"Dirt Poor" But Inventive

The old smokehouse has stood as long as I can remember.

Beneath it is the hand dug root cellar.

Had to put my thinking cap on because the shedding of the asphalt siding exposed the spaces between the boards.  Blowing rain could create another problem.  Solution:  feed sacks!  The plastic woven feed sacks are used for many purposes here.

The sacks were split, tacked and tucked under the remaining siding as best as could be done. Siding pieces were tacked back into place.  Secured and painted.

Not a great solution but one solved with product on hand.  This should keep the smoke house and contents dry for a few more years. If you drive by quickly...it looks okay.

Painted an old lawn chair while I was at it.

Working With What I Have

Two identical pieces...three bucks apiece

Less expensive than buying the raw material.

Removing the bottoms

with my handy dandy tools.

The bottoms will find a new purpose.

Andrew's hats need dust proof boxes.

I score my heavy cardboard from between my art canvas

so I can bend and assemble them for box lids.

I have a plan...I always have a plan.

The box tops are covered with state maps of places we've visited.

The pieces are still identical but only shorter.  The boxes turned sideways will fit perfectly and all this will be used to organize a teen's closet.  Yeah, right!

This is kinda how it will look in the closet when the boxes are turned and all pieces a matching color. The two shelves on the end were the bottom shelves on my pieces. Stacked and secured everything's ready to paint or maybe, just maybe, they will go into the closet just like this.  Out of sight, out of mind.

This is my work area so don't go zooming in on my sawdust and box of scraps.  I see the end pieces on the left waiting to be re-purposed but I'm kinda tired of this project.

It's WalMart's fault!!  I saw a nice shelf with four boxes for only $149...boxes not included. Silly me, thought, I can do that.  The twin shelves jumped out at Salvation Army and came home with me. Shelves...$6, boxes...$15 for three...shoe rack...$8(a bad idea) and the idea was born,  Slowly, painfully, but born nonetheless.   So for a mere $29 I have solved a problem with the rest of the material on hand and I have two drawers.  Walmart's didn't have that!

I sincerely hope if I have any more grand ideas and you know about it, please, please stop me.

Discovered A Leak

that had been leaking a while.  Hubby, not only is not a carpenter, he is also not a plumber so we have to make do.  Beware the uglies...

We are both up in years and not as small as we used to be so a problem like this can be daunting. This is under my bathroom sink I'm ashamed to confess. It was artfully hidden by baskets of supplies until the water had reached the front. The water caused the paint to flake. I removed everything and just sat an ice cream bucket under the drain until I had time and the ability to look at the problem.  

First I had to find the leak.  None of the joints were the problem but I found this funky piece...have no idea what it's called but it was the problem.  When this piece was not in place, it leaked. If I removed it there was a big hole in the drain pipe.

Notice the piece sticking out on the left of the drain contraption.  I thought on that a while.  Then I remembered GORILLA GLUE!

This type of glue expands when it dries.  Not good for some wood projects but maybe, just maybe, it was the solution.

Forgive my poor photography skills.  I was having trouble fitting under the sink, using a flash light, gluing and taking pictures. My brilliant idea was if the glue expands why not try it on the part where the leak is...I'm creative when it comes to an out of the box solution!  Glue applied.  Thingy stuck back in hole.  Problem solved!!! No leak.  Hot dog, I'm on a roll.

Cleaned, sanded, painted and done, done and done.  Donations for a real plumber can be sent to...

You Don't Know Dixie...

is a series on the History channel.  I lucked out and watched a two hour special.  I loved it...because it was the truth.  This special had Trace Adkins, Jeff Foxworthy, Al Bell, Bobby Bowden and Lynyrd Skynyrd along with some of today's best known Southerns offering their insight on our culture.

I laughed.  I agreed.  I am proud of my heritage.

Jeff said You can't put the South in one bucket.  We don't all play banjo and date our sister.

We don't talk the same. Different areas of Dixie have different accents.  People hear the accent and think our IQ is low.  Not so, we're pretty smart.  We like words and phrases like ain't, golldurnit, and fixinta.  We are polite, loyal and are concerned about our neighbor.  We can even be mean while seeming to be nice. Example:  Look at her pulling those boards out with spiders on them.  Bless her heart.  This phrase takes away the bite of saying someone was acting stupidly. So basically you can insult someone politely by simply adding Bless their heart!

We were the first true pioneers before the colonies.  We make do with what we have.  If you don't have it, you create it.  That junk piled up in the barn or behind the house is not junk.  It's parts!

Southern ladies are not helpless.  We can hunt and fish with the best of them.  We also know you party with a Redneck but you marry a "good ole boy".

Per state the South has three time the hunters and two times the fishers as any of the other states.  The rule is Don't kill anything you can't eat.  It's tradition.  Living off the land ties us to it.

National disasters...we dig in and survive.  Dixie experienced devastation during the Civil War.  Much was destroyed and took a generation to recover.  We learned to rebuild then and are passing that down.  Through each disaster we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and take a go at living again.

Southerner Bear Bryant was the first college coach to integrate players. Coach Bryant held a record for games won.  College and local football are things we love because we can win!

The South is called the Bible Belt and have more churches per capita in nine out of  ten states compared to the rest of the United States. The religions and denominations vary but it's okay.  Just go to a church.

Food and music are much loved through out the South...and every where else.  No one's barbecue tastes the same so we have competitions with no one revealing their secret recipe.  Trace Atkins said he liked any thing that was fried in deep fat.  He said he didn't care what it was.  "Put a lot of batter around the dead thing and drop it in the fat.."  The saying is you can cook anything if you have these ingredients...sugar, salt, lard or alcohol. With these you can make cat food taste good.

The South brought you Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, BB King, Elvis, Trace Adkins and oh, so many more!
The South gave you air conditioning, Jack Daniels Whiskey and Tabasco Sauce and then some.

 Here I am in the South and I ain't moving!

Planting The Carpet....

Remember when I talked about Dating The Plywood?  Well, Tractor Man has not finished that project so I decided to attempt it myself.  After removing the ancient chipboard I balanced to measure an inset and so began the much delayed job of replacing ancient chipboard with plywood. 

My main tools were a pry bar, a hammer, a flat edge screw driver and a pair of tongs.  After removing the ancient carpet from said inset most of the chipboard just dropped.  That's how old it was.  Carpet was all that kept us from falling through in some places.  Lucky this was an extra room and not used much.

You may wonder why I chose these tools.  The hammer and pry bar were used to remove the tack board and the remaining chip board.  The staples were pried up using same tools or with hammering the straight edge screw driver under and prying them out.  The tongs???  To pick up the chip board that had fallen under the floor so I wouldn't have to crawl under there and get even more dirty.

I did not ask for help but Tractor Man cannot stay away when someone is working.  He stood behind me a while (which drives me #### crazy).  After listening to advice on what better tools I should be using I left the room. 

Returning I discovered poor Tractor Man straddling a two by six within the hole I had opened.  I asked politely what happened.  He informed me he slipped and fell and his toes were not touching the ground. I tried not to laugh.  I really did then I offered to help him up.  He decided he might just rest there a minute before climbing out.

I continued to work and Tractor Man brought me loads of power tools to make my life easier.  What he didn't know was I wanted the simplicity the peacefulness of doing it by hand.

I was ready for sawing and placement. He helped then left the room.  I do only one area at a time finish that and move to another.  Inset finished and solid, move to next spot.  Bigger space, pieces tonged into old dog food bags ready to dispose.  Replacement piece measured three times and cut once.

Tractor Man is just dieing to do something.  He had not done any of this since April but now that I am doing it, he's here.

I decided to remove all the carpet and padding and see what I had to repair.  After dragging all this onto the porch, we decided to fill a bad wash with this biodegradable trash.

The bucket runneth over 

Lizzy helped me drive the Ranger

and approved my careful placement

after I had thrown dead limbs and rocks

into the gully.

The old carpet will bring new life

feeding the soil and preventing soil erosion.

Dog approved, the gully is now a nice seeded spot

for late fall and early spring grass.

Now back to that floor to be finished

another day.

Cleaning The Fridge...

 One thing I have learned through the years is the more disgusting something looks, the tastier it is.  I use to make Refrigerator Stew on Fridays.  Now it gets moved to whatever day I get to clean the fridge.

Pictured above is left over pork, cooked with squash, potatoes, onions and seasoned delightfully.  I even threw in a tablespoon of ranch dressing to get the bottle out of the fridge.  It was quite good although the sight is not too appealing.

I had three chicken legs that needed to be cooked since Hubby is outta commission and Grandson is out of school.  Here's dinner, chicken soup, vegetables, pasta and three chicken legs cooked to perfection.

In the slow cooker for tomorrow, I have deer meat cooking in home canned tomatoes.  What it will become remains a mystery until I cook it all night and season it in the morning.

Waste not, want not.  That was the way I was raised and the way I cook.  I use no recipes.  I just cook what I have and every one eats and hopefully enjoys it.  Nobody complains.

This talent will come in handy now Hubby has no income.  I will be stretching that food dollar until it squeals.