I don't think I mentioned the addition of our newest family member, Zuko! (Yes, Avatar: The Last Airbender fans here) We brought him home at the end of June when he was about 3 months old. He is now six months and he has grown a lot!
The shelter said he is a pit bull / red heeler mix. I think he is also a bit hound mainly because he howls and points! He's a very sweet guy and we are glad he is part of the homestead. He keeps me company during the day when the kids are at school and Husband is at work! Today he chased cows off of our land for the first time. I also think having him around is keeping the rodents at bay - I see less evidence of them near the house these days (our house is rodent-proof, but we would see droppings around the house fairly often until Zuko joined us).
We have had a record-breaking monsoon season here. The rain has made our trek in and out of here difficult on occasion - the non-county maintained roads get so muddy! Just last week we had a crazy thunderstorm that brought inches of rain and a lot of hail over a very short period of time (maybe a half hour or so). It certainly feels like fall now!
The system looked so ominous as it was moving in our direction. We received severe thunderstorm alerts on our phones from the National Weather Service. When the hail pounded our building it was SO loud and I feared for our skylight, but everything was fine - even though the water was pooling on our patio more than I had ever seen it before. It looks like winter in this picture, but this was the first week of October!
Over the past couple months the rain has also brought out the beauty of the area. The wildflowers and grasses have made for some beautiful high plateau scenes.
I wish I had the right camera to photograph the night sky because it is like living in a planetarium here. Last night there wasn't a cloud in the sky and the stars were so bright - it was really stunning.
The pronghorn have been hanging out on our land quite a bit. It's fun to wake up and see them grazing and running around our house.
We've also seen lots of cool looking spiders. The most common are huntsman and tarantulas. Both are good to have around as they eat other bugs and are not a threat to humans.
In other, non-nature news, a downside to living on dirt road is that we have gotten quite a few flat tires. We replaced our truck tires with all-terrain tires at the beginning of the summer and we have not had any problem with them since then. However we recently got a flat on our Highlander and had to drive way more than I wanted to on the donut. I tried to get the tire fixed, but it was not possible. Then I tried to purchase all-terrain tires but there were not in stock anywhere so I had to order them. In the end we had drive back and forth to town on the spare. Our truck has a full-size spare and I just don't understand how an all-wheel drive "trail" vehicle comes with a donut! We ended up ordering the all-terrain tires and then buying a new rim and keeping one of the old tires. We purchased a rack so we could mount the full-sized spare on the roof of the vehicle. I am really happy with this fix. I don't think I will ever drive a vehicle without a full size spare living out here!
Another drama that I had to deal with recently was that I had a fitting bust on one of my underground pipes. Our storage tank was almost empty and we were lucky not to have burned out our delivery pump - but for some reason I checked on it just in time and realized there was a problem. I spent one afternoon and the next day digging up the pipe and fixing it. It may not look like much, but without it we had no running water in the house! Thankfully our irrigation tank was full so we were able to fill buckets to flush the toilet use water indoors. I was also very thankful that I had everything I needed for the fix here - saving me a trip to town!
A project we recently completed was to insulate and drywall the last bit of exposed metal inside the building. Husband also installed two new outlets - one outside and one on the new wall. This was something we have been wanting to finish for a while. Here is the "before" picture...
The after picture was taken before the paint even dried! I hadn't even put the electrical plate back on - but you can see the huge difference! We were loosing a lot of heat out of this corner last winter. It is now well insulated, has a functional outlet, and it looks much better too!
We are getting ready for some cold weather to hit us next week. The lows will be below freezing for a couple of nights so I had to insulate the exposed outside hot water pipes again. The insulation I put on last year sort of deteriorated in the weather and was finally ruined by cows. Today I wrapped the pipes and taped them up good with an all-weather tape. I LOVE the Sunbank water heater!
We've purchased a couple of loads of wood over the past months and today husband cleaned out the stove pipe from last season and chopped wood in anticipation of our first fire of the season.
Even sister helped by gathering kindling!
It is certainly getting cooler - it's been in the 40s at night. However, if it warms up to the 70s during the day (which it has) the house will hold the heat overnight pretty well. Right now it is 49 degrees outside and 71 degrees inside without using the wood-burner. However when it dips into the 30s and 20s at night (with highs in 50s or 60s) we will need to build a fire!
I hope you have some beautiful views and great adventures! Being close to nature is good for the mind and body. I'm loving our homestead life even when we have flat tires and busted water pipes. The best part about challenges is overcoming them! Today we are all healthy, safe and have everything we need right here on our tiny slice of the American Pie. Life is good!
