Doing things right is often overrated. Don’t get me wrong. It is truly wondrous to see a person with a high level of skill, attack a task with a speed and accuracy that leaves us all breathless with awe. Still, you have to ask yourself how they got that way don’t you?

Do you think B. B. King came out of the womb playing The Thrill is Gone? Was Mohamed Ali floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bee when he was in diapers? Did Michelangelo design helicopters, and paint masterpieces in preschool? I doubt that very seriously.

In all things, there is a learning process. No matter how gifted you might be, there is that period of time when you hit yourself in the thumb with the hammer, trip over the shoelaces of your dancing shoes, and drop your musical instrument on your foot. For an old reprobate retired soldier turned fry cook, the learning curve for a homesteader is pretty steep. Picture the wall of the Grand Canyon; that kind of steep.

We are coming up on the end of our second year on our homestead. I want to look at some things we did well, some things we did badly, some things we did not do at all, and some things we should never have done.

It bears repeating, doing things right IS highly overrated. I am one of those people who improves his skills by getting dirt under my fingernails. I can read a book, listen to an instructor, watch a video, then pass a test with flying colors. However, until I am turning information into action I have not really been trained.

Learning is the assembly of facts; training changes behavior. You can read every possible book on horsemanship, but your really not a rider until you are sitting on your butt looking up into the eyes of the horse that just made a fool of you. THAT is lesson number one.

So the first thing I will tell you, is that I regret spending way too much time being afraid of failure. That does not just apply to the homestead; that applies to my life in general. However, we will narrow it down to the homestead and these last couple years.

A lot more would have happened around here, were I not afraid of looking like a fool in general, and incompetent in particular. If I had taken most of the time I spent figuring out what I did not have or know that kept me from doing something, and just did it, I would have accomplished a lot more.

So, my free advice, worth every penny you paid for it, is do not fear doing things wrong. Anything worth doing is worth screwing up a couple times. Do not judge yourself against others and particularly against those you believe to be expert. You are going to start any project with the skills you have now. Done right, you will finish it with more, better, and broader skills. Even if you fail completely, you will still have learned how not to do it and what you need to know to do it.

So what are my regrets? Sit back and relax this might take awhile:

When we were shopping for a home, I went in prayer to God and ask Him to close doors if I were heading in the wrong direction. Doors just flew open to getting this place. For that reason I believe this is the place the Good Lord wants Connie and I. However, my first thought on this matter, is that we bit off more than we were, and still are, able to chew.

We considered, what we thought was carefully, and decided on between five and ten acres. Seemed reasonable to us at the time. We are two years in, and have not fully used two acres. That two acres includes about a quarter acre dog run, inside which the dogs sometimes even stay. So my takeaway?

Really give thought to how much land you need, but, if you must err, err on more than less. I can always let three acres go wild, and let somebody hay it just to knock the stuff down, but I cannot figure out how to make more ground.

Before you buy it, know your place. Had I known everything I know now, I would have still chosen this farm but:

I should have noticed that most of the center east-west cross fence was simply trash, and a lot of the boundary fencing is going to need replacement.

I should have learned that if the gates were not hanging on the fences (they were in the lean-to on the barn), they were not considered part of the property. That little mistake is going to cost me a bit.

I should have asked more questions about the septic system, but the two year old roof dazzled me with its brilliance.

I should have stopped, and talked to Connie about the interior decoration of the house (every man reading this just went to sleep). Let me leave this next statement gender neutral: The fact one of you could care less about the Disco Ball in the Den, does not mean the other one feels that way.

So there are some examples of the things I intend to talk about during the month of July. August 1^st we will have slept in our home for two years. If I had it to do all over again, and with all I have learned since then, I think this is right where we need to be.

“Busier than a long tailed cat in a room fulla rockin’ chairs.” Now there is one that paints you a picture. Much like “Busier than a one armed wall paper hanger.” or “Busy as a one legged man at a butt kickin’ contest.” All good old fashioned ways to describe my last few months.

So the next question would be: “Busy doin’ what bud?”

Funny you should ask:

I believe the last time we talked, I was discussing getting some bees. On 30 April 2016 we became the proud owners of two hives of Russian Honey Bees, and no, they do not do that funny little dance.

 

 

In my last post, I also discussed more chickens. We got those too, with limited success. We bought a total of ten Rhode Island Red pullets (at least that was how they were advertised) of which five made it to adulthood. Two were apparently cleverly disguised as pullets because they had grown up to be roosters. OOPS. If, at this point, you are thinking of an inappropriate joke well…. me too, but we digress.

For some reason, after reaching adulthood one rooster and one hen decided to go over the fence and visit the dogs. This was a fatally unwise decision on their part. No, I did not shoot the dogs, though I did make my disapproval known. I did not shoot them because first, the chickens had come to them, and second, I already had Miss Katherine in a complete funk over the dead rooster and hen, so having to say goodbye to the dogs would have made that matter worse.

But, as Claremary said in one of her comments, farm life can be harsh. We already have a little graveyard on the place. So now Aero and Sleepy are buried with Marshmellow, Loki and Ice Cold, the Beta.

So we move on with what we have, which includes our two original roosters who are grown, full of vinegar and kicking each others butts daily.

Connie misplaced her camera; it showed up in a box of seeds. Things have a habit of doing that in our home. I misplaced my Barlow for a couple months and found it in my pencil/pen cup on my desk. So we do not have a lot of picture of the Rhode Island Reds. Also, we did lose six months of pictures when Connie’s computer went haywire. We will have more shortly.

On March 30,  Jim Williams (Connie’s ex-husband and the children’s father) passed away. Jim, like me, was retired military. Jim, like me also, was a drunk. By the grace of God, I have been sober for seven years.  Jim was not so blessed. Anyway, he had no one to take care of his arrangements, except a young son who, though grown, was not prepared for those issues. Neither were we, for that matter.

First, there was the funeral expense. Although he had left enough to handle it, the money was not going to be available. After some consideration I talked to Connie and we handled it temporarily. The man had been her husband for many years and, besides that, he was a veteran and we are too.

Next came the family: one son from Germany and several family members from Kentucky. We had the son from Jim’s first marriage, Jim’s brother from Kentucky, and two of his nieces. It was a bit crowded but everyone was wonderful guests, and we gave Jim a fair send off.

In May, we planted some trees Connie got from the Missouri Department of Conservation for a very reasonable price. We had thirty trees (that’s a lotta holes by the way) of which we  got about twenty in the ground. We now have a possibility of about fifteen making it. A little hint: bunnies LOVE witch hazel.

Then there was the job, which was not working out. So I have taken another one, which has a higher earning potential. It will be four ten hour days instead of five eights. So let’s add some job stress, and then a job change to the mix.

Then we had the rains. Missouri had been under drought conditions from around 2009 until last year. Well, that’s over. The Good Lord made a promise to Noah that He would not flood the whole earth again. He said nothing about flooding Missouri. That was left open for consideration.

During one of the worst of several bad rainstorms, I noticed that a drain in the basement was backing up. Thus began the reign of broken things. This drain was hooked to what turned out to be a gray water line, so every time we used the washer, sinks or showers, we had water back up. Actually it was better than I suspected. I was afraid that the septic was backing up.

Next came the truck. I got off from work one evening, and it appeared to me that the safety switch, that kept me from starting the truck without the clutch in, had shorted.

Then came the oven, followed by the air conditioner. Not to be outdone, Connie’s computer went belly up, and then mine committed hot computer suicide.

Wow! Do I need to tell you that I, a bumbling repair man at best, was a little overwhelmed? Finally I realized that it would likely be best if we did something about this mess. So we prayed a lot, and then:

I had already replaced Connie’s computer before mine went out so we restored her old one to factory settings and I took it. We also managed to get a lot of the saved stuff off of my computer and we had quite a bit of Connie’s already on an external hard drive. Computer situation solved.

We called a plumber from Chilicothe, Mo who did drains and septic tanks. If you are in the area and looking for a plumber, message me I will give you his number. I was ready to spend a grand on this without blinking. After ten minutes he had determined that it was a plugged gray water drain, that went into the ditch by the road. Apparently this is done a lot in Braymer. Within forty minutes, he and his partner had cleared the clog.  No mess, no trouble, and two hundred bucks well spent.

As for the truck; I have road service as part of my insurance. It was not the clutch safety switch, it was a loose battery cable which was shorting out. Total cost: one hundred and ten bucks. After I get my refund for the tow, ten bucks. I can live with that.

The AC looked scary. Connie and I cleaned up a 5000 BTU window unit we had from the old house, and put it in the kitchen. I called around, and what I heard scared me badly. At church, I shared all this in Sunday school class, and the Minister gave me the name of the man who worked on the church’s AC. I called on Monday, he came on Tuesday.  Total cost: ninety bucks.

So what I would have estimated as a total of about two thousand dollars, came out to more like five hundred dollars. I can live with that, although five hundred ain’t chump change either.

And that is the way the last five months have gone. “Busy as Cranberry Merchant.” Connie’s great-grandma used to say that one. Neither one of us know what it refers to.

Oh, and then we have the medical things. I have been scoped from every conceivable angle. Connie is going to get endoscopy next week, and next month she is going to have her foot and ankle operated on. Oh yes,and my gimp back blew out on me, but that is fine now.

Beside all that, everything had been fine.

Ed