(November 20, 2008:  I started writing this almost a week ago and forgot to finish and post it!  I meant to finish it at work but never got around to it.  So I backdated the posting date to coincide more with the days involved.)

November 13th:  It was raining this morning but according to the forecast is going to be the warmest day for a while.  In fact it’s predicted to be colder than average for the next few days.

Because of the warmer temperatures I waited for the rain to stop and for it to dry out a bit before heading outside to do the caulking on the house since I didn’t want to caulk in freezing weather.  The high temperature for today was 43.5 degrees.

I was sidetracked at the front of the house where I stopped to clean up the sand that was on top of the brick pavers.  I piled up into two piles a pretty significant amount of mostly sand with some other debris to haul away.  I’m assuming that the sand has worked its way up from under the pavers over time due to rain and freeze/thaw cycles.  There are some high and low spots in the pavers that need to be leveled too, but it’s another project I don’t have the time nor inclination to do anytime soon.

I also stopped to fix the gutter in the same area which was leaking on an inside corner.  We have the cheapie snap-together vinyl gutters.  The plan (tied in with the house painting project) is to replace the brown aluminum soffit and fascia with green whenever I get around to it, and the gutter will have to be removed when I do that.  At that time it makes sense to replace the gutters with matching green seamless aluminum ones.

While I was working on the leaking corner gutter I decided to clean out that section of gutter.  The gutter contained at least five pounds of granules from the shingles on the roof, which I scooped out and threw away.  Then I followed up with a hose.

Those delays meant I caulked well into the evening, which comes pretty early these days.  I finished up under my quartz halogen worklight.

This weekend also marks the official beginning of winter, in that I will remove the mower deck from the tractor.  The 72 inch mower deck usually goes onto the tractor once lawn-mowing season begins and stays on it throughout the summer.  It only takes 10 minutes or so to put it on and take it off, but it’s a hassle and it’s just easier to leave it on.

One of the land hermit crabs Kim got me for my birthday left his shell earlier today and had still not returned to it by evening, which could mean several different things.  From what I’ve been reading online many of them could be bad.

November 14th:  As I was finishing my caulking last night under the halogen worklights, apparently the cattle saw the lights and made quite a ruckus “mooing”.  That meant they were hungry.

They still have access to the pasture, but it’s not really growing anymore, so we’re back to feeding them bales of hay.

So today I got out to give them more bales of hay with the tractor.  The pasture was a wet muddy mess today, and the tractor was slipping and sliding around.  It was not unlike spring, when the thawing wet ground turns into a quagmire.

Before I did that however I took off the mower deck and put it up on blocks.  I grease all the joints on it then cover it with a tarp for the winter, but I’ll do all that at a later date.

I also used the tractor to haul a bunch of garbage from the barn cleaning that Kim and her crew had done a month or so ago.  There was a pile of garbage in front of the barn that I hauled down to the garbage can in the tractor loader bucket.  Most of it was sopping wet from the rain the days before.

Back at the house I climbed up on the roof and cleaned all the granules and leaves out of the gutter sections I hadn’t gotten to the day before.  After I completed that task I used the raised tractor bucket to act as a work-stand to repair some sections of gutter I had found needed work while cleaning them.

I had left the ladder that I had used to get onto the roof to clean the gutters up on the east side of the house and while I was standing in the tractor bucket fixing the gutter, I looked up to see one of our garage cats, Ebony, walking across the roof to come visit me!  Obviously she had come up the ladder and it was clear she had no idea how to then get down.  So I grabbed her and carried her back down to the ground.

Then I replaced the black and white video security cameras on the house that I had removed prior to painting.  We primarily use the cameras at night to see what the dogs are up to and if they’re at the back door ready to come in, but it’s also an easy way to watch for visitors and deliveries from inside the house, as we can tune the cameras in on any TV in the house.

Finally I shoveled all the sand and debris from the front paver area that I had piled up the day before into the tractor bucket and hauled it away to be dumped elsewhere on the property.

By that time it was late afternoon, and it had started lightly raining again.  But I finished up replacing some broken downspouts and fixing the outside lights on the garage as darkness fell.

The land hermit crab has not yet returned to his shell, and he’s been a lot less active today as well, so it appears he’s not well.

November 15:  The shell-less hermit crab has died.  So much for the easy care the pet shops advertise.  He only lasted a little over a week!  Now I have to wonder whether the second hermit crab will survive as well.

At the news Kim talked about getting another to replace the dead one (they’re supposedly social animals and shouldn’t be alone), but I told her to hold off as I anticipate that the second is doomed as well, likely due to the stress of the move and their new environment.  The other crab hasn’t moved much in the last few days either, and although I’ve checked to see if it’s still alive, I suspect I’m probably exacerbating the stress levels by doing so.

Filed under: Dog Grooming Business, Farm, Home, Home Projects, Pets, Weather on November 15th, 2008