hqueen's collection of Far From the Usual stuff.

[NH Homesteader]

50 here today . I do appreciate these warm days that remind you spring will come eventually! We don't have mud though, not that much melting happening!

 

[hqueen13]

@baymule yes, it gets a bit depressing. I still think the snow is pretty so that makes it sort of ok.
We got almost 6" of mostly snow yesterday early am through overnight last night. Now it's doing some sort of rain thing, which will probably be freezing rain, which is NOT fun. My day today is a little wonky since I have to take SR's wife to the airport today. I hope her flight isn't delayed. She's supposed to let me know. Since I'll have to run out in the middle of the day I came to the office first super early so I can get some work done and then I'll go do that and then come back to the office for a while. It actually works out a little bit better because then I can wait and do the chores later and I won't have to worry about dealing with them in the dark and the icy crap. I'm leaving the chickens locked up again today. They won't be happy about it, but I don't care. I don't want to be on the road after dark with the risk of more ice. I'll let them out tomorrow and they can romp around again and have fun. I don't want to leave them in because the coops STINK at this point, but I'd rather not have to wait for them to all come back inside again, either.
We did a DEEP clean on the house (though I keep noticing things we didn't clean LOL) on Saturday, which was long overdue. Now the question is can we keep it that way? I hope we can because I'm tired of it being dirty all the time. It shouldn't take ALL day to clean our tiny little house. The fun part was that we never left the house at all on Saturday. That was awesome. I don't get many opportunities to do that anymore and I enjoyed it. Sunday I had barn chores in the morning, and the BF went over to his parent's house while they were still at the beach to pick up the rest of the stuff that he had stored there from when we moved a year ago. His dad was whining about it being in his way. Which is total BS because his dad is a hoarder. I commented to the BF that his dad has a problem, he was like, no really? I was like, well, the hoarding thing isn't really the biggest issue... the bigger issue is that anything that isn't his dad's makes his dad complain about how much "space" it's taking up, and how it's in his way. When it's his DAD'S stuff that's the issue... The BF's stuff was barely taking up any room at all, but his dad was complaining about how much it was in his way constantly. I guess I kind of respect that we do have our own house now, but his dad has nothing to complain about when it comes to junk. I guess it wouldn't be such a big deal if he didn't complain about the junk, but he complains about any little thing taking up space when it isn't his. They haven't been able to park cars in the garage for almost the BF's entire life.
Anyway, we got that done, and then grabbed some lunch and headed home. I found somebody selling some firewood, so we went and picked that up. I hope it's enough to last us the rest of the season, but we'll see. It's almost a cord, and it looks decent. We brought it home and didn't bother unloading it, we just put a tarp over the top and left it. I still had to go take care of the chickens at that point. We decided to get the rest of the wood we had left in the holder in the house so that it will be empty for the new stuff, and then decided that it would make the most sense if the BF just went with me to the chickens and then we grabbed dinner on the way home. I didn't want to eat out again, but we really didn't have anything planned. It was nice to have the BF's moral support with me anyway. There wasn't a whole lot to do since SR had just left that morning, but having the BF be able to refill water and a little feed made it go even faster.
So the next week + is going to be challenging since SR won't be back until Wednesday of next week. The chickens just take a lot more energy than the horses do. Plus I HAVE to be there right at dusk to make sure to lock them up. SR found a fox INSIDE the netting (of course it wasn't turned on) in the run, so that coop was on lockdown for a few days already anyway. I'll open them up again tomorrow and hopefully they won't be bothered again. Cowboy and Coyote's owners are away this week, too, of course. And then it's only one more week before the Expo. I'm glad that is a big job, but I'm not all that excited about it, either. It takes so much energy, and I end up losing work time in the office in addition to it. But it's about $500 so it's worth it. I plan to buy a new pair of boots while I'm up there because the ones I have are shot. I've got to email the people that I talked to a couple years ago and see if they still have the same boots that I liked when I saw them before.
SO that's about all that's happening around here. It's been busy, but what else is new?!

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Busy is an understatement!

 

[hqueen13]

Yeah... pretty much.
Caring for the chickens while SR is away guarantees two things... I'll be exhausted, and the weather will be a pain in the butt. Both of which are happening right now. Having to carry the water jugs to the coops really strains my hands and arms, and with the slippery snow/ice/mud combo that we've got going on it's been even more challenging. Yesterday I was closing things up and was about to go out and lock up the last coop when a woman came down the driveway in a small silver car. BIG mistake. I had cleared a patch of driveway for their tenant to park in, and of course, she drove RIGHT past that, and down the hill, and parked on the other side of my truck. Did I mention I had about 5 minutes to work left to do and I was going to LEAVE to go HOME? I got her eggs for her because she didn't even want to walk down the hill in the shoes she was wearing. I guess I don't blame her, but FFS, really, you weren't paying attention to the snow all over the driveway?! So I give her the eggs, and then go lock up the coop, knowing what I'm going to find when I come back around to the driveway. Sure enough, there she is sliding back and forth and spinning wheels. I got the snow shovel and a bag of salt, and she managed to finally get her way out. So 30 minutes later I finally left the farm. All for $4 eggs. People seriously don't think. I told SR about it and he was surprised there was still snow (yes, dang it, I know you're hanging out in 80 degrees on the beach, but it's COLD and wet here!), and he told me I could keep things locked up and close the farm completely today if I felt like the driveway was going to stay bad. The sun is coming up, and it's supposed to be 47, so I just hope no one comes down early today because it's BAD this morning. I think the tenant should be able to get out ok since I did a little clearing yesterday, and hopefully nobody will do anything dumb and try to drive to the bottom before the sun hits it good.
Other than that, I was productive yesterday, and got some work done for my business, reset my financial tracking sheets for the new year and entered January's numbers, and got a bit of cleaning done. I got 2 loads of firewood brought from the pickup truck around and into the basement, and then I just couldn't keep going. Between the hill that we have and the snow/soft ground I couldn't keep pushing the wood carrier, which is heavy unloaded.
The boss finally got me a new laptop for work in the office, which is AWESOME. Now I don't want to work on my laptop at home because now I'm noticing just how g-dang slow it is! SO there's a new laptop for my business in my future. I'm praying for a sale to save some funds, but I should have enough between some credit card rewards, my tax return, and the expo job coming up.
Same old same old... It's supposed to be a little warm, and then start raining next week, again. I only have to make it to Wednesday, SR comes back then.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

So glad I don't have to deal with snow - I'd probably make every dumb mistake that there is to make, lol. Yay for the new work laptop - but it does make you want a better one for personal use. Been there done that..

stay warm!

 

[baymule]

Did that dumb woman get out in her too nice to walk in snow, shoes to help you get her unstuck? I bet not.

 

[hqueen13]

FEM, you do learn after you've dealt with it for so long, LOL. I'm sure there's things you know about the weather and environment where you are that you just know because you've lived with it for so long. Everybody has to figure it out. And with snow/ice it is easy to make a mistake though, which is the not so good part! The learning curve can be steep.

@baymule yes, as much as she could. She would get out and check to see where her tires were, and then scrape a little with the shovel while I threw down salt. I'll give her credit for that. And she was driving stick, and it was up hill, and she did manage to get it out, so that was a pretty good thing. She just should have had the foresight to not come down in the first place, but oh well.

Not much happened this weekend other than caring for chickens. This job is exhausting, and takes up so much energy due to how far I have to drive to get there, and that I have to be there exactly at dusk to lock them up. We did get errands run, and I soaked in the tub which felt good after lugging 5 gallon chicken waterers around for a week. Fun part is that there's more snow on the way, and SR texted me to ask if they could come back a day later to avoid the weather. I had just been telling TM at the barn how happy I was that he was coming home before the weather hit. Shoulda kept my mouth shut. Oh well, it's another day of pay so there's that. February is turning into a fairly profitable month, which is helpful considering it's a short month to begin with. I can sure use the extra right now!

Other than that, not much happening. Waiting on the fed returns, the state returns just hit, so that's a good thing. I'm looking forward to getting these credit cards paid off for the BF and getting a new computer for myself! I think I'll have enough to swing it, it's not a lot, but hopefully I can find an awesome deal that will leave me with some left over.

So just keepin on keepin on.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'm looking forward to getting these credit cards paid off for the BF and getting a new computer for myself!

Sure hope that all works out the way you want/need it to! I haven't even started on my taxes - thanks for the reminder. I need to get busy!

 

[baymule]

I don't know how to drive on snow and ice, so I stay home!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Oh if only more people were like you Bay, lol. Shocking how many people here are idiots in the snow. We have snow half the year!