Category: lakehouse

I don’t think we’ll get a white New Year, but it feels cold enough… at night anyway. We’ll see how warm it gets in the daytime and sunlight, but it was 37F when I went to bed. It’s supposed to be clear and cool.

Got my errands done, truck loaded, and made the trip to the BOL yesterday. Nikki Heat audio book kept me awake and alert. Freaking moon was HUGE and yellow orange, and just above the horizon for most of my drive. VERY dramatic. Unfortunately it was cloudy when I got here.

I drove up to the house and half my Christmas decor was dark. Dang fire ants love them some electrons… They’d built a mound over the outdoor timer/photosensor and invaded it enough that it wasn’t turning on. I banged most of the debris out, and got it working again. Wife and kids got the full experience when they drove up later.

There was some extreme weather up here this last week. The wheelbarrow was full of water, and there was plenty of evidence of high wind and severe gusts. Lake is still not at normal levels though. I think I better get some rainwater capture set up because long term, anything could happen with the lake. Sabotage could drain it, it could get contaminated, or it could just be very low in a drought. ‘Course in a drought, there won’t be much rain either. Still, I’ll feel better if I have a few hundred gallons of my own sitting here.

Wish I could store a few buckets full of electrons as easily.

And why the h-e-double-el is kerosene $15 per gallon? Gas is $2.50, and even the pre-mixed gas-oil for small engines is only $9/ gallon… it pains me but I picked some up anyway. It’s an expensive choice for heat at the moment. I pay $12 for a bbq bottle of propane,and even less in the bulk bottle for the house. I will look at firing up my Mr Buddy to warm up the garage rather than the kero heater.

Maybe I’ll install one of the wood stoves in the garage (now that we’re using it as another room)… Plenty of wood around here… and it’s not dependent on infrastructure I don’t control. Of course, that’s why I’ve been holding on to the stoves, for the house and my eventual workshop. Insulating the garage is on the list, and will happen. I skipped the step at the house in Houston when I had the chance and have regretted it ever since. Funnily enough, there have been several stoves come through the auctions with shipping damage (like mine) and despite sometimes severe damage, they STILL sold for more than I was willing to pay. Some other folks are getting ready too.

Think about infrastructure and what you can live with and can’t live without. Make some choices, and start some stacks.

nick

Cold and clear. Warming later, to a nice day, then cold. That should be the pattern for a while, with the starting temp slowly falling. Nice day once it warms up.

Did stuff at home in the morning yesterday, waiting to get the eldest child from school. Then did some pickups to the north of me. Today I’ll do pickups to the south…

Got home and made dinner. Visiting sibling so I made one of the picanha roasts (the sirloin cap) with smashed turnips, and brusselsprouts sauteed with onion and truffle oil. D2’s homemade Tollhouse cookies for dessert. Kid is learning to make some fine cookies. Then we did a small gift exchange. Sibling will not be here for Christmas, so we did it early.

These are the good ole’ days.

I’m still thinking about a bigger post. Have to get some quiet time to get it together. And some things have to work themselves through in my head…

In the mean time, the best advice I can give, you’ve heard about a thousand times, stack what you’ll need. Getting it might be a problem sooner than you think.

nick

Cold and clear. Supposed to be dry. It was cold and clear at the BOL until it warmed up, and then it got to mid 70s. It was pretty cold again as soon as the sun went down.

I spent Sunday doing the things I’d gone up to do. Took longer to unload the truck than to winterize. It’s much easier if you plan for it when doing the construction. In this case, I’d put all the hose bibs on a separate loop of pex that I put a valve on. Close the valve, open the hosebibs, and no worries about them freezing.

I also did what I could to drain the irrigation system, and opened the valves, and disconnected the hoses from them. I hope that’s enough to prevent damage. Of course, it might not freeze this year.

Or it might.

I spent about an hour chatting with my fisherman buddy up there, and his wife, before I drove home. Meatspace.

———-

Today is half day for the kids, so that cuts my day short. I’ve got a couple of pickups, and a drop off at my auctioneer. Some shopping to do. Some cleaning. And maybe some more decorations in the yard… I really like colored lights better than white.

Oh, and I need to re-bait all the poison boxes for the rats. There was evidence they’ve returned in the attic.

Later my sibling will come over and we’ll trade gifts. Won’t open them but we’ll have ours and he will have hers… or she will have his. Or “they” will have “theirs” to take home and open on Christmas.

There were roses on the rose bushes at the BOL, so even though I missed most of the color in the tree leaves, I did see that… take your joy where you find it.

Keep it close, nurture it, and stack.

n

Chilly and damp, 40F and then warming. It was 40F last night at the BOL. Supposed to be clear for a couple of days.

Got a late start to things yesterday but eventually got the truck loaded and headed to the BOL. Stopped on the way to pick up an item that hadn’t been shipped, even though it’s been a month or more. It will let me do a repair on something I’d written off as too expensive to fix.

Won a few things for Christmas presents, and a couple of things for the BOL. I’ll pick them up this week.

Today I need to unload the truck, put stuff away, and winterize the hose bibs and outdoor shower water heater. I’ll do some Christmas things if I have time. We’ll be back up after Christmas and I’d like to walk into a decorated house. I’d like to put up some lights here too. I’ve got the lights, but don’t know if I have a good way to hang them…

I’ll take some colored lights home to put up there too.

————
I spent some time thinking about truly bad things happening while I was sitting by the fire last night. I think I have a nice post coming up, if I can organize my thoughts.

In the mean time — stack.

nick

Cool and wet. It was drizzling from evening on yesterday, and was still coming down at 1am. I am hoping it stops so I can take a truckload of stuff to the BOL, but if it doesn’t I’m might take what I can and go anyway.

Or I might stay home today and put up the tree. It’s a pretty skinny “Charlie Brown” tree this year. Kids picked it out so I guess it’s fine. At least it has short needles.

Did a couple of pickups yesterday. Stuff to flip, some Christmas decor, and some stuff to take to the BOL. I have been cutting back on auction purchases dramatically. My average ticket total is a third of what it was a year ago. That’s partly due to not needing to buy as many things, partly due to more self control about need vs want, but mainly because prices for the stuff I am buying are dramatically lower than they were. As a buyer, that’s great. As a reseller, that sucks. As an observer of the economy, it’s very worrying.

These are not quite yet the times that try mens’ souls, but they can be seen approaching.

Get yourself squared away.

Stack what you need, deep and high.

nick

Cool again. Overcast again. National forecast says rain and thunderstorms are possible. The morning overcast cleared yesterday to leave a very nice sunny day, until evening when the overcast moved back in. Saturday is supposed to be nice.

I did some pickups all the way across town and far to the south. The most notable thing is the amount of new construction that I saw. They’ve been throwing up new mega-apartment complexes in Houston and surrounds, but this was the first one I saw so far south. It is right in the path of almost any hurricane, and built in an area that floods. New residents from Cali and NYFC won’t know that, so I guess it will work…

Today I have some more auction stuff to pick up, and some other stuff to do around the house. I might head to the BOL tonight, but more likely is tomorrow, so I can grab some auction pickups on the way. There is one that isn’t on the way that I will call and see if I can get them today. Most auctioneers don’t want late pickups, but maybe he’ll go for an early one.

In other news, Elon must have gotten a few more sats in space, because Starlink is available at the BOL again. Now I’m faced with making the decision. It’s pricey, but will let my wife work from home if we are up there, and will let me get some cams in for monitoring the place. I’m going to talk to our friends up there and see if they want to share. I think they are already splitting their new service, as he asked me for advice on sharing network between a couple of houses…so it might just be us. The guy who was initially interested in sharing backed out.

Shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone here that the internet has become so important that I’m seriously thinking about paying double what we pay for fiber here to get it at a place we use one weekend out of the month. I kind of like being out of touch when I’m up there, but my wife would like to be able to spend more time there when the kids are off school but she’s still working. Hmmm. Something to think about, since it won’t be an issue until summer, or possibly spring break.

I vac sealed and froze some more meat yesterday, and added it to the stacks. I’ve been adding other stuff, and getting stuff for the BOL, rather than food, for the most part this year. I’m hoping that doesn’t come back to bite my behind, but other than meat, there isn’t a lot I can add that I’ll use before the cans explode, if the worst case situation doesn’t happen. That’s a good place to be, and I’m glad for it, but now I need to balance between here and there. Might be time to rotate a couple of buckets of flour for example, rather than just add one, same with some seasoning packets, and other things. Or not, as even less that perfect food is still food when it’s all gone pear shaped. I think organizing and swapping my storage around is probably a better use of my time.

Time. Ask me for anything but time. Well, I better get started on the list, because they aren’t making any more time… everyone gets the same amount every day, you can’t ‘save’ it, and you don’t ‘waste’ it. It just is.

So do something. And stack. Or stack. But stack.

nick

Cool again, not cold. I hope. Because it was pretty dang cold yesterday, 36F when I got the kid on the bus. My buddy at the BOL said it got to 31F but warmed up shortly afterward. I’m hoping the lines I didn’t drain haven’t frozen yet, and kicking myself for not getting up there.

I should have been back at the BOL this last weekend, but my holiday party got in the way. Now I’m worried that the instant hot water heater for the outdoor shower got ruined, or the hose bibs I didn’t drain got damaged, or even that the irrigation system is even more broken than it was. It wasn’t cold for long, so I think everything will be ok so far.

Spent yesterday trying to do stuff around the house. Had to get the kids in the afternoon which really shortens my day. I’m going to have to get out of the house sooner if this continues, or I won’t get anything done. I did get a few things done, including tearing out the last of the original carpet in the house. It was in the “toy” room, and was old and nasty when we moved in in ’08. White carpet. Two kids, and a dog. The Bissell worked well, and the home version does a pretty good job, but it still accumulated stuff that just wouldn’t go away. This time, rather than clean it, I ripped it out.

I have enough of the same engineered hardwood flooring we put in the rest of the house to complete this one room- planned it that way, and stored a pallet of material at my secondary against the day, but now IDK if my wife will still want to go that direction. For now it will be concrete with a throw rug. Like the living room at the BOL… Because to do the job we’d have to move the book cases too. And that would be a task. (I just cut the carpet around them for now.) It’s always something.

Today should be me out of the house collecting some stuff for the stacks. I’ve got pickups all over town, and some people to see. Maybe even a drop off for my auctioneer too. It would be nice to continue some of the progress I’m making clearing stuff out.

I’m trying to make the hay while the sun, she is a shining…

And stacking. Doing that too.

nick