Today has been a very unproductive day. I felt exhausted all day, to the point of falling asleep at the computer. I even tried to nap, but that was a failure. Mostly because I’m a suck, and I didn’t have the heart to move the sleeping pile of cats on my bed. 😀

It was my turn to do the cat litter tonight, and I headed out a bit early to do the sun room litter pans. It seemed cooler, so I stayed out and worked on the old wood pile area. I didn’t get very far. Again, I was feeling exhausted, and was dripping with sweat. This is not usual for me.

Then, just before starting this post, I checked the temperature.

27C – feels like 30C.

Which means it was even hotter while I was out there, even though it was about 7pm at the time.

That might have something to do with how I was feeling!

This is what I managed to do, in the short time I was out.

I made no attempt to get at the pallets on the ground at this point. Instead, I focused on using the pruning sheers to cut away the many small things growing there – raspberry bushes, cherry trees, elm, saskatoon, poplar, and quack grass so tall and strong, I was cutting them with sheers, too! The only thing I moved away from here was the one pallet standing up in the middle. The rest still have posts or trees running through them.

Basically, I just wanted to clear for access to this back section of pallet fence, and around the old dog house.

Which meant I was finally going to get rid of the horrid, rotting piece of carpet.

Only to discover that part of it was under the pallet the dog house is sitting on.

*sigh*

Thankfully, the dog house is lighter than the junk carpet. I was able to tip it with one hand, taking enough weight off the pallet there that I could pull the carpet out.

As you can see, among the grasses beyond the carpet, I had kittens keeping me company. They were all over the place – and so was junk pile cat! – while I was working.

Disgusting carpet now gone, I started trimming on the other side of the pallet fence. There are a lot of thing leaning against it on this side, so I can’t take it away without getting rid of those, first.

While clearing things away, I found some sort of hill buried on the grass, and some pieces of metal. So I raked over the area, to see what was there.

The hill turned out to be a tree stump. Plus, there were more pieces of metal.

I am thinking this used to be some sort of home-made weather vane or something.

Whatever it was, it had exposed screws in it.

It’s a good thing I wear gloves.

I didn’t get much more done, after clearing away the metal pieces. Just a bit more trimming of stuff. My energy was spent by then, and I needed to stop.

As I was finishing up, I found I had an audience.

It’s been so frustrating. I feel like I have done so little this year. 😦

We’re half way through August now, which means we’re already thinking of winter. The girls and I have been talking about picking up sheets of foam insulation. Some will be used to replace the more damaged pieces that we use to put around the base of the house before the snow falls. They also want to put some in the sun room windows. Other supplies will be picked up to make an insulated cat shelter for the outside cats, too. They even want to have some sheets of foam insulation to put against one of the walls upstairs. It gets insanely cold up there.

The list of things that needs to be taken care of keeps getting longer and longer. The biggest is getting the roof done – we’re looking at almost $10,000 there. There is still one of the original windows in the master bedroom; the only one that didn’t get replaced, before we moved here. That would have cost about $800 at the time. It’ll cost more now, of course. Even with the sheets of plexiglass added to it, I can feel a draft from it in winter. All the doors to outside need to be replaced; the main entry, the East side of the house and the sun room doors. The frames also need to be replaced.

cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching.

It’s getting rather depressing to see all that needs to be done, and looking up the cost of it, all while being on my husband’s disability income (which means any other income brought in gets deducted or, if it’s high enough, could lose it completely, along with his medical insurance that’s covering all his prescriptions; otherwise, I’d just go out and get a job). Especially since there always other things that come up unexpectedly.

Like dying laptops.

When we first moved out here, my husband’s desktop did not survive. So he’s been using the laptop provided by his employer all this time. It was old when they signed it over to him (they don’t expect to get these back), so it’s no real surprise for it to fail, eventually. He’s a tech guy, and is able to get right into things to fix them, but after a day of that, he had to give up the ghost. It’s dead. Plain and simple. So that’s something else to add to the list.

cha-ching, cha-ching…

Well, we just do the best we can, and try to keep this place from getting worse. It’s turning out to be far more of a money pit than I first thought.

I did not expect things to have been allowed to get this bad. 😦

The Re-Farmer