Brrr. Even Texas is cold in January. Did we get anything done over the last month?  Let’s look.

San Antonio House: We were down there for Christmas and New Year’s but we both came down with that flu-like crud that was going around, so we slept and burned up most of our firewood.  I did get the lawn mowed. I used the bagger and picked up leaves at the same time. I trimmed the hedges in the front yard before I came down with the crud, so it wasn’t a total loss for the trip.

The Ranch: From the game camera, it appears the big bucks got harvested during hunting season. We saw four does and two young bucks on camera last month. We’ve had an explosion of wild hogs.  While I only saw a couple of hogs at a time at the feeder in August and September, we had whole herds of up to 17 hogs grazing around the feeder in December.

We had rains at the end of the December, and we’ve been having rain this month. The pond is up a little.

So is the water feature along the fence line.  We took some rocks out to begin filling in the water feature (trying to force it back towards the woods and away from the fenceline/roadway).

I also added rat snacks to the motor home. They have demolished the interior. Mr. L is planning to gut it and rebuilt when we get it back into town (I’m hoping they haven’t chewed the spark plug wires or any other wire essential to allowing the motor home to start and run well enough to get it in to the shop when we’re ready to do that).

The Store: Nothing at the store this month.

The Shop: Mr. L bought a load of bricks from a house that was being torn down.  He’s cleaning the mortar from the bricks and stacking them.  I’m still inventorying glass.

The Central Texas House: The scaffolding framework is still up. The wood planks have been put away to protect them from the weather. It’s too cold for Mr. L to work outside, so he’s been working on indoor projects. One which is nearly complete is replacing the fan/heater/light in the upstairs bathroom. The caveat of things always take longer than you think they will applies here. The stud that holds the light on the unit is not long enough, so Mr. L had to fabricate an extension. On the bright side, we wired each part into a more logical switch location (Why did the previous owners think the first thing someone would want to do upon reaching around the door to turn on a switch to enter the bathroom would be to turn on a fan or the heat? (I don’t remember which one was wired to that first switch, but I knew I wanted neither of them to be the first switch my fingers found when reaching around the corner to turn on a light. There are five(!) switches on the wall in that bathroom.  The second, fourth, and fifth went to lights. Now the first, fourth, and fifth go to lights.  Not great but better.

Leaves and pecans got picked up since the last post.  We still have plenty of pecans on the ground waiting to be harvested.