Thursday, August 26, 2010

Redneck Asian Style Running Water Contraption


          The force of the water coming out of the pipe is so great we had to use one of the strongest materials on earth to tie it to that metal shelf...DUCT TAPE!

Amazing isnt it? Let me tell you how this contraption works.


First Hubs tied a sump pump to a stick, and tied the outlet pipe coming from the sump pump to the stick...there is a LONG pipe going into the well that you cant see cause I am NOT taking all that crap from the top of the well, I may fall in! AHHHH!




The pipe runs from the sump pump hanging in the well all the way out to our trailer, about 90 feet....yes those are blackberry briars,and yes the blackberries were rather good this year but my goodness the thorns!

Anyhoo, we have this contraption rigged up so when you plug in the sump pump from inside the front door, the pump comes on and you hear this rumbling inside the pipe...then out of nowhere ice cold water comes GUSHING out of the pipe and you can catch it in a clean garbage can like we have set up here...then you can take it in the house for whatever you need it for. Hey it works well for now! I am happy! Its better than nothing which is what we had before...just packing water in gallon jugs.

I am NOT drinking this stuff, it slightly smells of sulphur and thats just gross...but the water works great for everything else! Its clear as it can be and ice cold. Mom says thats a sign it comes from an underground spring. I hope shes right!

Next week we hope to get the well pump in the well and get the water hooked up RIGHT. But for now this works, and Noor rigged this up with his own brand of Asian redneck genius and with materials we already had on hand. Clever huh?

Stay tuned for more clever Redneck Asian Contraptions coming soon! LOL!

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Straight up Redneck Style!

I want to say first off: DO NOT DO THIS CRAZY STUFF AT HOME!

In desperation for a ladder to finish the electric project my ingenious hubs devised this contraption. I just have to share with you guys cause its so hilarious!

First we needed one of those TALLL ladders like the ones professional guys use who work on these big poles. Well we dont have one or the money to buy one so hubs thought up this idea...park the van under the pole, tie the ladder to the pole and hope it reaches up high enough to bolt down that big pipe thingy hanging from the top.




So up the ladder he goes. It is tied and secured as much as possible, but he still risked life and limb to climb up this monstrosity to bolt this pipe thingy to the pole. I had my camera ready to take a pic when he fell...er...I mean to take pics of the successfull operation! Yeah...Anyhoo!





Here you can see the top of the pole thanks to the cool zoom on my camera. Thats what he was bolting down to the pole. And all the crazy wires hanging out is what the electric company tied into their wires so we could have electric. I think that day they turned it on was among the happiest days I have ever had. 2 months of doing without electric and being sucked dry by a gas hog generator was too much!


And here he is all done and still alive to tell the tale of how he rigged up this amazing contraption to get our electric finished up.

He wanted to make a tutorial for you guys out there on how to put the electric box and wires all together that runs from your home to the electric pole. Someday he may get time, for now he is working himself in the ground to pay off everyone we begged and borrowed from to meet the unending demands of Grayson County Kentucky for inspections,unnecessary work to our house, and more inspections of unnecessary work... (IE: we had to have our trailer leveled and tied down to STATE regulations before they would let us have electric. We had to have a septic tank installed before they would let us have it. We also had to have a housing inspection so some guy I dont even know can charge me 100 bucks to tell me if my house is safe to live in or not. I am not THAT stupid. There was inspection fees for the septic tank, the house, the electric job Noor did hooking everything up to the electric companies requirements after all this it took from June 20th till 2 weeks ago to get this done..and we borrowed ourselves back into a pit of debt were we wont see the light of day from in a while....Am I bitter?, YES! Am I angry? You betcha! Am I gonna do anything about it? I sure want to, if I can get some free time I want these laws to change so others dont have to go thru the hell we went thru, there has to be SOMEONE to complain to out there!)

So when we are once again debt free, then maybe we can get that electrifying tutorial together, for now we are enjoying the heck out of electric...


Next job: Running water!
If you remember the well from a previous episode, we have our trailer set about 90 feet from the well. Running the water line to the trailer shouldnt take more than a weekend we hope...the hard part is digging a 90 foot long and 18 inch deep ditch to bury the water line in. yay.
For now hubs has rigged up this crazy contraption that sucks water from the well, thru a big pipe running under the house and into the front yard by the door. I can catch the water in large containers to flush the toilet (yeah we finally got a toilet YAY!) and stuff. Its easier than packing water in from moms house. So in a couple of weeks we should have the money to run real water lines and stuff...I hope! After thats done we should be all set...well we will have the basic needs met anyways...


I wish I could have kept up with this blog better, but with no electric, water, or anything for that matter its been rough. We just now got internet at home friday morning, Thank goodness!


I keep thinking with all the thousands of dollars we blew on getting electric service from these shiesters we could have got a helluva solar array going on....oh well...we will be able to tell them where to get off at in a few years (evil laugh)


Here is a cute Maylee picture as an added bonus for reading this far and putting up with my whining and complaining LOL! I missed everyone and am trying to catch up with everyone on facebook, and hopefully I can get back over to Hippiesew soon to catch up with my 2nd family over there. I miss you guys BAD!

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Moving right along

Since last time I wrote we have got so much done. Its been a busy month! We got our driveway ready thanks to a nice guy who works at the quarry not far from the big town here. And after much headache we got the trailer moved! Mostly it was rain that kept setting us back but we finally got it done and boy was I happy to see this sight




Thats them coming with the trailer. What a relief!

So now that its on site we have a lot of work to do but first...some pics of how we got to this point. Hang on to your seat cause this is exciting!




We had a pretty major issue of how to mow off the land...we couldnt find no one to do it so we took matters in our own hands. We figured gas is reasonably priced right now and lighters are very affordable so lets do this!

Well...as you can see it kinda got out of hand....the fire went up in one of my cedar trees and the wind blew it over to the next field across the dirt road...so we not only had one fire but two...and all we could do is stand there and watch in amazement/horror as the fire burned so quick  thru everything. We ended up calling the fire dept who happens to be just right down the street from my mom who lives about 5 miles from here...as luck would have it the fire dept holds bingo on saturdays and when mom is feeling frisky she likes to go and play and gossip with the other old women...

so there is mom sitting there playing bingo, minding her own business when the bingo caller announces he has to leave right now there is a call for a fire and he has to go help. He is of course totally excited cause they dont get no calls much down there. Mom said he was grinning and everything (sigh) So he leaves and this other lady calls bingo while the real caller is gone fighting a fire....MY fire (sigh again) I swear to god I cant hide shit from mom LOL! The good side is, mom thinks that because this *new* caller was calling is why she got to bingo once...at least there is a good side to this.

So moms bingo caller and a bunch of other guys show up in cute lil trucks to fight our fire...they were really super nice. We didnt get the attitude that we normally get from fire dept people (Me and hubs had a bad experience with them at work once, they came on a false call made by another nurse and was less than kind about it) anyhoo...as we watched them bring their trucks over the hill Noor says,"You know, we should have brought a fire extinguisher." yep...two brainiacs here trying to do something like this...yep..

a month later we get a nice bill for 500 bucks. Its OK. I doubt we could have got it mowed so nice for so cheap LOL, and all the burnt grass is like fertilizer!  I always try to see the good side of things. Nonetheless we wont be burning off a field again. I was pretty scared. And in case your wondering, there isnt a house anywhere near where this occured other than the shed our neighbor lives in..and the fire got no where near his property. Its pretty big and open out here...

So now that we got the grass problem taken care of we then was able to move the trailer, and then comes the remodeling..ugh




Purple and orange for my bedroom. The small bedroom is the same color purple tooo. I really liked it...obviously. I also scrubbed and cleaned the carpets so we could keep them. Other than the paint that Maylee got on them, they look quite nice. Maylee helped me paint of course.


As of right now we are STILL working on getting the floor put in. We need to replace all the floors but we are running out of time! We need to get out of here by the 10th, so we will replace the living room floor which is the worst and hope for the best.

We also have a horsie! He isnt ours he is the neighbors horse but he eats my grass and keeps it mowed and I appreciate it a bunch even if he does poop in front of my door LOL

Maylee is pretty scared of the horses even though she acts like she isnt...she is so cute LOL




This is what I get to wake up to every day from now on...Just look at that big sky!

I need to get my garden tilled up ASAP too. I got a bunch of heirloom seeds to plant! I am gonna have a 100% organic heirloom garden this year thanks to these fine Etsy Sellers:

The Bearfoot Shaman

Wall Flower Studio

Azure Dandelion

SmokyMist Gardens 

I have got some really fun varieties of veggies from some of these sellers. I highly recommend them all, as they have been a joy to work with. Ship fast too!

OK I gotta run we are planning on doing more remodeling today since hubs is actually off...this thing is so slow going cause he has been working so much but next week he is off! So we can get this show on the road!

Prayers and well wishes welcome for a safe move from Louisville to Rough River. Thanks guys!


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Moving to the country...gonna eat a lot of peaches!





I like that song...anyhoo! I wanted to update my followers on our land and us moving! As you remember in late 2008  we bought some land in Breckinridge county Kentucky well we are FINALLY moving to it!


We are working on catching some non muddy days so we can actually move our mobile home to it. The home we bought was cheap enough, it needs work obviously but by golly its MINE! Aint no bank can take this sucker I OWN it! LOL And I get to do some interior decorating which I LOVE to do!
We have a lot to do to the land itself before its ready to move onto. we have to move the trailer first then get the septic tank put in. Then we have to figure out how to hook up our well...yeah a well!
 
I found this yesterday when I was walking all over the land. We have two huge piles of weathered lumber and shingles on the land. This is one of the main reasons I picked this particular parcel. Even though no one said anything about the possibility of there being an old homesite here...the evidence remained. I knew it could have been an old house OR it could have been an old barn that was there...I am thinking after my investigation yesterday that one of the piles was a house. 1st clue is the well and second clue is:

Under ALLL that crap is a hole/tunnel/cellar/basement some kind of opening is under all that mess. My theory is its a cellar and this is the remains of an old house...we will see! I am not brave enough to move any of that stuff around cause its a HUGE pile, but I definitly seen a hole of some kind that looks deep under it all. I am excited to get it cleared off!


Anyhoo, after we get the septic tank installed and the well hooked up then there is the problem of electric...We can continue to kiss electric company booty, OR we can go solar. It would be WAY cheaper in the long run and I wouldnt mind living off limited electric for a short time till we can get a bigger array of panels and batteries going. We will make up our mind for sure when we price the cost of having electric run to our land. if its over 1000 bucks we are going solar baby! My mom says it shouldnt be more than 200...but we are pretty far back from any main roads.

My main goal at some point is to live off the grid, and be 100% self sufficient in an eco friendly home of some kind (I like cob!) with no need for electric or water companies and their bills. I hope to someday not need money for anything to sustain my family. Thats my goal and I am well on my way!

My short term goal is to make our living expenses cheap enough that my soap business can pay the bills. Once we get moved in this will be a reality. I want to generate money from the land, and hopefully get my husband set up with some kind of mechanic/car repair shop. I have a lot of goals but at least we are moving forward and not stuck in the mud like we have been for the past 6 years we have owned this house. I am a very blessed woman! I am so happy Maylee can spend the rest of her years in such a beautiful place...with chicknens.

















Saturday, February 6, 2010

A year of Dreadlocks

Well guys its been a whole year since I got dreads.I am pretty excited to show how they have progressed in this year! This Picture to the right is me today with year old dreads, here are more pics:
If you want to see the post I made the day I got my dreads done click here

 
Here is the pic of me the day I got them done

This is before I went to the salon


This is after I came back from the salon



This is 2 months into it. I am losing the length on my hair at this point too...keep in mind I have NEVER cut it except for some witchy dead ends when the dreads were about 7 months old. Those ends wouldnt lock up for nothing so off they went but it was only an inch or two...


This is me today:





  

I went thru such an "ugly duckling" phase with these about 4 months into it I was wondering if I reallly wanted to do this or not cause I looked SO bad. You could not tell I had dreads it just looked like I didnt comb my hair, and it was embarrassing to go out without my head wrapped up in a cloth.

Thru my dreadlocks adventure I have learned a lot about myself, and that was one of my goals for getting dreads. I learned that hair shrinks a LOT when its locking up too!!!

I have learned to have patience, especially with the cashier who laughed out loud at me for having dreads...laughed HARD too, not just a giggle..That ALMOST hurt my feelings, it was a close call on that one LOL I have learned I am still a bit vain after all these years, cause I was so embarrassed to go out during months 4 thru 6 before my dreads miraculously locked up.

One thing that did help my dreads lock up quick was making sure my hair was clean. For my particular hair it was not in my best interest to go without washing it for weeks like people told me to do, once I started washing it, it locked up. Greasy dirty hair cant get locked up. Thats the way my hair works anyways.

I started making dreadlock shampoo bars cause I didnt want to buy the stuff of course, and I noticed a huge difference. My advice is use a plain simple soap on your hair, no conditioners nothing fancy, just a plain castile soap and you will see a big difference. I dont care if you buy it from me or someone else, just buy handmade! Be good to your dreads, you got em for life! Make sure nothing gets built up in em!

in a way my tree like twisty crazy looking locs have grounded me. Like the roots of a tree. I am happy I did this. Its been one fun adventure for sure.