Blade Safe/Bank

I created this blade safe from a Noxzema cream jar. The blade on the top represents the Shark Super Chrome that I got 21 shaves from. Now I have a place to put my DE blades as they are retired.

The Hole

The guys from Pike Electrical Contractors showed up about 8:30 Wednesday morning. We had a power outage about a week ago, and they were here to fix it.  They hooked up a machine that sent a 20,000 volt pulse through the line to find where the problem was. I have no idea how this works, but they stood in our front yard and marked a spot with spray paint. They unloaded a small digging machine and began to dig. 

They found the line and cut it and then spliced it back together. I think that the insulation had been breached somehow. The splice, along with the sleeve, was the cure. The two men worked well as a team, and finished up in about an hour and a half.

This is the machine that sent the pulse.

Finishing up.

Loading up

Getting ready to leave.

They returned about thirty minutes later with seed and hay to reseed the area. They did a fine job.

Bird Nest Relocation

These birds (house finches) tried to build a nest in the middle of our carport. Click here for more information. It kept falling down, so I bent the edges of a license plate and set it where they were trying to build, and they were successful in building the nest and raising a family of baby birds.

 After they flew off, I took the nest and plate down and cleaned everything up.

This week, a couple of finches returned and were trying to build a nest next to the house again. Marcia wanted me to block these two places where birds had built nests in the past and discourage these birds from building there because of the constant falling down of nesting onto the carport and car. She suggested a free-standing birdhouse, but I decided to do this instead. Marcia loves the birds, not the mess.

Next to the house

Center of the carport

I built boxes that extended from the 6x6 to the roof. Then, the birds came back and saw that their "home site" had been blocked. They seemed very frustrated, so eventually they moved to the other end of the carport to try to build their nest there. But, there was not enough room, and the nesting material kept falling down. Therefore, I decided to have mercy on these sweet little birds, and I installed the license plate to give them more room.

Nesting material

Ledge too small to accommodate a nest. It kept falling down.

License plate gives additional room for the nest.

View from bottom

Momma bird approves of the addition.

 We went to eat and returned about an hour later to see that the little birds had been able to add a significant amount of material to their nest in that short period of time. I will be documenting their progress with more pictures. So, bookmark this page and check back every week or so if you would like to follow along.

More nesting material.

Hay Baling

The guy returned today to rake the hay, getting it ready for baling.

Later in the day, the guy returned with the hay baler.

Fun to watch.

Would like to try my hand at hay baling.

Hay Day

Today, there was a guy who showed up to mow the hay in the back pasture.  Marcia said, "Hay, there's a guy mowing the field."

He went back and forth until he finished it all.

It smelled good, too.

Hopefully, I will be around the day they bale it. If I am, I will take some pictures of that. I understand they make the big round bales.

New Front Steps

To start with, there was one concrete step in front of our porch. The porch was 16 inch high and the step was 7 inches high. That meant that there was a 9 inch step from the step to the porch. Uneven, and of course, difficult for some people, especially of the older variety. I had cut a couple of one inch boards and put them under each end of the step which made two 8 inch steps, but that is stretching it for normal steps which are between 6.5 and 7 inches.

When I moved the step away, I found that a toad had made a nice home under it.

 

I cut out stringers and risers, and just laid them out to see how they fit.

Here's the finished product. Two 6.3 steps and one 6.3 step to the porch. So, now three small steps to get to the porch. Easy for young and old alike.

Our Snake

This is our black snake. We have seen him other times (or one of his cousins). Today, he was right outside the side door on the carport.  I gathered him up and put him across the fence. Marcia doesn't like having snakes around the house.  He stretched out and slithered away. He was about 3.5 to 4 feet long.

Later in the day, I found this snake on the carport. Different snake? Don't know. Probably. However, this is not comforting to Marcia.

Snake 2?

About 4 ft long.

I attempted to pick him up and take him to the field, but he got away and slithered under the steps to safety.