Archives for 2011

Monotonous, we did more yard cleanup, had another fire, Hubby repaired some shingles on the garage roof that had apparently come off recently, probably with the big storms they had the week before we got home. I bush-hogged the 3 acres of pasture that have overgrown, just to make it look a bit better. Work, work, work!

Not much to add except we’re still plugging along. Spent a lot of the day outside cleaning sticks in the yard and piling them onto an old stump in the front of the yard, then having a bonfire to clean up the residue. Hubby still concentrating on numerous yard jobs, including making the paddock escape proof. The horses escaped over the weekend and wandered all the way down the road to a neighbor’s yard, Hubby didn’t see them but I found them after walking half a mile to where they were. I used the lead rope as a makeshift rein and rode my horse back home, with his Mama trailing untethered behind (she never lets him out of her sight). Met Hubby coming down the road in the van, he was relieved to find the horses were safe. Unfortunately, a stray dog that had been hanging around that neighbor’s house decided he had better pickings with us and followed us home, now I can’t get rid of him. My dogs usually run off other dogs, but I got the impression they thought I’d brought this dog home with me and were instead polite to him. Trying to find someplace we can turn him into to find a home, but shelters are “iffy” around here, and animal controls seems to be quick with the needle, so I’m not sure what to do. We’ll figure out something. Anyway, my pyromania had a field day with the fire today, so I’m a happy (though still sore) camper.

Slept late, then did virtually nothing but crash in front of the TV for the day, bones and muscles aching from all the activity of the week. Sleeping well in our fresh water bed, and the house is definitely losing it’s infested quality, actually getting back to (boring) normal.

Happy to say that only a few of the cupboards showed signs of infestation, so I spent the day emptying those out, washing pots and pans and relining the shelves with clean liners. The laundry I’ve been doing all week is still stacked up in the laundry room, so sorting through that’s still a job to be done. Making progress, though!

Managed to get all the furniture moved in the bedroom today, though not without finding yet another dead mouse body. Vacuumed, sprayed, disinfected, powdered the carpet, you name it, I did it to get the germs and smell out. My prediction panned out, though, the bedroom looked MUCH better, and much bigger with the new layout. I had planned on doing this rearranging when we got new flooring in, but since that’s not going to happen anytime soon, I just had to do something. Even Hubby, who I think wasn’t thrilled about the extra work when we started, is happy with the result. Refilled the waterbed with warm water, and we were able to spend the night in the house for the first time since we got home. Now, on to the kitchen!

More hard work cleaning up. Found numerous more dead mouse bodies, and made several calls regarding getting a pest control service to take care of the place after we leave next time. I do not want to have to go through this every time we come home! Managed to get a lot done today, though again, it’s exhausting work. Also managed to get another work contract set up, which entails a day in Nashville, which I’ve conveniently timed so that we can spend the night up there and go to Hubby’s doctor’s appointments the following day before heading back home. It also means a trip to Houston next month, and possibly NYC as well, depending on what the client wants to do. Hoping to finish up the bedroom tomorrow.

With the kitchen in the house also showing some signs of mouse infestations (though nothing like the bedroom), we had breakfast in the RV before heading into town to do shopping, getting groceries and running errands. House still smells, but getting better! Still sleeping and eating breakfast in the RV though!

Spent the day cleaning up the house and yard, barely scratching the surface but making progress. I had decided to rearrange the master bedroom, a Herculean task because of the king sized waterbed that hadn’t moved in twenty years, but I was determined that it would look better if I changed it around. I emptied all the drawers under the bed and in the dresser and started the task of laundering everything. A lot of the drawers had signs of mouse infestation, so nothing was going to be left unwashed. I drained the bed and vacuumed everything in sight, while Hubby spent most of the day in the yard doing cleanup out there. Exhausted, we spent the evening watching TV in the house before retiring to the RV to sleep.

Well, as usual, things happened to change our plan. We ended up getting out early enough that we reached our intended stop way too early in the day, so we decided to just drive the extra two and a half hours home, thus avoiding the rain that is schedule to come tomorrow. We still managed to arrive by around 5:00, which was several hours before sunset, plus we gained an hour changing into Central Time, so we got here in plenty of time. We even had time to stop at the post office to pick up our last six weeks of mail, though she had officially closed, she opened up again to give me the huge pile, of mostly junk mail. The dogs were thrilled to be home (I think by now they thought we’d never come back here), but I got the impression the horses weren’t as happy, probably afraid things would go back to the way they were before, one boring day in the pasture after another, but they needn’t worry, we’re only going to stay here for the minimum amount of time. Though there were several hawthorne bushes growing up in the middle of the driveway, we managed to push through those, and after moving a couple of downed tree limbs, managed to clear out the area where the RV is usually parked. The house, not surprisingly, smelled of mouse turds and dead bodies, and we found several dead mice scattered around. We opened everything up to get some fresh air in, but it was still pretty chilly here. We ended up spending the night in the RV, ready to begin the arduous chores of getting things straightened out before we leave again. It promises to be a busy and exhausting time for the next several weeks!