New Year, New Name, New Game

The past year has been a real awakening and learning experience. I moved onto this property with grandiose ideas of homesteading and off the grid living. While I still have plenty of grandiose dreams and ideas to spare, I've had to learn the painful reality of being real with my self and who I am. I'm a dreamer to be sure, and ambitious in that respect. But I'm also lacking in focus, energy and free time. Though this introspection and process of being honest with myself was painful, I have come to instead of beating myself up for not being Homesteader of the Year material, to focusing on my strengths and negotiating with my weakness and forming a more do-able plan, while still working with my weakness like distractibility, and need for novelty, and my desire to not to one particular thing forever.

Autumn Mayhem

I decided to order my self 5 apple trees, 4 blueberry bushes, 2 black berries, 2 raspberries, and 1 muscadine from the FFA through the local ag extension. I also bought a Granny Smith apple tree at Ingles, and 3 cranberry bushes from Park's. The weekend the FFA stuff arrived I also adopted a hound/pointer mix. Don't ask me why I do these things. Where am I going to plant all this stuff? And how?

It Just Keeps Getting Better

I haven't blogged in a while. I've been too busy making a right mess of things around the yard and in the house for that. A home full of unfinished projects, that's the hallmark of bipolar disorder, or ADHD. Whatever. Today I just had to go hacking away at that damp tree stump sitting right on top of the septic pipe, and wouldn't you know I banged a hole in it. Only the pipe wasn't cast iron like I thought. More of that asphalt shingle stuff I've been finding in chunks around the yard. So I plugged it for now with clay and put a rock on it. Lame I know. So I did some more research. I've had to reasearch so much since I bought this place to figure out what all this old stuff is. Turns out the pipe running to the septic is referred to as Orangeburg pipe. And it's just layers if paper, pitch, and my old friend asbestos again. It's was popular as a cheap alternative to cast iron from the 50's-70's, and failing in yards all over the country. You can only imagine my excitement over this latest discovery.

HVAC Mahem

I can't sleep, but what's done is done. Monetary loss later. Was it worth it. I'm not sure. We just sunk an uncomfortable amount of money into an HVAC revamp. I'm not sure how much was really needed. It all started with the 31 year old furnace paired to a 3 year old AC unit. Heating and cooling wise the house stayed comfortable. Met what ever demands we put on it. We demand a lot. A constant temp of around 70 degrees F. The utilities want you to set your stuff at 78 in summer and 65 in winter, so basically, don't ever run your stuff. I suppose where I live, I might just be able to do that. But the house would get humid. I'm second guessing our decision to replace the ducts and switch from a propane furnace to a heat pump. If the utility bills drop enough, maybe it will have been worth it. But my logic keeps going back to the same formula I run for every investment in this house. It's a tiny house. So putting a HE new HVAC system on it, doesn't negate the fact that it's still a tiny cottage of a house and only is of interest to a niche market. It's like putting a fancy HVAC system on a trailer. I guess if we live here long enough, then it was for our own comfort and that's OK.
It was a difficult decision. The AC was new but the furnace was not and was leaking carbon monoxide into the house. Plus, it's set up some how passed the code inspection, but is not up to code. Welcome to Podunk.
The cheapest thing would be to just replace the old furnace with a new HE furnace.
But the ducts where half unwrapped and 30% air leakage, not that 30% is really terrible. I read most new houses test at 30%. I wasn't sure what state the ducts where in. I did know that animals had been nesting in it. So it seemed like they where dirty, and had gaps.
We where told it would be cheaper, and maybe required to replace the ducts with new ones up to code. We went with a company who advertises being efficiency focused. Still, the new ducts still tested at 13% but, one vent wasn't fully covered, so maybe more like 8-10%. Is that good?
The new unit is gigantic, I wish they would have mentioned that, and asked if I might want it in a different spot, I would have said, "Yes." It's a 4'x3' eye sore. How am I going to hide it? It's ruining the esthetics of the little country house, with the big ass AC unit. Sigh.
I had kept saying maybe we should go with a lesser unit, less SEERS, maybe new ducts and an HE furnace. It's so hard to say. Because you don't know how each scenario will play out until you're in it. Know we have a new AC unit in our shed, and 250 gallons of propane. I feel, that maybe we made another hasty decision. We have a carbon monoxide detector. We could have at least used up the propane.
So what the hell happened? I guess we got tired of thinking about it, tired of estimates. Wanted to get it taken care of already. It's nice to have new ducts, but on a house with a foundation issue, pillar post beetle and termite damage, and wood rot, maybe we sunk our money into the wrong thing.
It's another reason I want to get away from these things all together.
Just do simple stuff, window unit, wood stove, no lawn.
I'll never be able to replace the money we just spent. And I just don't think it's going to increase the resale value of the home that much.
Not with that gigantic gray eyesore outside in plain sight, next to the drive way.

LED Color Temps

Urgh, so I obviously don't know anything about LED lights. I had picked out some to try, but picked a "daylight" spectrum, thinking it would be warmer. I don't know what the heck I was thinking. I obviously don't understand the color temp numbers. I just received my solar motion light to try out, and the box clearly explains the color temps:
2700K-3000K = Warm White
3000K-4500K = Bright White
4500K-6500K = Daylight

Sure, I should remember color temps from film school, but that was a long time ago, and I wasn't listening.
So, what am I working with here? Looks like I requested 5000K bulbs. Yikes, it's gonna be like the climax of Close Encounters of the LED kind in here. Or, "Interrogation City"
There is a 2700K bulb, but I don't think it was being offered for trials. Yes, had I'd seen some labeled, "soft white" I would have chosen them, I think. The incandescents in my 8 recessed lights are "soft white", but 2 are like having the sun 3 feet from your face. I'm just like, "What's up?!"
Dimmer switches would be nice, but be advised for LED and those hotter than hell CFL lights, you need a special, and pricey dimmer.
At this point, from what I've seen, it seems like the wealthy are the only ones who can afford to offset their HVAC and electrical bills and implement green technology. Which led me to a scary thought. What if soon only the wealthy will have power, via solar and expensive tech, and the rest of us will be back to oil lamps and outhouses?
That would stink. Get it?

The Case of the Swollen Door(s)

So we've been dealing with an interesting, or annoying phenomenon, pretty much since we bought the house. The front door and master bedroom door sticks. But about a month or so ago, the front door swelled so much that I almost couldn't open it. I've sanded both doors down, but they would just start sticking again. Then, a couple weeks ago, we got an estimate on our ductwork, while the tech was in our crawl, he noticed that we had a broken pipe, and a large pool of water.
Basically all the water from the house, accept the toilet and washer, was pouring into the crawl.
So, my husband donned my hazmat suit and shimmied under the house and re-cemented the pipes together. One pipe is a little too long and needs to be trimmed, because it's causing the joint to not fit properly. It could come apart again. This is why I'd rather do this stuff my self, look at the results when you PAY supposed PROFESSIONALS? Well, I didn't pay for the pipes, the previous owner did. I'm not sure how long the pipe has been broken, but we noticed a month or so ago, that the drainage fields had long deep cracks running their entire length. We thought it was maybe because of the hot dry weather. But it was most likely because there wasn't anything draining out into the field.
Also, a few days after my husband fixed the pipe, the front door now opens and shuts like a normal door! And the master bedroom door isn't sticking as much now either. My mom thought maybe it's because he fixed the pipe. There was literally a small pond under our house and that's a lot of moisture. There's already a moisture issue because of the sweaty ducts. But nothing like having around 150-200 gallons of water a day. That's a worst case scenario of 3 showers @ 40 gallons each, 1 dishwasher load @ 15 gallons, using the sink to wash dishes, and my daughter having a bath. I didn't include tooth brushing. I found a chart here: How Much Water? Basically, there was ALOT of water dumping into the crawlspace. It was as if our crawl had become a gray water holder, which I have thought about diverting gray water for using in the garden. But not like this. Really puts water usage into perspective.

Summer Slump

I don't know why, but I've hit some sort of summer slump. Maybe it's because you need money to do anything and everything. Maybe I'm being too thrifty. I don't know. I feel paralyzed, when it comes to money for some reason.
Anyway, It's July, it's pretty humid, and I have all these incomplete projects all over the house and yard. ADHD, and low energy anyone? I'll go out and toil for a little while, but that's about it. All the stuff that I feel "needs doin'" is getting to me. I can't even pick out paint colors without agony. Will I make the bathroom feel too small? There's pros and cons to this layout. It's openness helps the house feel a little larger, but that means you can see all the rooms all at the same time. So individual colors per room can start to looks wacky. I have no clue.
My current, large project, is coming up with a patio scheme to give us additional living space outside.

I've already trimmed down the ALL the shrubs that are next to the house. When fall comes, I will attempt to dig them up and move them to a better location. I don't want ANY shrubs near the house and I need to grade the dirt away at 10% for 10'. Or 1 inch every foot. PLUS we need gutter, ASAP, all the lower boards on the exterior are rotting. Add that to the laundry list of "needs" and I really feel the fool for purchasing this tiny money pit. I really think I over paid. The furnace needs to be replaced and the duct work needs to be either repaired, rewrapped, or replaced. Plus, to bring the home up to date it would be best to convert it to a heat pump. But the previous owner put in a new AC but kept the 29 year old furnace? We had no representation. Honestly, when buying a house you really can't trust anyone involved. It's sad. But that's the truth. But here we are. So I need to run 85' of gutter, need maybe 6 downspouts? There's so much reading to do, from how to put in a patio, to how to install downspouts. It's more than I'd care to know right now, but there it all is, staring me in the face. I need to vent the bathroom out the roof too, now that I'm looking at this photo. More reading. 

So, imagine if you will, this back part of the house with out these scraggly gardenia's. It's actually made the space feel pretty huge. I just saw a pergola idea on "I Hate My Yard", that was attaches to a house with a similar shape. I am thinking a pergola, either in the middle, or the entire length of the back. The patio shape is still evolving. It started as a simple square in the middle, but now I think it should span the entire length. Do I want to continue the formal rectangular language of the house? Or do I want it to kind of soil lout into the yard, and implement the river stone. 

My hope is to make the landscape mote cohesive and united. Flowing from front to back, inside and out. I'm pipe dreaming big time. Considering all I have to work with is a shovel, and myself. I will need to rent a bush hog, or bobcat this fall to remove some stubborn brush and stumps. 

It could be that having a house and property is too much for me. It's causing me a lot of anxiety and gives me a helpless feeling. Here a list of needs doin' :

Gutters

SW corner needs jacks

Vent Bath outside

rewrap, repair, or replace ductwork

replace furnace

replace 20 missing feet of drip ledge on the back soffit 

remove bradford pears and replace with pine or native hardwoods 1-4 acres

bushhog brambles and Japanese honeysuckle patch .25 acre

remove dying pine trees 2-3 large dead loblollies 

grade the dirt around the house to 10% extending 10 feet

fix the weird wiring situation for the pump house

Contact Ag Department about land stewardship options

Contact DNR about the ever growing gully behind the property

Prep large garden and fence it in

Build a hoop tunnel

dig my own pool

dig my own grave

Repair walk cracks in kitchen and living room and repaint 

oh

And then there's the shed 

What to do about the shed?