Still At the Farm.....

The snow didn't last long...

 I put out plenty of food....  

The chipmunks would scurry around underneath the bird feeders, gathering up anything that got tossed over the side.

This House Finch seems to be the only one around...

Surely there must be others, but so far, I've seen only the one.

Lots of goldfinch, titmice, chickadees, nuthatch and others visit the feeders regularly.

The snow melted within a day in the sunny spots...

This spike buck found the mineral block...

It looks like he has a scrape on his left hip....  He's not big by Ohio standards and in no way would be considered a trophy buck...  but, truth is, he's the perfect size for good venison.  We don't permit hunting on our land, but I understand there is a fellow just up the road who is running a hunting camp.  Well, the deer need culled as there are way too many, so I guess whatever happens just happens.

It's been way too cold (20's at night...  30's during the day) to do much outdoors and our main reason for being here right now is to work on a rental.  Just across the driveway from our motorhome site is the house we're working on.  

This is the house Bill built for us over 20 years ago.

We had rough-cut oak floors.  After we moved out and the house became a rental, we wanted to put down "real" flooring.  Now, nearly 13 years later, we are here at the same time the house is vacant...  so.....  up comes the oak.  BIG, HEAVY boards!  Bill is meticulous about his work...  takes up each board, removes the old nails and carefully stacks the lumber.  It may be "used", but it's still useful.   We have a friend who lives in the area who will try to sell it.

And, speaking of selling stuff, we have always rented the place furnished.  Often folks bring their own furniture anyway...  sometimes even leaving their furniture when they vacate.  We really don't have time to try to sell things so called "New to You", a non-profit shop whose proceeds go to the Athens Co. Foster Children group.  They came out yesterday and picked up a truck-load of furniture, including those dressers you can see in the background of the picture above.

They could take only the wood furniture as they don't have the equipment to clean upholstered items.  They even gave us a receipt that we can use for tax purposes as a taxable donation.  

When we lived here we had a compost toilet and a huge outdoor furnace that preheated our hot water as well as heat our house.  We also had a wood burning cook stove...

This is it...  except that it has been nearly dismantled prior to being taken to our storage area.  I loved cooking on a woodburner...  baking bread and making soup were my favorite things.  There is a warming oven at the top of the stove that was just right to set a pan of bread dough to rise.  The water reservoir is already in storage.  Bill reminds me that I'll probably never use it again, but I'm just not ready to get rid of it yet.

It was actually replaced by a small gas range for the renters...  the old woodburner was just there as part of the furniture.  Since we are totally re-doing the whole place, the apartment size range went too...

Only to be replaced by...

 Not a good picture...  but here's the new gas range.

Yeah...  that's a vacuum sweeper at the front....  constantly sweeping up the debris from the old floor and all.

The above photo also shows the walls of windows and the outside deck.  If you were standing out on the deck you'd be 3 floors above the ground.  There is a fantastic view of the field and woods below.

We are running out of time...  hope to head for Texas early this coming week.  Since we're just getting a good start on all the renovations, we'll have to make some decisions about what to do next.  Oh well...  there's always something to make decisions about...  but for now...

That's All For Today!