Chapter 76...Mike Plays With Fire

Off Grid...Chapter 76 6-27 Today I had to run some errands in town. While I was gone, Mike started to work on our water pump inside the house. Originally Mike installed a water pump that pumped our water from our outside tank into the house. Every time we use the water this pump goes on and it is very loud. So Mike bought an air pressure tank to make it quieter but he never found the right place inside the house to install it. Now that we are having problems with the water lines making noise from last week now is the time to fix it. Also since we moved the solar electronics outside of the house we have an empty closet to use. I knew I wouldn't get the closet, lol. First Mike turned the water off to the house and then he disconnected the original water pump. Here is the pump. Next he hooked up the air pressure tank to our water pump in hopes that it will keep water in the lines and we won't have such a loud pump noise. Here it is in the closet. Then he hooked up all new water lines for the new set up. Finally it is all in and it's time to test it out. Mike turns on the water but we still hear air in the pipes which means we didn't fix the problem and we have a leak somewhere. Mike says we have to back track to figure out where the leak might be. What has recently changed? The only thing that we did close to the water coming into the house was the backhoe work along side of thee house. So we go up and check the outside water lines by the house and sure enough we see the leak. It was a cracked fitting so Mike went into his building to search for replacement parts. No luck. Now we have to run to Lowe's. This is not something that can wait so we leave right away. While we are at Lowe's we also pick up heavy gauge wire for our new solar set up. Oh yeah, Mike is upgrading our wire. We also get new and nicer trim for the front of the house. Finally we get back home. Here is the leak. And Mike fixing it. Woo hoo. Mike is "the man". Our water leak is fixed and our new air pressure tank is hooked up. It is much quieter when we run the water and there are no more leaks. 6-28 Mike is exhausted. It seems like "if it could go wrong it did". Sometimes life is just like that and you just have to keep fighting. The one thing on my mind is finishing the second side of the house. I want to get the seed and curlex on it so the clover can start growing. Mike helps with the stapling by the front wall. I am almost done with the curlex. Now the second side of the house is done. Soon we won't have anymore dirt at the top by the house. Woo hoo. Hopefully we can get the clover to grow. This isn't exactly the right time of year to plant this but sometimes you have no choice. So we are crossing our fingers. It looks like it is going to rain which will be great for all of our new seed. We decide to go down and burn our fire pile since it is about to rain. It is always safer to burn if we can get it going right before the rain. We load up the tractor bucket with a chainsaw, chains, and a torch. We are ready to go. Time for the marshmallows. First we throw some of the excess debris back into the pile. The cows like to pull it apart. Then we start the fire. Mike has to cut up a tree trunk that is too big for our pile. While the fire is burning Mike starts looking around. Uh oh. He says I think we should get that other tree trunk over there. Ok, let's go. We bring the tractor over and I hook the chain around it. Mike starts to pull. Then he drags it to the fire pile. As the fire burns, Mike starts pushing the debris back into the fire using his tractor. While we are watching the fire Howard and Eric show up. We talk to them for awhile and Mike asks Eric if he wants to take the culvert. Eric says he'll come back for it. Mike jumps all over that and tells him we'll help him load it up right now. Might as well get it done. Eric backs up his truck and we load it on. Yay, say goodbye to the old culvert. That's it for today. Mike goes down a couple of more times tonight just to check on the fire to make sure it is ok. 6-29 Today I am a little off and I have no energy. Mike goes up and starts to do some cut in for the first coat of paint. I feel guilty so I go up and take over for him. Here I am doing the first coat on the first side of the house. The first side is almost done except for the area around Mike's satellite dish. I think the color is going to look great. Well I hate to say it but that's all we did. Sometimes when you feel that tired you are better off doing the work another day otherwise you end up making mistakes. Later on Eric and the whole crew showed up in 3 trucks loaded with hay. They got all of their fields cut and they are bringing the hay over here to store in our barn. Mike and I go down to move the mower out of the way so they can drive into the barn and guess what happened? The mower didn't start. We drove back up to the top to get some tools to fix it. Thankfully Mike was able to temporarily fix it. It needs a new starter. this will be he 3rd one in two years. Isn't anything made to last anymore, lol? Oh well just another thing for the list. We get the mower out and Eric and his friends and family start loading all of the hay. This will be for the cows next winter. They got one section of the barn filled. They have 2 more trips to make but that will be another day. 6-30 Today is Mike's prep day for his Doctor's appointment tomorrow. Oh joy. He can't eat anything all day and I'm not eating anything in front of him. That would just be wrong of me. We are trying to keep busy today so that the day will pass quickly. We drove into town and went to the library. I scored on a bunch of cooking magazines for 10cents each. I love anything to do with food. Then we drove past our other property to check on it. The back fields have been hayed. Finally we all got dry enough weather for everyone to get their first hay cuts done. After that we called Jimmy to find out where he was so we could pay him. He told us he had his guys working at his house and we should stop by. We stayed there for awhile and finally we had to get Mike back home for a not so fun rest of the day. 7-1 No work today. I drove Mike in first thing this morning for his Doctor's procedure. Three hours later we are back home and Mike is taking it easy. I'm keeping him company. That was our update for the last week of June. I hope you all enjoyed another glimpse of our story. I hope you all Lisa