And Then There Were None!

There have been turtles 🐢 sunbathing in the pond on our farm since I arrived here in East Tennessee back in December, YES in December, with the exception of the colder days and weeks. They've been out there on that log fairly regularly when driving in and out.

However, the last week or so, and with the temps into the 70s and 80s, we've not seen a one!

We did have temps drop below freezing recently, after a warm up, so not sure if that effected them or perhaps something or someone else has taken place.  It's awful weird is all, not a single one!

According to one local fella, turtles 🐢 are bad to have in your pond because they'll eat the fish. His recommendation was a .22 to address the problem.

Hmmm 🤨

Bubba Night Night

Who remembers the 1978 iconic advertising slogan, "Calgon take me away!"?

It became synonymous with needing a mental or physical break. I'm assuming it's used today to describe a desire to escape, but guessing people prolly recall the phrasing differently, like what I'm doing here...

This Nowadays THC product is akin to Calgon, although not a bath product, in my eyes. A shot of this infused elixir a short time before bed and I get a pretty good sleep -

Sweet dreams y'all!

Find The Critter

A slight variation in my "Find The Critter", as there is no critter in the below pic. Instead, do you know what critter did the damage to the trees shown -

Hint - They're the second-largest living rodents...

Nope NOT Those "Cooties"

After several hours of clearing overgrowth on our farm this past Friday, we headed over to Cootie Browns campus location for dinner, cold beers and some March Madness college basketball -

Their pizza is delicious, especially when paired with ice cold beer!

The "Trim Out"!

"Please use caution when opening overhead bins, as items may have shifted during the flight”, well seems a similar logic applies when transporting and setting up manufactured homes.

In our case the walls shifted, which did quite a bit of damage to some walls, especially around doors and windows, and more so in the master bedroom end of the house, see below.

The damage on this wall is substantial -

Many a door frame throughout the house has similar damage -

One side of the attic vent came loose, which was just enough to allow quite a bit of the white insulation to fall into the living area, see pic below, and it's everywhere -

The kitchen floor with insulation throughout -

There are several cracks in the Livingroom ceiling -

The front door is NOT plumb, as you can see daylight shining through in the bottom right -

There's also some damage to the outside of the house too, e.g. missing shingles, missing pieces of siding, tree limb damage to some siding, etc.

We were told that the damage and issues I've listed above are fairly typical and occur during transit, hence the "trim out" team.

The "trim out" work, both inside and outside, is supposed to address and repair all this damage. Some of the repairs should be pretty straight forward and relatively easy to fix, others, well we'll have to wait and see how the repairs look when completed.

Squeeze It!

It's awful hard to argue with this logic I tell yeah!

Just make sure you have consent, if you're the one giving...

Pause And Read This -

This Is Draining Me

So there's this!

Seems to be a grey water drain coming from the abutting neighbors trailed, which a good ~20 feet or so over the property line and draining onto our Oakdale lot-

The red circle in the below pic is approximately where this drain is located and the red stars are the property line.  As you can see it's well over the line -

From what we've see so day, the area where this is draining stays wet constantly! It's also in the area of our Oakdale property that we use as an access point, sometimes, to our Pritchard property.  The combination is making for a rutted and wet muddy mess.

We're assuming it's grey water but what it's actually draining we do not know.  Seems to be clear, so guessing their washing machine perhaps?!

Ironically, the neighbor who "owns" this drain has raised concerns with both myself and my brother about driving over said pipe (for fear of crushing it).  Initially, we really didn't know what she was referring to, nor at that time did we know where the actual property line was.  However, we've since had the Oakdale lot surveyed and now know with 100% where the property lines are.

This drain is a NO NO, in our eyes as owners and we're fairly certain from the town! It's clearly a potential health issue; who knows what's actually draining out of there, and not something we plan to ignore or let remain.

Stay tuned on this all plays out...

Tsk, Tsk, Tsk What A Mean Trick

What in the world is going on East Tennessee?!

C'mon stop!  Enough of this white stuff and cold temps, brrr!

A cruel trick, especially following a beautiful warm and sunny weekend, geesh -

I'm guessing this sudden cold will have an effect on some of the flora and fauna who were led to believe it was safe to start their spring appearance...

This is pic was taken a couple days earlier, from the driveway of our house, the pear trees starting to bloom.

Littering Bugging Me!

We spent an afternoon last week clearing the lot line between our Oakdale and Pritchard properties.  The area was overgrown with brush and limbs, as well as kudzu vines and grape vines growing up into the trees, so we cut it back as best we could and made a couple piles of the clippings.

We'll eventually need to move the piles someplace where we can safely burn it all, as there's a lot, but the area is looking better and well worth the time and effort!

Before - 

After -

Frustratingly, someone took the liberty of dumping their trash along the tree line, GRRR!  It's been there awhile and unsightly for sure and will need to be removed.  Here are a couple close up pics of the trash - several old tires and an old plastic calf shelter, which is in numerous pieces.  There are a lot of tar shingles too (not pictured); there we're not going to fuss with as most are covered with leaves and debris at this point -

We continue to putter and are making progress here and there.

It's satisfying working on our land and being able to see the differences are hard work is making!

Don't Worry Be Happy

Hey There Hay!

We walked the back half of our property the other day to check out the fence lines, it was a gorgeous day too.

All in all the fencing looks okay but there area sections that will need to be repaired. We went prepared with clippers in hand to clear and remove any brush and limbs that were encroaching on the fence. That ended up being a workout, as we did quite a bit of pruning and cutting back.

As you can see below the property was not hayed by the previous renter we had, so things are a bit overgrown.  Something we'll need to take care of sooner rather than later and on our list,

The tall tan grasses are all tall, about chest high, and do look kinda cool -

Very satisfying being out and walking our land!

God is good!

AM View From Sunnydew!

Good Morning, happy Sunday!

Here are a couple pics I snapped at 7:25AM, while watering Ms. Trixie.

Moon over Buffalo Mountain -

Rise and shine sunrise -

Another outstand East Tennessee day about to unfold, get out and enjoy it!

Mulch Mulch Baby

Edging and mulching has been completed! The place looks great!

The Frye Brothers do phenomenal work, if I may be so bold 😉!

The devil is in the details really -

We also pruned a bunch of spruce tree limbs today that were hanging low over the driveway. Loaded them into the trailer, drove them to Sunnydew Circle, where we unloaded them curbside to be picked up by the town.

Hard work never hurt anybody...😤

Crawl Space Confessions

We pulled up to our house yesterday morning to find a car parked next to the house.  We could see it as we pulled off the highway and immediately got concerned thinking something fishy was going on.  Fortunately, it turned out the person was there to install the vapor barrier under the house and he was crawling around and making some good progress -

He was expecting to be done by the end of day.

This is a BIG step and one that is required for the home inspection to pass but also needs to be done before the skirting can be installed around the house.  So, we're moving forward, all be it slower that we like but progress is progress!

Llama Herds Galore

We've come across quite a few farms that raise llama during our ride-abouts -

After leaving our farm yesterday afternoon, we took back roads on our way to Johnson City.  What a fantastic drive!  The farms, open land and views were tremendous!

Good looking animals I must say.

Did Someone Say Mulch?!

We had an adventure earlier this week when we went to Lowe's to pick up 2 pallets of black mulch; each pallets holds 65 bag and each bag weighs about 40 pounds, so a LOT of weight!

The Lowe's employees had a heck of a time getting both pallets loaded onto the trailer. Due to how the sides folded down and the wheel covers being in the way, it was a challenge that took quite a bit of time -

Once both pallets were loaded we ran into another issue, flat tires, both sides of the trailer -

Fortunately, the manager of Lowe's had one of those portable tire pumps that plug into the cars lighter and he was kind enough to drive over to fill both tires! Both tires were at a 27 PSI when we connected the pump but the tires require 50 PSI, so it took a while to get them filled but it worked out perfectly -

We strapped both pallets, each with two ratchet straps, to ensure they wouldn't shift as we drove, then off we went at 30 MPH to our destination some 20 miles away, UGH.  Very slow going but worthwhile to be safe.

We eventually made it to our destination, then spent the next 4 hours or so unloaded, edging and emptying bags of mulch in the flower beds around the front of the house and front trees.

A lot of work but boy does it all look great!

Now some extra strength Advil PLEASE! 

Our Humble Garden Hose Spigot

We had a Yard Hydrant (spigot) installed by our site crew -

Our house came with only one spigot and it's located in the back center of the house and we had concerns about not having a second one in the front of the house.  Our solution was a yard hydrant, which is connected directly to the incoming water line and all buried two feet underground.

It's already been successfully tested!

As the phrase from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Water water everywhere... however, we can drink our water!

Nope, Not That Aunt Bee

Aunt B with an A!

We headed to Aunt Bee's Home Cooking restaurant for breakfast in Greeneville on Monday morning after our 9AM meeting -

A diner type restaurant with plenty of seating. We were seated right away and had our coffee without waiting.  Our food came out relatively fast and wasn't too bad - sausage gravy and biscuits, eggs and bacon. The wait staff was friendly too.

I'd go back.

I Spy With My Little Eye

The view of the rear our house from afar on Pritchard road -

There's not too much tree cover at the rear of our place between us and the neighbors but fortunately, they're far enough away that hopefully it shouldn't matter.

Shush!

Cat on a hot tin roof -

Seems like an odd spot for a "cat" nap.

Gravel: Nature’s Doorbell

This weekend the crew has been grading and leveling the property.  They brought their BIG tractor and grader back and have done a great job cleaning things up!

You can see the tractor passing by the front of the house below -

The area behind the house looking good -

Going up, on the right side of the driveway -

An expanded view with the pond -

They even leveled and graded the driveway too!

Looking back down towards the Pritchard road easement -

Looking up, driving up to the house -

More gravel to be delivered, dumped and spread once the final inspection of the electrical trench has been signed off on.

Things are taking shape!