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 great 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 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!

WILDLIFE SATURDAY

Hope your weekend is off to a good start.

We were cooking dinner not too long ago and looked out the kitchen window and saw this...

...just a couple of deer strolling through the driveway and front yard.  Nothing like a wonderful meal, a couple glasses of wine and some local wildlife just casually saying hello.

We love it out there here!

#lifeisgood

RECLAIMING RAIN WATER

When we didn't have our well to water our plants, we've left the wheelbarrows to sit upright and left some of the 5 gallon buckets out next to the barn and shed.  Even after we got the well, before we moved in I only had to go a few times to fill up the buckets.

That's because all other times, I used rainwater!

We really wanted to see how it would work and how much water we could reclaim.

We are amazed at how much we collect!  This is one of the wheelbarrows after a rain (and I had already dipped in a bucket for some water)...

These three 5-gallon buckets were full up to the top (I had already used some of one bucket before I thought to take photos).  Fifteen gallons of water here just ready to use.  Now this is just to water the plants we had temporarily put behind the barn until we were out here and could use the hose.

But what that did was make us realize that we should really look into reclaiming/harvesting rainwater.

Now that we have our gutters, it should be easier to adapt something for use.  Doing some research now! 

GUTTER GUARDS

We recently posted HERE about our new gutters.  This was something we found online that was recommended to us and we think is a good extra level of protection, especially being rural.

They are gutter guards, used to prevent animals from going up the downspout.  They often use them as ladders to access roofs or as nesting sites.  The most common culprits are squirrels, mice and rats.  We also read that lizards and snakes can climb them looking for insects or other creatures, giving them access to the roof and possible points of entry.  Worst case, they can even become trapped in a downspout and die, and we SURE don't want that.

We bought them HERE on Amazon.  They are a little pricey but well-made and heavy duty for sure.  They screw on (screws included) and come in a variety of colors to match various gutter colors.  

The piece at the end comes slides off for easy cleaning if you need to let leaves or debris out of the gutter.  

We bought eight of them and put them on all of our downspouts.

They fit fairly tight with pressure, but they do have holes and come with screws for attaching them to the downspout.  It was super easy.

A couple had to be turned sideways because of the way the gutter was mounted but hey, as long as it does the job and keeps out creatures, we are fine with that.

BACK ON THE ZEN MACHINE

 The first official mow of the year is in the books.

The service shop dropped it off a couple weeks ago and I had to wait for some rainy weather to finally clear out.

I am finally able to start clearing some of the areas "post construction" that had grown up a lot.  Wish I had a before pic of this but suffice to say, it was heavily overgrown.  This area still has some construction debris, concrete chunks and such in it so I have to walk it first and move stuff or mow around it for now.

Also cleared around the well shed and Barnabas (the big mesquite).  I got as close as I could but will have to use the string trimmer for the closer to the tree.

It was a usually time, about an hour and a half and did about three acres.  The weather was cool and it was definitely a moment of Zen...until...

Speaking of construction debris, I looked at the mower before I closed the shed doors and thought, "what's wrong with the mower?".  Oh crap, a flat tire.  Sigh.  This mower has never had the tires treated with that awesome green good,, ha, so I will be off to the store soon to get some tire Slime.

There won't be any mowing this weekend because it is supposed to rain all day Saturday so I'll have time to get that and get the tires fixed. 

And hey, now I have a concrete driveway to do this type of work on!  Can't wait!  It will certainly be much easier.

Hope your Easter weekend gets off to a great start!