March 3, 2009 - Square Root Day!

Happy Square Root Day! (3/3/09) Once again, there's snow on the ground and it's COLD outside. That means a lot of time spent cutting wood and splitting it, to burn in my wood stove. It also means that my poor chickens have been cooped up inside the hen house for four days in a row now. Did I mention my chickens yet?

I have a pair of Buff Cochin Bantam chickens (hen & rooster) and eight new baby chicks, hatched last week. I was hesitant to keep the eggs for hatching, since the weather isn't good right now, but then realized that keeping the chicks and mother hen inside the hen house with a warming lamp is sufficient to keep them warm and also keeps them safe from predators.

This is our third batch of baby chicks since we bought our chickens last spring, and we haven't had much luck increasing the size of our flock yet, even though we always start off with 8-10 chicks. The warm weather chicks can squeeze through the fence around the coop, where the local cats are always waiting to pounce on the tasty little chicks. Maybe this batch of chicks will have a better chance, with the hen house to protect them.

There's nothing like watching the hen and her chicks peck the ground. It sounds corny, but it's true; just like city folks watching fish in an aquarium. Of course, a lot of city dwellers are raising chickens, so maybe some of you know what I mean. In addition to being entertaining, chickens are also great for insect control and lawn fertilization, not to mention the benefit of getting fresh, free-range eggs. For those of you that don't know about free-range eggs, they are lower in cholesterol and higher in nutrients than the eggs produced by those poor hens at the egg factory assembly line. I also know exactly when my eggs were laid and what type of chicken feed went into producing them.

A Little Bit About Me

I guess if you're reading this blog, you'd like to know a little bit about me. My name is Carla and I live in Missouri, in the Ozarks. I live at a lake, but in a very small town. It's one of those places you go on vacation and think "I can't believe people actually live here year-round!"

I live near the campground and several of my neighbors are "weekenders," meaning they own property here at the lake, but live somewhere else and only come here on the weekends and holidays; usually with a bunch of their redneck friends who camp out in the neighbor's front yard, which just happens to be right across the street from me. Nice view from my kitchen table and living room. I'm sure I'll talk more about them later and maybe even post some pictures.

I am divorced (twice), but I have a boyfriend and he lives next-door. (He gave me flowers on Valentine's Day!) I have two big kids from my first marriage, a 23-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter. My daughter has two children, my grandson and granddaughter. I also have two little guys from my second marriage, one is 9, the other will be 8 next month. The two little guys are the only one's that live with me, but they spend most weekends at their dad's house. I'm sure I'll talk about him later. Maybe not.

I live on one acre of land, in a double-wide mobile home. It's not as bad as it sounds, really. I used to be a snob and never dreamed that I'd be TPT (trailer park trash), but being poor makes you change a lot of things. Besides, I don't live in a trailer park and my house looks like a real house, with shingles and wood siding and all. It's not metal and I don't have a couch or a refrigerator outside. I do have a big silver, shiny quonset hut next to my house. I'll talk more about that later, but it's my storm shelter (for now).

The boys and I live on a very tight budget, so we do things like heat my house with wood instead of propane, which saves me about $100/month. We also eat at home every day, since the nearest McDonald's and other fast food is 25 miles away!

Our town is very small. I'm guessing we have about 300 people that live here year-round. The entire lake has quite a few more than that, but that includes several small towns, of which mine is probably one of the smallest. We have a post office, one convenience store, a boat dealer, two small beauty shops (one beautician at each place), a dog groomer and a junk store/flea market. We have to drive 10-12 miles to get to a grocery store.

Now that I've bored you to death with some of my details, I hope you look forward to reading more of my blog in the future. I'll be talking about life at the lake and as a single mom. Oh, and what it's like to live in a town like Mayberry.

Happy Valentine's Day

I just finished reading The Almost Daily Exploits of Me; from her link, I ended up at The Art of Manliness. It's very interesting reading and as the mother of two young boys, I plan to do a lot of reading of that blog for pointers on ways to make my boys the kind of men that girls will be happy to have as a husband. Unlike their father.

Being a single mom means that there's no Mr. around to send me flowers or take me out for a nice Valentine dinner. The boys are with their dad this weekend and I'm at work, trying to figure out what to do this evening. This is one of those times I hate being so frugal and wish I had Cable TV!

Maybe I'll dig out some of my VHS tapes and have a pity party while watching When Harry Met Sally and Sleepless in Seattle. [big sigh]

From Snow to Tornado

Do you know what they say about Missouri weather? If you don't like it, stick around for an hour and it will change.

Until last week, it was cold, icy and snowy here in the Ozarks. The past few days have been beautiful, with near-recordbreaking temperatures in the upper 60's. Tonight, they're predicting severe weather, including the possibility of tornadoes.

At the first sign of bad weather, I'll be taking the boys and heading to the quonset hut. It's supposed to withstand 150 mph winds, so we'll see how that works. I know one thing, it's going to be safer than sitting inside my double-wide mobile home, which is fastened to the concrete slab foundation with some thin metal straps.

My next house will have a real storm shelter; not a giant metal caterpillar building.

Tired of the snow!

Once again, there was no school today because of the ice/snow. This is the third snow day in a row and I am giddy in anticipation of school resuming tomorrow. There's nothing better than seeing that big yellow bus coming down the road!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a nicer day, so I'll spend my time chopping firewood. We don't have natural gas around here; if you want to heat with gas, it's propane. When I bought my house (a doublewide mobile home), I couldn't afford to get a propane tank, so I decided to heat with wood until I could save up enough for propane to fuel my furnace. Four years later, I'm still heating with wood.

The good thing about heating with wood is that it's cheap. My house is usually 75-78 degrees inside. My electric bill is about $60/month and the wood I burn comes from trees in my yard (one acre). We had to cut down about 100 trees to clear a spot for my mobile home when I bought my land. It sure beats the $200/month heating bill I used to pay when I lived in the city!

The bad thing about heating with wood is when it's really cold outside, I can't leave my house for more than 10-12 hours at a time, or it will be freezing inside when I return. I have to feed the wood stove every 6-8 hours to keep the house warm.

When I win the lottery, I'm going to buy a propane tank.

Snow Day!

It's a cold, icy, snowy day here in the the Ozarks. The boys, ages 7 and 9, are out of school and just went outside to play with their new snowboards that big sister gave them for Christmas.

Big sister and big brother are from my first marriage. He is 23 and she is 21. I've also been blessed with two grandchildren; she is 6 monts old and he is 3.

I'm a single mom, divorced from my 2nd husband for four years. After the divorce, I bought a modest home for me and the boys and we're living happily ever after ... I guess.

You'll hear more about my adventures of a broke single mom, trying to adjust to the slow-paced life in a town where the sidewalks roll up at 9:00. I heat my house with a wood stove, fueled mostly by the trees we've cut down from my one-acre yard. Don't worry, tree-huggers, we only cut down the dead or overly crowded trees, leaving the good one's to grow fuller and stronger.

When I say broke, I mean it! Before my divorce, my husband and I had a combined income just over $100,000/year. Now I manage to live on less than $10,000/year. Continue reading my blog and I'll explain how I do it!

My First Post!

I'm just getting started with this new blog. I've done this before, at other sites, but it's been awhile.

I find writing to be very relaxing to me; almost like having my own personal listener here with me and I get to talk about whatever I want. It's great therapy, too!

I'm not sure anyone will ever subscribe to my blog, but if so, I hope you enjoy reading along with me. I'll share stories of my life here in the Ozarks, hopefully with a little bit of humor mixed with sarcasm.

After all, if you can't make fun of your hillbilly neighbors, what good is it to live in the Ozarks?