Tag Archives: homestead

Homestead Update

In other life, I am done with the major painting of the interior, still have touch ups to do and certain access areas.

We got the prefab (cheap) 10′ counter and sink installed last week in the kitchen. Still have to hook up to the drain on that.

Because we don’t have real cabinets I am having to do the curtain thing around the bottom –ugh– but Hey! ya do what ya gotta do. Having a working sink in the kitchen it worth it!

The main room floor is still not painted and it doesn’t look like that will happen this summer either. We have made a lot of head way towards living there more full time this winter though.

I will be there a lot, without the computer for at least the first few months, so that isn’t something I look forward too on that level, but again, it’s what has to happen to move things along.

Any way..sorry it took so long to post. I am just fried and tired and hormonal and busy.

Lois Lane..

I remember a line in one of the first Superman movies, where after Clark took away her memory, she comes into work and asks “What’s happening in the world?” There’s a feeling I get from that line, not that I am not aware of what’s happening in the world, but that my life has been so busy and full, that I sometimes wonder just where I am at.

That said, still trying to learn my way around my new computer system, see Zippadeedodah!. Going to load Mozilla this week end, need to hook up the new Canon i960 printer and the new Canon LiDE 80 scanner.
I haven’t even transferred the email or favorites as I want to wade through a lot of stuff and keep it off this machine.

We just got back from the bay (SF-VA) again seeing Russel’s doctor. He gave us a sort of diagnosis, it still is not a for sure.

“Eosinophilic bronchitis is a recently described syndrome. Subjects with eosinophilic bronchitis have cough with eosinophilic airway inflammation characteristic of that seen in asthma; however, these patients have normal lung function, negative methacholine challenges, and no evidence of variable airflow obstruction. The cough in this condition responds nicely to inhaled corticosteroids.”

We need to do more research on this, but at least at this point he feels a lot better and hasn’t taken pain killers for 3 weeks. The chest congestion is still there and the inhalers make his voice sound hoarse and weird.

The Garberville farmers market started today, to my surprise.. but i am glad. The Catching Cactus and Succulent folks were there once again with just wonderful displays. Next week I will take my camera and try to get better shots than i did last year.

We are working on the house, more painting, I will scan new colors when i get the new scanner hooked up. I hope to put the garden in next weekend. We are having some problems with all aspects of our water system which has Russel stressed, we will get it fixed, it’s all just part of homesteading.

Spring Cleaning

I mentioned here about getting a new computer. It has been ordered but not built yet. Which is a good thing in a way, see the small (tiny) town house we live in is filled to the max and one 15′ wall is an assortment of shelves with tapes,books,cds, misc junk, pictures, baskets etc… well the whole thing has to come down and be reformed to fit a small computer desk in the back corner so this old computer can go there for Russel to use, and I can use it for testing sites and such.

Any way almost some of every day in the last week has been spent unloading shelves and vacumning (ugh… places that haven’t seen the light of day in 8-10 years!). To do this also meant that the house on the land needed to have certain areas painted so that storage out there could start with a clean slate so to speak.

We ended up buying a 6′ x4′ chrome rack for some hallway storage at the land, after I spent hours looking for some kind of pre-fab pantry or closet unit I could use in this particular place. There is really nothing like what I wanted out there at a price I was will to spend.

Yesterday I finally started to put things back in place in town. I have several tubs full of stuff yet that was intended to come back in here, but I am having my doubts as too just what will fit and leave room for future storage needs..now that I am getting a cd burner… I will have lots more of those!!

Tomorrow we go to Eureka again, lots of little errands. The greenhouse is coming together, out garden beds have been built but not planted. We transplanted into a larger pot one of 6 peach trees, only 5 to go 🙂

I have a friend talking to me about the wonders of XanG0, as a cure all for most that ails ya. It’s expensive, but maybe worth it. I am still thinking about it.

On another note, the last round of Prednisone that Russel used, along with 3 different inhalers, seems to have knocked the severe pain out of his chest. He still feels a slight congestion feeling there, and the cough is getting better with the inhalers, so that is a good thing. He has been much more his good ole self the last week or so. It’s really nice to not have him in agony all the time.
But I feel it is just symptoms that have been repressed and we still know nothing about the cause or how to really cure it.

Watched a feel good movie and had a good laugh Something’s Gotta Give. Especially could relate to the glasses things.. I hate that I can’t see what I used to be able too!

Busy Planning New Computer!

I am really here !

I have been busy.
It’s no excuse for not blogging, but that’s the one I am using 🙂
After the Bruce Cockburn show, I was tied up in getting the report up for the
Cockburn Project, then I had more pictures to get to, then there was a let down of it all being over.

I had a ton of work to do and often was not any where near my computer. We also had over 2 weeks of sunny 80 degree weather in March, and that long streak just ended a few days ago when we got a good supply of rain…now it’s sunny and 80 and the wild flowers are peaking.

But the really big thing that happened in these silents days,
I was gifted enough money from my Dad to buy a new computer!
So I was no longer just wondering what would I get if I could,
but spending days comparing and figuring out what I wanted and could afford.

I am having a local Eureka business build it for me, they built our first (this one) over 5 years ago, and we trust and like them. Yes I will pay more than at Dell, or if I knew how to put one together myself, but customer support and supporting the local economy is a big deal to me.

I have spent hours reading and comparing between LCD and CRT monitors. I guess I will just have to make the jump and hope for the best. I am going for a 19″ LCD, (more specs later) this will be interesting getting used to for web design. Not to mention I will finally have XP Pro, (which I don’t really know if that’s a good thing?) I’ll be going from a W98 233 to P4 3.2 🙂
Lots of learning curves in here.

I will also finally have a cd burner, in the Sony DVD burner,
and all the learning how to’s that go along with that. So I expect that once the system is here, I will be spending lots of hours just finding my way around it. Too bad there is still no high speed here, unless you count satellite.

And because we live in a very small one room home while our house in the hills is being built, we have to take apart a wall of shelves (15′) worth, and reconfigure, so the old computer can go into that corner and Russel will have his own space.

This is a major undertaking as the house in the hills is not yet fully painted or ready to ‘store’ things in without having to move everything later. So I am busily trying to get certain spaces done out there to put up/ buy shelving for.

In case you wonder, Russel is about the same. He had 2 really bad feeling weeks, but the last 2 days he has felt somewhat better, not that ‘it’ is gone, just not dominating all. I spoke with his SF VA doctor over 2 weeks ago, who was supposed to send different meds (mostly allergy stuff and prednisone) again, and he was supposed to set up a pain clinic appointment, none of which has happened.
We are frustrated. We are getting a copy of his records from the VA, and I hope he decides to see some one else, who will be willing to look them over and not ask that ALL THOSE TESTS BE DONE AGAIN!

Year of the Monkey

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Google even recognized it!

The last Monkey year was 1992, I remember it well.
I do hope for Russel and I that this one goes a bit smoother.

Waves HI! to a special Monkey person 🙂

Chinese Astrology is fascinating to me, as is what we know as regular Astrology. There is a ton of info on the web, I would type up what my books say, but Hey.. I am not that great or fast a typist 🙂

To celebrate the New Year, we did a bit of work on our house. We added shelving to a closet, so now it can really be put to use. And I bought a gallon of YELLOW semi-gloss paint for the back hallway. It’s bright and deep color, no pastels here, but I think I will love it once I get it on the walls, that’s the plan on Saturday.

Getting Ready for the Coming Rains

Today Russel finished insulating all our water pipes under the house. Tight crawl space under there, with his bruised rib and bad back, not really a good time, but good to have it done. I pulled all the dead squash and tomato plants out of the garden. Last weeks rain and coldness did them in. There is still more to do in the garden but no time.

We also need to move the solar panel that powers the battery that powers the little pump that lets us have water in the house for good things like showers and flush toilet.. we had to charge the battery today with the generator. We will be out there all week end so it will eventually get a good charge. Russel also did a pump, (we pump water from a lower gravity fed holding tank) to a tank up by the house. Full tank… lots of showers 🙂

With the bathroom happening there I like staying out there more and more. Power is still an issue. I miss not having my computer there. Once that happens I will most likely shun town and only come in when i really have too.

We leave tomorrow (Wed) for the VA clinic in SF again. The pain is still there. We are leaning towards thinking this is GERDs.. and hope to get some help. Prilosec hasn’t helped. Diet change hasn’t either.

Wish us luck.

Bathroom – finally water!

This is the color we painted the bathroom.

I don’t think the computer/camera gets it quite right, it seems to be a brighter bluer blue in real life.

This is the vanity we quickly got on Friday.. i do like the maple and mission style of it.

The faucet we bought is chrome, with toggle handles, not knobs. Very simple, with a curved spout.

The hot water heater and propane tanks are set in place and and hooked up, the vanity is going into place as i write this, then they will run water into the house and HOPEFULLY there will be no leaks and all will be good to go!

Amazing, after all these years of working on the house that we will finally have a fully functional bathroom!

Hot showers/flush toilet/an indoor sink!!! Oh my… i may be spending lots more time out there now. If only we could get a power system in place that would accommodate my computer habits, we could move.

Moving On – Home Improvement

Fire Update…and other stuff

The fires have been contained, although they’re still burning and the smoke is still a major problem.

We finally have an appointment for Russel to see a doctor at the chest clinic at the VA hospital in San Fransisco, Fort Miley. This is on Wed the 8th. Please pray for ‘good news’ and something fixable.

After waiting the whole summer and not getting it done, our builder Alan finally agreed to come out to the land and hook the water up to the house and put in and hook up the propane hot water heater. We rushed out yesterday to get a bathroom vanity and top and faucet, as since he was gonna be there, it seemed prudent to have him put that into place at the same time.

What this means is… we will finally have a flush toilet!!! and hot/cold running water to the shower and a sink in the bathroom. This is really cool. It elevates the time spent there from ‘hi-end’ camping to a low budget motel. 🙂

The timing couldn’t be worse, as we leave Wed and i have to pack Tuesday, but he will be out Monday and Tuesday…and so it goes..

Today we go out and paint the bath room. Russel wanted blue, not my color at all, but we have settled on a pale sky blue for the whole thing and later i will come back with either darker blue accents or maybe deep violets/plums type accents. At this point it just needs to be done before the water is hooked up.

Russel is really not feeling well for most of the time now, so i will mostly be doing this. More later, and maybe pictures this week.

Last week one day i started trying to figure out what photolog package i really wanted to use, Amy’s or Gallery. No time to learn Gallery now, and i think i can make Amy’s guide work without using the tables as layout… if i have any spare non-crunch time i will be working on that.

I Learned how to run and action and batch process in Photoshop5, it’s what i have 🙁 which i needed to do cuz i have lots of folders full of photos and wanted something quick and dirty to get them to size, until i have time to really work the ones i want to keep and frame.

On My Beat

Living in the hills of southern Humboldt