It was a crazy day of prep work… packing Blue up with all the gear… getting there early to help set up and oversee the whole production. The backstage time, helping with questions from bands, working with our volunteer staff, and visiting with the guests. It was a good show, not a bad crowd at all. It always helps when you have a good hometown reunion with native sons.
I am so tuckered out today! I had all these visions of crazy busy work today at the homestead… but my sore knees from a day of walking, standing and dashing about would not let me fulfill most of those plans! Now, to be fair, I did some dishes, made a lovely dinner of meatloaf and side for dinner, went and paid the electric bill, got some chicken feed and a few groceries… and farted around with photos and Facebook, dealt with some email. So, it wasn’t just a lay around, eat bon bons day! Haha… But the girls were more productive than me for sure… Jessy did a big cleanup of her bunnie hutch and also finished her little portable grass pen for her bunnies to go out in the courtyard and get a little fresh grass and sunshine time. Maggie took care of the hens, toting that 50 pound bag of feed over her shoulder like a pro country gal! And then both of them cleaned up the mudroom which in our little homestead has become a sort of weird purgatory for things coming and going from inside to outside. I’ve already noticed in a very short time here that the mudroom just collects stuff. It’s the go to place for anything that has to go back out to the barn/shed/garage/coop/garden/yard etc and stuff from out there tends to get stopped off and lingers for tooooo long. So it has to be purged every few days or it becomes OVERWHELMED! haha…
Part of the reason we need to get it clear is that we got a big girl oven from Tim and Erin last night. At the Opry. So totally hillbilly, eh? Gotta leave our bluegrass music concert prep at the theater to go and offload an old stove off Tim’s pickup! haha… Hey, bluegrass promoters gotta use stoves, too, you know. We got it home in Blue, of course, and Steve came over to visit the girls and helped them get it in the kitchen. And then he broke the news to us. We don’t have the right sort of electrical circuit in the kitchen to handle the electric stove. We can add it, but it would be about $200-$300 for all the parts, wires, plugs and all that. Oh.
Funny thing, we have the right stuff in the mudroom. Probably left over from a dryer. Our kitchen is all worked up for propane. Which we have a huge tank of in the yard and nothing to run off it.
SInce I really don’t want to invest all that cash to get an older rental unit stove working… I think we are going to put the oven in the mudroom… and use it as a second stove!!! And keep looking for a propane set up for in the house. How cool is that? We can use the mudroom one as an extra for holidays, or for canning, or for cooking when it’s too hot out and we’d like to keep the extra heat OUTSIDE… I think it’s a perfectly good way to utilize this lovely gift of an old stove!!!
(We’ve seen propane ranges on Craiglist for $50 to $150 bucks… so we’ll just keep our eyes out for one…)
Anyway… the Opry was fun and a good show. And we are going to try one more… in November. If we can maintain some crowd consistency, then we will keep planning another, probably with a few months between. It’s just been so expensive for us to try and make it a monthly event. We would love to, but we’ve spend thousands with no return, except for the awesome memories and experiences! We’re hoping that by spreading them out a bit, we can still keep this wonderful venue running and not go broke! That would be a dream come true… we love the music for sure. And it’s a wonderful opportunity for fans to see top notch national talent and a sweet place for local and regional bands to kick off the show and add it to their resumes! A win win I think!
Off to bed for me… I need to get busy tomorrow and I think a nice deep night’s rest will do the job!!
P.S. Happy Birthday Jeff! He’s my partner in crime for the show and band and all. We surprised him with a cake and the whole audience singing Happy Birthday for him! Fun stuff…..
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It’s always good to have a stove that you can use for canning in an area that keeps the heat out of the kitchen. Regarding he stove, you can convert a stove that is set up for natural gas to use propane, the orfices just have to be changed. It’s not expensive or difficult to do.