It's On, Now It's Not, Now It Is??

 Last Wednesday I posted here and mentioned that our internet had been out Sunday through Wednesday morning.  Wednesday it was back on.  Until it wasn't.  We discovered around 8 p.m. that it was again not working.

Thursday, not working.  DH went and worked on-site in-office that day.  I tried not to fuss about lack of internet at home, really there were many non-tech things I needed to get done and it was easier to be productive without the internet.  Although it meant not doing some of the computer-related things on my to-do list for that day, like print out our proof of insurance certificates for all our vehicles.  Our policy renews every six months, and mid-November is one of the renewal times.

Friday, DH called the internet company, they 'rebooted our antenna from their end' (we'd all ready tried rebooting it from our end Thursday and again Friday morning with no success) and about five minutes later we had internet.  That lasted I think about seven hours.

Saturday, the internet was intermittent, mostly non-working.  Sunday same story.  Another phone call, another reboot from the company.  Internet back working again briefly (like a couple of hours).

Today (Monday), it just wasn't working at all.  I tried rebooting on my end this morning, but put off calling the company since I really needed to get outdoor chores done as well as run a couple of errands.  At lunchtime, I tried again.  Nada.  Back outside to do more stuff in the decent weather, and when I came in around 3:00 to get ready to go hunting, viola!  We have internet!  Not sure what the story is, but I didn't need to call, it just magically started working again all by itself.

I hurriedly made a couple online payments that were due, and printed off those Proof of Insurances (the old ones expire tonight at 11:59 p.m.!!)

After I get caught up on time sensitive internet related things, hopefully the internet will still be working at this little place here and I can get more blog posts put together with more interesting topics than whether or not my internet is connecting.

First Snow

 On Sunday, we woke up to the first snow of the year,  As first snows go around this little place here, this was a 'heavy' one: it coated the ground.  A lot of first snows are flurries that you can see in the air but they melt on contact.

These pictures I took on my way out to the barn to turnout horses before going to church that morning.  It turned out to be a cold and cloudy day that didn't get much brighter but also didn't really give us any additional snow.

It also didn't give us any internet.  Before church, we discovered our wifi wasn't working.  After church, it still wasn't working and DH went through all the steps to investigate why: reboot the router, and when that didn't work, reboot the antenna.  He used to also plug the laptop directly into an ethernet cable as a test, but apparently neither our current laptop (2? years old) and his work laptop have ports for that anymore??

Neither reboot made the internet accessible.  On Monday morning, he did the same thing as we were still without internet.  Still no internet after this round of rebooting. 

The weather was a little warmer and the clouds thinner and the snow melting.  Which made us pretty sure our antenna wasn't iced up.  

(It's located way up on the roof on the backside--the basically three story high side of our 2-story with walkout basement house--and he wasn't about to haul out the extension ladder and climb up in the cold/slightly snowy weather to check, but he was 99.9% sure it was clear of ice/snow since it faces south.)

So he called the service provider.  Who said they didn't see any problems with our service from their end and could send a technician on Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday morning was warmer and everything left from Sunday was melting.  There was constant dripping of water off the barn and shop eaves even before dawn.  Still no internet, but the technician did call right at 9 a.m. to say he could come immediately as 'their other client in our area was unavailable this morning and we were next on their list'.  Hooray!

He checked everything: our router, our antenna and whatever else there is that a technician can check that a homeowner can't (I'm guessing an ethernet cable and a device to plug into it, ha ha).  He came to the conclusion that we really weren't getting a signal from the tower that serves us (6+ miles away in the village).  Then he says that there are 'several other customers in our area having the same issue' and that a different technician has been sent to the tower to do diagnostics on that.  He leaves, to go assist the other technician, saying that he will be back later that day to further do diagnostics here once the tower is looked at.

Flash forward six hours. . . the technician doesn't return, but does call DH to say the tower has iced over and 'they' are working on thawing it, that is believed to be the issue, and we'll hear more from him once that is resolved.  Spoiler alert: we don't hear back.  And our internet doesn't come back on, no matter how many times we check all the way until we head to bed that night.

This morning, first thing I do is check the internet; it's habit to check the weather/radar every morning before I go out to feed the horses.  If the weather is going to be icky at turnout time, I want to know before I feed them as it affects whether or not they will be going out on time or  late and therefore will need more water that normal in their buckets with breakfast.

Can you guess what I found?  Yep, no internet.  GRRR.  So, like the last three days, I used mobile data to check the weather (we have a very low mobile data plan as that just lots of mobile data consumption isn't how we use our phones typically.  If I go over on mobile data this billing period I'm not going to be happy. . .)

BUT, half hour after I got back in the house from feeding, when DH checked to see if we had internet, it was back on!  YAY!  

Did we ever hear back from the technician or the company that provides us with internet service?  That's a big N-O.  It is nice to be back online (and catching up on the things I needed to do earlier this week online), but we will definitely be watching our next bill to see if we are credited 3 days (doesn't sound like much, but that's 10% of the billing period) of not having service.

And wondering what our next real snow will bring.

(For those wondering why we don't look into other internet service providers, we have.  For years.  And more and more often in the last five years.  But out where we live, there's a small number of options for internet.  Cable/fiber optic does not exist.  And cell phone service isn't consistently great so we're absolutely not going with internet via a cell phone company.  Which pretty much gives us the company we have, or trying our luck with a satellite internet service provider --lots more $$$, different equipment that has to be put on/in our home and from what we've heard from some in our area who have gone that route, not consistently spectacularly better service for the cost).

Wheelbarrow Repair

Back in 2014, DH and I had a wheelbarrow that was about 20 years old, had been in rough shape when we'd gotten it, and it was definitely on it's last legs. I wanted to replace the wheelbarrow with a two-wheeled kind; I had just recently been introduced to 2-wheeled wheelbarrows at the horse farm I began working at late in the year that Fall and loved how easy they were to balance and steer.  

As fate would have it, Mother-in-Law gave us a 'regular' (one-wheeled) wheelbarrow for that Christmas.  In all fairness, it was and still is a decent large heavy duty wheelbarrow.  But it wasn't a two-wheeled one like I'd wanted to replace our old one with, and I knew it would be years and years before I could justify buying a different one.

(Why didn't we just return the one she'd bought us and exchange it--plus some cash--for the one I'd wanted?  Because, like a lot of gifts she gives, she had written Merry Christmas DH and Kris!! on it in magic marker.  Definitely not returnable merchandise.)

So, now-- in October 2025--when my wheelbarrow failed to do it's duty of hauling manure from the horse barn to the manure pile, I briefly hoped that this was going to be the year I could justify buying a two-wheeled wheelbarrow!  (Ironically the magic marker words had worn off/faded away years ago.)

dead wheelbarrow

But finances--and DH (well, and my own logic)--overruled this month.

Because, when my wheelbarrow suddenly became inoperable, it was only a worn out and split tire that was wrong with it.  A new tire was infinitely cheaper than a whole new wheelbarrow.  It's really hard to justify spending close to $300 for the wheelbarrow of my dreams--even if I can operate it one-handed and even the little grandkids could push it around without it getting unbalanced and dumping sideways--instead of just $20 for a tire. So I (grudgingly) agreed that we would replace the tire rather than go shopping for my dream wheelbarrow.  

resurrected wheelbarrow

*sigh*  Someday. . .

October Wrap-up

 With processing DH's latest buck, plus all the normal day to day things on my docket, I'm getting this post written up almost a week later than I'd hoped.  C'est la vie. This is a busy season.

The garden is done, as in everything harvested, for the year.  I still need to pull tomato cages, stakes, and my bean pole and get them stored in the shed for the winter.  Also need to disconnect hoses and sprinklers and likewise store those.  Hoping the weather holds long enough that DH can get the garden turned under before the Fall rains make the ground too wet for tilling.

Not the best potato year, but I'll take what I can get.  Definitely a better yield than 2024.

Also not that great for squash and pumpkins, but that was more to do with deer, raccoons, wood chucks and skunks gnawing on them as they ripened rather than low production from the plants themselves.  I'm going to have to get more aggressive with critter control in 2026.

My adherence to the walking challenge I wanted to participate in wasn't a whole lot better the second half of October than it was the first half.   Some of my walks ended up being in the dark, in the woods, walking slowly bent over with a flashlight in hand searching for blood trail.  Heart pounding, yes, but not in the calorie burning way of a steady tempo upright walk. 

Here are a few pictures from daytime walks:

We've had some hard frosts, which have taken out all my flowers with the exception of the very hardy chrysanthemums.  I managed to save the last of the dahlia blossoms and bring it into the house to enjoy for a few days before it, too, faded away.  Now I need to get the tubers dug up and in storage.

I used my biggest pumpkin from this year's garden as my jack o lantern pumpkin for Halloween.  It was still quite green when I harvested it a few weeks prior, and was not quite orange when I carved it on the 30th.  

Didn't really matter once the sun went down on Halloween and I had a candle lit inside of it.  Looked 'regular' then.  LOL.

When I carved it, I saved the pieces cut from the eyes, nose and mouth.  Those I peeled, diced, steamed until tender, then pureed.  It came to exactly one cup of pumpkin puree, and I used that to make a batch of a dozen pumpkin muffins for breakfast (DH cooked venison tenderloin in sauteed onions to go with our muffins that day).  Six were 'plain' for DH, and six I added mini chocolate chips to for myself.  Of course I forgot to take a picture of them until after breakfast, which is why there's only seven muffins shown.

Here is my recipe, adapted long ago from a Betty Crocker zucchini muffin recipe and then reduced to yield only a dozen muffins rather than 24 since DH and I definitely do not need to eat two dozen muffins between us!  (I used to make 24 muffins when the kids were little and all still living at home.)

Pumpkin Muffins
1 cup pumpkin puree
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup veggie oil
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 12 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

(You can also add 1/2 cup chopped nuts and/or 1/2 cup chocolate chips/mini chocolate chips if you have them on hand and your family likes them.)

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease 12 muffin cups. 

Mix pumpkin, sugar, oil, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl.  Stir in the remaining ingredients until just moistened, you don't want to over stir or your muffins won't have those nice domed tops. 

Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until tops are light brown and spring back when touched lightly.

Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack, then remove muffins from pan and serve.

More Bow Hunting Success

 Warning!  Hunting related photos ahead.  Stop reading now if you are squeamish or don't want to see a dead deer.

For the first time ever, DH has harvested two bucks during bow season! And they were taken exactly two weeks apart.  Both on Wednesday evenings. (Confession: I'm a long time Survivor watcher and while I willingly tracked and helped get these deer in from the woods, field dressed, and hung in the shop, I wasn't super thrilled to miss two episodes of Survivor!)

This second buck is also an 8-point.  Unlike the first buck, he did not leave an easily followed blood trail.  For a tense fifteen minutes, both DH and I wondered if this one was actually fatally wounded and if so, would we be able to find him?  But then, suddenly, the blood spots started appearing in the leaves on the ground (more than 20 yards from the spot he'd been standing when DH shot him with the crossbow), and the trail went from a drop here and there to several spatters to a very thick unable to miss trail.  

Phew!  Stress levels instantly lowered!

This buck was quite a bit deeper into the woods than the one two weeks prior, so rather than DH and I using our own muscle power to drag him to the woods road where we could load him into the tractor bucket for transport, we made use of the 4-wheeler.  

DH carefully maneuvered between trees to get to the deer, and we tied a rope around its antlers and then to the ball in the hitch behind the 4-wheeler. After that it was careful driving, dragging the buck behind, between standing trees and over smallish logs on the ground (me walking behind and lifting the deer's head when necessary to not get him snagged up on a downed tree). 

This second buck seemed larger than the first one, but you know, sometimes your memory is off, so we weren't sure if it was actually all the much bigger until we got it dressed and to the shop where we hung it from the game scale.

He most definitely was bigger!  In fact, he's the biggest whitetail DH has ever gotten!  This one weighed in at over 159 pounds (the first one was 140 lbs) and has a rack that is 3.5" wider than the other 8-point's rack.  

We definitely won't be hurting for lean red meat in our diet this winter!

Woo Hoo, I Got a Pullet Egg!

 It's so exciting to see this first itty bitty egg in the nest box each Fall.  It means that this year's chicks are now old enough to begin laying eggs.  And if they start laying eggs in the Fall, that typically guarantees somebody (i.e. the youngest hens) will lay me fresh eggs during the winter when the older gals are likely to take a break in productivity.

When a young hen (pullet) first starts laying, her eggs are undersized.  Within a few weeks, as things get fully geared up internally, they reach the normal size for her breed/type. 

But for now, I'm loving seeing the bitty eggs in the nest box daily.

A Near Miss. . . Or New Idea?

 My brain's been kinda foggy the last day or so, but, as per usual, I'm pushing on.  Most everything on my daily to do list has been of the routine done it a hundred (or million) times variety, so running on auto pilot has worked out pretty well.

Although in making my most recent batch of granola, the brain fog/auto pilot combo created what could have been a very interesting--or yucky--taste combo had I not realized at the very last minute that the spice jar in my hand that I was about to measure into the pan for granola 'seasoning' was not cinnamon, but cumin!

Whew!  Glad I caught that before I put nearly a whole teaspoonful into the pan that already held veggie oil, honey, water and brown sugar.  Removing the cumin would have been impossible--without dumping out all the other ingredients and starting new--if my brain hadn't actually kicked in and said "HEY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!? THAT'S NOT CINNAMON!!!!"

(Yes, literally, in bold face and all caps, that's what my brain said.)

I quickly set down the jar of cumin and grabbed the jar of cinnamon from the lazy Susan where they reside very close together since I keep my spices in container-size and alphabetical order (post on that here).  I measured the cinnamon and added it to the pan of granola 'wet' ingredients.  Making granola proceeded without tragic incident.

Although that did get me to thinking that with a little tweaking (like, definitely leave out the shredded coconut and probably the brown sugar and vanilla too), a batch of granola with a bit of cumin in it could be an interesting flavor profile.  Not your typical breakfast granola, but maybe not icky either.  I might have to think on this concept for a bit and maybe do some tinkering with my recipe and try out a (very) downsized batch of granola containing cumin.  In the name of scientific research.

I mean, some people love breakfast burritos (not me, my taste buds do not like eggs and tortilla together), so why couldn't a savory cumin flavored granola be a thing?

regular granola, thank goodness!