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Home > Archive: October, 2008

Archive for October, 2008

Still no heat on (but not by choice...)

October 28th, 2008 at 03:39 pm

Well, last week I posted that I ran the furnace through one cycle, just to make sure it was in good working order. It was. No problem. I changed the filter and thought we were ready for when we needed it.

This morning, DH got up and went to turn it on, nothing. Nothing at all. Deader than an doornail. He said we shouldn't be out of propane (although I don't think he actually went out and looked at the tank). All that we use on the propane is 2 furnaces and the water heater. We still have hot water. We need to see if the other furnace (for the upstairs of the house) works. So for now at least, we are burning wood in the livingroom fireplace. He is not feeling well (flu) so not sure when it will all get checked out.

Meanwhile, I came to town to bring the girls to the library. I noticed the lowest regular was 2.05 (plus it was at the coop, where we get a 3 cent a gallon discount for being on their electric, so 2.02 for us) and deisel is now 2.99. DH will be glad to see the deisel down. The ruby red deisel normally runs a dollar lower sooooooooo, I think the tractor will get filled up for the first time in a year. It will be happy. We can only put the ruby in the tractor, its not legal in the truck unless we are using the truck off highway, which we use both on and off highway. (ruby red deisel fuel is untaxed also.)

The kids who disappeared, had amber alerts issued over them and were found on Sunday were on the local news and local radio last night. Basically it seems they did it as a lark. I saw/heard really no remorse from either of them. He was 16, she was 14. I couldn't understand why a 14 year old was "dating" with her parents blessing (not my style) but apprently they had been for "several" years according to many sources?? The family seemed to have some issues as well. It seems these issues passed on to the kids. I hope the situations these kids are in improves. Let kids be kids while they are kids. Let the grown up activities wait until they are grown up...OK, I got that rant out of my system.

FOUND!!

October 27th, 2008 at 05:51 pm

The 14 year old who was kidnapped by her 16 year old boyfriend (after he stole his parents car) has been found unharmed, with him. Both were returned back to their families yesterday, and I would think are meeting with law enforcement today. They were saying they had about enough gas to go 200 miles, and that is about where they were found. Apprently with no money,, and after over a week he allowed her to call for someone to get them, so she called her family and the amber alert has been cancelled. She was taken from a football game about 8 miles from us and evidently lived even closer than that. TV said he was bipolar and had quit his meds, and when he was off his meds was prone to violence, so everyone was very concerned. Thank God, it could have been much worse..

Yesterday I only spent $1.50 for the KC paper--will earn that back from using some of the coupons in it. I have a special invite to Pamida, they will double coupons through the 28th, and we have one here locally now!! AND, I got an email to print and bring in for 25% off, so I will see if they will do both.
Today will be a no gas, no spend day. Heat is still off.

Kidnapped girl just down the road

October 21st, 2008 at 08:12 pm

Last Friday 2 teens in our area went missing. They are not from our town, but from a town very close by, where we sometimes eat at their diner and buy feed, and some of our 4H activities are held. We are there at least 1 or 2 times a week. The amber alert is now updated that the male has kidnapped the female.

http://missouriamberalert.com/

One source said they had been dating for quite awhile and she was possibly trying to end it. She is only 14, he is 16 and has a car. Apprently he took her in his car.

I attached the link, should anyone want to check out her picture.

Am I the only parent around who thinks 14 is too young for a girl to be dating? Last year, a school near here had a 14 year old girl who was preg, and it was her 2nd child. I think it is too young! Way to young.

neighbors have a contract

October 21st, 2008 at 01:58 am

Our neighbors had a large farm with a daudy house (old german and dutch term for a smaller house for the grandparents located near the main family home). They tried to sell it all together but that did not work. So, they split off a large amount of farm land, and the neighbor in the back bought it. Then they split off the grandparents house with 5 acres, and the sign now says there is a contract pending on it. That leaves the main house with 20 acres and a landscaped fishing pond still for sale. This spring we got two new neighbors to the east of us. We are about to be the old timers out here. I tried to use the zillow thing to see if they lowered their prices any (houses have been listed a very very long time), but they do not show up.

We had a heifer that ran off to seek her fortune some time back. She reappeared yesterday--someone put her into our horse arena. We knew where she was, but DH hasn't had a day off in almost 2 weeks in order to go and get her. But, she is back now. We still have not figured out how she got out of our pasture into the neighbors, but, he may have fixed the fence. (repairs are the responsibilty of each of us). It would be nice if she met up with a nice bull while out on her adventure.

I still have not turned on the furnace, although I will probably tomorrow evening to give it a test run after I change the filters. I don't want to wait until we have to have it and discover it has a repair issue.

Never left the house today, other than to put out the flag. So, no money spent and no fuel used.

Regular Fuel is $1.99 a GAL

October 16th, 2008 at 08:11 pm

in Independence, which is where my DH commutes to 3 times a week for a class he is taking for work.


YEE HAW.
(Thats Missouri talk for "its a good thing")

NS day

October 16th, 2008 at 12:21 am

Today the kids and I all stayed home. The grandparents went home last night, so the girls spent in RV (where the grandparents had stayed during their visit). I thought they would get cold during the night and come into the house, but they stuck it out in sleeping bags. The RV has both a propane furnace and an electric one. I told my folks to turn on the electric one, but they didn't, and neither did the kids. It is in the low 60's outside, but staying 68 in the house.

We were given some free tickets to the American Royal (horse show) for tomorrow night, so I think we will be doing that. I think tomorrow we will make a snack to take with us, maybe brownies and popcorn balls. If we eat right before we leave, we can hopefully make it a NS event.

Library and ceiling fans

October 14th, 2008 at 04:51 pm

Right now the kids and I are at the library again. This weeks class is on animals, and the KC zoo is here with some of their animals. Right now I see the guy holding up a large snake, so I am glad I am here at the computers and not in the classroom. Snakes are not my thing.

This works perfect with the animal books we have been making at home. Each child has a notebook and each week they have to research a new animal, put in a picture and fill out a form about the animal. So far I think they each have around 30 animals. They like it so they usually do more than my required 1 a week. This is part of our science.

My parents have been here the last few days. My dad is doing some "chores" for us--electrical ones. He is installing one ceiling fan, repairing another, and checking out electrifing our chicken coop.

Meanwhile, last weekend we had our party--hayride and bonfire. It went well. The weather was perfect for it. Out of all the games and such we had set up, the big hits were the BB gun shooting contest and my chickens. Everyone seemed to be holding a chicken as I would look around. I guess chickens were a novelity to a lot of the guest as they are what we call "city people".

sad newspaper

October 7th, 2008 at 04:27 pm

Our local paper (a weekly that is about 8-12 pages) publishes the courthouse news once a month.

Sadly, out of 11 pages this week, 4 of them were nothing but foreclosures.
This is a small rural farming area, we are the county seat. There is no industry or big employers. To have a decent job you have to drive 45-60 minutes.

The majority of the ones in the paper are from a auto manufactur who did a large layoff about 6 months ago, or farmers. Most of them in the paper were family names that I recognized as being 3rd and 4th generation families to this small town.

People wonder why others leave small towns. There is nothing here to attract them to stay--no way to make a living here. And, with the price of fuel, they aren't making as much to drive to the city.

But on a lighter side, I got fuel for $2.88 a gallon. I have not seen that price in over a year. It was wonderful.