Soooo, it's been a little over a year since I last posted an update on the home build. Quick and dirty, it was completed the week of Thanksgiving and we officially closed on the home Christmas eve.
The winter was unusually long and cold last year and we received a hard lesson in using propane for heating. We found that once Spring hit and the cold spells subsided, the propane usage leveled off where we barely used 10% over the Spring, Summer, and early Fall of this year. Not too bad for just using the stove and water heater. We've had a couple of cold snaps within the last couple of weeks and have been keeping the use of heat to a bare minimum. Although, I'll make the call tomorrow to schedule the tank to be topped off. Merry Christmas!
Problems with the home to date include the water well pressure tank freezing and tripping the pump (eg. no water), the hot water heater randomly not heating, light bulbs from the interior recessed and exterior floods going out, gaps in the seals around the base of the doors, and a couple of outlets not working. The air handler for some of the rooms appear to be weak, making it either warm in the summer or cool in the winter. The hot water issue was a build up of calcium and other sediment around the filter and flushing the unit has helped. Lights? Well, that's just replacing with new ones. The builder is coming this weekend to take a look at the other items and hopefully they'll be easy fixes.
A new home needs new landscaping. After some research, I decided to go as native as possible for lawn grasses around the home. We purchased some buffalo grass around March this year. Prepped the front yard by raking and laying down the seed just before a weekend rain, but decided to go ahead and drop the seed all around the home. I figure if it takes off, great, if it didn't, then at least I'd know what not to do. As of this writing, sprouts of buffalo grass can be seen all around the front and back yards. The side yards appear to be a different story as they're mostly sand and will require a bit more top soil.
Landscaping, for now it's what I like to call zero-scaping, meaning that other than a couple of lavendar plants and fruit trees, virtually nothing is being done at the moment. Again, it will be native and we are working on ideas for around the home and around the front gate.
Odd things happening around here. Well, there were the two billy goats that showed up out of no where and no one in the area claimed them. They managed to slip on to our property while one of our fence lines was being replaced by our new neighbors, more on them later. One of the other neighbors decided he'd take the two billies and has them fenced on his place now. Most recently there have been sightings of what we call the ghost-goats. A pack, herd, or whatever, have been mysteriously showing up around the easement outside our gate and even on the new neighbor's property. I've seen them once as they walked towards the back of their property, haven't seen them since. Evidence of their existence can be seen by the occasional newly nibbled or broken low lying branches or rubbed bark on the lower sections of the smaller trees, or even their droppings.
Another oddity was the morning we were headed out of town and found a new born fawn laying in the grass by the gate. We snapped photos and went about our way to the dismay and concern of the girls. Deer have become a regular sight around the place, as to be expected, and often wonder if one of them isn't the fawn we had "grow up" out here. One morning, I happened to watch it encounter a skunk walking along the garden fence. Disney's Bambi, live in my backyard. They were both curious of each other, but Bambi got spooked as Flower began to raise her tail and took off like a rocket around the garden and into the woods. So much for the Disney version.
Living in the country has been fun, entertaining, and peaceful...or at least until the first day of dove season. The entire first day was filled with gun shots from all around, fortunately none too terribly close, but needless to say we didn't venture into the wooded areas along the back fence line where some gun fire took place.
Speaking of birds, our property is under a Wildlife Ag valuation for song birds, specifically Blue Birds, and we were fortunate to have a family of Blue Birds make their home in one of the boxes near the home. Their timing was perfect as we had to submit a report for taxes and the photos of their eggs and nest only helped to solidify our Ag valuation.
Well, that's it in a nutshell. So much more has happened, but perhaps future posts will help to bring those to light.
Stay Tuned!
