Mr Murphy visits the farm.

It seems as if the author of the "anything that can go wrong" cliché has found the farm. And he definitely let his presence be known. This is the first house we have lived in that has an oil burning furnace. The furnace works absolutely wonderful and does a great job of heating this old house. There is just one requirement, however. I am used to strolling over to the thermostat, putting said thermostat on desired temperature and expecting very shortly for the warm air to come flowing merrily through the vents. Winter arrived quickly last week here in coastal NC. The temps decided to bottom out, so it was necessary to make that stroll over to said thermostat and turn on the heat. After waiting several anxious moments for that wonderful rush of warm air, nothing was happening. No noise or rumble from the heater and NO warm air rushing from the vent. After scratching the noggin a few times it finally came to me that this was not an electric furnace that derives all its power from the local power company. This furnace needed oil. Oooops. I went outside into the very cold air, checked the tank, and lo and behold, the dipping stick came up dryer than a camels throat on a summer day in the Sahara. And the temps were not stopping. They were on a downward spiral that wasn’t going to stop anytime soon. I decided it was time to call some local oil companies to schedule an immediate delivery of the heating juice. How does that little saying go, Failure to prepare on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Seems as if the sudden arrival of ole man winter here in the south triggered the same response from most all the folks with oil furnaces. Only thing is, most of these folks knew to call at least 3 or 4 days in advance. I was told that my much needed oil would be there in at least 3 to 4 days, just as the temps were warming up again. See saying above. The fact that its not the least bit amusing or fun to be cold in your on home caused me to get on the phone and call some friends I had recently made that might have some suggestions, other than heading for the local Howard Johnson's. The first person I called was the one that came to our rescue. A nice guy that has been living here in NC all his life. He just happened to have a 250 gal fuel tank that was on a portable trailer that I could pull behind my truck. He told me to come on and get it. Needless to say I was thrilled. I arrived at his place post haste and found the tank and trailer. Yes, you guessed it. Mr. Murphy had realized that I was headed that way and of course, he got there before me. One of the tires on the trailer had a very large hole in it. As most of you know, rubber tires with large holes and holding air are not compatible. The cold in my bones and the numbness of my fingers was not going to let me give up. I  made a call to a local tire store that sold used tires, and lo and behold, he had a tire. It was now 4:35pm and he closed at 5. Faster than a speeding bullet did I make that trip to the tire store, and yes, I made it just in time. I must have outrun Mr. Murphy. With newly installed used tire I drove back to the trailer, mounted the tire and headed off to get some heating oil. I called my wife, told her that I now had oil and was headed home to fill the tank and that soon, wonderful warm air would be rushing through our very cold heat vents. You must know by now that Murphy was listening to that call and he wasn't finished with me yet. I arrived home, filled the tank and went inside and turned on the heater and put the thermostat on roast, well done. As I stood there shivering with anticipation to hear the wonderful rumble of the heater start up, and feel the first rushes of super heated air, all I did was watch my breath as it turned into icicles as it came from my frozen lungs. No rumble from the heater, no rush of heat. I am now perplexed. I slowly stroll out to the mammoth oil furnace, pull off the door to the controls and peer into something I know absolutely nothing about. Its now somewhere around 8pm. Knowing that if I placed a call to a heating company this time of night, the cost to fix whatever Mr. Murphy had messed up would be tripled. Heating and air folks don't like to be called out at night unless your are willing to pay off their mortgage. I finally gave in for the night, hung my tail between my legs and sauntered off into the bedroom to hide under a mountain of blankets and quilts.
Morning arrived with a chill in the air like never before. I think the temps had dropped to the legal drinking age in Georgia back in the early 70's. Somewhere around 18. It was now time to call in the pros. After the first three companies I called, I refer back to the earlier saying. Remember it. Now I was getting worried. Cold, plus broken heater, plus a visit from Mr. Murphy was getting to be to much to bear. I made one more call, said a prayer, and it worked. We had a heating guy on the way. Turns out it was the "brain" of the heating unit that had gone bad. I can emphasize. The part of the heater that tells all the other parts to work. After a couple of hours, and two second mortgages we had that wonderful rumble of the heater and super heated air rushing once again throughout the icy cold vents. I also learned a valuable lesson that morning. Never, I repeat, never say or even think, What can go wrong now. Murphy can read minds you know.
After I let my body parts warm up for a bit, it was time to go out into the cold and feed and water all of our critters. We have several four legged critters here, most of which are rescue animals. I got everyone fed, then it was time to water. I turned on the faucet at the barn, and no water. OK, it was cold and I figured that maybe just the spicket was frozen and needed a little time to warm up. I got a 5 gallon bucket and made several trips from the house to the barn . The barn and pastures are on well water, its free, The house is on county water, you pay. I waited until the afternoon, returned to the barn, because the temps had actually risen into the tropical like 40* range and I surmised, hmmm, that the pipes should be thawed. I turned on the spicket and could have swore I heard a voice say, did you think you were going to get off that easy. Murphy. I went to the well house and turned on a spicket there and noticed that the pump did not come on. Oh No. I went inside to the panel box and noticed that the breaker to the well pump had faulted. I turned it back on, and before I could get out the back door, I heard a click, and yes, it faulted again. Now it had started to rain, and the temps were hovering just above that 32* mark. Needless to say my bones felt every raindrop. I went back to the well house and determined that something in the pump just wasn't right. Great summation, huh. I took the well pump loose, rushed to my local small pump repair guy, who actually was able to fix the pump and have me going down the road in short order. Maybe, just maybe things were looking up now. Remember, Murphy can read minds. I reinstalled the pump, primed her up with water and hit the switch. She sounded wonderful, all except for the rush of water coming out from one of the hoses where water is not supposed to be coming out. I talked about Murphy's mother, then proceeded to surmise what the problem was. See surmise in earlier post. A faulty clamp on the hose was the problem. Now something I left out. The well house is a small enclosure over the pump, with maybe enough room for a small dwarf. I am 6' and 230 lbs and don't take well to bending like a pretzel. My body makes me pay for doing that in agonizing ways. It was off to my local tractor supply to get the clamp I needed to fix this problem. Got the clamp on, turned the breaker back on, hit the switch and the pump ran. It filled the holding tank then turned off as it was supposed to do. All is well? Don't forget, when Murphy visits, he stays for awhile. I turned the spicket handle that lets the water run from the holding tank, through the lines and out to the barn. And run it did, out through the many, many holes in the PVC pipe just 2 ft from the tank inside the well house. Did I  mention I talked about Murphy's mother, I did again. It was time for a second trip to the local tractor supply section to get connectors, PVC cement and pipe. My brain has now decided I am slowly trying to kill my body and it is trying to shut me down. It decided that if it would send many messages of pain through every nerve and joint that I would give in and return to the mounds of blankets and covers that were utilized while Murphy had control of the furnace. No, I was determined to beat Murphy and send him on his way. I returned to my little hobbit of a well house, turned into a pretzel once more and proceeded to repair all the broken pipes. About 2 hours and three hissy fits later, all pipes were repaired and water was once again flowing from the well to the appropriate spickets. As I attempted to stand up; note here, at my age I don't need psychotropic drugs to take a trip, I just stand up real fast, my body let me know again, that in cold rainy weather it does not like to be confined in small wet spaces for long periods of time. However, I had the satisfaction of knowing I had beat Murphy. I once more commented on his fatherless birth and made one more comment about his mother, then I sent him packing. It was time now, to go inside to our WARM house and seek shelter from the day by crawling under the mounds of blankets and covers and head off to dream land, where I dreamt I was a plumber and wore my jeans two sizes to small around the waist.....more to come...

The walls came tumbling down

Winter has really arrived here at the farm. The temps have dropped colder than the proverbial well diggers, you know. Warming up this weekend, however, with rain of course, then the temps plummet even further down the thermometer next week. Brrr. The house here at the farm was built in 1932. It’s almost as old as dirt, but not quite. It does, however, have plenty of charm and personality. We are in the process of giving it more charm. Houses built back in the day were sectioned off into individual rooms, with little wide open spaces. We are now creating our wide open spaces. Kitchen first. Most of the plaster and lathe boards that were once walls is now lying in a pile on the floor. There is something to be said for demolition. Many a stressful day can be displaced to a hammer banging against a plaster wall. It’s quite fun sometimes. It is surprising what one might find behind very old walls. As one part of a dining room wall was being dismantled, some brick appeared. As more wall came down, more brick appeared. Low and behold, there is a chimney behind the dining room wall. The chimney has a round hole in it about 4 ft up from the floor. It is apparent it was once used for a furnace or wood burning stove. Possibly the only source of heat when the house was originally built. I was surprised, however, being that there is only one chimney that extends beyond the roof line, that one belonging to the fireplace in the living room. My curiosity had the best of me now and I was on a mission to find the rest of this chimney. I went upstairs and entered one of the three entrances into the attic space. As I crawled on hands and knees, cleaning cobwebs with my head as I went and hoping not to make a skylight opening in the ceiling with my body, I found the rest of the chimney. The top of the chimney stops just shy of the roof. I began to surmise. Yes, I do surmise every now and then. I was surmising as to why this chimney stopped just under the roof line. It became very clear to me that if I put another wood stove in place in front of this chimney, vented the flue into the chimney; all the smoke and ash would end up in the attic. In my 56 years of life on this earth and a stint with the Gwinnett County Fire Dept as a fireman, I surmised, there I go again, surmising. I surmised that the attic was not a good place to deposit such items as smoke, heat and ash. After much surmising, I determined that when this house was built it was originally a single story house with this chimney easily being above the roof line. At some point and time a second story was added, and for whatever reason, the decision was made to not extend the chimney above the new roof line and to close in the chimney behind a wall. As I write, plans are being made and surmising is going on to once again extend this fine looking chimney above the roof line and once again use its services as a smoke belching, ash gathering flue for a wood burning stove. And I’m not talking about just a wood burner. This will be a regular ole timey real stove that uses wood as its source of heat for cooking and heating. I can be like Matt Dillon and have my old coffee pot sitting there on the stove ready to fill a cup with hot, steaming coffee every time Festus stops by. For everyone reading this under the age of 30, Google Matt Dillon and Festus Hagen. Anyway, remodeling has begun. I’ll keep you posted as I continue to surmise....

Long Day

Today started out early. 3am to be exact. One of those nights when sleep decided to take a hike and left me wide eyed. Seeing as how it was hopeless, I gave in and made a pot of coffee. I had the alarm set for 5 anyway. Today was moving day for more of our animals. We have some of our creatures at a friends place because when we moved to our little farm, you couldn't see the pasture fences, or for that matter, the pastures either for the 12' tall grass and weeds that had not been touched in nigh on two years. We surly would have lost some animals for weeks to come in those pastures. I had to fire up my old Ferguson 40 and do some serious bush-hogging. After a month, and several trips to the gas station to refill the tractor, I finally made some headway and began once again to see Terra firma. There were times my old tractor would just stop and refuse to go any further. Just because I ran it into several large sink holes and a couple of yellow jacket nests, it decided to get ornery on me and just stop when it wasn't sure what was in front of it. I tricked it though, and several times put some hi-test fuel in its tank. It then thought it was a duel wheel, 4wd $25000.00 John Deere. Sometimes it just takes a little horse sense to outsmart your tractor. Anyway, the pastures were mowed and fences repaired so it was time to get more of our animals home. The creatures I picked up today were goats and cows. There were supposed to be sheep on this trip too, but that didn't happen. As I pulled into our friends drive, which is a 3 hour trip one way, not to be confused with a 3 hour tour. I know, you've now got Gilligan's song stuck in your head. Anyway, I pulled into the drive with full intentions of loading sheep, goats and two cows; Never, never think things will go as planned when dealing with animals. Especially goats and sheep. I don't have the luxury of having a stock trailer, which is one with a divider in the middle, where you can load some animals, close the divider to hold them in, then load more in the rear. No, we have a horse trailer, which really is only suitable for hauling horses. However, you use what you have. The cows were the first to be loaded, and with just a little coaxing went right up in the trailer. Next were the goats and sheep. Now goats will come to just about anything that shakes, such as a feed bag, if they think they are going to get a meal. Sheep, however, are a little more suspicious. At this point I had two major things to accomplish. 1. Keep the loaded cows from unloading themselves while the trailer door is open, 2, Convince the sheep and goats that the almost empty bag of old oats I was shaking was completely full and that they should come into the trailer to get the best meal they have ever had. As I had one eye on the cows, shaking the bag with one hand, holding the door with the other, all but one goat, and one of four sheep came on the trailer to see what was in the bag. Dilemma. Still one goat out along with three sheep. The ones in the trailer were now butting heads and salivating at the few oats that I placed in a feed container in the trailer, the ones still outside the trailer stood just far enough away to see if my now empty bag was going to magically drop more feed. I decided if I could get behind them I could shoo them on up into the trailer. I let the trailer door go and attempted to get behind the varmints still outside peering in. As I did this, the ones in the trailer just happened to look up and saw me leave the trailer. In their minds they knew that I was going to leave them in the trailer to starve while I was intent on feeding the ones on the outside a gourmet meal. Before I could get back to the door, they quickly made their retreat back to the pasture from whence they came. Now, I'm back to the two cows in the trailer, who by this time had decided that they too must be missing out on something just outside the trailer door. Fortunately, I had on my PF Flyer farm boots and made it back to the trailer door before they made their escape. They mooed me with discontent. By now, the three am coffee has long lost its effect and I'm getting weary. One last effort. I found a little more feed that my friend had in his barn and put it in a cup, a cup that rattles. Now mind you, a goat just cant turn down a free meal. I closed the door on the trailer, containing the two cows, and drove the truck and trailer over to the barn. I opened a stall door then returned to the pasture fence. I decided the best way now to accomplish what I needed to do was to get the goats and sheep into a closed space and allow them only one exit, straight into the trailer. If only plans always worked. I opened the pasture fence, took my little cup of feed and began to rattle. As I rattled I walked toward the open stall door at the barn. This was just to much for the goats and they decided that whatever it was rattling in that little cup was far better eating that a pasture full of grass. All the goats followed me, just like the rats followed the pied piper. Into the stall they came, one by one, eagerly seeking the reward of the contents of the little cup. As the last goat entered I quickly closed the door. Goats captured. Yes I know, No sheep. If you've never been around farm animals let me inform you, sheep aren't fooled. They figured when I opened the gate to freedom, whatever was rattling in that little cup just wasn't enough to entice them to follow me to that dark scary barn. No, they took the sure thing and headed straight for the manicured, untouched green grass that is on the proverbial other side. I now figured 5 goats in a stall is worth 4 sheep headed for greener pastures. With a little effort I finally corralled the sheep and got them back in the pasture to be coaxed another day. I backed the trailer to the stall door, opened the stall door, stood inside the trailer and again rattled the little cup of feed. And yes, all 5 goats again decided that what was in the cup was better that what was behind door number three and they all entered the trailer. The trailer door was swiftly, again I say, swiftly closed and I made my three hour trip back to the little farm. I will post pictures of the varmints soon, but now my eyelids are refusing to cooperate any more and I must find Mr. Sandman as this day has been very, very long. More to come...;-)

Beginning

I have decided to start a blog about our life here on this little slice of heaven in North Carolina. God has blessed us with a place to raise our animals, most of which are rescue animals. I recently posted on fb about the newest addition to our farm, Soldier. Soldier is a Percheron gelding that was rescued from an auction in NJ. From this auction he was headed to a slaughter house. Soldier is a very healthy, and beautiful horse. It's hard to believe he was going to be killed. He now has a place to live out his life as long as he has breath. There are other animals on the farm that have wondered into our lives and found a place to call home. There are amusing things that these animals do, and I will share those from time to time. Well, this is my first attempt at a blog, so bear with me. I will try to make it interesting and informative, as well as a little humerous. More to come....