Chapter 75...Cleaning The Water Tank And Clover On The Hill

Off Grid...Chapter 75 6-25 Mike went up to start our generator this morning and it wouldn't start. Uh oh. This is a first. Mike checked all the fluids and thankfully it just needed some oil. Ok one problem solved. Next he changed out the drain cover at the top of the back of the house. this is the drain that catches any water from our yard and is supposed to run through the drain pipes, go around the house, and run out each of the pipes on the side and out to the front yard. We had a slotted top and it should have been a solid cover. Mike changing the cover. And the new cover is on. Finally we are going to finish the first side hill. Hopefully this will be the "last" time. It is all raked out. Mike is seeding it with White Dutch Clover Seed. After the seed is down we roll out the curlex to keep it in place. Here is Mike stapling down the first piece of curlex next to the wall. We roll out the next piece and Mike starts to staple the seam. After we get all the seed and curlex on the first side I start shoveling the gravel in the driveway. We want to make sure there is no more dirt left. So I shovel any extra gravel I can find into 5 gallon buckets. then I dump the buckets of gravel along the drive and the curlex. We are almost to the point of no more mud. Yay. The curlex and the gravel on the first side of the house is done. Woo hoo. Later on that day Mike and I take a break from doing any work. We are taking Mike's granddaughter out for her birthday. She is going to be 5 years old and we are taking her to 2 of her favorite places for a special treat. We get to her house and she is almost bursting with excitement. She has no idea where we are going. It's kind of fun because we really don't see her often. First we took her to a girly girl store called Claire's. It is a store full of the biggest most overpriced junk for a little girl and she loves it, lol. Mike told her she could go in and get whatever she wants. Now this is a first. Mike won't even let me do that, lol. Anyway, let me tell you this little girl is a born "power shopper". She filled her basket in less than 10 minutes and went up to Papa and said "I'm done". Wow I feel so sorry for her future husband. At least she knows what she wants, lol. Then we went out for Chinese which is her favorite. We had a great time spoiling her and then we got to send her home with all of her goodies. 6-26 I took my stroll with Niki this morning. We go up everyday to check on my gardens. I spotted my very first tomato. Woo hoo. I am so excited about seeing my own vegetables grow. Today Mike wants to clean out our underground water tank. Sure he picks today after we just added water yesterday. Our water is back to being crystal clear. We only had that problem that one time when we got muck in our tank. That was the last time we had to clean it out. We think the muck was because the tank was new and we had some really heavy rains at the time. So now the water is good but we still have to clean the tank. Mike takes the big lid off the tank and puts the water pump into the tank to drain it and he turns the pump on. It works for a little while and then it stops. Uh uh, here we go again. Mike checks it and it is getting overheated so Mike lowers the water pump inside the tank where it is much cooler. Ah now it is working but it is going to take a long time to drain the water. At least the lawn will be watered. While we are waiting for the tank to drain Mike wants to fix our well cover. It settled over the winter and now it is crooked which, of course, is driving Mike crazy. First we take the concrete lid off and then we start to dig around the bottom so we can make it level. Then we take out the old plastic and the old insulation that was inside. Once we get the cover level we make our own nice and neat insulation rolls form some extra insulation that we have. Our new insulation in the well. We put the lid back on and now that's just another small job off the list. The tank is empty and now it's time for the fun part, lol. Mike has to get inside the tank and hose the walls down and get the rest of the water and any debris sucked up. Then he will wipe it all down with clean towels and we will re fill it. We won't fill it as high since it is the summer and it is much warmer out. We will just add water a little more often to make sure it stays fresh. Mike just getting into the tank. I stay up top and hand him things. He works his way out from the far end of the tank. I hand him the hose and he sprays down the walls to clean them. He gives the hose back to me and he takes the pump to suck up the water. We swap again but this time I hand him towels to wipe everything down. Here is Mike cleaning the tank. And he is almost done. It's almost like new again. It really doesn't take us that long to do. The longest part is draining the water out of the tank. At least the lawn got a good dousing. Next we start to work on the second hill next to the house. A lot of the rock and debris fell down to our front yard so we have a lot of cleaning and raking to do. The soil that Brian brought up for this side is very rocky. I start raking with the rock rake and then shovel it up and fill the tractor bucket. Mike brings the tractor down and dumps the rock on the pond wall. Then he scoops fresh dirt and brings it back up top for me to sift through again. What a great guy, lol. Here I am working on the second side of the house. I fill the tractor bucket about 5 times. then Mike and I go to the front of the house on the same side. We rake up the rock that rolled down the hill to the front yard. Mike parks the tractor on the outside of our fence and we fill 5 gallon buckets with rock. then we dump the buckets into the tractor bucket. Here is Mike taking a short cut down the big hill to the driveway. He starts to tip. he had to put the back blade down for some extra support. It was a good day today. We got some good things accomplished. When we got back into the house we turned on our water and the inside pump was making a racket. It sounds like there is air in the lines somewhere. Oh well just something else for us to do. Tomorrow is another day and we will figure out where the problem is. I hope you enjoyed another look into the Mike and Lisa world. Lisa [+] Rate this post p

Chapter 29...Retaining Block, Water Storage Tank, And Underground Pipes

Off Grid...Chapter 29 We had a really good week. We are so close now. Monday 9-22 We had to go over to our other property and take care of the lawns. I think we only have 1 more round until next spring. Mike called the flooring place to see when they were coming to do the installation. They can't come until next Monday(which is now today). We'll just have to finish some of our other projects. It's not like we don't have anything else to do. Mike finished wiring the rest of the electrical outlets in the house. Next he has to working the light switches. At least there aren't as many of those. Mike installed our outside light. Tuesday 9-23 We installed one more kitchen cabinet for above the refrigerator. Check it out it was only $23.00. Woo hoo! I started bringing stuff from the motorhome down to the house. The coach is breathing a huge sigh of relief to get some of this weight off. I am so excited to play in my new big kitchen. I can't wait until it is done. Right now I am stocking the cabinets. When we move in I can be an organizing fool. I love to organize. It's so much fun. Mike worked on the switches while I was stocking my cabinets. This is what he did. First he pulled the wires out of the box, stripped them, and cut them down to size. Then he tied the grounds(copper) together with an extra leg that goes to the bottom of the switch. Then one black(hot) wire goes to the top of the switch and one black(hot) wire goes to the bottom of the switch. Then he tied the two white(neutral) wires together. because those wires are not needed on a switch. Mike finished all the outlets and switches in the house. He tested everything and they all work. He only got zapped once. Mike also installed an outside receptacle. Wednesday 9-24 We hooked the trailer to the jeep and headed for our propane company to pick up some of our appliances. On our way we passed Jimmy's(our grader) and we saw he picked up our concrete retaining blocks and they are sitting on his loader(all 40,000 pounds of them). That's a good sign. He should be coming this week to install them We got to the propane company and loaded our fireplace, washer, and dryer. They didn't get my stove in yet. The woman tracked it down and it was sent to one of their other stores in Georgia. You would think that after almost a month that store would have realized they didn't order that stove. Anyway they will get my stove by next week. My refrigerator should also be in today or tomorrow. On our way home we stopped at David's to pick up conduit pipe to put our water line and electric line inside. We want to keep the lines protected when they go underground. I finally got my apple picker. While we were there we ran into a bunch of people that we know. We even saw some people that we haven't seen since we owned the Roller Skating Rink here. When we got home we unloaded everything into the house. Here are the fireplace parts. The fireplace insert. My dryer And a matching washer which I didn't get a picture of. We also unpacked the bathroom vanity that we bought at Home Depot last Sunday. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it is solid wood. This is our vanity. We also bought the sink top but unfortunately it had some damage on the top. So we'll have to return that "all the way to Bristol Va", yuk! Thursday 9-25 Today turned out to be an extremely busy day. Our grader showed up with our retaining block. This is how they had to unload each block. Each block weighs 4000 pounds and each half block is 2000 pounds. First they hook a chain to the block. Then the block is lifted. Then they move the block. And they put it down close to the house. Of course the nosy bull has to check it out. The bull has been getting into our yard the past 2 days so we have to add more wire on the fence. Here is Mr. Bull posing for me. This is Jimmy and Mike placing the block. One side of the house is done. The other side is done and back filled. Now the block is up. We are either going to stucco or rock the front of the block and other concrete. We haven't decided yet but at least the block is in place. Then Mike had to move the motorhome so that are trench could be dug. This is our new campsite with grass. This is the trench from the house to the well. Mike and I put in 100 feet of electric wire inside ten 10ft conduit pipes and then glued the pipes together. We also put 100 feet if water line inside another 10 pipes. Then we put the pipes in the ditch. While Mike and I were working with the pipes the grader was digging a hole for our water tank. Mike helped him get the water tank in the ground. The grader covered up most of the ditch line and left the ends open because Mike still has to tie it all in to the well, well pump, and the house. It was a very long day and we are exhausted. Friday 9-26 We woke up this morning to rain. Thank goodness we got the block in and most of the grading done yesterday. We drove to town to check a couple of stores for furniture and we picked up my counter tile from Lowe's. We couldn't get any more work done today because of the rain. Saturday 9-27 Oh, it's the dreaded day. We went to Hickory NC to look for furniture. We left about 9:30am and got home at 6:30pm. Poor Niki. She hates when we are gone a long time. I was a little surprised by the gas situation in NC. We aren't having any problems in our small town in TN, maybe because the population is so low. Anyway we drove over 75 miles one way and I would say about 95% of the gas stations had no gas. It wasn't even that bad after Katrina. Ok, back to the furniture trip. We stopped at every store along Hwy 321 and Hwy 70 in Hickory. We probably went to 20 different stores and 2 separate outlets with multiple stores in each one. It was as bad as Mike and I anticipated. The furniture today is really big and mostly ugly. It wasn't looking good for us. Mike and I had a system-he would take one side of the store and I would take the other side. We would buzz through the store and if anything looked good we would show the other. Nothing looked good. We are so screwed.. At one of the outlets we both ended up in front of the same bedroom set. I said "I like that" and Mike said "do you know why"? Uh yeah, because I think it's nice. He told me it was the exact same line of furniture that we found online in the dining room set. So we ordered the bedroom set and the dining room set. They have to check the stock on Monday(today). The saleswoman gave us 35% off the list and she came in 50% less than the place online. We also don't have sales tax when they deliver across the state line. We kept looking for a leather set for the living room. No luck. We were so tired that we gave up looking. It's hard to make a good decision when you are "done". We drove home and Niki was thrilled to see us. I went online to check our furniture because I got the brochure. That turned out to be mistake. Our furniture line was discontinued in August. Now I'm nervous that the furniture place won't have our pieces in stock. I'll find out today. I really hope that whole day wasn't wasted. Sunday-28 It's a little drizzly out today which isn't good. The flooring company is supposed to deliver and install our floor tomorrow. We need things to dry up around here. Mike worked on some of the connections for the electric and water lines in the ditch. We also put the seal on our water tank. Now that the trucks and track hoes are done on our front lawn we can work on it. We started raking it out which is very hard to do in the mud. Then we put seed and straw done. At least it is cleaner. Front lawn before. Front lawn after. That's all for this week. More busy times ahead and another story soon. Have a great week everyone. Lisa and Mike