IT WAS A WORKING OUTSIDE WEEKEND

 I wish I had more pics of before but suffice to say, no mowing for the better part of three weeks with lots and LOTS, of rain, it was out of control.

Here is a great before.  This is part of the side yard next to the well shed.  It was like this all over the yard; front, back, side, driveway etc.

And here is that same spot after.  Much better.

Here's a side yard shot next to the garage.  That's Barnabas, our old mesquite tree.  I need to do some clearing there but the mower can't get closer and there is debris like rocks, etc. that will have to be cleared first (while watching for snakes, ha).

Yep, over two hours on the Zen Machine.  Covered 7.2 miles, ha.  That's because I had to mow a lot of areas first with the mowing deck up so it wouldn't bog down and then mow the same spot again with the deck at normal height.

After mowing, I had to edge and trim.  This is the orchard area, and the mower can't get in between the beds.  But the trimmer works great for this.

Here is the well shed.  After I mowed all around it, I had to edge it to keep it looking neat.  And that is why we had the slab poured to be a little larger than the shed...I can safely edge without damaging the building with the trimmer line. 

Now to get it painted, ha!

But in the end, after mowing AND edging, it looks so much neater.

Here is the back of the house (and our pile of septic excavation dirt that they use to fill in low spots, ha).

Here is the front from the barn/shed area.  Lots of clippings but most of it blew away in the storm that we had come through Sunday night.  

It's done and I feel accomplished.  Now I just need to get into the mindset of remembering that I can mow anytime now, if it looks like extended rain is coming, I can mow on a Wednesday night after work or early Sunday morning.  Or I can edge on Friday night and then mow Saturday evening.  Before, it was a 45 mile drive out here and I had to time it to get back into town and had to pick and choose my yard battles.  Now I'm here for all the battles, ha!

A new strategy awaits! 

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

 Another week has flown by.  We were busy doing stuff after 5pm the last few nights and I didn't get a change to post.  Today we'll have the semi usual post, while I'm outside mowing and edging.  It's a NIGHTMARE because of the rains we've had but hey, we live here now and I can work outside as often as I need to, ha.

Weekend is easy with some roasted chicken and veggies.  We remove the skin before eating of course, but it looks "prettier" for the picture like this, ha.  Carrots, sweet potatoes and beets.

Babygirl loves hanging out on the porch.  She lets us pick her up briefly now, so baby steps. She follows me all over the yard, except when I get the mower and/or trimmer out.  Then she disappears until I'm done, ha.  Understandable.

#catdistributionsystem

OK, time to go outside and get some stuff done before rain comes (again) later this week.

BIRDS ARE OUR NEW THING

 Is it an age thing?  Or a slowing down in life and enjoying nature thing?  Because we are starting to love birdwatching and taking care of the birds around our property since we moved out here!

Went in Tractor Supply the other day (love that store, ha) and they have a whole section devoted to wild birds and everything you could want!

Seed, houses, feeders and everything.  We didn't get much, but we got lots of ideas.

I had already picked up a few feeders at another store and some bird seed (a Texas blend) at the grocery.

We got them hung up in various places.

We repurposed a large canister jar we had at the old farmhouse for use as our birdseed container.  It's got a rubber seal, and we put a scoop in there and it works out perfectly for filling the feeders.

We also have an awesome birdhouse that was made for us and gifted a couple of years back by an amazing friend, so that's our next step, creating specialized bird sanctuary areas.

We have a bunch of books that were given to us by a very sweet friend and these two have already been invaluable and helped us identify quite a few. 

The birds are happy, that's for sure.

And we are happy...

GOOD FOOD AND KITTY CAT SUNDAY

 It's been a good weekend.  After Friday of course, when we had another insane rainfall amount (a little over 5").  NO mowing this weekend, which is a shame because it is definitely getting out of control.  

But at least we had some good food.

2nd Man roasted us mahi-mahi and then glazed some carrots in agave syrup.  SO good.

I made an arugula and mixed greens salad with shaved Parmesan, homemade vinaigrette and sunflower seeds.

Caught Babygirl "hiding" behind a weed, ha.  We will be honest though, she does blend in with the grasses and ground at times, ha.

Hope you all are having a good weekend!

WILDLIFE WEDNESDAY

 (This was supposed to post yesterday, but I had the wrong date. We'll leave it as 'Wildlife Wednesday').

So, feeding the kitties means we have some other visitors.  This guy visits almost nightly.

He likes the food and water and he comes late, after the cat(s) have come and gone.

As raccoons do, he washes his paws in the water.

He's ready for his closeup:

We have named him "Floppy the Raccoon".  2nd Man will see the Ring camera alert and say "Floppy is here!"

He's a cutie for sure and that ear just cracks us up.

WE HAD RAIN

 A LOT of rain.

This was a couple of weekends ago. We got about 5 inches of rain in a couple of hours.

We learned where our low spots are.

The backyard has a low spot right here near the well-shed.

Here is the front yard toward the driveway.

Here is a little more of the front yard.

Here is the side of the house near the septic.  The water runs from this side of the property through the front yard and down the sides of the driveway toward the road and speaking of...

...the driveway is high and dry.  Glad they updated that for us during construction.  The water flows down the sides and with the culvert drains they put under it, the water flows under instead of over, so we're happy.

But we had a new thing happen.  This is where the OLD septic tank was.  It was one of those cylindrical ones, small, concrete.  They removed it and filled the hole.  Well, it has settled.  They are coming back out to fill in more dirt for us when everything is finished settling.

The good thing is that when they staked out our house, the surveyor told us we should move the house forward and over a bit so that this area wasn't under the slab (which it would have been).  So we moved it 10 feet each way and sure enough, if this had been under the slab, we could possibly have cracks in the slab.

Anyway, next step is to contact someone to have them see about what we can do for the water.  We don't want to add dirt and have the water move back toward the house.  As it is now, even though it does fill up, it flows away from the house so that's a good thing.

We shall see how things go...

NEW BALL MASON JAR AMERICANA 250

 As usual, I was at lunch, roaming around the store (Walmart) and I stumbled across these jars:

These are the newest limited edition Mason jars from Ball.  You can CLICK HERE to read about them.

Of course, I had to have them for my canning jar collection so I bought one set of each size they have available.

Since my pictures are still in the packages, I found this on the ball website to show you a little clearer.

They were created for the our Nation's 250th birthday celebration this year.  They are really neat with embossed stars all over them and a really cool red/white/blue lid.  Of course, now I'm wondering, since the lids aren't reusable, will they have a special package of them for sale separately?  Or maybe just ALSO sell special lids for this year only.

Ball, if you're listening...

Anyway, a fun addition and only available for a limited time so if you are interested, check them out.

They are at Walmart, Target, grocery stores, etc or of course sell them online HERE AT AMAZON.

HOME SAFETY MONITORING

We've done a few things at the to keep things safe and keep an eye on things.  What types of things?  Temps, water and electricity!

First up, we got these.  They are the GOVEE remote temperature sensors.  We bought them HERE ON AMAZON if you are interested.  They also measure humidity but we're mostly concerned about tracking temperatures.

Here's one outside on the front porch...

...and here's one hanging inside the well shed.

App screenshot

Here is what we initially had: we put one in the well shed (very important), one on the front porch (to get an accurate outdoor temperature) and one in the garage near the whole house water filter and pipes (also very important).

App screenshot

We thought they were so valuable to have when we had our big freeze, we bought three more!  We put the ones in the garage attic, in the house attic and the last one on the back screened in porch.  Now we can monitor temperatures in vital areas all year long.  It will even send us alerts if a temperature reaches a level we want to be warned about.

For our water to the house, we bought the FLO device by Moen.  It goes between the water coming into the house from the well and going out to the rest of the house plumbing.  We had the builder do this for us, so we paid for it, but they installed it.  It was a bit above our experience level, though they say it's easy to install.  Better to have it done when the house was being built, ha.

App screenshot

Here is some info from the website:

Leak Detection & Prevention: It identifies small leaks (down to a drop per minute) and, through FloSense AI, learns your home’s water usage to identify irregularities.

Automatic Shutoff: If a major leak or burst pipe is detected, it can automatically shut off the water to prevent flooding.

Real-Time Monitoring & Alerts: The Moen Smart Water App provides live data on water usage, pressure, and flow rates, sending alerts if abnormalities are found.

Daily Health Checks: It runs tests to ensure your home's waterlines are secure.

Remote Control: Users can shut off their water manually from anywhere in the world via the app.

App screenshot

Lastly, we have this.  It is called the TING and is a sensor designed for proactive safety, catching electrical problems that are often hidden until they cause damage. It's super simple to install, you just plug it in to an outlet!  We got ours for free with our insurance company but they do sell it HERE ON AMAZON.

App screenshot

Info from their website:

Fire Hazard Detection: Uses advanced technology to identify potential electrical fires, with a proven record of preventing 4 out of 5 such incidents.

Monitors Hidden Faults: Identifies issues behind walls, in outlets, in switches, and within plugged-in devices (e.g., overloaded power strips).

Utility Grid Monitoring: Detects dangerous power surges or brownouts coming from the utility, which can cause damage.

Proactive Alerts & Support: If a hazard is detected, Ting sends a notification and provides a support team to help identify and resolve the issue.

Simple Setup: Plugs into a standard wall outlet and connects to Wi-Fi, without requiring cameras or microphones. 

There is some great technology out there nowadays to keep homes safe, we figured we might as well protect ours as best as we can.

BAY LEAVES ONE OF THESE IS NOT LIKE THE OTHER

Ever since we lost our Bay Laurel tree in one of the epic freezes, we've been buying bay leaves again.  2nd Man loves to cook with them.  Recently, we found some new ones that definitely not the same, ha.

Can you tell by this photo?

Ha!  They are both bay leaves but obviously not the same.  He was excited to find these quality, fresher, darker green ones and so I got to thinking...

We need our own tree again!

I searched online and found a place and ordered one. The last one we had was small, and so I decided to pay a little extra to get a bigger one.

I ordered a 3 gallon size and they did not disappoint.

This one is 3' tall.  Here is the image from the website and the one we got is almost identical.

We can't wait to find the perfect spot for it, but for now, it is in a pot on the back porch.  Need to do a little research and see if just putting it in a large clay pot (we have a couple we could use) will work and then we can move it as needed.

We should get to harvest some leaves soon!

UTILITY SINK AND WATER COOLER

We figured we should start touring things we've done inside the house.  Yes we are still unpacking, the garage is full of boxes as we slowly empty the storage unit, but we're getting there.  

This is our garage utility sink.

It's next to the garage fridge.  I found a cool metal basket/drainer that we had in storage from the old house.  It fits great on here!  This sink will be the perfect spot for washing veggies from the (future) garden, using the back grilling/cooking porch, cleaning pots and pans and other cooking things, etc.  Having a deep utility sink like this will come in handy for sure.

The fridge is on one side and so what to put on the other side of it?

We moved our water cooler to the spot next to the sink!  The nice thing about this set up is that while it's close to the door from inside the house to the garage (if we need instant hot water or additional fresh water for something), it's also right NEXT to the outside door to the back yard.  As I come in and out on mowing/working outside days, I can use this sink to clean up and I have cold water to drink without going inside the house (though a/c is awfully nice on a hot day, ha).

And here's the best part:

The five gallon water bottle fits in the sink perfectly so we can refill it!  Remember, our water guy looked at our well water test results even before our whole house filter and said he would drink straight from the well without any worry.  Of course, we went ahead and put in the whole house filter for a multitude of other reasons and after we did that, the installer said every faucet in the house will have Ozarka quality water coming out of it, ha.

This spot worked out perfectly.  I can come in the back door on mowing days and get cold water for a break without going inside the house and then once I'm done, I can stop and wash my hands and clean up before going inside!

Win/Win!