Redneck Crown Molding…

I’m in the middle of trying to redo my bedroom.  I took a day off from helping Bro up at his cabin to try to get molding around the top of the bedroom.  I thought I could do anything as far as simple remodeling was concerned… I found out I was wrong.

Cuz had put up some decorative border several years ago and I tried everything to get that stuff off the wall.  After trying home methods, i.e. vinegar and hot water, getting some wallpaper remover from Cuz’s son that he said would, according to his better half, take any wallpaper off the wall, using a heat gun (that worked but it also took several layers of paint meaning more repair work), making a thirty mile round trip to the nearest Lowe’s to get the newest wallpaper remover they had that was supposed to be great… and muttering more than one unChristian ‘set’ of words I said piss on this shit  forget it.   I was just a bit hot.

So I went and got some  ten foot 1x8 boards, mitered one end and then cut the short pieces to fit with a miter on one end of it.  I put a base coat of Kilz on it.  All of this I did up at the cabin to minimize the mess at Cuz’s home.  I painted the walls up into the border and I started putting it up  the ‘molding’ today.  The first wall was the one over the closet because there was less crap to move out of the way. 

First long piece went up pretty easy… don’t look at the junk on my closet shelf.  It will be different before I’m through.  But I digress. Time for the short piece at the other end.

That gap is what happens when you are trying to keep from being kissed while trimming the short board to make it fit.  I was about 1/4 of an inch off on my measurement so I made a nice straight line where I needed to trim the board with my trim saw. I didn’t want to do that in the house so I went out on the front porch and Lucky was real glad to see me.

But it sure made me mess up on my trimming.

Why redneck molding?  These warped boards have more gaps than Bubba’s teeth when he smiles…

 

I took these shots from standing on the floor.  The photo on the left has screws on top and bottom of the board.  I haven’t put the screws along the bottom of the board on the right so I’m hoping that it will do better than the one over the closet.

So what are you doing with your weekend?

Oklahoma Burning...

I had intended to write a new post yesterday, but I made the mistake of turning on the TV to check out the weather as I was planning on driving to Ft. Worth today to spend Easter with my brother and s.i.l. and any other sibs that I might run into while I'm here.

The first thing I saw was a home burning. It was so wind driven that it looked like someone was burning it with a flame-thrower. Then the camera operator in the chopper pulled back from the tight shot and there was fire EVERYWHERE. I was, needless to say, glued to the TV for the rest of the evening.

The first reports started coming in around 1:30 or 2 p.m. All three Okla. City TV stations were broadcasting about the fires continually from about 2:30 in the afternoon. Oklahoma was burning from south to north, from Texas to Kansas, being pushed by southern winds that were blowing from 40-60 m.p.h. The ember fireballs were blowing up to 1/4 of a mile over the firefighters and starting more fires.

The firefighters were trying to get ahead of the fires but the wind was being ferociously aggressive. I wasn't worried at this point about where I live because the closest fires were about ten miles north of where we lived. When I started getting worried about where we lived is when the winds started turning from south to north with the cool front that was coming in from the west and north and the winds were expected to increase and drive the fire back the way it came. That problem with that was the fire had been driven by the wind so fast that while a lot had been burned, there was a lot that hadn't been burned.

Whole small towns were evacuated. In Midwest City and Choctaw, both of which are east of OKC, but still bedroom communities,and Wellston which is north of Choctaw, over 100 homes were destroyed. One home would catch fire and the firefighters would be fighting it and the house next door would catch on fire or maybe the embers would blow over the house next door to the second house down the street. And all of this was happening in front of the viewers eyes.

Got to stop for now, but I will be back later and wrap up this story. I can only deal with getting my brain wrapped around so much and then I have to rest and think a bit. I just wanted to get this started and let you all know that we were okay. I'll get back to you later this evening.

Please bear with me...

Part 2---


I'm back. When disasters happen, and this is a disaster, I have to think things through and try to get my brain wrapped around it. I want to try to tell you as honestly as I can how I see things through my eyes. All of the stuff that I write about is as I see it. And as I watched these fires bursting out all over I was both horrified and fascinated. Horrified at the destruction, all the people who lost their homes, and the firemen who were injured fighting the fires.

Fascinated by the incredible power of mother nature, God or however you want to chalk it up. When I saw those videos being sent into the various stations from their choppers with the fires destroying places I knew, areas I was familiar with, streets I have driven on a good portion of my life, each one that flared up was like a burn on my own skin. I can understand now the effects the California fires had on the people that had to be evacuated, that had everything destroyed that they had worked for all their lives.

I would watch the California wildfires, the Arizona wildfires and the Florida wildfires and it never really touched me because I didn't know these places. These places were not ingrained in the fabric of all my life's experiences, these were not the places that I had grown up around. These were not the street's I had ridden around with my mom and my dad when I was little... going out to what was the country then to my aunt and uncle's home... the streets that I rode with my mom and dad going just out for a Sunday drive.

I watched on until after 11 p.m. when things were brought under control enough that people were no longer being evacuated and the TV stations were no longer streaming video and warnings to folks to stay away so that the firemen could fight the innumerable fires. I will never again see a fire, whether it is a grass fire, forest fire or a house fire that I will not be touched by now. And I now can, truly, understand why people rebuild in the same area or on the same grounds that the homes they lost were on.

Because it is just that... home.

Oklahoma Skies...

Were my welcome home from my exhausting trip.

I had driven from Tunica, Mississippi, all day in dreary, mist, rainy and gloomy skies. About the time that I start an argument between me and God regarding whether or not I'm gonna survive another hour until I get to Tulsa...


God starts answering.







He will not take you to it if He cannot bring you through it...






He will not give you more than you can handle.







I just wish sometimes that He didn't trust me so much.








Thank you for these beautiful Oklahoma skies and for the sunshine breaking through and welcoming me home.

Home Again, Home Again...

For me, there is nothing much better than getting home...

To these two smiling faces.

To my own bed.

To home cooking.

To my life out of a moving truck.

Back to the red dirt.

Back to my blogging friends.

Thank you for your travel prayers and all the wishes for me to get over this dang cold.

Thank you for checking up on me.

Thank you all for your patience and know that I will have stories and pictures to share with you as soon as my brain starts functioning again.

I missed all of you and I'm so glad I'm home again.

More to come...

Ahhhh, Home, Quiet Home...

Finally, I can get back to a normal schedule. While I love my friend, stuff that I do around the plantation doesn't get done because I feel I have to be around, in the house, visiting. I got out Friday and yesterday and mowed and started the weed-eating. I still have more to do with the weed-eater, but I'm sore today from all I did yesterday, so I'll take it a little slower today until I un-stiffen...

In thinking about having guests, I decided that I should see about finding a small trailer, even a pop-up. That way I could have a guest "suite". I think that's a great fix. You wouldn't feel obligated to be around all the time and the guests would feel like they had a place to "retire" to and have some alone time. Of course that might encourage longer visits, but as long as they're are out of my hair...

OU kicked baaahoooty last night! They looked really good.

That's all from red dirt land for now... Enjoy your Sunday.

SNAKE !!!

I guess I'm one of those people that kind of diddy-bop through life with my head in the clouds or in the place where the sun never shines, but I've never really worried about snakes. When I was a child I dreamed about rattlesnakes, a lot, but that's for another day. When I was much younger than I am now, I worked out in the oil patch down in southern Oklahoma, but that, too, is another story for another day. Yesterday it really came home to me about snakes. I have to say that I have piddled around all of this 3 acres and the only time I've seen a snake was when I was mowing on the riding mower. I go out with my girls and we play ball and we weed and we garden and a lot of the time I'm barefoot with no gloves on. If I see grass or weeds in the flower bed I pull 'em. Never a thought about it. Yesterday my roommate and I had been out pulling up grass around one of the flower beds and after 45 minutes or so we came in for a break and a cool down. I was messing on the computer and she went out to do
some more and in about two minutes was back at the front door and said, "I need your help." So I went out and she said "a snake bit me and I think you should see if you can find it." No panic, no problem. So I followed her out (did I mention that she was in her motorized wheelchair?) and she showed me where she had been digging out grass. I poked around and couldn't see anything and after a couple of minutes told her that I'd try to find it, but I thought we ought to go to the ER now because it takes 25-30 minutes to drive in. By the time we get to the ER, her finger is swelling pretty good and it is hurting like a big dog. It probably would have been hurting more than she realized if her back hadn't started spazzing really, really bad on the way in and that took her mind off the snake bite... I'm talking worse than I've seen her back grab her in over 20 years. Anyway, we got into the room and the doc comes in and makes all these marks on her hand to where the swelling is at that point and asks if we know what kind of snake got her. Of course neither of us did and he says that from the swelling and all he'd bet it was a poisonous snake. Okay, we can deal with that... she's in the hospital where they can take care of her. He decided after a couple of hours that he wanted her to stay and be observed overnight, which is also okay because he's pushed a lot of muscle relaxers and pain drugs into her iv and I figure she will sleep for the next couple of hours or weeks. I drove back to get her some things for overnight and decided that I needed to try to find 'the snake'. Here sister took the bag back in to town to the hospital and I go poking around (after I put on shoes and heavy gloves) digging around where she was earlier. By this time it's 100 degrees out so I'd dig and pull grass some and take a break, cool down and go back out and dig some more. Her sister got back as I was going out the third time and did not volunteer to come help me, but that's okay too because I didn't want to run over her jumping up if I find the little bugger and sure enough, the third time was the charm. I found it. Being a city girl I had no idea what kind it was when I saw it so I got the scoop out of the box where I keep the birdseed and managed to get it into it, twice. He jumped out once and the next time I covered it up with my digging tool and headed to the house... then realized I couldn't open the door without taking a chance on losing it, the snake, I mean, because I was holding the scoop with one hand and the digging tool with the other. I knocked on the sister's window, scaring her because she knew what I was doing and she was afraid it had gotten me also. Nope... just bring me something with a lid on it so I can call the hospital and see if they want me to bring it to them to identify. I got the snake contained, called the hospital and they didn't know what to do so the nurse was going to ask the doctor and call me back. While I waited I went looking, googled Oklahom snakes and as soon as I clicked on this picture -

http://www.oksnakes.org/index.cfm?snakeID=8&venomous=0&patterned=1&striped=0&solid=0&all=0


her sister and I both said "that's it!!!" A western pygmy rattlesnake, a baby because it didn't have any rattles yet. I called the hospital and told the nurse. She didn't know if the doc wanted to see it yet so I told her I'd put it in the freezer and put it to sleep and if the doc wanted it he could call.

I got Missy out of the hospital this morning. They didn't have to administer anti-venom which is a good thing because they say it makes you sicker than a dog... and you can put money on it that I won't be going out barefoot and pulling grass willy-nilly without my heavy gloves on again, because, as my brother put it, where there's smoke there's fire and snakes don't birth one baby at a time. When we got home I pulled the snake out of the freezer and made her look at it and sure enough it was the same one she saw after she got bit... or it's twin (or triplet or ???). But any way you look at it, it's one less venomous snake on our place and, no, Missy didn't want me to try to fry up rattlesnake for her...