Jan 15th Update

We started having septic tank issues with a little seeping out of the inspection port so we had it pumped and it was indeed full. Cost was $100.00 to get it pumped and it was a bargain because we had to chisel the access hatch out of the frozen ground, pour hot water around it, and then pry it up with a breaker bar...whew! It was pumped and inspected and was in good shape but its only about 550 gallons. We may be getting county sewer on the house which is a free hookup but we are the last farm along the planned route that isnt getting it; I pled our case to the water board and they have us first in line if they have any grant money left to get us hooked up but we wont know until the spring. If we dont get it we will put in a new septic tank which is budgeted for.

We also finally found a nice car and bought it a couple days ago. Its a 2005 Ford Five Hundred that gets twice the gas mileage of any of our trucks, seats 5 comfortably, has 84K miles on it, it is in great shape with all maintenance records going back to the first oil change and we got it over 2k under blue book as a repo. So many folks are struggling right now that deals like this arent hard to find but you almost feel guilty for taking advantage of the opportunities.

This was a real bear to get unfrozen and pried up but we got it done after about 40 minutes of grunting and groaning.

As I have said in earlier posts, we left the sorghum seed head for the birds but it was hard to show that they were getting to it. With the snow you can see all the bird tracks around each seed head that had fallen over to the ground. We have 5 feeders we fill several times a day but they still like the sorghum.

The color suits Holly better than some of the other cars we looked at. It has a small V6 with a 6 speed automatic transmission that is tuned for gas economy so its not a speed demon but its quiet and smooth.

Its in great shape inside and out and is actually classified as a full sized by the feds. Its about a foot shorter than a Crown Vic but has the same interior volume.

We will be selling one of the pickup trucks and eventually either converting the Explorer to a Mad Max pasture toy or selling it for scrap.

Spotless interior, nothing too fancy but its modern looking and functional with traction control, new tires, AC, and a good stereo.

Lots of leg room and it in fact has more rear seat space than the old Park Avenue we were looking at

And finally it has a cavernous trunk that the mob would put to good use.