So much to do

 

Mango is on rat duty, but mostly his job is being loved.

 

There are two other cats on Rat Patrol now, so I think rats and mice are going to be less of a problem than I first anticipated. The first visiting ratter is a cat I call Booker, he's clearly not feral or at least was raised in a family at one point. He may have even been raised by the family that used to live here, they may have off and left him because he sure makes himself at home here. The other that I see less frequently is a black cat that is clearly feral. I leave food out for Booker to encourage him to stick around and discourage rodents. I saw an opossum munching on that food last night, so there's a possum too. 

I have so much work to do. I'm not complaining, that's part of what I wanted: meaningful work. Today I need to paint the area behind the decrepit stove and what will be the refrigerator so I can get a new stove and refrigerator delivered. I don't want to leave that area of wall grubby for the foreseeable future. I've got to get more garden beds in. I have to go to Sulphur Springs later in the week to pick up stuff I ordered at Lowes, which includes a tall ladder that I got so I can close up the holes under the eaves. There were like vent holes in the crown of the roof under the eaves, the vents having fallen off, so I need to pick an especially cold morning to go up there and seal up those holes so I don't have wasp city up in there. Also in the order is paper for sheet mulching the garden beds and a wood chipper: the mulch for the beds is primarily "hay" (read: cut grass and weeds) but I need some wood chips for on top of them. So one of these days I am going to have to cut some branches and chip them up.

I need to make a greenhouse: not sure if that is something that is going to get done when I need it which is early in the year but we'll see.

Of course I also still have to paint the rest of the house too, I am just getting the area behind the stove done first so I can get the new stove and fridge put in. At some point I want to pull up the disgusting old carpet and put new linoleum flooring in the whole house: my bedroom is the only room in the house with intact flooring.

Aaaaaand... then I have to tear out the whole kitchen and put in new cabinets and counters. My cabinet space is totally inadequate, my shelving space is inadequate, my drawer space is inadequate and my counter space is inadequate: it needs a total makeover. Not to mention all the holes in the floors and baseboards that need sealing up back there. And not to mention all the other holes in the house that need sealing up before I can paint those walls. So I got work to do.

My thoughts turn more and more to Spring though and getting plants planted. It's not just because I love gardens, but because all my food right now is coming from a Dollar Store and a small grocery store in Cooper. So my diet needs broadening and it needs some greens too. Man does not live by pop-tarts and gruel alone, but I've sure been trying. My diet is crappy: I need to get food growing going on. Getting a proper refrigerator should help, right now I am operating out of a refrigerator that's barely larger than a suitcase. I should be able to start some winter greens in my first garden bed before long.

But this is what I wanted: work that matters to me, as versus work that I do just in order to exist. And all of it does matter to me, even the parts that I wish were just done or that I wish I could just hire someone to do (like tearing down the kitchen: that's going to be a new one for me.)

One positive development: I now have access to water. Every water pipe in this entire house is busted, that's another thing that needs fixing at some point. Previously I had been purifying pond water for drinking and fetching pond water for washing-up, which obviously takes time and is less than ideal. I had plumbers bypass the house altogether and put me in a standing water faucet in the front yard, so now the water is turned on and I can go to the front yard to get County water as versus going to the pond. Still not convenient, but a heck of a lot more so than carrying water from the pond and then putting it through a sand filter, then if I want to drink it boiling it and putting it through a Berkey filter. I took a bath in a big Igloo ice chest filled with heated pond water, that's my technology level right now lol and will be for awhile, with buckets of water from the front yard replacing buckets of water from the pond.

There is a ton of work to do, but I'm glad I'm here.