Sept 30th - Getting Ready to Move

It was cool here today, the high was 65, but it was a beautiful sunny day. This morning I spent 30-45 minutes on the splitter, splitting the rest of the wood we hauled to Tom's a couple of days ago. He had already split a lot of it.

In the afternoon I spent more time getting my tools back in the tool boxes, and ready to go back into the RV. I then fired up my chainsaw and cut up a couple of tress on our property. The trees were dead. They weren't all that big, maybe 10-12" in diameter at the base. I move the wood a short distance to get it closer to where it can be loaded on a trailer.

Stihl chainsaws are FANTASTIC. I had not started my chainsaw for approximately a year. It still had scummy old gas in it. I thought the carb would probably have to be removed and cleaned. I hit the primer bulb a few times, set the choke, and I think it was the 3rd pull when it fired and ran. AWESOME! I partially filled the gas tank after it started OK. Hopefully I will have time tomorrow to find and cut up enough more wood so that I run it out of gas.

Below is a photo of Tom's woodshed. After the trailer load we just split there is now a decent size pile of split wood along the splitter. Mary Lou does most of the stacking. She will soon be stacking it outside, since the woodshed is nearly full.

We had dinner with the Tower's clan. Mary Lou cooked some brats in with sauerkraut. She also cooked some freshly dug potatoes and made a "greek" salad. Kathy used some of the bushel of apples she bought a few days ago to make several apple desserts. Things were great, I'm still stuffed.

Tomorrow I winterize the building by draining the water lines, blowing them out, and putting RV antifreeze in the drains/traps. We are still planning on leaving around noon Sunday.

According to Weatherbug it is supposed to get down into the 30's the next 3 nights. Highs are forecast to be in the 50's tomorrow and then the 60's Sunday & Monday. It looks like it is quite a bit warmer in Thompson's Station, where we are going. Part of that might be because we 2,000 feet above sea level here and Thompson's Station is only 800 feet above sea level.

Time to get to bed. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sept 29 - Wood Splitting

Tom, Dennis, Jack and I split half a trailer load of wood this morning, into pieces small enough that we could carry them to the trailer, and burned the brush that was left from the tree.

This afternoon I did some minor repair/maintenance on the RV and some more clean-up at the building. I also got a haircut and had my beard trimmed. Heather, a lady who lives less than 5 miles from us, has a SMALL barbershop. She cuts hair on Thursdays. She has no signs, you have to know where she lives and that she is a barber. It cost me $10 for a haircut and beard trim. The great part was that she actually shaves your neck. I love that and can't remember the last time a barber shaved my neck. She has been cutting Tom and Wendy's hair for quite some time. Last week she cut Mary Lou's for the first time. Had I known about her I would have went the first Thursday I was down here and went back again today, the last Thursday I will be here for awhile.

I talked to David, at Deer Run Retreat, and there was no real reason that we needed to be there over the weekend so we are staying in Crossville until Sunday. On Sunday they also have a crew of volunteers coming in from South Carolina so that should be interesting. I'm not sure what we will be doing, but some type of cabin restoration work.

This evening we had a campfire and another wienie roast. Tom & Mary Lou had previously been invited to go out for dinner so it was Wendy, Dean, Morissa, Kathy & I.

I just finished taking a shower and after watching a little TV will be hitting the sack.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sept 28th - We Have a Bathroom

Everything in the bathroom is hooked up and working. Actually the piece of cardboard for a door is a little tacky, but you can't have everything.

Tomorrow afternoon I will turn the water off, drain the lines, blow them out and put antifreeze in the drains/traps.

The walls are a pale yellow.



OK, so I was cheap and reused a white GFI outlet rather than buy a tan one to match the light switches. We didn't realize the end of the vanity plain plywood when we bought it. We might do something about that some day. The floor is still bare, unsealed concrete. We were going to at least seal it but just ran out of time.



In the morning I'm off with Tom in the morning to split wood. We still have 6 pieces in Crossville that we need to split by hand, to get them small enough so that two of us can lift them onto his trailer and haul them out out to his house and split them with the splitter.

Friday we are scheduled to head to Deer Creek Retreat in Thompsons Station, TN. I am calling them tomorrow to confirm that they can use us over the weekend. If not, we may not move until Sunday.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sept 27th - Getting Closer

Yesterday it rained on and off most of the day. Last night it was quite foggy, through this morning. Today was beautiful.

Yesterday I turned on the water inside our building and filled the hot water heater. I found out that just test fitting CPVC joints is not enough, you actually have to glue them. I forgot to glue one of the hot water joints for the lavatory. It held until I turned the hot water on and off, in the tub, a couple of times. Then WHAM and I had a 1/2" line spewing water into the future kitchen area. A lot of water can come out a line that size while a person gets the supply shut off.

Today I turned it back on and so far everything looks good. I actually ran some hot water into the tub.

We put two coats of primer on the drywall today. The plan is to finish paint it tomorrow. After painting I can set the toilet and install the lavatory.

Late this afternoon we drove into town, picked up our library cards (the library is awesome for a town this size), took some jpg files to Walgreens and had some "passport" photos printed (for camp applications), and went to the hardware store for a few more "parts."

By the time we leave the bathroom should be fully functional.

We have kept postponing going in and getting the rest of Tom's wood. I think tomorrow may finally be the day.

I think we will finally head for Deer Creek Retreat, south of Nashville, on Friday.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Sept 24th - Hiking Day

I guess it wasn't actually much of a hike but we did spend 3 hours doing a "walk-about" on our TN property. We took the "trail" (it is starting to get overgrown, not enough traffic) from the campground area down to the south end of our property.

Not 50 yards from the RV the trail gets steep, with a lot of exposed rock. The rock was damp with wet leaves on some of it. Within our first 100 yards Kathy slipped and fell but fortunately all she got from it was bruises. Praise the Lord for that.

We then walked across the south end of the property and, for the first time ever, I walked the 4000' west property line. Kathy took another trail that goes to Tom's shop. The terrain along the west property line was challenging at times. There were several ravines, at least 50' deep, where I looked for anything I could grab while going into and out of them. No rock climbing, but slippery wet/damp leaves and a steep slope. The GPS said we only walked 2.85 miles but it is obviously defective <grin>. The difference between our maximum and minimum elevations was 280'.

The people who bought Junior Norris's property, which adjoined ours at the southwest corner of ours have moved out. Someone still keeps the lawn mowed. They had made a lot of improvements and I'm not sure why they left. (See the 1st photo below, everything that is not cleared is our property, for 4000' from where the photo is taken.)

There are cemeteries at both south corners of our property. The Norris cemetery has 30-40 headstones in it. We were surprised that we did not see a headstone for Junior Norris.

The cemetery at the southwest corner had only two headstones in it, I think both were for people who died in the 30's. Kathy was checking it out and found the headstone for Jay, the guy who used to be our neighbor at that corner. (He died a few years ago when the fork truck he was working on fell on him.) We know that he loved TN but since his wife and all his children still live in CA we were surprised to see him buried there, next to one of his dogs that had died a few years before him. (I walked past the cemetery a few hundred feet, on Jay's driveway, and took a photo of his place. Sadly it just sits empty. No one knows what his wife is going to do with it, as far as anyone knows she has not been back since Jay died.)

In the afternoon I did worked on the edges of our driveway, moving rock around to try and better define straight lines for the edges of the driveway. Kathy cooked for Mary Lou's birthday dinner yesterday evening.

We were in bed at a little after 9.

Formerly Junior Norris's place. Everything you see that is not cleared, for 4000' north, is ours.

Jay's place. The view from his porch is awesome.

Kathy on one of the "nice" rock outcroppings on the trail. Everything that is not vegetation is a solid chunk or rock.

I didn't expect to see a turtle while walking through the woods.

This tree a couple of hundred yards from our building (the only way I could find it again is using the GPS). There is no support at the right side, as you can see in the 2nd photo. These are decent size trees. The one on the left is over 15" in diameter and the one on the right is over 12" in diameter, and they are TALL. The big chunk of white is a T-rex skull, actually it is a rock.

Looking back up from the bottom of the first ravine. It is way steeper than it looks. This one was 50-75' deep. This one had a wide flat bottom with a small stream (avg 30" wide) running through it.

More Rain

More rain isn't a bad thing, because the area still needs more rain, but I admit I'm getting a little tired of it. Yesterday morning was OK, even though the humidity was over 90%. In the afternoon I was finishing the electrical work for the bathroom when the rains hit. It rained quite hard two different times. I'm guessing but bet the total we received was less than 0.5". It has drizzled all during the evening and morning.

I was supposed to go down to Tom's and help split the remainder of wood, the stuff that takes two guys to get on the splitter, this morning. Right now we are on hold.

I have maybe a half days work to finish the plumbing on the bathroom and then we wait for Art to come finish the drywall. He is starting Monday but I'm guessing he will have to come back on Tuesday to finish it.

We were going to move to Deer Run Camp in Tompson Station, TN (south of Nashville) next Wednesday but, because of waiting on the drywall finishing, we may delay that a day or so. We will have to put two coats of paint on the drywall and then set the toilet and lavatory after the drywall is ready.

My last Escapees newletters mentioned volunteering at Youth With a Mission sites. We have helped support a WYAM couple, who we used to attend church with, for over 10 years so we are familiar with the good work done by WYAM. I had never thought about volunteering at one of their facilities. I sent an email to the Tyler, TX facility and they seem very interested. We are in the process of filling out some forms and I am supposed to call their facilities guy to talk directly to him. I told them, in the email, that our "window of availability" was from Dec 1st through the end of March.

Time to go check to see about the wood splitting.

Hope you all have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Sunday, Sept18th

Nothing to exciting today. We went to church at Cumberland Fellowship again. If was a good service. The message was that a main goal of the church was to be a "family," especially for those who had no family to provide them with a support structure.

We came home and had tacos with sweet corn for dessert. The sweet corn was left from that we bought yesterday.

We put up the last two pieces of drywall for the bathroom this afternoon. Kathy also put a 2nd coat of paint on the front door.

This evening we went down to Tom & Mary Lou's for supper, and to celebrate Morissa's birthday.

Today's Chattanooga paper had an insert containing information on places to go in the area. Several places looked worth checking out.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Pioneer Days at the Fairgrounds

This morning we went to the Farmers Market first. We bought a dozen ears of sweet corn and had some for lunch, it was very good. Next stop was the Flea Market where we bought some tomatoes and peaches. Then we were off to Pioneer Days as the fairgrounds. All three of these places are on a two mile stretch of the same highway.

Pioneer Days was interesting. There were quite a few people in mid 1800's apparel. The facing us, is Matthew, our new, young, insurance man. He had a bunch of rubber band rifles and was letting kids shoot at the target against the tree.

Below are a couple of people in period dress.

There were at least five, maybe six, stages around the fairgrounds with pretty much constant activity while we were there. Lots of different styles of music (nothing close to hard rock, thankfully). We think we just missed the cloggers at one of the stages.

Of course no trip to town would be complete without a "parts trip" to the hardware store, for plumbing parts. While I was in getting stuff Kathy walked over to another part of the parking lot and bought some apples that were fresh off a local tree.

Then back home for sweet corn and hamburgers for lunch. I don't know how the video will work, let me know. This is on our way back out TN 101. It is the section that drops down, crosses Laurel Creek and then climbs back out. The grade down, and then back up. is much steeper than it appears in the video.

I managed to take a nap after lunch and then went to our building and did a little more plumbing. Tom & Mary Lou had a campfire and we roasted hot dogs for supper, and set by the campfire until after dark.

Tomorrow is church in the morning. Tom already unloaded the wood we split earlier this week but there is still a lot of wood on the trailer that we only split, by hand, to the point of getting the pieces small enough so that two of us could lift them to put them on the trailer. Perhaps tomorrow he and I can get those off the trailer and split, so that next week we can go get the rest of tree.

Goodnight to all and may God bless you and yours.

New Drivers License & Registered Voter

We went to town this morning got our drivers licenses and registered to vote. The only thing that remains is for me to take an 8 hour handgun safety course so that I can transfer my IN concealed carry permit to TN.

We picked up some more plumbing parts while in town but I didn't do anything this afternoon. Kathy went back to town with Wendy, Mary Lou and Donna (Wendy's friend). They shopped the thrift stores.

Everyone came to the RV for beef stew for supper.

Got my first Letter to the Editor printed in today's Crossville Chronicle. It was similar to my Sept 6th Political Commentary. I just can't understand why anyone thinks that we should give the government more of our money. One of the Indiana state representatives hit the nail on the head a few years ago, during a discussion about increasing the sales tax. He said, "If you send it we will spend it." That is exactly what will happen if we send more money to the Feds.

It was pretty warm here today but is supposed to cool off fast. We are supposed to get some rain tonight. Even after the 5 plus inches we had last week the area could still use a lot more.

High tomorrow may not reach 70. I won't have any excuse not to work all day on plumbing and hanging more drywall.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Fall Creek Falls

Today was another beautiful day. Highs were in the upper 70's and the lows last night were in the low 50's. There were a few clouds in the sky but it was mostly sunny.

We went to Falls Creek Falls state park. It is only 30 miles from us.( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_Creek_Falls_State_Park ) This weekend is the Mountaineer Folk Festival. We got there early, around 10 AM and that was good because the people were pouring in as we were leaving. There were a LOT of craft booths at the festival, some things interesting but most not so much. I did like the tee shirt on the Indian looking guy who was selling some type of woodwind instruments. Actually I didn't see it but Kathy told me it read something like, "Wonder if the government lies, ask an Indian."

Some things that caught my eye, and wallet, was the people deep frying pork rinds for cracklins. I can just feel the grease clogging my arteries from all that I eaten so far, and I still have a bag of each to go.  You had to stand in line to buy the cracklins, they couldn't make them fast enough, and there were several groups of guys making them.

We taste tested several different flavored cider drinks. Kathy bought a bottle, looks just like a wine bottle, of Rock Pile Farms Muscadine Cider, bottled in Tracy City, TN.

We didn't stay long enough for the ice cream to be ready, but we did watch them filling the freezers, and we saw the engine turning the freezers. There were two 5(?) gallon freezers. You can see one to the right in the photo below. The other was directly behind it. Both were run by the engine on the left.

This blacksmith brought his forge and was hammering away. There was another blacksmith working in a encampment where all the men were wearing kilts. In that encampment the ladies were cleaning carrots for lunch. There was also a guy in the encampment with a good sized (15#?) chunk of meat on a spit over an open fire. I didn't think about taking any photos of the the encampment.

Upon leaving the festival area we went over to the parks Inn/Restaurant/Conference Center and had lunch. We ate off the buffet and it was OK, nothing remarkable, but nothing bad. The bad part was the incredibly ugly concrete monstrosity that some lunatic architect came up with for the complex. How he sold the idea to anyone but a blind man is beyond me.

After lunch we went sight seeing in the park. We first went to Fall Creek Falls. It is the highest falls east of the Rockies, a 256' drop. There wasn't much water going over the falls today. I got the photo below from the Internet. There were fences/railing to keep people from falling into the gorge

.

We continued our drive around the park and stopped along one of the park roads and walked down to a scenic overlook. No fences, no gates, nothing. It was great, a place! A place virtually untouched by the hand of nanny state government. People were actually expected to be responsible for themselves and their safety. What an incredibly novel idea. And yes you could walk right up to the edge, and over the edge, if you so desired.

Next we went to Piney Falls. The water drop is only 95' but there was more water. The interesting thing at Piney Falls is the suspension bridge, and getting to the bridge. Look at who walked across the suspension bridge!

Lest you think the bridge wasn't high, below is a photo taken over the side of it. The photo really doesn't show how far down it was to the water, maybe 70'.

And lest you think it was a short bridge see below.

The horizontal distance between the parking lot and the bridge wasn't all that far but the vertical distance allowed us to get in our cardio exercise for the day. Below Kathy starting the climb back up to the parking lot.

And up she went. 5-10' feet off the sides of the path were sheer drops down to the bottom of the gorge.



Kathy named this rock outcrop the Trolls Toes. You can see part of the path going down if you look over the top of the Trolls Toes.

And up some more. 

Kathy built a fire and Tom, Mary Lou & Wendy came down to roast hot dogs. It was the first time we have been able to have a campfire since we have been down here.

We have had a very good day.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

What a great day today. We had sun. Temps were wonderful, high 72 and low this morning of 57. We just walked back up the hill from Tom's, to our RV, in the moonlight.

Les and Tom helped me put up the big sheet of drywall on our bathroom ceiling this morning. I then did plumbing the remainder of the morning. I am REALLY slow at this. I so seldom do this that I have to think, and think, and think, about everything; hoping not to screw something up.

After lunch I helped Tom & Les unload the wood from Tom's trailer and split it. We also dug a few potatoes for supper.

There were 15-20 people at Tom & Mary Lou's for supper. Leanne, Wendy's daughter, was able to come over from Cookeville, where she is attending college, and that was great because I got to see her.

Tomorrow we plan on going to the Mountaineer Folk Festival at Fall Creek Falls state park in Pikeville. We have never been to the park so it will give us a chance to look it over and check out the festival.

I think the move is official

Although we still have to get our drivers licenses changed. We still don't have mail, to prove TN residency, that we think will satisfy the BMV.

Getting close to time to hit the hay. Goodnight to all and may God bless you and yours.

Still Raining

Actually it is only drizzling on and off today. According to Tom's rain gauge we have received over 5" and according to Marvin's, about a mile away, we have received over 6".

This morning I was sitting at the table after breakfast and looked out the window. There were two turkeys walking down the driveway. I told Kathy to look and when we both walked to the front of the RV they must have heard or seen us. There were two more in front of the motorhome. By the time I got my camera out all but one of them had walked into the woods.

Marvin helped finish framing the bathroom this morning. Now I have to get the gypsum board put up and the plumbing done.



Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Still Raining

We just walked back to the RV from Tom & Mary Lou's, it is still raining. Not hard, more like a drizzle. We now have had over 5", here at Tom's, in the past 36 hours. Some places within 30 miles have had around 8". Just to give you an idea of how dry it has been his lake is still not up high enough to flow over the top of the spillway. Also, by now I though Laurel Creek (you cross it going back and forth to Crossville) would be a raging torrent. On here way back from Crossville around noon Kathy said there was no water even flowing in the creek.

We did lose power during the middle of the night. It did not come back on until around 5 this afternoon. (Not a big deal since I needed to run the generator anyway, to "exercise" it.). The ground around here is actually soaking up most of this rain and turning mushy. I've been told there were some decent winds last night but I slept through them. I didn't even know the power was off until I got up and Kathy told me. According to the power company the combination of the saturated soil and the winds caused some trees to fall on power lines and I think some poles may have also just tipped out of the ground.

We had supper with Tom and Mary Lou, Dean and Wendy (nephew & neice) and Morissa (Wendy's daughter) and then watched digital photos, on their TV, that they took during their recent river cruise through Europe. It was an enjoyable evening.

Since there was no power, and no lights, I didn't even go to our building today. Tomorrow is another day, I'm retired and not under a deadline.

Current temp is 57 it is supposed to get down to 54 tonight. I think todays high was in the mid 60's.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Rain Rain Go Away

In the month of August the area rec'd only 0.1" of rain. In the last 12 hours Chattanooga had received 5.5" and they have received over 8" in the past 24 hours. The rain is easing but if not forecast to stop until tomorrow afternoon. We haven't had that much at our place but we have probably had over 4-5" in the past 24 hours. Tom said we had received over 3" early this morning and it has rained all day. We haven't gone anywhere so we don't know what local creeks look like.

We got all our "stuff" covered in plastic today. Marvin and I started work on the bathroom around noon. We quit around 4 PM.

Below is a photo looking north, toward the road, it is the future kitchen area. On the left side of the photo is the bathroom.

This photo is also taken looking north. The area on the left could be a future bedroom. We had thought that we would put in a 30x60 shower pan and put ceramic tiles on the walls, for a BIG shower stall. The one piece tub/shower enclosure was a slightly more expensive option but it will be a LOT less labor.

 The photo below is taken looking southeast. It could also be a future bedroom.

 This photo is taken looking southwest. It is the future living room.

This is a photo of our building from the road, looking south. The entrance door is midway along the wall on the left side of the photo. Some day we will put windows in all sides. The dark spot you see on the wall is the electrical plug for our RV. There is also a frost proof hose bib and a connection to the septic in the same area. I took this photo when I left there this evening.

Tomorrow Marvin is going to help someone replace part of a floor in a trailer. Since we have the "wet wall" studs in place I am going to start on the plumbing.

Good night and may God bless you and yours.

ITS RAINING!

It has been raining fairly steadily for nearly 7 hours. Not hard, just a nice gentle rain. We just watched the weather report on a Chattanooga. By Tuesday evening Pikeville, about 20 miles from us, is forecast to get 8" of rain. There are flash flood warnings out for the area. Since we are up at around elevation 2,000', and there are really no valley that would be prone to flooding near us, we don't have anything to worry about from the rain. We do have to cross Laurel Creek if we want to go to Crossville. It is dry now and normally is just a relatively small creek. The water would have to be over 20' deep to even get up to the road surface, probably possible, but not likely. We don't need to go to town anyway.

We went to church at Lantana Grace Church this morning. It is less than 10 miles from us. There were about 50 in attendance. People were very friendly but we will try some place else next Sunday. One other time we attended a service at a church in Crossville and think we will try that church again next Sunday.

Hopefully I will get started on the bathroom tomorrow. Marvin, our carpenter neighbor, said he would be available to help and I'd like some help getting things started.

Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Political Commentary - Illegal Immigrants

How much have we heard about closing tax “loopholes”? It seems that the Obama stimulus package had a doozey in it. Illegal aliens are now collecting billions from his “Additional Child Tax Credit.” According to government sources this “tax credit” provides illegals with an additional incentive to invade the US. The government says that 2.3 million illegals claimed the credit in 2010, adding up to $4.3 BILLION in tax refunds. By the way, illegals supposedly can’t get Social Security numbers so the IRS gives illegals “Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers” so that they can file tax returns to take advantage of such programs.

Government puts the number of illegal aliens in our country to be 11 million while most sources on both sides of the issue peg the number at closer to 20 million. Catholic Online did some work on the demographics of illegals and claim that 37% of them are children, which means there are around 13 million adults. (If half of the 7 million kids are in school it is costing American taxpayers $2 BILLION a year to educate them.) Assuming most of the illegals are employed one can only wonder why, especially after an August jobs report showing NO new jobs, that the Feds refuse to send some of them back to their home countries and open up jobs for citizens.  There were 14 million unemployed US citizens in August. If the Feds would do their job and enforce current Federal law we could have full employment. I don’t want to hear that Americans won’t do these jobs. If that is so, then welfare benefits are far to high, the illegals are supposedly supporting themselves with these jobs.