2024-07-06 (Saturday) — Back to the Ranch

Last night was so refreshing! After so many nights of hot hot weather, it got down into the ’60s overnight, and it was cool enough to want to put a blanket on.

It was nice!

It took me a little while to get going this morning, so I was a little late getting To my mom’s to cut fruit, And so we were subsequently a tiny bit late to breakfast, although in matter of fact time, we were just fine because they were still loading the food on the tables when I got there with the first loads of fruit, my mother coming behind me with the second loads.

Family breakfast was a lot like all the other activities, just eating and chilling and chatting. 😊

At the end of the family reunion we had a little awards ceremony for best in whatever, mostly little award surprises for the kids. That was cool. 🙂

After helping with clean up, I chatted with Hunter and Mieko about life and politics and whatever else. They went and picked up the furniture today from the other house, so that was good. That means that the only things that are left at Jenna’s house are the little tiny table that’s only big enough for the Jesus bust statue And the folding privacy curtain that It’s supposed to just go in the trash anyway.

I will pick those up tomorrow, and I think that will conclude everything that I have taken on as a responsibility to get done for the move.

🥳

Spent a little while with Paul trying to help find a leak that is in Liz’s above ground pool. Wasn’t able to find it, but might have found something useful for Liz for resolving the leak. 🤞

Jim invited me to go to Lori and Keith’s to swim with the Utah Wright clan before going to lunch with them before he took them all to the airport, so I rode along. I felt a little out of place, but I wanted to be social and get to know them a little bit more, and that was achieved. 🙂

We went to Las Palmas Mexican restaurant in Bentonville for lunch, and then I said goodbye to everyone, and Jim took them to the airport.

I headed home from there, jumping on the tractor that had been left by the deck because it brought down stuff for the festivities. I brought the big IBC water container up to the garden area in the upper pasture, and then I headed down to the greenhouse area to move all the trusses from the part of the woods that I’ve been clearing to supposedly the part of the land down here where Jim wants to set up another building. So hopefully we can salvage some of the trusses. Several of them are bent, but I think he said he only needs maybe six? We have 12 total left over from the other project he did putting up a little hay barn up by the big barn.

We’ll cross our fingers. Also, putting up another hay shed will mean increasing his property taxes, but it’s worth it for him.

Had enough brush and weeds from getting everything moved to restart the fire. With so much of the wood being relatively freshly cut, it’s not burning as well as one might hope, but it is burning, bit by bit. I also started the brush leftovers on fire where all the trusses had been previously.

It’s taking shape down here, little by little. It’s starting to look a lot more like a work of love and not a junk pile of Arkansas redneck goodness. 🙃

Still a long ways to go to make the transition complete, but it’s looking a lot better. 😊

With some of the more weighty things getting taken care of, the pressure is easing for me, and that’s helping reduce the immediate overwhelm. I’m still quite definitely monumentally short fuse and a half a click away from meltdown, but compared to where I was just a few days ago, it’s much much better.

I think. 😅

Well I fed the fires here and there, keeping the brush fire going because I kept wanting to burn out, and bringing all the extra brush over to the bigger fire, I also got my big bar magnet that’s on the end of a pole and started digging through the weeds next to the garden where I know there’s a whole crap ton of greenhouse hardware that’s been sitting there for years and years. I don’t want to just run over it with the lawn mower accidentally, so I started going through the brush with my big magnet and pulled out probably literally hundreds of bolts and screws and nuts and brackets and all sorts of other Greenhouse things.

So I’m making good progress. I’m grateful for that.

At the moment, it’s just after 10:00, and I think I’m going to go take a quick bath in the creek and call it a night. I’ve only got 14% battery left, so I need to head for bed I think.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I spent some time working on the tractor. It’s been grinding badly when changing from neutral to forward, and I noticed that the clutch play seems to be a lot more than what I would expect. So I fought with the tractor getting it apart enough to adjust the shift link rod to reduce the amount of play.

I had Jim come down to take a look to see if I had made it better, and he did say that it was better, and it didn’t grind on me much at all after I made the adjustment. Every once in awhile, it would grind a little bit, but nothing like it was doing before, so I’ll call that a bit of a win.

While I was burning, Jim was mowing the field That’s immediately around the greenhouse, in preparation for raking and baling probably tomorrow or Monday before the rain comes again.

Okay, I’m off to take my bath in the creek. Got to leave my car running because it’s charging up my jump box so that I’ve got fan and cell charging capabilities through the night. I didn’t use my truck or work van today, so I didn’t get the jump pack charged up.

…

Bath feels good. 😊

Of course, in the back of my mind, there’s always the concern for running into the mountain lion that sometimes hangs out on the property. 😅

Taking a bath in the dark by the creek comes with a few… nerves. 😆 Not a ton… but a few… especially since my bath time is right around their favorite hunting time. 🙃

But it’s nice to go to bed clean.

At least… mountain man clean. 😁

Took off one of the trim panels in Rover in order to remove the Old tube style TV that was behind the panel. Removing that will give me a lot of extra space and a lot less weight.

I’m slowly getting organized. I have my recycle bin now sitting outside Rover, as well as my trash bin, and my laundry bin. All have lids, And with me right close by sleeping, I’m hoping that will deter the critters from trying to get into the bins that have trash/recyclables in them.

My goal is to have almost zero trash, with everything pretty much being recyclables.

We’ll see how that goes.

Time to plan tomorrow. Back at the ranch. Lots to do.

Good night y’all.

Lift the world.

~ stephen