything near starving because of it.  Just the eggs our chickens produce each day would feed us-until their feed ran out anyway.

 We bought hay this week and were lucky to find decent hay at a good price just down the road from us.  Our barn is very full now with just little paths to let Steve get his wheelchair around.  We used to put the hay up in the loft of the barn where there is plenty of room, but it’s quite a chore lifting it up there without a hay elevator and neither of us is able to do it anymore.  And I as the only one who can get up the loft steps and throw it down can barely make the climb up those steep steps anymore.  So we stack the hay in the front of the barn, where it makes everything very crowded until the stacks get eaten down a bit.  Lily and Chance are working on that part.

The little wild kittens love it though. They have moved out of their groundhog hole under the propane tank into holes between the bales of hay.  They sure do give me a start when they pop out of there though.  They are getting big- they look good and healthy from all the cat food we are feeding them.  But they are still as wild as can be and run when they see us.

 Steve just went out in his electric chair because the rain stopped and we heard there will be high winds as the day clears off.  We are putting a plastic roof and walls over the outside chicken run to give them more room this winter and he’s worried the wind may sail off some of what he’s started.   However there isn’t much he can do about it I think.  The turkeys saw him coming and followed him all the way to the gate, squawking and yelling at him for food, trailing after his electric chair.  They are getting big and I am wondering how I am going to catch them for butchering in December.  They still won’t roost in the barn at night and go high up in the pine tree where I can’t reach them.

 So far we haven’t had a day when the hoses to the barn have been frozen all day.  I hate hauling water in buckets.  I dread the day when we will have to lock the chickens and ducks in and bring the horses over to the north pasture where we can feed and water them from the barn.  They use the back part of the barn as a run in shelter and we only have to shovel one path to the barn to feed everyone.

 

This weekend looks like it will be cold but sunny and hopefully we’ll get the major job- enclosing the chicken run done.  We still have house storm windows to put on and I need to cover some of the main barn windows with plastic again and well - there is still a ton of things to do before real winter sets in.  I hope it gives us a while longer.

Early November can you believe it?

Today is my son’s birthday.  When he was born 37 years ago it was a cold, snowy day and a few days later we had a big snowstorm.    This year it was mild and sunny and no snowstorms are on the horizon.  It’s hard to believe its November.  Most of the leaves are now gone, but the grass is green and I still have roses in bloom.

 I picked two 5 gallon buckets of apples off the last tree with apples remaining.  Some of them aren’t ripe yet but this tree ripens so late that many of the apples freeze on the tree before they are ripe.  So I pick them, some on the upper south side of the tree are ripe and the rest make good horse treats.  

 The apples are little because I don’t thin them and they have scab, but they make good applesauce, pies and apple butter.  My husband wants me to make some apple butter this weekend.  I will probably pick some more and sort them first.  The chickens have been standing on the fence rail next to the tree and picking their own apples so I threw them a few also.  And I gave my canaries inside a slice also.

 The apple tree is by our pond and the autumn olive bushes around the pond were full of robins migrating south and stopping to eat the red berries the bushes are loaded with.   They were singing and calling and it sounded like spring.  Our ducks finally found the pond- it is only about 50 feet from the pasture they roam in- and the 15 remaining ducks were all swimming around happily.   Momma duck and poppa duck knew about the pond but for a while no ducks went to the pond for some reason.    They stayed up in the pasture and played in the kiddy pool and their water dishes.

 It may have been that the buzzards finally migrated south and stopped soaring over the pond.  We had some turkey buzzards nest in our woods and a big group of them were always around.  They don’t normally take live prey but birds are conditioned to feel unsafe with big birds gliding overhead.  In the pasture they watched the buzzards warily and there were plenty of things to hide under.   On the pond they may have felt too exposed.  They don’t mind the big blue heron though - he was down there with them.

 Whatever the reason I sure appreciate the cleaner water dishes with less mud around them, ducks are so messy.  But they are fun to watch.