Just one of those days

Yesterday was one of those days that make you wish you had stayed in bed. It's been quite warm and the humidity has been terrible, opening the front door and stepping outside feels like what I imagine the Amazon rainforest is like.  Here's the NOAA forecast for the next week. 

• This Afternoon A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 84. South southwest wind around 5 mph.
• Tonight A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 63. South southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Thursday A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 85. Calm wind becoming south southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon.
• Thursday Night A 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 2am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 64. South southwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Friday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 8am. Partly sunny, with a high near 86. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph in the afternoon.
• Friday Night A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65. Southeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Saturday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 8am. Partly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming northeast around 5 mph in the afternoon.
• Saturday Night A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 66. East northeast wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.
• Sunday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 87. Calm wind becoming south southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon.
• Sunday Night A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 66.
• Monday A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 86.
• Monday Night A 40 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 66.
• Tuesday A 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 87.

Notice the predicted wind speeds. The worst part of the forecast is the fact that there is no wind. I often tell friends from the plains that the wind doesn't blow in Tennessee, and I'm not joking.  I dislike hot humid weather, and this place is full of it. I snapped this picture in the late afternoon a couple days ago which plainly shows the moisture in the air.

Plants, on the other hand, adore the jungle-like atmosphere here and grow like, well, weeds. My yard man has gone AWOL, I hauled my big riding mower up north a couple weeks ago and the plants are taking full advantage of these facts. Since I had only mowed two times this summer before taking the mower up north and the yard guy hasn't shown up, the yard is getting very overgrown, so I broke down yesterday and started mowing with the little walk-behind mower I have. It was miserable. I managed to get the small front part finished, but the whole big side yard and across the driveway is still lurking, plus a mountain of weed-eating around everything. Despite sweating like a stuck pig it was horribly hot because there is no breeze, and because at these humidity levels there is no evaporative cooling. I would work for a short period shoving the poor little mower through the knee deep grass, then come inside to sit in the air conditioning and have a glass of cold water to cool down.

To really make this fun, the well decided to stop working. This is an ongoing problem here, with no discernable cause. Every once in a while, perhaps every few months, you turn on a tap and nothing comes out. Wait a while, and it's working fine again. I've replaced the pressure tank and pressure switch, and installed a spin-down filter on it to trap the black sand that was plugging things up when I bought the house. No change in the water problem. It's a fairly deep well, almost 150 feet, and according to the neighbor the intake is sitting in an underground stream. He loses water at times as well but not as often as I do, and the problem seems to be worse in the summer. I'm guessing either the stream's level drops below the well intake or else the pump is failing, I've voting for the water level being the problem since I know the previous owner had the same issue going back over 10 years. "City" water is available but there's a  hefty hook-up fee and I don't like the idea of paying monthly for chemically treated and fluoridated water.

Right around dusk the water decided to work again. Yay! After cleaning up I decided to throw a nice pork chop on the grill. Came back inside and started some broccoli, then went out to flip the chop only to discover the grill had run out of gas. The half-cooked chop had to be finished in the house while the broccoli overcooked. At least the margarita was cold and refreshing. 

Appraisal

I bought this place in Tennessee back in February of 2011 to use as my winter home. The mobile home on the property was in horrible condition. The previous owner had several dogs that he didn't let out of the house the last year or so he was alive and the dog urine had rotted out the floor and the duct work. The 5 1/2 acres was appraised at that time at $32,000, and most of that was the value of the land with a value of only $2000 value placed on the mobile home.  I purchased the land for the bargain price of $22,000. My original plan was to somehow make the mobile home habitable so I had a place to live for a few years while I built an actual house.

The first expense was a new heat pump and central air along with all new duct work, a $6000 expenditure right off the bat. I should have realized then that things were not going to be as quick and inexpensive as planned. I've been saying ever since that I should have had the existing mobile hauled away and put a new one here instead, it might have been cheaper.  LOL Since purchasing it the entire house has been gutted,  drywall was replaced in areas where it was damaged, the rotted OSB subfloor was removed and new plywood put down, all new appliances were installed - washer, dryer, stove, fridge, water heater and pressure tank for the well. Both bathrooms were completely gutted and redone, several built-in units were removed, the small porch was enlarged so it now runs the full length of the front of the house and an ADA compliant wheelchair ramp was installed, every square inch of the interior has been painted, new wood flooring was installed and it was capped off with a new roof last summer. Whew!

There are still some smaller projects, (there are ALWAYS more projects). I'd like to replace the vinyl skirting with steel, the front door probably needs replacing, the stairs going down from the back door need to be replaced or a deck built, and the new yard barn/shop still hasn't been painted, but for the most part the house is  finished. During the whole process my long-term goals have changed, and at this point I no longer plan to build a "real" house here. The caboose is parked here awaiting it's rebuild, and when it's finished I plan to sell this property so I had an appraisal done a few weeks ago just to see if all the sweat equity has increased the value. I figured most of the money I put into the mobile home was gone, since it IS a 17 year-old mobile home and they don't appreciate, so I was pleasantly surprised when the appraisal came back at $45,000. If I sold it today I could double my money, not too bad for 3 years. (We aren't going to add up how much I've sunk into it, and all my labor is free.  LOL) 

The next project is to clean up around the old storage shed, get rid of the construction debris from working on the house and enclose at least one side of the lean-to on the back of the shed for a storage area of caboose parts as I dismantle it.

The honey suckle is blooming, and the whole yard is perfumed by it's heavy, cloying scent. There was a 6-foot high fence all the way around the building site when I bought it, most has been removed because the posts were rotting off at the ground and the honey suckle was pulling the whole mess down, but there is still a section in the back corner or the yard that's covered with it.

In other news, I made a quick run up north to get Baz's motorcycle out of his friend's garage in Ames, Iowa and haul it to MN and to get some other business taken care of. I spent a couple days hanging out with my grand kids and marveling at how incredibly fast they are growing up! My other daughter and almost-son-in-law are almost definitely moving to Utah, he's gotten a great job offer out there. Since he's currently living in my camper over in NC this means I won't be moving north until he's relocated, which is looking like a month away. In the meantime there will be lots of sorting and packing of my daughter's "stuff" along with working on other projects here, although it's heating up and the humidity is getting nasty, so I don't know how many outdoor projects I'll get accomplished.

Bluebirds

For the third year in a row a pair of bluebirds is nesting on the front porch. Mom and Dad are pretty comfortable with letting us sit out there and watch them coming and going with food for the babies, but for some reason the camera makes them wary. I imagine it looks like a large eye watching them, like a predator, and they won't come to the nest box if I have the camera in my hand.

I haven't figured out what sort of caterpillar or worm they are feeding the kids, but there seems to be a huge number of them in the yard now. Good thing, since feeding the brood is an all day job. They perch up in the small tree or on top of the bird feeder poles and peer down to find the next snack, then fly down and grab it, then up to the tree again, or occasionally the porch railing. From there they make sure the coast is clear before zipping over to the next box to feed the screaming kids. At this point Mom and Dad don't actually go in the box, just hang on the side and feed whichever chick has it's gaping mouth closest to the entrance hole.

 

They have always laid four eggs, but have always lost one chick somewhere between hatching and fledging. This year all four chicks seem to be doing well.

 

L Sullivan had asked on a previous post how the Caboose progress was coming along, and the sad answer is, it isn't. It seems there are just too many other things going on right now, and too many (good) excuses for not starting on it. I need to get some dirt work done, as there is no flat, level place to work on it here unless I park it in the front yard. Somehow I don't think the neighbors would be in favor of that.  lol In the meantime I've been trying to finish up all the half-done projects on the house  so I can get an appraiser out here. I purchased this place dirt cheap, mainly due to the deplorable condition the house was in. Hopefully all the work over the last three years has boosted the value some.

Summer plans are still up in the air. I really need to get to MN and start working on clearing out the house and outbuildings there, but everything is sort of on hold right now. My almost-son-in-law (who lives in NC) and my daughter (who lives here) are flying to Utah next week where he has a job interview. If he takes the job, she will be moving out there with him, so for now everything is on hold until the job decision is made.