Bed, Bath & Bees

02-11-08

This morning I awoke more refreshed than I have been in a while, the reason is the bed, our bed had been just a mattress laying on the floor, it was comfortable enough, but being directly on the floor, it was cold, we kept 6-7 layers of blankets on top, but the cold seeped in from the bottom and stole our heat, I would wake up aching from being cold. Last night Bob took some of the lumber he got from town and make a frame for the bed, it's not fancy, but it does lift the bed off the floor by several feet, so now we can store things under the bed. It made a lot of difference in the amount of room we have available. When we went to bed last night, the temp in the room was around 40, but the bed was toasty warm.

Bob went to town with our friend the local builder, he is helping him with a project, it will take about a month to complete, this is the first time I will be by myself all day (with the exception of the dental visits), I must admit that I appreciate my "me time", don't get me wrong, I love Bob with all of my heart, but something we both appreciate is the value of private time, and in our little cabin, it's hard to have any privacy.

I took a leisurely "bath", well as much as a bath as one can take without a tub, I took a pan of warm water, a wash cloth and a bar of soap and cleaned from top to bottom, I shampooed my hair too, that felt good, I ran around with rollers in my hair until it dried, that doesn't take long with the warm temperature and low humidity. I used my Avon skin care products on my face, something that I don't always do every day. I put on clean clothes, then did the dishes. It's so nice to be able to wash myself and the dishes in hot water.

I started something, maybe something good, maybe something not so good, we have honey bees in abundance around here, they fly in the house and that's OK, they don't bother anything or anyone, they just buzz around looking for something good to eat. They fly in the front door, and mainly check out the sink area, if I have anything they might like, I try to make it easy for them to get it. Today, I made up a sugar solution in a plastic lid and placed it down for them, one bee found it, sucked up as much as she could hold, then flew out the window, about 20 minutes later, I have 2 bees buzzing around, they both found the sugar solution, and a while later my cabin was a buzz with bees. Right now, there are about 5 bees buzzing around the front door, they will make their way over to the table where the sugar solution is sitting, I hope they don't tell too many of their other sisters about this sugar bonanza. :) Before I had my sink & water set up, and I had to do dishes outside, they used to buzz around me the instant I came out with the dirty dishes, it was a race between me cleaning and the bees eating, they were fast too, they figured out I had something good before I got out the door most of the time! :) I didn't really mind, they are docile enough. As I watch this latest bee drinking the sugar solution, I wonder where their nest is, it must be close, I don't know what the range of a honey bee is, but I don't think they go very far, it's possible that someone around here is a bee keeper, or they might just have a wild nest, I would like to know... mmmmm fresh, wild honey...

The wind is picking up, it has been fairly calm the last 2-3 days, it's still nice outside, the temp right now (it's 2:20 pm) is 70 degrees F, the sky is getting cloudy, high thin clouds, last I heard, it's supposed to possibly rain tomorrow and/or Wednesday. I sort of hope we get some rain, even if it messes up some of our stuff outside, it's so pretty after a rain, and all the plants appreciate it too.

Oh, for the record, it's bad to invite a single bee to lunch, she invites all of her friends, I had about a dozen bees buzzing around inside my cabin, I removed the snack and about an hour later, I was down to one or two bees. a much more manageable quantity... I still want to know where their hive is located. :)
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3 Comments

Dragon said...

Your bee's aren't far off...yahoo has a organic bee keeper group if your interested. Dragon

February 15, 2008 8:41 PM

Wretha said...

Thanks Dragon, my hubby says he knows where they are, and they aren't too far at all. We have a deer carcass not too far from our cabin and today I found it full of bees, I was going to pour lime on it or something like that, it smells terrible and it's upwind from our cabin, when I saw the bees, I changed my mind, don't really want to disturb the natural way of things, hopefully in a few more days, the scavengers will take care it for me. :)

Wretha

February 15, 2008 9:04 PM

Dragon said...

if you start a few top bar hives bee's could add to your income some.
sounds like your Hubby is handy enuff to construct them.
Honey prices are way up due to the colony collapse disorder.
search for bush's bee's for more info if interested.
I wish Ya'll luck out there. Dragon

February 16, 2008 9:52 AM

Nothing specific...

Wind, calm, cold then warm, that is how it goes around here, there is no pattern that I can discern, all I can say is that when it blows, it really blows! I can normally sleep through just about anything, as long as I know what it is, the other night, the wind woke me up and I stayed awake until after daybreak, our little cabin has been reinforced quite a lot, much better than it was when we first got here. But the wind still makes a lot of noise, and for some reason, it kept me awake. The next day was pretty calm so I took a long nap. The good thing about being awake when the sun came up was seeing the gorgeous sunrise, seeing the sun highlight the mountain tops, working it's way down into the valley, and seeing the daytime animals coming to life and doing their thing. I am used to seeing the mule deer walking from the west to the east across our property in the evening, about an hour before sundown, it was nice to see them going from east to west that morning just after sunrise. I also got to see some different birds, I will need to get a bird book to identify these birds, they are much different from what I have seen for years in the DFW area, with the exception of a few black crows, I don't recognize any of the other birds.

Today is warm, the temps are getting up above 70 degrees F, the sun is shining, the sky is clear, and there is just a hint of a breeze today, it was calm last night too. Bob went into town to see the dentist yesterday, the appointment got messed up, blame it on the cell phone breaking up, they called us to confirm the appointment, we called back and got a voice mail, we left a message saying that Bob would be there, but the signal was not very good, and apparently they thought we were canceling the appointment, so they allowed him to come in anyway, but really didn't do much, took an x-ray and rescheduled him for another appointment in about a month. But the trip was not a total loss, he went to a lumber yard and found a really good deal, they had a stack of 2x4's, strapped up, I'm not sure exactly how many, but there are a lot! They were asking $5.00 for the bundle, they were beat up a bit, but perfectly usable for us! What a bargain! These usually cost $5.00 each, he also got more cement powder and a few other items. Our friend who took him to town also gave us some things, a small cube refrigerator, some tools and other things, he is a very nice man, very generous. He is the local builder and asked Bob to help on a job, it should take about a month to complete, so I will not be seeing Bob during the day for a while, but that's OK, the only snag will be the fact that Bob will not be working on our stuff as much while he is doing this, but we are sitting pretty good right now, so a month will not make a big difference.

Bob has been doing concrete work around our cabin, he uses straight cement powder (not the premixed stuff), he is creating what is called soil cement, this uses the dirt and rocks (gravel and larger rocks) instead of buying sand and gravel. This is a common practice by the state to make embankments and such, in fact the embankments and sidewalks in this part of Texas are often tinged pink because that's the color of the dirt and they used the dirt in the mix. This makes a strong concrete and it's pretty too. Bob uses a cement mixer we purchased at Harbor Freight, he uses the generator to run it and he has been pouring footings and walls. It's a long process, he creates a form (for the wall), mixes the concrete, pours it into the forms, tamps it in and waits for it to set. He usually pours about a foot tall and 5-6 feet long at a time. We also have to be conscious of the weather, we can't pour if it's going to freeze, that would ruin it, make it crumble. But once it is done, we will have strong walls, fire proof, rot proof, animal and weather proof.

Life out here is becoming more routine, I am getting used to cooking on the wood stove, heating water on it too, I just have to think ahead, getting hot water isn't just a water faucet away, I try to keep at least 2 containers of water going on the wood stove at all times, one for making hot drinks (coffee, hot chocolate, tea...) the other, a much larger container, a stock pot, is for cleaning, I wash dishes with the heated water, I also wash myself with the hot water, I feel like those old time westerns where you see the water pitcher and the large bowl sitting on the cabinet, you pour the water into the bowl and wash yourself from that, the difference is I have hot water and it makes a big difference! Even if the fire has gone out, the stock pot keeps warm for quite a while, even overnight, makes it nice to be able to wash up with warm water in the morning! :)

Sleet, snow, wind, care packages - PIX

02-05-08

Just before daybreak, we were awakened by the sound of sleet falling on the roof, when I went to bed (at about 3:30 am, yeah I know...), the temp was 42 and steady, the wind was blowing, as usual, I could see the stars out the window so the sky was clear, what a difference a few hours can make! Bob got up and started the fire going in the wood stove, I laid in bed until it got light outside, Bob was making biscuits on the wood stove, he makes a pretty mean biscuit :) I finally rolled out of bed to see the snow, the sleet had stopped and had been replaced by fluffy snow flakes. Everywhere I looked, the snow was swirling, the ground was becoming white, the mountains were looking very scenic. I grabbed my camera (cell phone) and started snapping pix. I put on my thick, quilted coveralls (one of the best things we got before we left Irving!), I leashed up a very reluctant dog and went outside. Once we were out, Pekoe became less reluctant and more interested in doing her business, the clouds were breaking up and the sun was starting to shine, it had just came over the east ridge of the mountains and illuminated the patchy snow on the ground, I snapped quite a few good pix, it's amazing how a little snow can make the most mundane objects look special.

I came back inside when I ran out of memory in my cell phone for pix, the dog had completed her business and my fingers were frozen. I carried 2 logs up from the street side of our property, that's a bit of a walk, all up hill, but I managed, we needed the wood, and besides, I didn't want to have to explain why I didn't bring at least one piece of wood when I was right next to it.

An interesting observation, I noticed that when frozen precipitation falls, it doesn't melt, it evaporates, the air is so dry here, the humidity is nearly always low, when I picked up the snow today, it just evaporated in my hand, very interesting indeed...

Now I am sitting in front of a warm fire, wearing my warm, fuzzy pink PJs, sent to me by my MIL, enjoying part 2 of the weather event that was NOT predicted by the NOAH weather people on line, the clouds came back and it started snowing again.

Care Packages

In the last week, we have received 2 sets of care packages, the first came from Bob's mom, it came via UPS, delivered to our neighbor's house (thanks again to our wonderful neighbor!), it came in 3 boxes, one box was for our neighbor, he has been inducted into the family so he gets care packages too. About half of the stuff was Christmas gifts, a few items were for Bob's birthday, and the rest were things like toilet paper, food items, medicine, paper plates and such. I got a set of pink, fuzzy pajamas, I haven't had PJs like these since I was a kid, they are great, we also got thermal underwear, goodies from the kitchen, homemade prailines, cookies, and bags and bags of dehydrated fruit & nuts.

The other item we received was a weather station (this came from Bob's brother, thanks Jeff!), it has three parts, one part measures the temp and humidity, the next part measures the wind speed and direction, and the base unit that stays inside the cabin, that measures the inside temp & humidity and lets us know what is going on outside. It also had an atomic clock & calendar, it keeps records of everything including the barometric pressure. It's been great knowing all of this information, especially the outside temps. There was one last thing in the package that will come in very handy, we put it away for a "rainy day", thanks so much!!!!!

Yesterday, when I went to our neighbor's house to get water, there was another box sitting there, he said it was for Bob and I, I hadn't been expecting anything, I looked at the return address and I knew it was from Bob's other brother, Chris and his family (thanks Chris!!!), completely unexpected, it was another care package, I could barely carry this (and the water containers and the flashlight) back to our cabin, when I got within 10 yards of the cabin, I hollered for Bob to come help. Upon opening this care package, it was filled with dental supplies (thanks Christy!), cookies for Bob, a package of toilet paper, cleaning wipes and a warm blanket, there were a few other items too that will come in very handy, thanks Chris, Christy and Aubri, these named and unnamed items will be put to very good use. :)

I would also like to take this time to thank my dad, thanks so much for everything! I love and miss you very much, and look forward to seeing you this spring, I can't wait to show you everything we have accomplished.

Pix of the water system, concrete walls, rocks and a big hole...

02-04-08

Here are some pictures of the water system, it is all inside our cabin so we don't have to worry about anything freezing. It basically works like this, we have a 55 gallon plastic (food safe) barrel next to the sink, it is filled with clean water. We placed a length of black plastic tubing (it's like a hard water hose) going down into the inside of the barrel, it goes all the way to the bottom of the barrel. This goes to a 12 volt water pump, this is attached directly to the water faucet which is attached to the wall above my sink. The pump is powered by one of the big batteries in our power system. It is always powered on, but only comes on when the faucet is opened. When the faucet is opened, the pump immediately pumps water from the barrel to the faucet, it creates pressure so the water comes out hard enough to do what I need it to do. Right now, there is only cold water, we have to rely on our wood stove to provide hot water for now, that will change in the future, but for now, it works great!

The graphic I drew is pretty close to how it really looks, but things are a bit farther apart then I drew, the barrel is pretty close to the sink, the pump is really that close to the faucet, the sink is not that far from the faucet, and the battery is not that close to everything else.

My sink

I love my sink, it was a "found treasure", when we still lived in Irving, I was coming home from work, taking one of my usual short cuts, I passed a rent house that was being renovated. There was a pile of trash and stuff sitting out near the street. I saw the sink sitting there and decided that it would be mine. I went home, got Bob, we went back and got the sink and a few miscellaneous items, it's amazing what people throw away! :) The sink has been around for a while, I would guess it's a 40s or 50s model, you don't see them like this anymore. It's enameled steel, white, with a double bowl design, what is different is it has built in drain boards on both sides of the sink, (all made out of enameled steel), it has an art deco look to it. The enamel is in pretty good shape, it does have a few dings in it, but far fewer than my original sink at my old house! The biggest advantage for me is the drain boards, most people now days have automatic dish washers and don't have much need for these, but since I am living more like a pioneer, the drain boards are a real help to me.

Bob plumbed the drains to drain outside into a pit, a gray water system, so now I am all fixed up with pressurized running water. The pump does make noise when it comes on, not too loud, about like a quiet garbage disposal, you definitely know it's running, but I don't mind a bit, though we will have to be aware of the noise factor when one of us is asleep, it would probably wake the sleeping person, since our bedroom is just a few feet off the kitchen and there are no walls inside, any noise made inside the cabin is immediately heard all over the cabin.

Today, I had planned on doing other things, but I ended up helping Bob most of the day, we poured concrete to make walls, Bob poured, I tamped and smoothed, the other thing we did was dig a hole, it's a big hole, right now it's about 3-4 feet deep and about 6 feet across, the digging is not too bad, the soil here is great, very little clay, but there are a lot of rocks, big rocks, if it weren't for the rocks, we would have a really big hole! The hole is going to be a cistern to hold water when it rains this summer. I'll explain a bit more about that later.

Water NOW!

Most days Bob amazes me with his ingenious methods of building things, making things, fixing things, we lovingly refer to it as "Bobbidge", imagine MacGuyver with an attitude, and you have Bob. But on occasion, Bob far exceeds even my amazement, he did this today.

One of the things we do not have is water, we go to our neighbor's house everyday to get water, essentially 3 gallons per day, that is for drinking and a little cleaning, but with only 3 gallons, it doesn't leave much left over for cleaning. We purchased a blue plastic 55 gallon drum before we left Irving, Bob placed that in the "kitchen" area, next to the sink, he filled it with water from our neighbor's house, believe it or not, we hooked up I think about 5 hoses, there may have been more, anyhoo, we filled the drum with water, (Bob had reinforced the floor where the drum sits, water is very heavy!), we also had a 12 volt pump (12 volts is very important, it means we can hook it directly to the batteries, we don't have to go through the inverter, that saves lots of power), Bob took this pump and hooked it up to the water faucet on the "out" side, on the "in" side of the pump, it is hooked to a hose that goes into the barrel, he applied power to the pump, the way this works now, when we turn on the faucet, the pump comes on and water starts flowing, when we turn off the water, the pump stops. I'll get some pictures, I know it's hard to picture based on a description. Basically we have pressurized running water on demand.

Next Bob will start working on a system to heat water, that may take more time, we do have 2 long lengths of black tubing (like a black colored plastic water hose), this can be filled with water and allow the sun to heat the water, we have lots of solar potential up here, it can make lots of hot water in a very short amount of time.

I am just very happy to have running water inside my cabin, it's clean and available. WooHoo!

Pizza night!

Tonight we had pizza, it's great to have something that does not come out of a can! It was different and it was good. I made and cooked the pizza dough on our wood burning stove, I made about a dozen 6 inch pizza's, I took the blank pizza's to our neighbor and finished assembling the pizza's, I used tomato soup for the sauce, I used dry italian seasoning, dried beef and cheese. We ate pizza until we thought we would pop. It's also nice to get to watch some TV, though I really don't miss it much, I do wish I could keep up with more national and local news, it's OK that I don't know everything that is going on, probably keeps me sane! :)

The last couple of days were windy, last night, we were sleeping and a gust of wind blew through, sounded like a freight train! We both came awake from a sound sleep, fortunately it didn't get any worse than that, it was a while before we went back to sleep. The next morning, things were in pretty good shape, a few things got blown over, but nothing major. The wind blew pretty hard most of the day. but the sun was shining so the batteries were able to charge up, that is a pretty important thing for us, one cloudy day is not bad, but 2 or more cloudy days in a row can make it hard to have movie night! The next few days are supposed to be windy, but clear, so we will be just fine.

Pix Fixed

OK, sorry about the pix thing, I had a lot of pix uploaded but apparently they weren't showing up, I could see them but they weren't visible to anyone else, I fixed the problem, now the pix will be visible to everyone.

Here are the entries with pix:
http://wretha.blogspot.com/2008/01/big-accomplishments.html

http://wretha.blogspot.com/2008/01/solar-stuff-mice-and-smoke.html

I believe the other entries with pix were visible.
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2 Comments

nanabird2000 said...

Pictures came through great great stove bet it puts out the heat. Been meaning to ask how the bug likes the roads out there. Handle like you want it to ?
Nancy

January 23, 2008 9:33 PM

Wretha said...

Hi Nancy, the stove keeps us toasty warm, in fact a lot of the time, we have to crack a window to cool things off.

The bug takes the roads great! It's rough, but these bugs were designed for this, on Christmas, we took the bug to go to a friend's house for dinner, one of the wheels on the bug was loose and fell off! We walked back to our property, it wasn't far, we got a few tools, found the lug nuts on the road, and put everything back together, nothing was damaged, this was the one tire that we didn't change before we left, Bob hadn't checked it, I'm glad it didn't happen when we were traveling out here! Anyhoo, it didn't hurt anything, we put it back on, tightened it back up and went on to dinner. :)

January 25, 2008 9:22 PM

Big Accomplishments

01-20-08

Big accomplishments, we now have a metal roof, our big wood burning stove and the sink drain has been plumbed.

First, the metal roof, we were gifted with the material for the metal roof, it was left over material from other projects, it was given to us by our good friends out here, it's about 3 different colors, but no one can see it unless you are standing on the roof, and we are now water proof and much more wind proof. A few days ago, the weather report said we might get some rain, thunderstorms and possible snow, we had one day's notice! So Bob went to work in the morning and didn't stop until it was complete, in fact got sick from doing it, breathing all the dust (the panels were coated in dust and dirt, like everything out here) and the wind was relentless that day, sunny but cold, he had gotten a bit run down and having to cover the entire roof in one day just about finished him off... (he's getting better now).

I didn't get to help him, I wished I could have, that was the day I watched my neighbor's dog Sam, and Sam couldn't be left alone. Bob did a really good job, as usual :)

The next day, it drizzled, for about 10 minutes, just enough to make the tiniest layer of moist dirt, couldn't even call it mud, but it was enough to make water run off the roof, nothing dripped inside, it's also more quiet, when the wind blows it's a lot quieter. We never got the rain, thunderstorms or snow.

Bob also plumbed the sink, no running water yet, but I can do the dishes inside at the sink now, and I can pour liquids down the sink, it runs through the floor, outside to the ground, we dug a pit and will fill it with gravel, basically gray water disposal.

Yesterday, I made a water run to my neighbor's house, as I was leaving, Bob was hauling the big wood stove from the side of the house to the back of the house, this thing is big, it weighs around 300 pounds, Bob designed and made this wood stove, it works great, we used it to heat our whole house where we used to live, so it should have no problem heating our little one room cabin! :) I told Bob that I would help him with it when I got back, he smiled and said he would see me when I got back. Well, when I got back, he was on the roof, finishing the chimney cap and spark arrestor. He had, all by himself, removed the small wood stove, and put in the big wood stove, please understand, our cabin sits about 7 feet in the air, there is a 4 step tall wooden porch, that takes you half way to the door, you have to use a ladder for the last few feet to get inside the cabin, so carrying ANYTHING into the cabin is harder to begin with, somehow he managed to lift a 300 pound metal box, over 7 feet into the air, and got it inside the cabin and moved across the floor, and completely installed, all by himself!

He used a tow strap with a ratchet, like it was a block and tackle to lift the wood stove, I wished I could have seen that, I am continually amazed at what he does, all by himself. Last night, we were able to burn real logs, ones that last for hours, we cranked that baby up so hot, we had to open the windows to let in some cold air. I decided that I could use the surface of it for a cook surface, I took some heavy foil and layed it on top, I cooked homemade tortillas on it, they turned out great! It also heats up water for various purposes, mainly for making coffee, I also heat food on it, I open cans of soup or other foods, and I put the can on the stove top, it pretty quickly heats up the contents of the cans, fewer dishes are always welcome!






Animals

Oh, I almost forgot, I have to list all the animals we have seen in the last 2 weeks. We saw a family of collared peccary, these are wild pigs, native to the area, we saw 2 adults, a couple of juveniles and a couple of babies, they walked from the west side of the property, through our "back yard", and up the mountain. One of the adults came over to investigate the compost pile, that was when I could gauge how big it was, and I must say, if it wanted to, it probably could have pushed over our wire compost pile if it had wanted to, no matter how many stakes it had. I was very happy to see it amble off after just sniffing around.

The other animal we saw was our little fox, it is really cute (yes, I know it's a wild animal and I respect that), it came around at night, we threw a tortilla to it and it ran off with it's prize. We don't intend on making that a habit, the occasional handout is fine, but we don't want it getting used to getting freebies all the time, we do intend to have chickens at a later date, and I don't want any more problems with the foxes than we have to.

I also saw the herd of feral donkeys, these are the descendants of the working animals that were part of the ranch land that this used to be. I don't know exactly how many there are, but usually I see 4 or more, they are on the small side, and seem to do very well around here. This is the first time I have seen them since I have been back here to live, I did see them once before while visiting, I was happy to see them again.
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1 Comment

nanabird2000 said...

How proud you all must be to have the roof on and warmth kept in and noise and rain out, yeah applause applause to you. Was wondering about the wood stove if it had a big eough surface for cooking or heating food, many years ago we had a wood burning cook stove it was the best cooking stove ever and such good flavor. Glad you are doing so well and making great progress, look forward to each new addtion to your blog, sorry to say tho I am not able to view the pics you have posted was anlt to veiw the first entry but not since then have contacted my grandson so have him check it out for me. Keeping you in my thoughts and prayers for a safe and fun journey....Nancy

January 22, 2008 11:37 AM

Roof Roof Woof

Dog Sitting

Today was different, my neighbor had to go into town, not the nearby town, but one further away, it is an all day trip, I volunteered to take care of his dog while he was gone, his dog does not do good at being left behind, my neighbor usually takes his dog everywhere, but this trip just wouldn't work with a furry friend along. I got up early today, about 7:30am, boy was it COLD, the infrared temperature reading device said the ladder outside the door was 9 degrees F, the floor inside my cabin read 24 degrees, the food cabinet read 35 degrees (whew!). I walked to my neighbor's house, I've been here most of the day, I did some laundry and dishes, I also cleaned up a bit, he is ex-military and he is very neat and clean, so it's hard to find too much to clean, but I found a few things (grin).

Our other friends who live out here came by for a while, they went to the store in town, they offered to do some shopping if we needed anything, I gave a short list of food we needed from the store and they got it, it's real nice to have such great friends out here, people really look out for each other out here.

The Roof

It might rain and/or snow later tonight, so the roof became the item of the day to work on, the roof, up until now had consisted of 3/4 inch plywood over 2x4's, Bob used heavy builder's plastic (sound familiar???) over the top of that to make it waterproof, since for the most part, it's pretty dry here, that worked just fine, but since we have been here full time, we have walked on the roof quite a lot, and the builder's plastic is not in as good of shape as it had been, so we knew that before the next rain or snow, we would need to take care of this.

Bob had collected recycled metal panels referred to as "R-Panel", it's called that because of the shape of the panel, he had enough to cover the roof, last week when he went to town to get his tooth looked at, he picked up a gallon of roof coating (tar), today he spent the day installing the metal panels to the roof, he also needed to pick up or cover up some of our stuff that is still outside to protect it from the possible wet weather. I wished I could have been there to help, but I was busy dog-sitting, so I had to suffer all day long, watching TV (the cooking channel and the DIY channel), washing with HOT water... life is tough out here... :)

Thanks!

Thanks to everyone who has posted comments, I really REALLY appreciate them, please keep 'em coming, ask questions if you want, I'll answer, I try to put in as much detail as possible, but it's easy to forget that in my mind (that's sometimes a scary place, the echo is terrible), I am familiar with what I am talking about (???!!!) and I know what the subject/item(s) look like, it's too easy sometimes to gloss over something and not give enough of an explanation. So ask questions if you want, ask about anything, make requests, I'll do my best to answer asap.

Wretha