Zoey the Destroyer!

I wonder if dog toy companies ever hire dogs to test their new line of toys. If they do, Zoey would be one of the best toy testers ever, for she can destroy any toy in record time.  If she were born in the early time of Greece, she would be known as Zoey the Destroyer. If it has a squeaker and stuffing, it will not last a day in our household. Perhaps I should video her destroying a supposedly indestructible toy and send it to them. Then again, they probably do not want such destruction on record! 

Well, maybe not any toy. She cannot destroy those hard rubber ones. This is Zoey's toy box. These are the only toys that make it more than a day or two in our house. Her favorite is the little orange balls. Dakota's is the blue pretzel. Most days, the toys just lay in the basket untouched, other days, Zoey will take them out one by one, inspect them and grab the orange ball. Just like other kids, she never puts them away when she is done with them!

Since we are on the subject of dogs, how about a short dog video?!?! Several of you are cheering, Harry is groaning. But yes, here is a 50 second video of the girls playing. They do this once or twice a week....

Last Saturday was the last of the really hot days. Since then, we have been in the 80's and 70's, with lows in the 60's and 50's. In fact, when we woke up Thursday morning, the inside of the house was 62. Starting to feel like fall!

Several of you asked about why we hauled water to fill the hot tub and whether or not we had a well. The quick answer is, no, we do not have a well, but here is the long answer. When we first built, we had three options for water; try and drill a well, hook up to the rural water system or get a cistern. We researched each of those options. Talking to the well people, they say they have had limited success drilling a well in our area of the hills. Some are successful, some are not. And at the cost of $30,000+ for maybe hitting water, we just did not want to take that chance. 

The next option we researched to have the rural water brought into our house. Many, if not all roads in our area have rural water pipes running the length of the roads for residents to tap into. We could have too but there are some downsides. There is a cost of $3,000 or so just to tap into the system, then you have to pay by the foot to have it dug to your house. Since we are over a 1/4 mile off the road, that would have added up. Once it is to your house, it is $100/month for the service fee, then you are charged for every gallon you use. It all adds up, especially when we are only here 6 months of so out of the year. 

After reviewing the cost of these, we decided on a cistern. A 2,500-gallon tank buried in the ground which we have water delivered to once a month or so. The initial cost of the cistern was $2,500, this included installation and piping it to the house. We have two options for getting water; filling it ourselves or having it delivered. It is much cheaper to get it ourselves, we just need to drive to Custer with our 450-gallon tank and pay $0.02/gallon. And we do do that once in a while. The downside of that is having to keep moving the tank in and out of the truck and keep that tank very clean which is a pain. Mold is always trying to work its way into the tank. The other option is to have it delivered at $0.11/gallon. This is what we do. There is a monitor on the tank that texts the water guy whenever we hit 30%, he then puts us on his route. It is usually $200 or so to fill it, we typically go through 2,000 gallons a month when we are here. It works pretty seamlessly and was the cheapest option. It also forces us to keep an eye on our water consumption, something we were used to anyways from our years living in the RV.

So, when it comes to filling the hot tub or water tanks, we will load up the tank and head to town for the cheaper water, so we do not drain the cistern. Whew! That was a long answer for a short question!

Let's see, what happened this week? Oh, we had an overnight visitor! 3 actually. Chad, former owner of Pasha Lake Cabins, was in the area on a mission trip and stopped by for a night one after the work was complete.  With him was his 15-year-old son and 13-year-old daughter. They were replacing a roof on an orphanage on the Pine Ridge Reservation while during 100-degree weather had to be brutal!

The first words out of his mouth upon arriving were "What do you need help with?". "How about helping me set a ladder stand for deer season?", I replied. And we were off, Cavin in the front with me, and Chad in back.

After that, we just chilled in the gazebo and chatted for a few hours before bed. They were gone when we got up, as they had a 10-hour drive ahead of them. 

Projects this week? Well, I have to admit, I squirreled on a couple of them. Meaning I got distracted by other things that were not on my list. The easy answer was to put them on my list so I can say I was staying on track, but that was not the case. Barb, true to her form, she spent more money and crossed another item off her list when she bought a new to us lawn mower. Personally, I could have gone the rest of my life without buying another mower, but she wants a groomed area for the dogs to hang out in when we are out in the gazebo. She opted for a battery powered Ego which does surprisingly well for the little area she is mowing.

On the way back from getting the lawn mower, I needed a beer, so we stopped by Lost Cabin Brewing in Hill City.

I did get several small ones done however, the most noteworthy was the 1/2 wall I built for our grill area. Now that Barb has the smoker, we needed a little more wall space in that area. Probably a 4-hour project. We just need to sand and stain the cap and it is done. 

It is Sturgis week so there are bikes EVERYWHERE! Hill City closes down Main Street to all car/truck traffic. Motorcycles only. Custer closes the two middle lanes through town for bike parking. Not the week to do much if you do not like crowds. 

We did have a busy social week, however. Kevin came over Wednesday night for halibut, Thursday, we took Neighbor Jim and Carmen out for supper for watching the house (and killing prairie dogs and chasing cattle) while we were gone. We went to The State Game Lodge in Custer State Park. And Friday night we went to the VFW in Custer with Dan and Bonnie for Queen of Hearts which was up over $15,000. The Queen of Hearts game is one where you buy tickets and if your ticket gets drawn, you pick a card (face down) from a board of 52 cards. If you draw the queen of hearts, you win the pot. You can buy as many tickets as you want, but only one person drawn each week and if the QOH's is not drawn the pot is carried over each week until someone wins. Of all those events, we only took one picture of us our night out with Dan and Bonnie. 

The smoker has been busy with two batches going through. The first was some smoked salmon. Brining them overnight, we then put them in the smoker for a few hours. 

They are delicious. We devoured one in short order, the other three are vacuum sealed and in the freezer. 

Next up was venison sticks. With deer season around the corner, it is time to use up our remaining venison. I only took two pictures of the process. The grinding/stuffing and the final product.

The critter cams provided no bucks at all, but lots of other critters! The local bluebirds are enjoying the big tank. 

The deer, squirrels and turkeys drank so much out of the smaller tank that we had to refill it already. If you look closely below, you can see a red squirrel just above the deer's head.  

The camera even captured Neighbor Jim and I chatting as I refilled the tank. 

That's it for this week. Today is a big day as my niece and her husband are coming over for the day with their two dogs. You know what that means! A doggy play day! And hopefully, if you are lucky, I mean really lucky, next week we might just have another dog video to show you!