Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Seed Books, Bathroom Changes, & Water Alarm




I’ve received my first two seed catalogs, for ordering seeds, for my 2018 garden.  The Whole Seed Catalog was given to me by my sister.  She came up for Thanksgiving to visit and see the changes made since the water damage to our house.




Before I continue on, I wanted to say I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  I know I haven’t been around much, and I apologize.  Life threw us a curve ball, with the pipe coming apart under the house and our wood floors turning into hard waves…..pretty much like you would see in the movie “Tremors” with the actual ground.

All the mold, and water damage has been removed.  Our floors have been replaced and we now have our home back (6 days before Thanksgiving)!!!  We didn’t leave the house while all this work was going on.  The crew worked totally around us for 10 whole weeks.  
On my last real post, I provided y’all with a sample of the wood flooring being installed in our home.  Now I’m going to provide you with a few pictures of the new flooring for our two bathrooms. 

Because the flooring in each bathroom had to be totally removed to get to the sub floors, we had to replace the tile, not just on the floor, but in each shower to match.  

You’ll notice there’s still some work to be done in each bathroom, like painting the ceilings, mop boards, changing cabinets, lights, and blinds.  Adding towel bars, vents, and caulking a few places.   These projects will be added to our list of things to do, and will be done at our convenience.    The water damage was something that had to be addressed immediately, therefore we had no choice, we had to get tile and have the bathroom floors tiled.  
Hall Bathroom Before Fixing Floor


Hall Bathroom (need to remove & replace cabinet, blind, & lights)




Shower Changes
Master Bath Before Fixing Floor
 
Master Bathroom After Fixing Floor (Need to still pain mop boards, need to replace towel holders,& lights)
*****
We have purchased water alarms at Lowes, and have been installed them throughout our entire home, near ever pipe and appliance using or holding water. We’ve placed 6 alarms in our tight crawl space to prevent having a pipe issue ever again. Water alarms vary in cost depending on the make and model purchased.  We picked up The Watch Dog Water Alarm, Model BWD-HWA by Glentronics for approximately $11.00 each.  The alarm has a sensor on the bottom of each device.   It also has a 6 foot sensor wire so you can place the box anywhere and run the wire near the water source. It was easy to install, and should prevent a water accident from happening again. 


One of the water alarms went off two days ago.  This alarm was set next to the water softener inside our laundry room.  Come to find out the water softener machine had a small crack in one of the hoses.  Water began to drip, a small amount from the line causing a 110 decibel alarm to go off.  The alarm could be heard down the driveway.  Our son Tank and Bulldog Man came running in the house to find out where that alarm was coming from, and fixed the problem.
 
**Note, I’ve not been asked to advertise, or received any compensation from Glentronics.  

I picked up these alarms to avoid the disaster from ever having a plumbing pipe come apart/break ever again.  This will immediately notify us about problems in the crawl space, and hopefully avoid major damage again.
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Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Interesting Pictures From One Critter Camera For Novermber 2017



Out of thousands of pictures from only one of our critter cameras on the property, here are a few interesting pictures for November 2017. 
Female Doe and Possum


Bobcat Crossing Our Dam 


Young Buck (Male)

Young Buck (Male), AKA: Half Rack!!!

2 Female Doe and Crows on Dam with Frost

Female Doe and Possum

2 Females on Dam Eating Apples and Corn

2 Female Doe's on Dam Eating Apples and Corn


Were Back!!!

3 Female Doe's  Feeding

Another Buck (Male) on the Dam

Young Female Doe, and a Fat Possum

Coyote Snooping.....Looking for Food!

4 Deer on the Dam Feeding

Young Buck (Male)

Nice Looking Full Grown Buck (Male)



Young Buck (Male) with 2 Female Doe


Large Buck (Male) with 1 Female Doe

Young Buck (Male), AKA: Strange Rack

Nice Looking Buck (Male)

Female Doe with Buck (Male)

It's Back!!!

Young Doe and Crow (He just had to get in the picture)



Nice Looking Buck (Male)

2 Young Doe Playing and a Blue Jay

Doe (Mama) and Yearling

Couple of Pictures with Young Doe and Bird on Ground and Flying


Squirrels and Yearling

Young Doe and Young Buck Playing (More Like Bow Chicka Bow Wow)

Older Buck Watching a Yearling

Young Buck (Male) with Older Buck (Male)





Young Buck (Male) AKA: Curly Rack with Doe

Blue Jay Convention







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Wednesday, November 8, 2017

Tornado, Flooring, Caulking!!!



A week and a half ago, while shopping at Lowe’s in Norman, Oklahoma, the weather turned bad.  After loading the truck up with our newly purchased tile and thin set, for our main bathroom; we jumped on Interstate 35 to leave Norman to head home.  We had only been home for a couple of hours, when a tornado hit the Riverwind Casino in Norman. 

Thank goodness we’re safely at home; however, we had concerns regarding our travel trailer.  Our trailer is stored in a storage facility directly across the highway from the Riverwind Casino, the direction the tornado made its path.  Law enforcement had the highway and surrounding areas closed down, so first responders could help rescue people, and assess the damage. Therefore, we were unable to physically check on our travel trailer.  I placed a call to the manager of the storage facility.   She informed me they were attempting to get into the facility, and once at the facility, they would call us and let us know if our unit was affected by the tornado.  At 10:45 PM, I received a call from the manager, advising our storage unit was fine.  The storm passed it over, and hit the very next row of storage units.  The next morning, Bulldog Man and I, drove up to the storage facility to visually confirm all was well with our trailer, “The Beast”, and to drop off a few things in our trailer.  After checking our travel trailer, we both were so at ease that we didn’t have damage; it was nice knowing that we did not have to contact the insurance company.


*****
I’m going to give you a sneak preview of the floor being installed throughout our home.  Instead of replacing the damaged laminate again with laminate (something we were going to do in a couple of years, however, since the pipe broke, the flooring needed replacing).  We decided to go with engineered wood.  Here’s a before and after look, what do you think?

Old Laminate Floor
Engineered Wood Replacing the Laminate

*****
Bulldog Man and I have walked around our house identifying areas needing additional caulking from weather damage. This was to help prevent further issues to the wood, and to prevent any air leaks around windows.  After identifying the areas, we got busy caulking. Now we have one more thing to check off of our to do list.

How’s your winter chore list coming along?
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