give some snow instead of this crap.

1-03 2015

Cold and Rainy

still working on it 

       Was supposed to be freezing rain but instead I believe we have the just plain rain, kind of day when you want to roll over and say what the heck , a couple more hours sleep won’t hurt me. Instead something inside says well maybe if I get up and try to get a few things done inside maybe I can still make something out of the day. I guess it is official that 2014 went down as being the warmest on record. It didn’t get a reprieve up until the last minute was so out of character in terms of temperature and overall mood. This leaving us less hopeful that days of snowy weather and of winter memories we had as a kid will soon disappear along with the cold as we become one of those states like Missouri and Kentucky who get occasional bouts of freezing rain and black ice to signal a winter of their memory and type as no snow just miserable bouts of orneriness to test our resolve. Not quite cold enough to be pretty with snowcapped pine trees, layer the ground in a blanket of white and still be able to kill the bugs, instead we forced to reside under an umbrella and view out upon shades of brown bleak gray days, followed by long periods of darkness and dreariness. What have we as humans done to ourselves? We can figure out most anything as a species except when enough is enough and try and fix our wrongs.

      The cold when it does come to January seems to be punctuated by a numbing pain inducing cold to all extremities not protected as it was the last couple of days. Although the temperature climbed above freezing, my fingers were still cold as grabbed the grip of my chainsaw and worked a few hours outside. On the first or New Year’s Eve, a friend visited for a few hours.  As well I loaded a large round bale for a steady buyer of the hay produced here on the farm. Not a bad way to finish the year and begin a new one. I know this year that I need to house more of my round bales one way or another to protect them as the hay is quite good and a shame to see me lose the top layer to the elements. I tried the plastic wraps but wasn’t too impressed with them. At first I thought they were a whole bag where you slip the whole bale in there, instead it leaves both ends open, and without tying bricks on the corner of the plastic to weigh it down, and keep it from flapping , the bags are useless and may contribute more to loss of hat due to moisture damage then without on the bale.

    I thought that losing the cattle would be tough , tough is spending a lot of money  and working just as hard to keep a few, when it is much easier to do a hundred and make some money and be able to afford to live. There again one hundred takes a lot more pasture and fences and time, as well as feed. Al of which was doable but unfortunately not in my lifetime and for what?  I only have red beef only on rare occasions when I feel I need it to ward off a vitamin deficiency. Besides they were pets and it would be like me doing something to one of my pets.  Feeding isn’t much of a problem with the large hay bales and the cows do clean them up as well, if they are on pasture will pick around and find a bit to forage on here and there if you have some good winter pasture. For me I would rather spend a few minutes loading someone else’s truck than worry about my cows welfare and other variables of whether I can keep my costs down and maybe try and make a buck for the farm.

      Now instead, in the winter I can take my time getting out on these cold gray miserable days as only Ohio can make them and instead spend time worrying about my new project that I have spoken of before on here. That is making me a new house with what I have available to me. As I said before I really don’t see myself going anywhere and if I did I would always need a place to land and here is about a nice a place in this maddening world where everywhere we turn the country is being eaten up by developers. It just seems strange that we can’t work with what we have and replace those run down shacks and repurpose those eyesores before making any new land available to rape pillage an plunder. I doubt if you see this blatant land grab anywhere else in the world except here in the USA or in other new world countries. Old world countries where land is limited they see their way to reinvent old properties and understand the value of making every square foot count as land becomes scarcer.

     I intend to do the same thing as I build on to the existing structure and reinvent the same old place, some of it including the older part I intend to save dates back to the early forties when grandpa needed a house for Grandma, my Mom and Aunt Fran to live in, while he remodeled the old log cabin which is mom’s house today. That cabin was built in the early 1800’s and still exists today hidden under a skin of shingles just like it was years ago when grandpa and grandma finished it. Not much has changed except the overall look of things outside from the day I first saw it.

     The old part of my house was a block structure upon which Grandpa slid a Sears chicken house , that someone had bought and Grandpa bought it off them and refitted it for use as the top part of the house we called the little house. It was never used as a chicken house except to raise some young ones under lights in. It was said about the chicken house, as that is what Sears sold these hoop shaped buildings as, was available through the mail order portion of the catalog, where you could buy one and they would send the parts pieces to your house through freight companies. As well they also sold a lot of houses this same way and you would be surprised how many still exist today, and this was around the time of the end of the war when suddenly materials became more available, a little house or tiny house in itself. Anyone that follows me on Facebook would surely understand I have a fascination with tiny houses, but mainly as a place to get away for a few days. Long term and senior wise, I could design something that would be unique, and still have a small footprint, it’s just that making beds or upstairs accessible requires more first floor space and you really end up with what I am designing anyhow.

    Why not incorporate the little house part into my main house making them one and the same. Because Grandpa was short and in order for me to raise the second floor high enough for me to be comfortable walking under requires the need to have another row of block on the foundation. I will use it for my greenhouse below, and art studio and office above. Keep that part of the house as it is, will make changes on the exterior as needed to make it different. At one time it had doors on both ends and I would like to eventually have that again along with decks on both ends allowing me to walk from one end to the other on a second level as well access the first from a bridge, trellis, greenhouse and ramp arrangement tying he two structures together, and increasing my greenhouse space in the process of this whole thing. So a good part of my free time has went to trying and see how I may be able to take what I have make something grand out of this whole thing. If only in my imagination, if then  that at least I will have a roof over my head and a place to sleep,  and knowledge I have tried to do the right thing.