Accomplishment

Being out here at the new farm by myself leaves me with tasks that otherwise I would leave to my husband or more likely my daughter's boyfriend.  My husband is not the handiest person.  As a matter of fact, he won't even attempt so much as looking into the problem as opposed to ignoring it all together.  Such was the case of my push lawn mower.  Before I moved the pull cord on the mower had broken.  I asked him several times to fix it.  On one of those occassions, daughter's boyfriend was over and jumped in to offer to fix it himself which he did.  Last week, Farm Girl snapped the cord again while trying to start it.

I texted my husband about the problem but didn't ask him to repair it as I knew that wasn't going to happen.  Sure enough, his response was that he would bring me the riding lawn mower instead.  Though I would rather have the riding mower, he lives on a much bigger property then I and needed it much more than me.  Besides, it would be a pain to load on the back of his pickup truck and the added weight would put a strain on his already ailing truck which he is having some maintenance issues.  I told him it would be much easier for him to just fix the push mower, but of course he elected to ignore that and bring the riding mower.

My farm was badly trashed by previous tenants and then sat empty for a year before I moved in.  The result has been not a day goes by that I do not find trash or glass become exposed in the ground.  The yard hasn't seen a roller in many many years I'm certain causing a very bumpy mowing experience.  On my second day, I hit something and the pulley and blade came apart from the deck.  That was great, now I had no mower.  I of course texted the husband about the problem and told him he needed to come and pick it up and transport it to a repair shop.  That of course did not happen.  Not that I truly thought it would, but I do hope that his responsible and practical side would eventually show themselves.

A week later with a yard beginning to become overgrown, I new I had to do something.  So I tackled what was the easiest of the two problems.  The push lawn mower.  I bought a new pull cord, sat down at my computer and pulled up youtube. Of course my lawn mower was slighty different from the ones depicted in the videos and did not come apart as instructed, however simply adding the make of my mower brought up the exact instructions I needed.  I removed the case (with the use of a ratchet no less), removed the cord housing, repaired the spring which had been bent and not retracting the cord, replaced the cord with my new one, put it all back together and is up and running once again.  I have to tell you how very proud I am of myself.  I'm the type of person that hates asking for help and if I can manage it myself, the better.  Now that I am feeling mighty accomplished, I'm going to hit youtube on how to replace the broken pulley and blade on the riding mower.

Long Weekend

I spent the long weekend up at the new farm cleaning it in preparation for us to move in.  These are some of the photos I took.

First dinner at the new farm.

Woods are full of wildlife so The Boy placed his stealth camera out every night.

Plenty of hiking was done.

Wild flowers along the creek.

Watching out for wildlife.

Beautiful skies.

More evening sky.

Future sight of grazing sheep.

Home sweet home.

Traces of wildlife

Gardening while in good company.

Cleanup and bonfires.

New

After 26 and a half years, I finally decided I have had enough and made the fateful decision to part ways.  No, I'm not referring to my husband but to my microwave which I have owned as long as I have been married. In fact, it was a wedding gift from my mother.  And has survived all these years, though it was definitely beginning to show it's age.

We splurged and bought ourselves a beautiful new one.

Yes, I am that thrilled at this purchase, I blogged about it. :)

Firewood!

Winter and the cold came early this year and wood orders went up making it impossible until today for our order of firewood to come in.  They have been that back logged (pardon the pun).

Goodbye Pond!

At last a decision was made about the pond.  The previous owners had built it without any inspection and was not up to code.  I would have loved to have turned it into a pool but the walls were two inches below code and one wall was 26" too short compared to the other three walls.  Besides, every quote we got was far too expensive to convert it from pond to pool.  It sat empty for a year because I either had my son accidentally fall in it and drown or fall in and break his arm or worse break open his skull.  Since he doesn't know how to swim I took my chances with keeping it empty.  After that it just became an eye sore.  And a breeding ground for mosquitoes and frogs. But not any more.  No it will become more lawn.