Chapter 114...Buying Fish From The Fish Truck:):) & More

Off Grid...Chapter 114 Wow it has been a hot week. Mike and I have to spend a lot of afternoons inside the house because it was just too hot outside. Now it seems to be a little cooler 6-16 Today Mike and I have to get all the metal roof pieces down to the barn. The panels are very long, about 17 feet or so, and we are going to have a tough time getting them down the driveway. We can't take them down sideways because we have a small electric fence set up by the steepest part of our ditch line. So...we have to come up with a plan We have some long 4x4's in the building. Mike and I decide to screw 2 of them onto the end of the trailer. This should help keep the metal panels off the driveway on the way down. Mike installing the 4x4's with screws. We loaded all of the metal onto the trailer. It looks like we loaded on too many. By the time Mike got out the top gate the metal was hitting the ground from the weight. Since we can't take it down the driveway that way we have to unload some of it to lighten the back of the trailer. Of course, as luck would have it, the wind picks up as we start to unload some panels We have to bend the panels down as we take them off so they don't fly away from us. We get enough off the bring the first load down to the barn. Unload it and then go back up top to pick up the rest. Whew!!! the metal is in the barn. It will stay there until we decide what project to use it on next 6-17 We sold the propane refrigerator We also went to pick up the new metal for the front of the house that Mike ordered. The company made it backwards and we can't use it. It's a good thing the farm supply owner saved Mike's drawing for proof. It wasn't our mistake but we still have to wait for them to redo it. 6-18 Today I went to the Extension Office for a canning class. How cool is that? It cost $5.00 and it was a hands on class for 4 hours. The class got to can tomatoes in a water bath canner and also a pressure canner. Now I feel more comfortable about using the pressure canner They also sent us home with our canned tomatoes and about 15 big fresh tomatoes each.....so I made salsa with those While I was gone, we had a terrible hail storm at the house. My poor garden got battered. The leaves on my plants have huge holes in them and a lot of stems broke off of my tomato plants For the remainder of the weekend and the following week, we had a lot of rain. We returned the metal, ordered new metal, picked that up and had the Geezers from CD over. We had a very nice visit with them. 6-25 Today is Fish Day This time of year you can buy fish for your pond from fish trucks that travel to local stops. We missed the one 2 weeks ago because we were roofing. But another Fish company has a stop not too far from us today. It's time to get some fish. Mike has done this before but it is new to me We get to the store were the fish truck is out back. This company is out of Arkansas. They sell carp, koi, bluegill, bass, catfish, albino catfish and koi. Mike wanted to get some carp, bluegill, bass and a couple of koi. We go to the back where the truck is and people are lined up to order their fish. It's a big truck with separate tanks for each kind of fish. Their are oxygen tanks for each fish tank and also ice to keep the fish cool. It's a neat set up. Here is the fish truck. And Mike carrying his fish bags We get our fish back home and let the bags acclimate to our pond before releasing them. Mike taking out one of the koi. Well...I thought the fish trucks were cool Now that we have a break from the rain, it's time to get back to work. We are going to work on the area on the front of the house where we have always had trouble with the paint. Mike had metal pieces made so we could cover it and divert the water away from the house. New metal for our problem area. Mike starting to cover it. Moving right along. The new metal on the front of the house. While we were up on the roof Mike also fixed our chimney. When the wind blew hard while it rained we got water underneath our cap and then down our pipe. Mike made a new collar to keep the water out...and it works great Maybe we should patent it We also repainted the gutters and the downspouts. Gutters and downspouts are back on the house. We couldn't order green metal because they didn't make our color match so we got the white. We thought it would be OK but now looking at it is is too wide and too white. I'm not sure if we will try to paint this or not. If we paint it, it means more maintenance...and we really don't notice it anyway because the awning is in the way. Here is the new metal on the front of the house and Mike working on the gutters. 6-26 We got some more rocks done(7 loads) before the rain came in..and then the rain only lasted about 10 minutes. We also went in the woods and chopped some more wood. We have a long way to go with that job. Niki had a a full day of being a farm dog with us. She got to ride in the Jeep down to the pond to check on the fish. We saw the carp but the others were hiding out. Later she got to chop wood with us. While hubby and I were cutting and throwing logs down the hill she was relaxing in a nice cool patch of grass. Every time I threw a log down her head would come up like ET, then she would sit up, and bark at the rolling logs She's a character but she sure makes me laugh, lol. We threw all the logs to the outside of our fence. We will get them stacked tomorrow. 6-27 Well...we won't leave the logs on the outside anymore Forty acres and the cows have to poop right on our logs Oh the fun things in life, lol. I took out our rug and I am washing it on the driveway. It's time to cut some more wood. We are going to the fence line in front of our house. We might as well kill two birds with one stone. We will get some wood for our wood pile and we will clean up a little of the fence line Niki and I stand back while Mike starts to cut. The big branch is almost cut. Mike cuts the branches into smaller pieces and I load them into the tractor bucket. One bucket full. We load it onto our wood pile. We are starting to get a little wood...and we have so much more to go. 6-29 We worked on the rocks today. Look at our pile..it's getting smaller Woo hoo. We are done with the rock pile. No more rock pile Now we just have to work on cleaning up the ditch lines and cleaning the area where the rocks were. No more rock pile And some of my garden pictures. It really got battered by the hail a week ago and 6-30 Today was a fun day. We took Mike's granddaughter our for her birthday. We took her to a riding farm where she got to ride her first pony. She had a smile from ear to ear when she was on that pony Well...we made it through June. I hope you all enjoyed our story. Stay cool and I will write again next week. Lisa