SNAKES GALORE

I was just at the new house a few minutes ago. I walked two bags of trash out to the trash cans by the mailbox, and decided to take a stroll through the barn to see if I could find a snake. Boy, did I.
The barn is full of junk that needs to be cleaned out this winter when the snakes aren't so plentiful. I walked through the middle and looked over the side of the one stall, and there about 3-4 ft away was a coiled up rattlesnake. I don't know how long it was since it was coiled up, but I would guess a 2-3 ft. It wasn't rattling. I had my phone in my pocket, so I called Aaron and he said I could either try to kill it with a shovel or shoot it with a gun, or hope it was still there when he got home and he would try to kill it. I chose to wait for him since I didn't like the thought of a possible ricochet from shooting the gun and I for sure didn't want to get close enough to it to kill it with a shovel. That would mean being trapped in a stall with it.
So I did the next best thing and went and got my 3 kids to come see it.
But, by the time I walked back to the house and made it back with the kids, it was gone. There is not much worse than being in a barn, knowing there is a rattlesnake nearby and not knowing where it is. (The kids never got closer than 15 ft from the barn, I wasn't going to bring them in until I found it.) But, while I was looking for the rattlesnake, standing at the edge of the stall, peering over the wooden planks, I look down, and about 6in from my feet (on the other side of the stall), was a coiled up copperhead. There was a plank in between me and the snake, so don't freak out too bad. It would have had to strike me between the stall planks, and it wasn't looking in my direction.
Apparently the snakes did the ole switcheroo while I was going for the kids. I chose not to bring the kids into the barn to see the copperhead, since the rattler was probably watching me. I also saw a 6 inch long lizard and a spider in a huge web, probably 3" in diameter- the spider, not the web. Although not poisonous like the snakes, the spider, by far is my biggest foe. And they grow them big in the country. I can handle snakes, and I would welcome them if they weren't poisonous, but the spiders, oh, I just can't handle that very well at all. Ugh! Any suggestions on a type of dog that will go after snakes and keep them away from your house?
By the way, Pump is in the well and pumping water to the surface, yes!!! I ran it for about 45 min. today through a hose into the yard, like the well man said. Said to run the water until the water runs clear. At first it was like watered down milk - getting out all the rock and sediment they drilled up while drilling. Once it is clear, we can get our sample to be tested. We can go ahead and have water in the house once it is clear, but we won't be drinking it until it gets cleared by the health dept.

You know you live in the boonies when...

AT&T doesn't service your area.
I called last week wanting to switch our service to our new address, and they don't go there. Apparently we are in another tiny area, and the AT&T worker actually gave me the name and city of the service that does go to our house. I couldn't find it on the internet. I looked in our phone book and couldn't find it either. A friend from church stopped by this morning and she was able to find the little area in the phone book.
There was one page. So, we will be listed on one page.
Good news is... there is a company that we can have a landline phone through.
Bad news is... they don't have the ability in that area yet to support internet. I was under the assumption that as long as you have a landline phone you can get dialup. But according to the phone company lady, that is not true. She said that they are trying to get it to every area eventually.
For now we won't have internet at our house. I guess I will go to the library once a week or so to check emails and post on the blog. Sigh..
Even in town, I have heard people talking about a waiting list to get DSL. I don't think I will be able to post pictures on the blog anymore, since I will be using the library computer. Maybe I can find a friend that will let me use it at their house.
Although an inconvenience, this is a problem I can live with.
Did I mention there is no cable there either?
She said we could get satelite, and get internet through that, but if we do get satelite tv, it will be a long time from now. We have other priorities to spend our money on. Like fresh water...
Our electrician is supposed to be finishing up running power and water lines to the well today and once he is done, we are free to call the well driller to come and set the pump up and hopefully at that point we will have water. I can't wait. We will be moving out of this house by Friday.
Right now, we are taking a lunch break from packing and cleaning. I had a lady offer to babysit the girls this afternoon, and I think I may take her up on it.
This weekend, while Aaron's brother and sister in law were here, he helped us move the last dresser. I will finish moving the drawers today and we are just going to wear whatever clothes happen to be in the laundry. The girls and I got their room cleaned of everything except their 3 mattresses, their baskets of clothes for the week and a toy box. That still sounds like a lot of stuff, but trust me, it looks empty compared to what was in there.
I don't know what room to do next. I am in that limbo of...if I clean it now, will it get dirty before Friday and I will have to clean it again. Then laziness rears it's ugly head and I think "I'll just wait until later" then reality sets in and says "you only have 4 more days of later, you can't put it off forever".
I am signed up to work 7-3 on Friday and Saturday. Why would I sign up to work on moving day? Well, I didn't realize at the time that it would be moving day. For once, I actually signed up 6 weeks in advance, before our closing was postponed.

Well!!!

It may not be pretty, but it sure is a blessing. 1st picture is well with the top on. 2nd picture is the well with the top off and the beautiful shimmering water way down deep. Can you believe that it goes 240ft into the ground? When I took the picture yesterday, you could see the water without a mirror. When you had to use a mirror, it was 52 ft from the ground, so now it is even closer. Today, our electrician and his brother from church dug a trench from the well to our house. They should finish hooking up electricity and pipe and once they are done, the well driller will come back out and hook up our pump and then we will have water. Hopefully, by the end of the month when we have to be out of our rental.

It is 12:20am right now. I am getting pretty sleepy. I worked 5-11 last night and before I went to bed around 12, I checked on Natalie, who had awoken and she had a fever of 102.9. She has a sinus infection/tonsillitis/possibly strep. I brought her mattress into the living room so she could watch tv while waiting for her medicine to kick in so she could go back to sleep, and I laid out there with her until she cooled off. (our couches are already moved). She is already getting better today. I worked 7-11:45 tonight and already signed up to work 7-11 tomorrow night. Aaron's brother and sister in law are coming on Saturday, so I probably won't be working then.

We have gotten a slow start to school this week. What with some of my curriculum on backorder, and Natalie running a fever all day on days 1 and 2, the move that never ends, finding supplies buried in multiple boxes, and me working 3 evenings in a row. I am liking the curriculum so far, and I really liked this company last year too.

Water!!!!

The girls and I went to the house this morning and stayed about 5 hours today. I got some more of my curriculum for school and had enough where I could start school today. I actually went to the store and got some snack food to take there too. Somehow, when we have been there for a few minutes, they are suddenly starving.
Now for the miracle and answered prayer from God...
I went and looked in the well this morning and I saw WATER. And although it was hard to tell the depth, it was much much easier to see than last night when we weren't sure if we were seeing water or not. Yipeee!!!!
Tonight, we took Aaron with us and were able to measure it. It was 52ft from the top. That means we have approx. 190 ft of water. After the well driller giving us a 1% chance of getting a tiny bit of water by today, we surpassed even his measly chances. The lime rock starts at 70ft deep and went down to the 240ft. He felt like the highest the water might fill would be up to the 70ft mark and I guess at that point, it would seep into the soil 70ft and above. But instead, it surpassed that by 18 ft. Not only did we get water, but we got more than he thought was possible!
He was really surprised when Aaron called him tonight and could hardly believe there was so much. He was excited and said he worried about it and felt bad about it all night last night.
Next step is to get an electrician to come out and run electricity to the well. Then the well driller will come out and put the pump on, then we will have to get a plumber to come out and dig a line to our house plumbing. Hopefully before the end of the month. Thanks for your prayers!

Well Water

Yesterday was a bad day. The well driller called around lunchtime to let me know that he hadn't seen any water yet and he was around 180ft. He said that he would go a little deeper, but not to expect much. So, long story short, they dug 240 ft and found no water.
He called a fellow well driller that had done a well on our road and they had dug 780 ft with no water. So we stopped at 240.
When he left, he said that our only hope for that well is if it is slowly seeping into the hole from the rocks around it and it is so slow that he can not detect it while he is drilling. It is hard to tell since they shoot water into the hole the entire time. He really thinks our chances are nil, he kept saying he wished he had better news.
He told us to go out there with a mirror after waiting all night and reflect the sunlight into the hole and if we see water, to call him and he can come back and put a pump in.
We went over there last night a few hours after he stopped drilling to look. Aaron thought he saw a little shimmer of water, but it was hard to see with the setting sun and the fact it is 240 ft down. However, we did hear water trickling and we heard "glub, glubs" We don't know if the water we heard was leftover water that the driller shot in there or if it was new water seeping from the rocks. So, maybe we will have some water. I was going to wait for Aaron to come home and look tonight, but I might not be able to wait that long. If I can get the lid off the well...
No matter, the well costs the same to drill whether we get water or not.

Praying for water

Tomorrow, finally, our well driller is coming. We are praying hard that they find water. Let me recap the week.

Wednesday, Aaron's parents came down. The well driller was supposed to come last week, but postponed until tomorrow. Over the next 4 days, we packed and moved, with the help of his parents, most of our furniture. I was supposed to work 7-3 on Friday and Saturday, but they cancelled me both days. I don't know about Friday, but Saturday, there were only 8 patients in the hospital.

We still are in the old house pending well water.

We have heard rumors that water is hard to find.

Tomorrow, I am going to try to get to the house in time for the girls and I to watch the well driller go water witching. I guess that is how you spell it, that is how it sounds. It will be an education, that's for sure.

Aaron's parents went home this afternoon. We spent the afternoon at the house. It is so beautiful out there. I love it! Even with the stress. I pray that we get water before Aaron gets called out west on a forest fire. That way we can go ahead and move it all and I won't have to find some strong backs to help me move the rest of the heavy stuff.

If you look close enough at the pictures below, you will see that the cat in the picture is wearing a jacket.

Relieving Stress

Got Natalie out of bed to come get me something out of the box. She never questioned why I would get her out of bed to get something from a box only feet away from me. He had already scared Hannah. If you get stressed enough, apparently you get a little silly.