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The houses are moving!

Category: Daily Happenings | Posted: Sat Feb 20, 2010 1:31 am

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We were just getting ready to eat this evening when two pickup trucks pulled into the driveway. It was the people we rent our house from. We've been waiting and waiting for our mobile home to be moved. On Sunday, Howard came and took down some fence and we burned a huge pile of brush and trees so the truck could get from the road to where the mobile home needed to be set. When they came today, they had to hurry and take down another fence and pull the posts because the truck was on the way with the first home which will be ours in a few weeks. The truck pulled that mobile home just like it was a little camper. He's experienced at it and that makes the difference.
He got lots of advice as to where to locate it and where to stop and it was a little crooked, etc. But, a truck came behind him with a little remote control machine on tracks. They hooked it to the tongue of the mobile home and with the remote controls the man moved it back and forth until it was just right. Tomorrow they will come back and level it and put blocks under it and put the skirting back on it. Then, Howard will bring the decks and put them back on it.
We can't move yet though because there are two more to be moved. Sometime in the next week, the three bedroom mobile home will be moved onto the lot next to where we are now. Then, in 10 days to two weeks the doublewide will be moved between the two mobile homes. When it gets moved, then the septic systems, electric and water can be installed.
I will try to get some before pictures tomorrow. It is sure a mess down there and it will take some work to make it ours. We are only going to rent it but it will still be ours. We can build fences for Chance and clear the space for a yard and garden. We won't be able to move for about a month though. Too many things yet to be done.
dooley

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A new address

Category: Daily Happenings | Posted: Sun Feb 07, 2010 2:07 am

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When we moved to Texas in December, 2008 we moved into a four bedroom, three bath home across from Glenda. We never intended to stay here. We were just going to use it as a temporary place while we looked for something smaller. The move took a tremendous amount of energy for two "older" people so we sort of dug in here and stayed. Last fall the lady we rent our house from called and wanted to know why we didn't tell her we were moving. I replied, "I guess it's because we don't know we are moving." Someone we met once or twice had called her and told her we were moving out by them and they were losing their renter. She said she didn't know we wanted something smaller.
She said she had a two bedroom, two bath mobile home in a mobile home(trailer)park in Midway. Only problem, she had just moved into it. So, she began the process of finding her another place. She would move the mobile home to the lot next door to where we are now.
They have about 15 acres of land around where we are living now so after inquiring of the county officials about the septic systems and the energy company about electricity it was decided to move both of us down the street from here. The place they wanted to locate was very wooded and full of brush. So, since December whenever it wasn't raining they have been out here clearing brush and making a driveway and putting up fences and keeping busy. She and her husband both drive over the road semi-trucks and are gone for most of the week and sometimes for longer periods of time. Yesterday, she came out with a lady from the county and they went and looked at the places they cleared and the lady went back and put it into the computer and came up with addresses for three lots.
So, gardening this spring and summer will be a challenge because the space cleared right now is just for the mobile homes. When they are all moved and set up then they and we will clear the spaces for gardens and yards. We will have lots of space and Chance will have a bigger space. They will do all of the outside fences and we will fence a space for Chance and for the garden. Her husband was also talking of making a very large garden area for all four houses.
A mobile home is a house on wheels that can be moved to different places. They put it on a foundation and skirt the bottom and it looks like a long narrow house. It is not as expensive as building a house. It started out with them being in "trailer" parks but now people purchase them and put them on lots. There are also "doublewides" which are two put together to make a square house.
Anyway, within two or three weeks, weather permitting, the moving of mobile homes will begin and hopefully before wannabe comes the middle of March we will be in the smaller place. Maybe we will be in between and will be sleeping under the trees.
Maybe we will still be here because everyone seems to be posting the pictures of the giant snowstorm so we are sure to be getting a lot more rain.
dooley

Last edited: Sun Feb 07, 2010 3:37 pm

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The color is gray!

Category: Daily Happenings | Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2010 2:23 am

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I was just sitting here reading about Toni's pantry. I've been feeling a little blah today. It seems like it's been gray and cloudy and raining forever. When the sun decides to come out, it's just in time to watch it disappear over Glenda's house. I think she gets more sun than us and it's just not fair.
Gray is not a color to instill anything. I've been trying to sew and do things and not just sit around watching the rain and thinking about sunshine. Today, I was sewing a garden apron and it was a dark blue. I wanted to put an orange butterfly on it. I drew the butterfly on the cloth and embroidered (zigzagged) around it. I missed the line in a couple of spots because it's gray in here, even with the lights. So, I think I will not put that pocket on the apron. I think I will choose a print material and put a pocket out of some cheery material on the apron instead of a butterfly. Now that I'm thinking about it, I think starting in the morning when it's going to still be gray and cloudy I'll just sew things out of bright cheery material and leave the plain stuff for sunny days.
It was a soup kind of day and I was looking in the pantry cupboard, trying to decide what kind of soup to make. There was a package of bean soup mix. It said 16 bean soup mix. Not a mix really, just 16 different types of beans. So, I washed them and put them in a pot and added water and boiled them a minute or two, turned off the pot and let them soak an hour or so. dr said I should use the leftover pork barbecued ribs for the flavoring instead of fresh pork or hambone. So, after the soaking, I drained the beans and washed them and put fresh water on them, added the barbecued ribs and brought the pot to a boil, turned it to med/low and let them simmer.
I pulled the mixer to the front of the counter and mixed up a batch of yeast bread dough. We brought it into this room next to the heater to rise. In this big house we try to heat only the areas that are in use. Chance is used to us moving her bed around to rooms where we are so she stays warm too.
Anyway, when the bread went into bread pans I put two potatoes, chunked up and some chopped onion and peppers into the soup pot. I pulled the ribs out and cut the meat off of the bones and put the meat back. After taking the accumulated fat out of the dish the ribs had been stored in, I poured the barbecue sauce into the bean pot. I turned it to low now so it wouldn't be done before the bread. I made the bread into to large loaves and 12 rolls. We made inroads into the 12 rolls for supper with the barbecued pork bean soup. dr says I should make a few extra barbecued ribs each time so we can have barbecued bean soup each time. It was very good and there is enough for another time. Reheated, it might be even better.
I made cranberry orange bread yesterday so in a bit I will go and make a fresh mug of tea and have some of it as a snack before bed. I don't need a snack before bed but it's just sitting there waiting for someone to eat it and it should be me, I think.
dr is going to get Chance up for some exercise. She sleeps too much on these gray days. Then in the middle of the night she gets up to play. We are not very happy to be woken up by a dog playing squeaky in the middle of the night. He took her out on the long front porch to run up and down. She went out the back for her nightly outing and had to be dried out when she came back inside. She doesn't much like to be wet. I don't blame her. That rain is cold!!
I've formed an opinion about why we are getting so much rain. It seems like people other places are getting a lot of snow. So, every time someone mentions the word snow, it rains on us. It doesn't matter where they live, if they mention they are getting snow, it clouds up and rains here. So, if someone is getting snow every day some where then, we end up getting rain here every day. Just look at our forecast. Rain three or four days out of every week. This week only one sunny day and it will probably turn out gray and cloudy. dr says it will take him the entire day to catch up on the laundry because it's been two weeks since we've had a day that he could hang it out to dry.
Okay, the color is gray. I'm glad Toni didn't paint her pantry gray. There was a little color in my life today.

dooley

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