Friday, December 28, 2012

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas and Wishing you the best in the coming New Year!!!!!

I can't believe the year is coming to an end.  I remember my Mother telling me the years between 65 and 75 go really fast.  And even though I haven't quite made it to 65, I can attest to the fact the years seem to be speeding up.

We are still gate guarding, but we have left our old site.  It was amazing how we got attached to it.  Ed said it felt like we had homesteaded it.  I had picked up trash and Ed had whacked down weeds.  We had our little tent up, we were there to stay.  But it wasn't to be.



We were packed up and ready to go, I wish we
could have taken our pallets with us, but so far
 we haven't had any rain, so we haven't had the mud
 
I thought this was an unusual face, but then again I
don't see very many cows
We don't have cows at the new site

 We have been at our new spot 1 month.  It is different than the other one.  We don't have the tree cover and there isn't much to see here. Ed says he saw a bob cat out by the gate yesterday morning.   One of the truckers told Ed he saw a 7 foot rattler about as big around as his arm.  Ed walked down to see if he could find it.  How smart is that?   But anyone knowing Ed, would believe it.  But he didn't find it, thank God.  He said he would liked to have had the skin.  Some people say the generator will draw them in because of the heat, so I am really cautious when I walk out there in the morning to turn off our flood lights.


This is our new site


Everything gets covered in dust
Beyond this hill is our well,  You look out over the horizon and
you will see all these fires, it's natural gas coming off the wells
 
We don't seem to have the mice here that we had at the other place, although we have had a few.  One afternoon we are watching a show and I look down and see one in the middle of the floor in front of us.  So of course I let out a scream.  Ed's like, "what, what, what."  I probably over reacted.  The thing was up on his back paws, just sitting there.  He looked sick.  At first Ed thought maybe he had eaten the d-con and was dying.  But later he figured he had been on one of those sticky things and was exhausted from getting loose.  OK here comes the disgusting part.  Ed didn't want him running off so he gets up and goes over and steps on him, and he is barefoot.  Now I am screaming even more.  I can't believe he did that.  Well as always, Ed keeps life interesting.

Well we don't seem to have the mice, but we have rats.  But at least they are outside, if they were inside I would probably be leaving right away.   Something was eating all the d-con plus it was taking the containers over and putting them under the jeep.  I had read on the forum that sometimes mice will get in your engine and chew on the wiring, so I told Ed he better make sure they hadn't made a   nest in the engine.  Well he waited a few days, but he finally checked it and we had a dead rat in the engine and he had been making a nest.  Ed found the rag he keeps in there to check his oil and some pieces of cactus.  He was really fat, so not sure if it was from all the d-con he had been eating or what.  The bad part was I had driven to town a couple of days before that, that's when we saw that the d-con was under the jeep, and he probably went with me.  Was he dead or alive, who knows.  We have been going through so much d-con here Ed went out and bought 2 rat traps.  Since then we have caught 2 more rats.  I haven't taken any pictures of our dead rats because I really didn't think you would want to see them.  lol

When we were ready to leave the other place, Ed saw what he thought was a stick up in the wheel well of the motor home.  He starts pulling on it and out comes a decomposed body of something.  I told him at that time I thought it looked like a rat.  He thought it was something else.  But now after these rats, I am pretty sure that is what it was.   We had smelled something previously for about a week and Ed thought it was just a dead mouse.  Will the mice and rat stories never end?

Ed keeps himself busy doing things.  He started making these back in Indiana.  He said he had about 80 walnuts.  The truckers see his work station and want to know what he is doing.  He had given most of them away.  I think he has about 10 left.
Ed's workshop, truckers going by are always asking
what he is making
The truckers seem to love these
 
Ed demonstrating his back scratcher

 They were fracking at our neighbors and this is how busy they were.  So far we haven't had to go through that.

Looking from our gate to the neighbors
This goes on for about 2 weeks, day and night




This is looking out our gate to the one across the road

Here they are lined up on both sides of the road
they didn't have anywhere to go



 
Of course I am up in the morning so I get to see all the sunrises.  This was one I thought was especially pretty. 


Beautiful


Wishing everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!   Ed and Lyn


May the LORD be with you in the coming year.

Micah 6:8 What does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy,
 and to walk humbly with your God?




Friday, November 16, 2012

7 Weeks of Doing Nothing

We came to Texas to work for the winter.  We were really busy the very first day.  A little traffic on the 2nd and 3rd day, after that nothing.  Oh, on some days we might have a few trucks but some days nothing. Than we also deal with  lost truckers and the rancher entering or leaving.  So we are getting paid just to set here.

So what do you do all day when there is nothing to do?  I could clean the RV, but that's no fun. lol

I play games on the computer and  i-pad and read forums.   I am getting really good at Bejeweled. lol  Of course any one that knows Ed, knows he has to be doing something.  He has explored the area, which I have showed you some of him pictures and he has been working on the Ranger. He also is doing some walking.  He said he is finding he really likes taking pictures of nature.

At one time we had butterflies everywhere
but we don't have any birds

It looks like it lost a good portion of it's wing

The butterflies are all gone at this time


Walking stick & Praying Mantis
Did you see the Mantis?

Look at the differance in size

Ed says this is a grasshopper, but I never saw one with so much color
Did you notice he is missing a leg?

catus behind our place

We are still dealing with the mice.  We are up to 13 and still counting.  Since we have caught the one that was avoiding the traps, the new ones don't seem as smart.  They get caught regularly.  Every couple of days we are catching a new one.  We have so many traps set , Ed had one get caught in 2 traps.  He said he had one leg in one and another leg in the other.  He still had to take it out and finish killing it.  ugh!   So Ed gets creative and makes me a mouse tomahawk.

Ed found the rock in Florida and has been waiting to do
something with it

It actually turned out nice,
but I hope he doesn't expect me to use it.

Since we were told mice don't like moth balls, this is what Ed did.
Looks like we had a hail storm under the RV

Plus we have decon under there
We are going to keep those mice at bay!


We still have the cows coming around.  I guess they like our company.  We were surprised when this one climbed the hill.  Ed said he was camera shy because he ran off when Ed took his picture.


This is the hill he climbed


King of the hill
Running away when Ed took his picture

Even though Halloween is past,  Ed took this picture at our local Ace store.

Ed's Halloween fairy
This is our Ace store and boy is it packed

This is the local vegetation.  Every thing has thorns or burrs and Ed finds them all. 

The thorns are big


Thorns everywhere
 

This is what he gets when he goes walking.
Of course, he tracks them in and I have to pull them
out of the carpet.



So why does he go walking in sandals?
These burrs are really sharp

We have a trailer in the back that holds a generator and a water tank.  Ed was checking the water and slipped and fell.  Thank God he wasn't hurt.  He is just now getting over the problem with his back that developed earlier this year so he really didn't need this.  It's so amazing he wasn't hurt. I think he has an angel.   So here is Ed's reenactment of that event.


This is how we get our water and electricity

Ed was checking our water level

His feet slipped and the next thing he knows he is on
the ground looking up

Second day after and he is doing fine. 


Happy Trails!!!   Ed and Lyn



1 Timothy 2:1  Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and givng of thanks be made for all men, (2) for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.  

We need to pray for our leaders.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

All's Quiet on the Southern Front

I can't believe we have went 3 nights without any sighting of a mouse.  Thank you Lord!!!

Remember I was battling it out with one mouse on my last blog.  Our nephew suggested we take it in as a pet.  I don't think so. haha  I shudder when I even think about it.  Well, it took 3 more nights but he finally made a mistake.  I am sitting there on that night and I hear him scouring around where the air vent is.  Remember we had all the other traps on the other side.  I was watching the vent area and the trap went off.  I almost jumped out of my skin.  I didn't hear anything for a while, then I heard him moving.  The noise stops and starts for quite some time.  There was no way I was going to look in there.  When Ed gets up  he pulls up the panel to get the trap, it is his job to dispose of them .  It's empty so he pulls out the sticky tray.  We have one of those that is a flat surface with glue on it or it can be folded into a narrow tube.  Anyways, Ed pulls it out and I jump back and scream because there he is and he is not quite dead.  Still makes me shiver to think about it.    So Ed has to take it out and finishing killing him.  That's horrible, I don't think I would recommend them.  But yet the mice seem to be avoiding the other kind of traps. 

So anyways, the saga continues.  Two nights later another mouse.  They just keep coming.  This one gets stuck on the sticky mat behind the vent.  I had put another one back there,  plus a regular trap.  So I can hear him struggling to get free.  Then every now and then I could see him because he would stand up and look out the vent.  I wanted to get Ed up but I know he needs to sleep so I just sat there listening to this for over an hour.  What a horrible experience.  So I finally went outside and was out there for over an hour.  When I came back in, he was gone.  He got loose.  I couldn't believe it.  I thought those things were supposed to catch them.  Not catch and release them.  Ed's comment, "You should have put something in there and poked him down."  Right, I couldn't believe he even said that.

So the next night I see him again.  Him or another one, who knows.  But this time he is on the other side where the pedals are.  We have moved some of the traps, so there aren't so many.   He comes out in the open and than runs back.  The usual "mo," they do that a lot.  So later I hear him again.  Sounds like he is stuck.  It takes me a little bit to get up my courage, but I go over to look.  I don't see anything.  I go set down and keep hearing the noise.  I go back over and this time I get the flashlight.  Still don't see anything.  While I am sitting there, I remember I had bought these 4 little  sticky traps.  ( I have spent a fortune on traps.)  I knew where 3 of them are but couldn't  find the 4th one.  So I get the flashlight again and go looking for the trap.  I found it in a small cubby hole behind the pedals.  If the mouse had been there, I know I would have screamed.  But he had made his escape, again.  They do leave their hair behind.  If it was the same mouse as the night before, Ed says it probably looks like he has mange.  Ed again says "You should get something and smack them."  For one thing, he was stuck back in a hole and I couldn't even find him.  And number 2, where does he thing I am going to get this courage.

Well, it's been 3 nights and we haven't had any more sightings.  So did this mouse decide he had enough and leave.   Ed says they don't think like that.  We will see.

Well for our other interesting day.

I got up to go to the bathroom about 12:30 am and realize we have lost some of our power.  I realized it because the night lights weren't on.  And the air conditioner isn't running,  the fan was running but not the air itself.   So I go out and ask Ed if he realizes we have lost some of our power.  He hadn't.  So he goes out and checks the generator and it seems to be working.  We check the breakers inside and outside.  Everything is ok.  He shuts off the outside generator and starts the motor home generator.  I go back to bed and I can't hear the air conditioner running.  I get up and see the night lights are still off.  So I tell Ed, it appears our generator is not working.  We had some power but not all power.  As far as we knew at that time, we were running off our batteries and not sure if we would  be able to charge them.  So we shut off everything we can and I go back to bed.  You know how hard it is to go to sleep when you know you have a problem.  But I managed to sleep and got back up at 3:30  to relieve Ed.  So Ed says don't run anything you don't need to and goes to bed.  And "Oh by the way, I saw a mouse in the kitchen area."  (This was back before the last mouse.)  Well, up until than we hadn't seen them in that area.  They had only been in the front where  I could keep an eye on them.  Plus I usually keep about 3 lights on in the morning,  this morning because of the electrical problem, I only left 1 on.  So I am sitting practically in the dark, worrying about where the mouse may be and also if we are going to be able to fix the electrical problem.  What a morning. 

Ed was up by 8:30, so he couldn't sleep either.  Still couldn't find the problem, but we did find out our generator was charging our batteries.  This meant we could get by until we could find someone to come fix it.  So that was a little bit of relief. 

That morning I called all over trying to find someone to come out and work on our problem.  That was on Monday,  I did get one commitment for Wednesday, after about 5 calls.  They were coming from quite a distance, so not sure how much that was going to cost.  At that point we were willing to pay anything.  So about 1:30 I received a call back from one of my other calls.  So I told him the problem and he says it sounds like a GFI breaker but he would come if we wanted him too.  So I told him I would check it out and call him back.  Can you believe that is what it was?  I couldn't believe Ed hadn't checked it, but then I guess he didn't think about it.  There wasn't any reason for the breaker to trip that we know of.  So that problem got fixed and we saved probably close to $200.  I am sure the service call would have been at least $100 plus their time.  I did call the guy back and thanked him.

On the gate guarding forum they say to watch out for the snakes.  So far we haven't seen any.  That's a big plus.  But there are other creatures. 

This is on the outside of the window.  We have had a few
inside but not as menacing as this one.  He is between the glass and the
covering we have on the windshield.  He was there almost a week but
now is gone.

Ed's walking stick

Ed says it's the biggest one he has ever seen

This is one creature that doesn't freak me out

We have officially  become Winter Texans.  You have heard the saying, we bought the t-shirt, well we bought the sign.




Happy Trails        Love Ed and Lyn


One of my favorite scriptures:

Isaiah 40:31  But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.





Friday, October 12, 2012

Being Terrorised by a Mouse

I have this mouse that comes out every morning between 4 and 5 o'clock.  I am pretty sure it's the same one.  I tried to take his picture but he won't pose for me, and he is really fast.   Every morning when I get up Ed says well I think we got him because I didn't see him.  Then  right on schedule he pops out.  He runs from the driver's chair to the passenger chair and back to the driver's chair.  Sometimes he makes a detour to the vent in front of the passenger chair.  I hate mice, so I am having a real hard time with this. lol  I was praying he would get in one of the traps, than I thought since God loves all creatures can I pray that way.  haha  Still not sure of that one.  So yesterday Ed sat up a barricade of traps.  If you have seen  the movie "Mousetrap," that's what this reminds me of.  I have a hard time believing this mouse is that smart.  But last night he avoided the driver's seat altogether and came out the vent in front of the passenger seat.  Ed had a trap in there but had taken it out.  We put 2 more in there plus one of those sticky things so we will see what happens tonight.


Do you think we are in overkill

Now he is avoiding the area with the traps and
going in the air vent

The other thing we are dealing with is Cows.  The first morning they came out Ed was still sleeping.  I didn't want them getting too close to the gate, plus they kept setting off the alarm.  I wasn't sure what to do since I really don't have any experience with cows. So, I go in and wake Ed up and ask him what to do.  He says "Chase them off ."  And I say "How am I supposed to do that."  He tells me to get a broom.   I wasn't going to do that because I didn't want them charging me.  I guess I have seen too many bull movies.  Well he finally gets up and comes outside.  But then he tells me to do it.  But at least I have him  for support.  (I think )  I was amazed at how easy they left.  No charging bulls here, thank goodness.

They like our area

First there was 1, than 2, than 3
now we have about 6
they keep inviting their friends

They just mosey away
boy, was that easy

They come around almost every morning about 1 o'clock and Ed has to chase them off because again they set off the alarms in the rv.  But, it gives him something to do.

I found this, what I call a butterfly, but Ed say's it's a moth.  Isn't it beautiful.

I found it on the ground next to our generator

Trying to show you the size


I think it was dying


Then we also have a lot of these black bugs around.  Haven't seen any snakes yet.

They are all over, and they run really fast

Really ugly

Ed want to the store yesterday and found some interesting things. 

He found a shrine that use to be a church.  This guy comes and mows the grass just because it use to be a church.

Sets along side of the road, and this guy comes and mows
the grass just out of respect for the church

Church was made into a Memorial Shrine

In 1942 Father Ries bought what was a grocery store and
converted it into a chapel.  It was demolished in 2008

He turned around and went back because he thought he saw a big snake in the road.  This is what it turned out to be. 

Ed's snake

Ed took a picture of this house.  This is the local scenery.  Seems to be a lot of them around here.  Whenever I see a building in bad shape, I always think about the fact that at one time it was someone's  new house or building.  Seems sort of sad.



Look at the antenna, strong wind
We were told when we first got here they were going to start fracking the next week.  Well it hasn't happened.  In fact nothing is happening.  Not sure when or if they will.   So we are very slow at this time.  Maybe 4 or 5 trucks through the gate a day.  Not bad, because we are getting paid to just set here.  We just hope they don't close down the gate.  From reading the forum, I know people are waiting to get gates.  So if they close this one it might be awhile before we get another one.  Oh well, I think we should know something by next week. 

I can honestly say this is not a bad job. 


Letting Ed out.
He has become our grocery shopper




Happy Trails.   Love Ed and Lyn



Hebrews 11:6  And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.