It was a beautiful day today. I got my inside chores done and we had to go outside and enjoy it. Jordan and Jesse found a bocci ball set in the barn so they went up into the side meadow and played for some time. Granny, Peyton, and I went on a walk through our woods.

There are two paths I’ve mowed so that we have a clear way to walk through our woods. One goes along the fence that we share with a neighbor and down into our woods down to the pond. The pond is an interesting body of water. Not much bigger than a good sized in-ground pool and filled with duck weed and algae, and some tractor tires. Oh well, we do share it, pretty much down the middle with our neighbor. So, the middle of the pond is one boundary and the far edge from the house is the back boundary of our property. The other path comes off the pond path about in the middle of it and goes back up towards the house past the lagoon into the back yard.  

Granny, Peyton, and I took the path from the backyard toward the pond. On the way there are two Osage Orange trees on either side. Those trees have dropped most of their fruit at this point and they are all over the path. Peyton took great delight in sitting among them and playing with the ‘balls.’

According to lore osage oranges are good for keeping spiders away. You quarter them and put a piece in each corner of a room. Alternately, you can put them outside the house near the foundation. Other than that I don’t know of anything else the fruit is good for. The wood is extremely dense and is often used as tool handles. There are some good shaped branches on the tree, I may cut some for spare hammer handles.

I enjoy taking these walks and it’s very cute to see Peyton tromping through the woods. It’s marvelous to have this land. Who needs a park when you have your very own right out your back door.

Fall is swiftly coming upon us. This week my son is home on Fall Break from school. That adds so much more excitement. To help keep him occupied Granny, my mom, went to Education.com and downloaded Halloween pictures for him to color. She also found connect the dots for him to do. My son's sister has really enjoyed having him around during the day. They play well together.

One thing I have stuck to with him, even though he is six, is 'nap time.' He doesn't actually nap these days, however, after lunch he goes to his room for an hour of quiet time. He reads, plays legos, or watches a video. Doing this gives me an hour of kid free time, I can relax and get things done.

My big plan for next week is to start the winterizing. I don't have central air conditioning but I do have about six window unit air conditioners. I'm going to take them out of the windows, vacuum them, and clean them before I put them into storage. This way I will know that they are ready to go when summer returns. Another winterizing chore is going to be re-building the chicken tractor so that the varmints quit getting my chickens and so that they will be warm for the winter. Once I've rebuilt it I need to move it to where I want my garden to be next year. The chickens will then start 'plowing' it for me and fertilizing it.

I suspect it was a raccoon that got three of my chickens recently. I'm pretty sure I have 2 hens and a rooster left. We've been getting two eggs a day so far as I can tell. One of the hens is a bit broody and keeps hiding the eggs so I'm not sure if I'm finding them a day later or if I have 2 hens. The eggs are quite tasty and remarkably brilliant when you cook them. Not at all like the pallid store bought eggs.

I hope to post at least a couple of times a week. I'm willing to try suggestions, answer comments, and what not.

Room-A-Day Plan

So, to lower my stress and get more organized I decided to implement this plan. I was getting overwhelmed with doing maintenance cleaning each day and not being able to do a down and dirty thorough cleaning of my house. Well, because I’m looking at this as a job I’m trying to keep a Monday thru Friday schedule for the housework. The plan is simple, I pick a day and a room. My Room-A-Day Plan looks like this:

Monday - Bathroom

Tuesday - Kitchen/Dining Room

Wednesday - Mud Room (Laundry room)

Thursday - Living Room/Front Hall

Friday - Bedrooms

You can break your Room-A-Day Plan down however works best for you. Right now this is still in the testing stage for me so, I’ll keep you posted on how it works out. My goal is to clean those rooms deeper than I do on a maintenance level. Hmmmm. Maintenance level cleaning is what I call keeping the surfaces, floors, counters, etc., free of the dreaded ‘things.’ 

In my deep cleaning of the bathroom today I used a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water. I put this in a spray bottle and labeled it. I used it to clean the mirror and as the solution to mop the floor. It worked great on the mirror. It is one of my money saving tricks I’m trying. It did a good job on the floor as well.

Vinegar as a disinfectant.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/mole00/mole00100.htm

Hello World! Well, my partner and I have successfully moved from Upstate NY to Kentucky. She is settling into her job at her new hospital. I'm settling into being a stay at home mom. There’s something to be said about this as I have had a job most of my life and this is definitely a change. I look at it as my job.

Our son is doing well in school. He's in the first grade and has Aced all his spelling tests so far. Our daughter, sigh, is 18 months old and already hitting the terrible twos. She's smart, energetic, and gorgeous. In other words the kids are growing well. 

I’ve started this blog to share my experience and any helpful household tips. Seems kinda ridiculous in today’s age of the internet and all the information flooding our computer screens. However, I won’t post about something I haven’t tried or done successfully.

We have an ancient pear tree out back, well right out the back door to be exact, that is tremendously prolific. They are the kind of pears that you can store till November or December and they are still delicious. I imagine the people who built the house planted it. Ironically enough, the pears drop mostly at night and since we have a metal roof when they hit it sounds like someone’s dropped a bomb. The first couple of nights I was convinced someone was trying to break-in.

All in all I hope that people enjoy the tales of my journey and are able to learn something new, possibly from my mistakes.