Wednesday, October 14
It’s been a productive day for both CountryBoy here at the farm and for me at the B&B job. CountryBoy spent a good part of the day in the kitchen making a yummy breakfast of homemade biscuits & sausage gravy, eggs and bacon, a meatloaf for supper, two batches of banana bread, and made some mashed potatoes and cooked up some homegrown purple hull peas to go with the meatloaf. Meanwhile I got a workout by keeping up with the laundry and ironing, working on office stuff while waiting for sheets to dry and then helping with supper. There were only two for supper and only one cabin to deliver to so it was super simple and the cook and I were outta there a half hour earlier than usual.
We are waiting on tonight’s guests to arrive. Once they do I’m donning my comfy clothes and relaxing the rest of the evening.
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I’ve begun to ask around for a reputable and reasonable contractor for the room addition. We’re leaning towards holding off on the pond although we are still going to get the quote. As much as we would love to have the pond we think, at this point, the room addition should be the first priority, then the downstairs bathroom renovation, and then the pond.
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Farm news: 18 eggs
Thursday, October 15
I always look forward to Thursdays because it’s my Friday as far as the work-away-from-home week goes. There’s always work to do at home but that doesn’t count. It’s leaving the farm that counts, ha!
Work was good although a little slow compared to the onslaught of work from every direction last Monday. That’s OK. A slow day after a day like that is welcomed.
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I stopped at the mailbox and found that CountryBoy’s electrical cover replacement part for the pop-up camper had arrived. I excitedly told him about it when I walked in the house but he had an even better announcement… my drone had arrived two days early. YAY!!! I have the battery to the drone charging and the booklet says it takes about 180 minutes to fully charge. Looks like I’ll be testing it out tomorrow if the weather is good. I’m both excited and nervous. Fingers crossed I don’t crash and burn on the first test flight.
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Farm news: 18 eggs
Friday, October 16
It is finished! The dining room ceiling is FINALLY done, yay! Last night I made up my mind to just get it done and this morning I started in on it right after breakfast. It only took about three hours. Looking at the dining room gives me great pleasure and a sense of accomplishment. As far as the rest of the downstairs ceiling? It might be a while before I decide to start that. Maybe after I have forgotten the huge pain in the neck the dining room was, ha! Even then I think I would prefer to just hire someone.
While I was painting CountryBoy cleaned the cabin for today’s guests. It didn’t take him long as the cabin was left in pretty good order. After that he put a call in to a contractor about the bedroom addition and had to leave a message. The contractor was recommended by a coworker at the B&B. Hopefully we’ll hear back from him.
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Early this afternoon we broke out the drone and began the setup procedure. Everything was going smooth until we tried to calibrate the Compass. The first Compass calibrates with no problem but we lose signal on the second one every time. (My thought is that there might be some stickers in the way. I’m hoping for success after I remove them tomorrow.) I watched a couple YouTube videos but nobody seemed to have the problem we were having. After numerous attempts the batteries died so we put it up and will try again tomorrow. I have to say that the booklet seems to be written to people who already have experience with drones. As a novice I need a bit more information such as what needs to be done to initialize and set up the drone and then a pre-flight checklist. Every pilot has to do a pre-flight checklist and I should think drone pilots need to do the same thing. I did discover as we were reading the manual that I was a bit rusty on pilot verbage such as pitch and yaw. It took me a moment to brush off the cobwebs from my flight training days to understand the lingo. At any rate, I will be doing a little more research for a pre-flight checklist.
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We welcomed back our first returning guests this afternoon, yay! They had visited earlier in the year and wanted to come back in the Fall.
After their arrival we made our monthly trip to Rural King to stock up on feed. We desperately need groceries too but that’s two different towns so the animals take precedence. (I’m sure we’ve got enough to live on until we can get to the grocery store even though it may make for some weird food combinations in the meantime, hahaha!) We did stop at Walmart so that I could pick up a micro SD card for the drone. I found some on clearance which thrilled me. We got home after dark so CountryBoy decided to unload the feed in the morning.
Speaking of the morning, our neighbor is coming by to fill in the pond. It will be nice to have the massive pile of dirt gone. As much as we wanted a pond this one was just not suitable because it was not dug in the right spot. It did help with drainage but we risked the road to the cabin washing out so it had to go.
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Farm news: only 14 eggs
Saturday, October 17
It’s been another productive day. I managed to reclaim the storage room and by storage room I mean the room where we store our empty jars for canning; all the stuff for the cabin – sheets, towels, plasticware, cleaning supplies and tote to carry it all; cooking items that aren’t used every day; the recycling bin; equipment for honey; a tote containing dog & cat food; and some miscellaneous items. There is a LOT of stuff in that room and it had gotten to the point one could hardly walk in there let alone find what they were looking for. It’s far from being photo worthy but it’s functional once again and for that I’m thankful. Let’s hope some semblance of order can be maintained in there for a while.
While all the stuff I had removed from the storage room was taking up space in the pantry/laundry room I also did the laundry. I felt such an accomplishment when I put another load in the wash and turned around to see some floor space. Never mind that it had nothing to do with getting the stuff placed somewhere back in the storage room but nevertheless it kept me going until CountryBoy decided that since I was reclaiming the storage room that he would finally finish it off by closing in the exposed water lines. I couldn’t really do much while he was in there so I piddled around doing other little stuff. Once he finished I had to muster up the motivation to get back in there and get it done.
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Bright and early this morning our neighbor showed up with the dozer and began filling in the pond. Say goodbye to the dirt pile that’s been such an eyesore and is extremely noticeable when coming down the cabin road…
The plan was to not drain the pond and to dig the culvert out and then take the edge of the dozer blade and push dirt into the pond where the culvert had been. As soon as the tip of the blade touched the water the dam broke. CountryBoy was out there and said it was pretty exciting and that I had missed it. Water went everywhere – over the driveway, under the driveway, and down the driveway. I meandered out there about midway into the project…
While the pond was disappearing the guy from the fancy pond place showed up to talk about possible locations of the pond and give us a rough estimate. After talking to him we know that he would do the job correctly (he’s been doing this for years) but, and it’s a big but, the cost would be far more than we can afford right now. He’s going to write up a proper quote and email it to us but I think our first priority is going to be the downstairs bedroom addition. Which we’ve asked the neighbor burying our pond to come by with his boss and give us a quote when they get a chance. They added on to my B&B bosses bedroom and they do good work. We’ve not heard from the contractor CountryBoy called yesterday but that’s OK. It will all work out.
At the end of the day the eyesore was gone, the cabin road was shored up again and we no longer need to worry about it washing out. We learned a valuable lesson – keep an eye on whomever we’ve contracted to do a job to make sure we’re getting what we want and are paying for.
All gone! CountryBoy came up with a great plan for the area that once was the pond – it will be my new flower garden with a dry creek bed (until it rains) flowing through it. I love that idea!
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When I went outside to get some before photos there was patchy frost on the ground…
I’m thankful it was only patchy frost and that my newly bloomed Cosmos were still OK.
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Farm news: 22 eggs
Sunday, October 18
Just as we came out of church this morning it started sprinkling. On the drive home I wanted nothing more than to climb into some warm, comfy clothes and lounge on the couch all afternoon crocheting, napping and drinking some hot tea. But no. My work ethic doesn’t allow shirking my job duties so instead I put on some jeans and my work t-shirt, packed a lunch and off I went. I’m happy to say that I finished up in 3.5 hours and was soon heading home to my warm, comfy clothes and bowl of homemade stew and dinner rolls.
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Before church we tried to fire up the drone one more time. It failed setting the GPS again and at the same point as all the other times. Rather than getting frustrated I sent an email to the seller asking for help in the matter. We’ll see what they say. Hopefully they can shed some light on the problem.
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Farm news: 18 eggs
Monday, October 19
Ah, my second Monday. This one was most definitely a Monday but not quite the Monday I had last second Monday. You with me?! Yes, today was MUCH better than last week’s Monday. Only a couple last minute ads and everyone responded to my emails in a timely manner which made completing the Ad Schedule for this week much easier. I still hold true to my previous statement that I will be more than glad when this election is over for more reasons than one.
We are currently getting a nice, gentle rain and our guests just checked in. As soon as I came inside from greeting them I flew up the stairs to climb into my warm, comfy clothes. I plan on doing the laundry from the cabin this evening, blogging and then sitting on the couch for the rest of the evening drinking some hot tea, doing some crocheting and maybe watching a little TV.
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The seller of the drone responded to my email and offered some suggestions. When the weather is good we will try their suggestions and hope it works. Otherwise they are willing to make it right which I am grateful for.
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Farm news: 17 eggs
Dream Valley Farmstead 