At The Bon-Fire

This past week or so has been extremely nice and sunny.  The ground at Hobble Rock is much more dry and not so slushy in the valley areas.  The lack of rain gave us a chance to do a little more work outdoors.  Last Saturday, my parents went up to do a little work.  Dad brought up some metal pipe that we are going to weld into gates and livestock panels.  Mom worked on the rock wall around her crape myrtle grove.  Dad hooked up the flat bed trailer to the tractor and drove down to load up all the brush we cut a few months ago and dumped it off by the fire pit. 

This past Thursday I went up there with my parents and we had a huge bon-fire!  It was amazing!  We got all that Dad had brought up from what we cut burned in around an hour.  Then we hooked the flat-bed up to the tractor and went down to the bottom of the property to get the random piles of branches that the previous owners had cut and left to rot.  We got about three or four piles of those branches burned and saved back some of the big stuff for firewood. 

I can definitely say we are not anywhere near done.  But what we have done is something.  Something that will help us move forward and make this property a home. 

January Cleaning!

Today was a nice, cold and rainy in Bangor.  The rain gave us the opportunity to take some time and really clean up the house/shed.  I neglected to take a before picture but it was packed to the brim with "stuff".  It really was impossible to walk through the house.  Not true now! 

Dad and I assembled another metal shelving unit.  We put seven shelves on it spaced about a foot apart to accomodate the wood bins we have.  After we had the shelf up and the bins in place we started an organizing frenzy!  The big plastic storage bin of tools we have was separated and organized - all the hammers are together, the wrenches are by themselves, the welding tools have their own box and so do all our other tools!  The hoses were stacked neatly on top of the shelving unit and the old Camp Box just fit on the bottom shelf.  I emptied out the wheel barrow that the copper wire was thrown it and put it in the plastic storage bin that used to have our random tools.  We dug out a forgotten empty plastic storage bin and put our hoses with holes in it until we need the hoses. 

Now that we know what we have and where it is our future projects will be a ton easier!  The only thing left to do is label the bins and shelves.  Until next time.  God Bless!

 New-To-Us Lumber Rack!

Solar heater 

Our trailer all rainproof and winterized! 

 Our new organized splendor!

Our friendly neighborhood rooster (who seems to have lost his ladies)

Wood Run!

I don't quite know why, but I love going on wood runs.  What is a wood run you ask?  A wood run is when we (my family) go to get wood to heat our home via our fire-place insert.  We used to go up out of Georgetown in the El Dorado National Forest with a wood cutting permit and get wood out of the National Forest.  Now our wood comes from our property.  Most of the wood we have now is solid oak, ponderosa pine, and madrone. 

The wood run was just up to the property, we just split wood from the wood shed, cut long pieces down to size and loaded up the truck with enough wood to suffice us for a couple weeks.  In the spring when we start trimming trees we will split and stack the wood to cure for use in the winter. 

We did have some trials yesterday, first of all the log splitter had a flat tire (which really wasn't too big a surprise), the guiding plate that guides the splitting blade sheared a bolt off and we had to go to the hardware store to get new bolts, and then we broke the pull start string and had to drill off the cover plate that was rivetted on instead of screwed or bolted.  We shall fix everything this week at home and put the log splitter back together next time.

The best part about yesterday was the amazing, pristine, air and sunshine!  It never cleared up down in Sacramento but up in Bangor is was a beautiful sunny day!  But it was COLD!  And another highlight was stopping for breakfast in Marysville at Gary's Place.  I got a great plate of french toast and Dad got the ham and egg special which consisted of three plates - a huge-mungous ham steak, a plate of potatoes and eggs and a gi-normous pancake!  It provided us with two nice meals that day. 

On a not so high note, our cat Hunter has gone missing since early November.  There has been a mean raccoon spotted in the area that is killing for fun, not food.  But we haven't found a body yet, and I doubt we will.  I hope Hunter is just spooked off the property but I doubt it.  We still have two kittens, but I think I'll be in the market for some barn cats in the near future.