Two steps forward, one back

1/11/08 Friday
It is much harder to put something back together than take it apart. The tiller project is going slow and today I must take it apart to put on a piece I forgot about. Two steps forward and one step back. At least I got the motor put together. Won't know how good of a job I did till I try to start it.

I only had a small slowdown yesterday so that was good. Don and Cynthia dropped by on their way back from Lubbock, for a short visit. Cherie had just run into town so missed them by only a few minutes. They couldn’t stay long because they are picking up the grandkids who I think are spending the weekend. Cherie is not feeling well this morning. We are planning on going to Steve and Janie’s sometime today. It is Cherie’s regular day to do laundry and stuff there. She may not make it today. Janie was going to hire a company to pick up dog poop in the yard but I told them I would appreciate the job. They weren’t real sure about me doing it because of reliability issues but will give me a chance. Today will be my first day. We can always use the extra cash.

The metal halide light bulbs came in. Now I must hurry to figure out how and where to set up a seed starting operation. It’s time to do that for sure. There is so much work to do. I’m not real confident on getting it done. Hell, I still haven’t finished the Year in Pictures thing yet. I need to sift out the compost, start laying posts for the storage area, build a worm bin (not a high priority), map out what we will grow where, finish trying to find the water line from the well, tap into it and start running irrigation pipe, start building the six foot high vertical lattices for tomatoes (something I’ve studied online), do a concrete dirt mix for a floor in the old henhouse (that will give a solid base rats can’t burrow in), and lots of other stuff I can’t remember at the moment.

Speaking of rats, I finally got the sucker in the garage. Odds are there are more but at least there is one less now. I must get busy. Unfortunately I am getting the dizzy ears ringing feeling that tells me another slowdown is coming. Tough, I’ll work through it anyway, keeping focused on simple tasks. As long as I stay focused on one thing I’m fine. Otherwise I’ll wander from thing to thing lost and little will get done.

I had to change the password on my email because I’ve started receiving spam sent from myself. That tells me someone has accessed it or perhaps put a Trojan on my computer.

Been reading my past journal entries from before my grandmother passed and it is disturbing and sad. Will work past it but it brings up lots of stuff I need to deal with internally, or maybe externally. We’ll see.
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Cherie definitely has the flu. Being the loving couple we are, sharing everything, odds are I’ll be sick soon. Today I’m taking care of her and plan on cleaning the kitchen. I cooked gingerbread cookies last night because I saw the recipe on the molasses jar and it sounded good. They are. Just ran to the store and bought Cherie some popsicles.

So here’s the good news. I have a tiller!!! It works!!! Took a lot of pulling to get it going but once started it ran fine and restarts easily. It still blows some oil but I figure that will reduce when the new rings get seated. If it doesn’t I’ll just keep putting oil in it cause the sucker is going to get used whether it likes it or not. I still have to run to Steve and Janie’s to do the poop scooping. She called to warn me about parking in front because some low life shot the window of her car out. Probably punk kids. I don’t have room to talk considering my shenanigans as a teen. Things like stretching a rope across the road with a garbage can tied on each end. This was in Big Spring right where the air force guys sped off base when their shift ended. A car would catch the rope at speed and the two garbage cans would swing and collide violently behind it making a loud crash. It never hurt the cars but sure caused a fright. Didn’t do the garbage cans any good either. It was fun at the time but not the same as shooting windows out.
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You can see two of the fans we use to pull as much heat off this stove as possible. There's a third one that helps circulate it through the house.

Cherie’s pretty sick. Running a fever, running to the bathroom, and…well it’s the flu so no need to go into detail. Cherie wanted some ginger ale so I went back to the store and got some. Fetched her some saltines and poured a glass of ginger ale for her. Brought in firewood for the night. This will probably last two days as it’s only going down to thirty tonight and will be in the fifties tomorrow. After that things will get a little colder, in the mid to high twenties. We’ve got enough wood to last the week and there is always plenty dry and seasoned wood to be cut out of the mulberry as well as a couple truckloads of pecan at Chuck and Lillian’s.

Now that I have the tiller running I can start clearing and cleaning the garage to make room for other things I need to do. There is a lot as there always will be. Still need to finish the headboard recovered from the landfill. It’s covering about half the woodworking table so when it’s done that will free up more space. I still haven’t run the wiring in the garage. Last year I ran an underground cable from the house to replace the overhead wire that feeds electricity to the garage. That wire has insulation flaking off from years of exposure to this Texas sunlight but is all I have till I get the other hooked up. Just another thing I haven’t gotten to. Still running the garage on extension cords. There’s so much to do and I seem to do so little. It’s frustrating. But the tiller works!!!

I’m going out to the garage now. I’ll keep my cell phone so Cherie can call if she needs anything.