Tag Archives: farming

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Wednesday Morning Ramblings

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The drainage ditch behind the building before being filled in.

Excellent news on the building.  The new drainage system, a variation of a French ditch, seems to be working.  Despite the heavy rains yesterday, there was very little water inside the building, and what little water was there came from the area in the roof around the chimney.  That’s a fairly easy fix and shouldn’t cost much money.  I can’t even begin to express how good it feels that all of my hard work is paying off.

The picture above shows the pipe before the dirt was filled in.  The one below shows the pipe covered with dirt and sections of brick over the drill holes for drainage.  If you look at the black plastic on the wall, you’ll get an idea of just how much dirt was moved to fill it in.  So far, it’s working exactly like we expected.  There’s still some work to do on the ends to get the water flowing away from the building, but the bulk of the job is complete.

The building is coming together.  soon, I’m going to start posting some of the before pictures to illustrate just how far we’ve come.  Overall, I’m pleased with where we are.  There’s still a lot to do, but with the momentum we have, I’m certain we’ll be successful.

The completed ditch.
General Posts

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings

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My apologies for not writing an entry before today, but this week has been busy.  At the building, I spent every day working on the drainage ditch.  My body is bruised, scraped, sore, and battered, but the majority of the labor is complete.  Unfortunately, all of the digging has inflamed the carpal tunnel in my right hand.  I’ve dealt with this on and off for a couple of years, but this round is by far the worst.  I spent all day yesterday and so far today resting my arm as much as possible to heal it.  I hate feeling incapacitated in any manner, but right now I can’t even make a fist with my right hand.

In other news, I got the  manuscript for book three back from Philip on Thursday, and from what I’ve seen so far, he did an excellent job.  I’m going to write another entry soon just about the edits he did for me.  I can’t wait to dive into the manuscript and polish it.  I’m ready for the book to be out there and read, and I know that many of my readers are ready for it.  I apologize for how long it has taken for me to get this one out, hopefully, it will have been worth the wait because I believe this book is the best so far.  There’s a punch to it that’s stronger than the first two, in part from the life experiences that have delayed it but also from my growth as a novelist.

That’s all for now.  Keep checking for more details about book three and more updates on the farm.

General Posts

Monday Morning Ramblings

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This weekend was a roller coaster to be sure.  On Friday, Dad called me around 8:30 or so to tell me that Mom’s oldest bulldog has torn her stitches and that Mom needed help.  I headed out there as quickly as I could, not sure what to expect.  I hadn’t even known that the dog had been fixed earlier that week, so I really had no clue what was going on.  When we got there, the scene was pretty bad.  There was blood everywhere, and the poor dog had vomited two or three times.  Mom was understandably upset, so we both tried to get her calmed down and assess the situation.  Then, we saw the dog.  I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but it was at least 100 times worse than I had anticipated, and I hope I don’t have to see anything like that again anytime soon.

The vet got there not long after we did.  He rushed the dog to his truck and did surgery on her for 2 1/2 hours.  She seemed okay that night, after he got her stitched back up, so I went home and was in bed by 1:00 AM.  The next morning, I had to attend graduation, so I got up early, drove to the Expo Center, and sat through the ceremony, all the while daydreaming about the nap I was going to take that afternoon.  I got home from graduation about 1:00 PM and ate lunch.  About 3:00, Dad called to say that the bulldog had just died and asked if I could come back out and bury her.  We think she threw a blood clot into her lungs.  Hopefully, it wasn’t a painful death because she had already been through enough.

I headed back out to the farm, where I dug the hole and buried the dog.  Mom was pretty sad but okay.  She handled it much better than I had expected.  Once we got that taken care of, we made it back home around 7:00 PM.  Needless to say, I was pretty wiped out.  The worst part is that this dog was one the sweetest and most loving animals you could ever hope for.  She was really a sweetheart and a good dog.

Today, I’m tidying up my office before heading out to the farm to work more on the drainage ditch behind the building.  My goal is to have the drainage problem completely fixed by the end of this week.  Then, I can get back to repairing the front wall and cleaning up the inside.  I’m excited about getting to focus most of my energy on the farm.

Remember, there’s big news about book three coming soon, so check back regularly for the announcement.