Chapter 116...Staining The Patio

Off Grid...Chapter 116 Mike and I are slowly running out of projects. The stories now will be just a little shorter now. So let's get to it. 7-9 The cow family brought a new bull in for our girls. He is a new small bull and Mike and I are keeping our distance since we don't know his personality yet. Of course on our way down to do some work, what do we see? Yup..the new bull is in our rocks in the ditch line rubbing his head on our nice rocks Mike and I picked up more rocks from around the property. Here is another area next to one of the ditches. We loaded up the tractor bucket and cleaned up another area. We took those rocks down to the pond and picked up a bale of hay for the side of the house. We also stopped off at the dirt pile and got some more dirt to bring up top. Oh the fun things we do On the way back up we saw the new bull pushing Mike's big burn pile around I really hope this new guy settles down soon. The rest of the day I did the mowing and Mike did stuff in his building. 7-10 Time to get the patio ready for staining Mike starts off by scrubbing the concrete off the front of the house. Then we move the patio benches off the patio. We stack them on top of some logs by our wings. Mike uses a new concrete filler to fill in the cracks on the patio. It looks pretty good. Hopefully the stain will cover the line. Then Mike uses his grinder to grind down the rough edges on the patio table. Since the table is too heavy for us to move we are going to tape off the bottom and stain around it. We don't normally do something like this but we don't plan on ever moving that table Next we clean the patio and get it ready for staining. I use the scrub brush on it while Mike hoses it down. 7-11 Today we helped Mike's daughter with some of her trim work. It is hot hot hot today. The outside temp got to 102 The house is very warm but not unbearable. It is the humidity that is very high. 7-12 OK...it's time for the fun stuff. First we are going to repaint the front of the house. We want everything to look fresh and clean when we are done. I do the cut in while Mike does the rolling. It takes us about an hour to paint the front. Mike finishing up. Now it's time for the stain. I really hope the color is OK. We picked up a solid stain of a color that is a lighter green. We are hoping it will compliment the house and make it cheerful. Uh oh...it's not looking good Mike is rolling the stain on and it looks like mint ice cream Ugh!!! This will not work. It is downright ugly. Oh well...you all know how bad mike and I are with colors Mike rolls out the rest of the can to use as a base coat. We have a sample color of paint that was off the same card as our house color. We thought about using that for the buildings. We try that sample color out....and it is too blue. Yuck!! another color we don't like. It's back to town to get more sample colors. This time we try the tan colors. We don't like those either. Oh well...so much for trying a new color. It's back to town and we stick with a weathered concrete color. We also switch to a floor paint since the solid stain didn't cover very well. 7-13 Mike starts out by painting along the crack that he filled in. I use the brush to paint the expansion joints, around the table, around the posts, and near the house. Mike rolls the rest. Now we have to let it dry and then we can do the second coat. 7-14 Same story different day We get the second coat on. Mike rolling again. Well we didn't get a color but it is clean looking The crack filler helped but they didn't get completely covered by the paint. I really thought the paint would cover the fill in. Oh well..it's still better than it was For the next few days it was just the usual chore...cleaning and yard work. On Saturday the neighbor's bull from behind us got in again Mike called our cow people to let them know. They were not happy about it since our neighbor was supposed to put his bull in another field. So our cow family, Howard, Eric, and Ivalee showed up along with our back neighbor to get the bull out and then fix the fence line. It took awhile but they finally got the bull into the barn and locked him in before loading him up. He is so strong that he bent the steel gate They finally got the bull loaded up and Eric found a buyer for him. That bull is on his way to Virginia For the next few hours we all went up and worked on the fence line. At least we won't have any more trouble from that bull. He actually got into a fight with our new bull and our little guy did get hurt but he is OK. I know it was a short story but Mike and I have really been knocking things off this year. Next we have to get the driveway ready to get the final section of paving done. I hope you all enjoyed the story. Have a great week and I'll see you again next Monday. Lisa P.S. Nike says she can't wait for it to cool down so she can get back to supervising us

Chapter 113...Taking An Inverter Apart and Replacing Parts & A New Bull

Off Grid...Chapter 113 June 1- Today was a mix of a day. First I had to take Niki to the vet. She hasn't been able to hold down any food in a few days..the poor little pug. I even gave her pepto by using a straw. Mike was having a fit but hey, how else was I going to get it into her mouth, lol? It did work well. I think she ate something outside that she wasn't supposed to, so typical of her. Turns out she is OK and the vet gave me some medicine for her for a few days Then Mike and I drove around and met and caught up with some of our old neighbors from our last farm. It was a good day..but no work got done. June 2- It is a sunny day which means it's time to do laundry..until my washer broke I am really upset about this washer. I specifically picked it after researching for quite some time. It was supposed to be perfect and very energy efficient for our needs. Well it has been a piece of junk since day one. I will never get another front loader again...at least not a GE. Mike and I can get pretty dirty...and this washer has never been able to clean our clothes. On top of that the timed washes lie. If I set it for the 38 minute wash it takes 1 hour So much for using less electricity and water. Ok..enough of my rant. We were going to run it to the ground but now it won't even drain out the water. So it's off to Lowe's to get a new..old fashioned top loader with an agitator BTW, if anyone wants a 3 year old front loader and dryer it's collecting dust, lol. June3- Today we took out the old washer and dryer and installed the new washer. I don't have a dryer now but at least our clothes will get clean. The rest of the day was a clean up round. June 5- Today we worked on the ditch line..I know it's getting old but we will get it done this summer Back in the rocks. And we did pretty good. June 6- Mike wants to add an extra eave on the perimeter of our roof to protect the house from the weather. He also wants to have a metal piece made up to protect the new eave and the house. Today we went to the farm supply to order the new metal. We have to do the eaves and the metal before we can put the new shingles on. When we got back home we found a delivery. Our new inverter boards are here. Looks like Mike has some work to do. I will just be near him for moral support Here is the old inverter box with nothing inside. This is what it should look like. Here are the new parts I am so glad Mike can do this kind of work. Just looking at this makes me confuses me, lol. One of the boards. Mike starting to put the circuit boards into the case. Another board to put in. Mike putting it together. All three replacement boards are in Almost done. Putting the top back on. And screwing it back into place. And it's all done. Mike made it look so easy Next Mike takes the fixed inverter out to hook it up to our Jeep battery to test it. It's a good thing we did this today. Mike found out that our terminal end on the Jeep battery was cracked. See...some things do happen for a reason. We will have to pick one up next time we are out. And Mike using the volt meter to test the repaired inverter. Whew..it all looks good. Now we just have to send back the old parts to the company..who, by the way have great customer service. June 12- We woke up today and Mike says to me "we have a new bull". No way...when did that happen? Sure enough we have a new light colored bull. But we find out he's not ours...uh oh He belongs to our back neighbor and he came through the fence..not good. Thankfully we don;t have any bulls in here or there could be some fighting. It's bad enough he got to our girls It turns into a very different day than planned. The cow people, Howard, Eric, and Ivalee show up to get this bull out. After a couple of hours of calling the girls, because the bull will follow, Eric gets the bull almost to the top of the ridge by the hole in the fence. Then something spooks the bull and he runs all the way back down the hill Mike has been out trying to help them and I stayed out of the way so I wouldn't spook the bull into doing something they don't want him to. I head down too the barn to see what's happening. Everyone is down there including our back neighbor with a cattle truck. They got the bull inside the barn locked up with 2 of the girls. While getting him into the barn he went a little crazy and bent the steel fence on the front of the barn They finally got the bull loaded up and our neighbor said "I'm getting too old for this". That's it for today. I will leave you with some garden pictures. My favorite. I love my little garden Soon you won't be able to see any dirt Here is my orphan garden. I didn't have room in my garden for all the zucchini and squash plants and I didn't want to throw them away. They are looking pretty good. Lisa