Homeowner Forum / Rural Living / October 2008

Here in Oregon, for once the rains have held off.  October has been dry.  
Normally the rains wash all the color out of the leaves, leaving them a
uniform muddy brown, but this year the trees are a riot of color, and
almost all the leaves are still up there.  Mornings have been ...

Ever get  taken advantage of by  a "service' org. ?
Lenny Bruce wanted to write a book of phrases that you could use when
getting
an estimate on some repairs, like a stereo or your car.

Is this a local problem or do kids all over the country drive the roads at night
and bash mailboxes?
I lost a couple of the thin sheet metal boxes and then built one from something
sturdier.

Sheriff’s offices for three area counties are reporting severe increase in
home burglaries. Spokespersons say the burglars cruise the rural areas and
note when people are at work or leave the home. Last burglary on my road was
about 7 years ago. Farmer just up the road from me ...

Call me foolish but I've been seeing a number of signs that leads me
to believe that we are going to have rough times ahead.  Maybe 1929
rough.  Maybe worse.  One mormon I know told his family that he
believed they should be increasing their emergency stores to 3 times

Last year,  I had to switch from public water and dig a well.
Water is extremely hard (36 ppm), and while I tried to hold off,  I've
resigned myself to getting a water softener to save the appliances and
get a little lather in the clothes and such.

I've been starting to pull together some supplies; today I ordered a
few books on gardening.  A quick question please, where do you folks
go to buy your open-pollinated heirloom seeds?

"Normal" people have lost half of there life savings, by normal I
mean
people that make around 60,000 a year or less. They scratch and scrap
to have a nest egg, and look what happens ?These people makeup about

Why is it important to see Obama's college records? Because the media
has created fantasies around Obama on every issue. You should start
dispelling them with the easiest one, i.e. the fantasy of Obama's
"academic degrees and honors".

I know this isn't rec.ThisOldHouse.... but I'm guessing plenty
people here know about this stuff.
Pulling HDTV cable to support the new rooftop antenna.
Garage is under a bedroom.

Has anyone had any problems (or GOOD experiences) using mesquite in a
fireplace?  My local firewood provider sold me a cord of oak firewood for
$125 but most of it was mesquite -- he had a good reason.  Now I'm stuck
with about 3/4 cord of fairly dried mesquite.  Any problems?  I ...

I acquired a Muscory flock a couple of months ago, and I've had them
in a temporary pen in the middle of one of pasture, where I fed them
and kept them for a few weeks hoping to imprint them on their new
home.

I opened a jar of the gardineria last night.  Yum.  I used the Blue Book
recipe for canned cauliflower, but chopped the whole garden into the
batch.  Green beans, cauliflower, carrots, yellow squash, zucchini,
onions, sweet peppers, etc.  At this point, you can taste every