Well it’s almost the end of March, and it’s been an interesting month. We’ve had temperatures in the 80’s and also in the 40’s. We’ve had over 5 inches of rain this month so our yard has been flooded again. We bought a water pump from Harbor Freight, and about 200 feet of hose to pump the standing water out, which worked pretty well. The intake hose is an inch in diameter so it leaves water, but much less than there was. It’s finally starting to dry up, and now rain is forecast for later today.

There is a lot of grass and little bits of debris in the yard so we had to fashion a screen over the end of the intake hose, which means we had to monitor it constantly to keep the water flow going. All in all, it worked well and sped up the evaporation.

A week ago we had a hailstorm which damaged our truck and car, our roof, and some of our plants. The little succulents really got beat up but they all survived. We’re waiting now for insurance adjusters to come and total up the damage. We noticed a lot of roofing getting started in the area. We we’re not the only ones, but we were lucky. There was some baseball sized hail not too far away that destroyed and entire solar panel field, along with cars and buildings. Our hail was about walnut sized so the damage wasn’t as severe. Can’t do much about nature.

The garden seems to be doing pretty well, in spite of the hail. Beans, peas, zucchini, onions, garlic, and tomatos all are coming along nicely. Our cucumbers haven’t fared as well though, because the were under water for a while. Barb dug them up and put them in pots. Then we spread some more dirt to raise the ground level, and we’ll probably put them back in along with some new seed.

We still don’t have our building! Apparently the company has had some setbacks because of the weather and they seem to have a problem keeping us updated. We were supposed to get a call by the end of the day, two days ago, but it never happened. I don’t want to be one of “those guys”, but it’s been too long. They have a large chunk of our money and we want to see some results! So I’m going to have to call them again. That being said, they are not some fly by night company. I did my research before hiring them, so we know they are a reputable company. I guess no one is perfect.

Jim and mary cut a tree down on their property and it was orange inside! Hopefully we can use some of the wood for projects. They also got the cement poured for their building and it looks like they’ll have it up before we get ours. Some people have all the luck.

There’s not much else to report for now. We’re still plugging along, heading towards a hot Texas summer, which is just fine with us. In Minnesota today, where we used to live it is 13 degrees F, and they just had a bunch of snow. And they can keep it!