Aug 31st - RAIN!!!!

We are finally getting some rain. It started a little before 8AM. So far it has been a nice gentle rain. After a little over two hours of it I am just starting to notice a trickle running down our sloping, hard packed, gravel driveway. It is pretty amazing that it was so dry that two hours worth of rain soaked into the hard packed gravel.

The rain is supposed to let up, maybe stop, this afternoon and then really come down tonight. Forecasts are that we might get as much as 2-3 inches. Most of it will come down slow enough so that a lot of it will soak in. I bet the fish in our small pond are loving some fresh oxygenated water.

Yesterday I started digging through one of several "board piles". At one time it contained 20-30 rough sawn 2x6's that were 12-13' long. A few of them still appear to be OK but most now have bad spots somewhere along their length, or they are so bowed that they are only good for firewood. I moved the good ones inside. I have a few more to sort through in this pile and another couple of piles of boards that don't appear to be good for anything but firewood. At least they will make some easy to stack firewood, but I doubt that they will have a lot of heat value.

Yesterday, after the board pile work, Kathy and I went into town and, after a nice lunch at one of the local Mexican restaurants, we went to an "antique/junk/second hand" store to pick up a bedframe (head board, foot board, bed rails) and a couple of night stands, for the downstairs bedroom. She still hasn't found anything, at least anything worth the money, for our bedroom. We just have the boxsprings and mattress we bought sitting on the floor, plus a couple of misc tables for night stands. We don't have box spring nor mattress for the bedframe she just bought. I think the plan is to move the one we just bought down there and get another new set for our bedroom. The set we bought does not agree with her back.

Kathy is on her way to Indy to dog sit, and chicken sit, for Doug and Anthony. They are heading out this afternoon, pulling the travel trailer, for a weekend vacation. Kathy left at 5 AM. She called a few minutes ago and was between Decatur and Champaign. She had stopped at Eleanor Walkers, a friend from our time in Niantic, and had a good visit with her. She took the route north through Mexico, MO and Springfield, IL, rather than through St. Louis. She missed driving in all the rain that she would have hit had she gone through St. Louis.

I will probably just "veg" today. I can handle that without much problem <GRIN>.

Have a great day. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 30th - More "Wood" Work

I went to bed at 8 last night. I had stayed up late then night before, watching stupid movies, on Netflix. I find it amazing that now that we supposedly have 200 channels available (first time we have had pay TV in many years) AND a subscription to Netflix, yet there still is virtually nothing worth watching. Got up around 3 this morning and figured I would add a blog post. I will probably go back for a "nap" before "officially" getting up.

Yesterday I fired up the splitter and did a little more clean up work. Temps were only in low to mid 90's. Thought I might need to find a jacket <grin>. High is forecast to be 99 today, but drop clear down to 85 tomorrow as weather from Isaac moves into the area.

I finished cleaning up an area next to the barn, actually I didn't really finish cleaning it up I just finished getting rid of the big pieces that were still in good enough condition to use for firewood. I had enough to make two rows across the back of my truck, maybe half a cord. Most of the wood is pretty junky, but it should burn in the wood furnace. When I split one of Carl's "bowl leftovers" I realized it was walnut. The piece was large enough to have made a nice size bowl from it. As I think about it I wonder if all these "bowl leftover" pieces lying around are actually rejects. I bet they are pieces that he trimmed on the band saw, to reduce the amount of work on the lathe, and after trimming he noticed a defect that made them unsuitable for further work. Carl had used a chainsaw to "quarter" a some of pieces that I split today. I almost wasn't man enough to get two of them on the splitter. I figured that I would be pretty sore today because I felt some chest muscles protest when I put the heaviest piece up onto the splitter. So far I'm not sore at all. PTL.

These are some photos of other areas that still need to be cleaned up. They are by no means all of the areas. These are just the ones that are just off the circle drive on the front side of the outbuildings.

 A couple of pallets that I need to move to the outbuilding where I plan on storing the majority of firewood. I've already moved several pallets to that building as well as moving four to the furnace enclosure.

 Rough cut boards. There are a couple of larger piles out back. Not enough to build anything but enough to be handy for something. A few of the ones lying around area rough cut 2x8'sx14'. None in this pile are that big.

 A pile waiting to be split.

 Carl started cutting the log in front into sections and got it to the point where it needs to be rolled to finish the cuts. Most of the sections are 16-18" long. The wood furnace can take a piece about 14x14x28. A piece of good wood that size would be heavy enough that it would be hard to get into the furnace.

 I might be able to cut up the log in the foreground with my chainsaw, but it will take cutting from both sides.

 Same with this one. Note the piece lying flat, on the left side of the photo. It will show in a later photo.

 I don't know what kind of trees these logs were from. They are all 15-18" in diameter, some of the smaller stuff lying around.

 These is a photo of the piece noted above. I started splitting it in the afternoon and ran out of steam. It is old enough that the center isn't even worth burning, but the outside 6-8" is still decent. The center will just go into one of the burn piles.

After tiring of wood splitting I did some tree trimming with my pole saw. There were a couple of places behind the outbuildings where limbs hung down low enough to brush the top of my truck. I removed them and added them to a burn pile. Hopefully we will get enough rain from Isaac, supposed to hit here Friday and Saturday, so that I can burn the two piles that I now have. (There will be much more to be burned, as clean-up progresses.)

Kathy bought a used headboard and bed frame while she was in town yesterday. We need to go pick it up today. I think we will have lunch in town. If I can motivate myself I should get out a little earlier than normal and move some of the boards that are lying outside under cover before the rains hit tomorrow.

PS. Mom, I'm not working that hard, I'm quite certain that the exercise I'm getting is good for me. I usually don't get started until 10 and I take breaks when I need one. Not to worry.

Aug 28th - Mom Called

My Mom called me last night to find out what was wrong with me. She was worried because I not quite posting. Told her all was fine, just didn't have anything worthy of posting.

Our return trip to Missouri went fine. Our patch job to hold the motor home awning in place held up and we had no problems with it. (See earlier post about ponding on awning causing it to collapse). I called our insurance to see about having repairs made and when they called me back they told me that our policy had been cancelled last November because we had not paid our premium. We knew that there had been an issue with them not getting the payment on time but thought that we had resolved. The fault was ours, somehow we managed to let sending them a check fall through the cracks. We found no record that we actually did pay the premium. We have travelled from southeast Missouri to central Missouri, then on to Texas, from there to southern California, up through California into Oregon and Washington and back to central Missouri with no insurance. The recent trip to Tennessee and Michigan was also made without insurance coverage. We consider ourselves blessed that we did not have an accident during those travels. Our policy, which costs about the same as coverage on my pickup, was a $1,000 deductible. As it turns out we will end up ahead from a money perspective. The repairs will not cost more than 10 months premiums plus the deductible.

During the past week we continued working around the property. We received a quarter inch of rain on Sunday so yesterday we burned one of the piles of brush. I started the fire around 10:30 AM and finally put it out (didn't actually put it out but damped it down) at 5:30 PM.

This was the fire about noon yesterday. The shed in the background houses our wood furnace. Several of the pieces were so large that I could only roll them up next to the fire. There are lots of pieces of wood around the property that are to big to lift and also to gnarled to split. The other pieces were to far away to roll to the fire. After the next rain I will set fire to one of the piles back behind the outbuildings. I should use the skid steer to move some of them to that brush pile prior to lighting it.

 This was the pile left over when I hosed it down.

 As we were cleaning up the areas behind the shed, never went further than 100' from the house, we also cut up some of the wood and put it in the woodshed. Later in the afternoon I cleaned out he woodshed up by the furnace and took the old ashes out of the furnace. Even if we decide not to burn it this year I need to get someone to come out here and make sure everything operates property (before our homeowner's warranty expires), that I know how to run it and that I know how to switch back and forth between the wood furnace and the propane furnace in the house.

This building will hold over two cords of wood. We have several other much larger building where we can store more, if  get around to splitting more of the stuff laying around.

I just did some research on the climate in central Missouri. In terms of heating we have about 10% more heating degree days than Crossville, TN while Coldwater, MI has 30% more than us. In terms of cooling Crossville had only 62% of the cooling degree days that we have while Coldwater has only 40% of our cooling degree days.

The guy who built my log splitter for Carl, the previous homeowner, called and wanted to work out some type of deal so that he could use it. Carl said he is an OK guy, April (Carl's wife) isn't so sure. He has access to some "hedge"(?) trees and offered to let me have as much of the non-merchantable wood as I want to cut, in trade for letting him use the splitter. He plans on selling the logs and making fence posts out of the straight stuff. The site is about 15 miles from here. Probably a good deal if I needed the wood but since there is already more wood here, already cut and waiting to be split, than we could use in one winter I'm not to excited about cutting more when I don't even know if we are going to use the furnace this winter. Of course there is nothing wrong with storing the wood since I have buildings available. The guy also has a dump truck and has hauled gravel here, for the driveway, in the past. He might be someone good to know.

Time to get out and do something. I need to take advantage of the cool weather. High temps have dropped down to the low 90's.

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

Aug 19th - On the Road Again

This morning we head back to Missouri. I think everyone had had a reasonably good time but we (at least me) is getting tired, even after two naps yesterday <grin>.

Last night we had supper at Maggiani's, an Italian restaurant up on the northeast side of Indy. The food was excellent, although pretty expensive for a cheapskate like me, over $300 for 7 of us. It was a feast. We ordered family style and they brought us far more good than we could eat. We carried home two sacks full of left overs.

400 miles and we will be home. A girl Kathy knows from when she was working at Teen Challenge will be riding with us. Kathy is taking her on to Kansas City so she will have a 700 mile day before she gets home.

Have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

Aug 18th - Indianapolis

We arrived at a campround on the southwest side of Indy around 2 PM yesterday. It isn't much of a "campground" but it does have full hook-ups, and it was the only thing we could find within an hours drive of Doug & Anthony's place.

Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia and Doug went up to Lebanon to visit Phyllis this morning and they, as well as Andy and Melissa, are now all at Anthony's salon.

I'm going to take a nap and enjoy the peace and quite.

Weather is not to hot, but it is warm.

Tomorrow we head back to Missouri.

Good day to all. May God bless you and yours.

Aug 15th - Arrived in Michigan

We had a good time in Tennessee. It did rain on us, of course it almost always rains some while we are there. Tuesday night we got a real gully washer. It rained so hard that water ponded on our big awning and it wouldn't drain properly, at least that is what we think happened. Around 2 AM one end of the awning collapsed because of the weight of the water. We had planned on leaving for Michigan early Tuesday morning but the awning repairs slowed us down considerably.
Finally with the help of my very handy brother-in-law (actually it was more like I helped him), and Andy, we got the awning rolled back up and stabilized against the motor home. Substantial repairs will be needed once we get back to Missouri.

We arrived at my Mom's, at Coldwater Lake, about 1 AM. The trip was about 590 miles. We did stop at Demo's, in Lebanon, TN, for a late lunch. Kathy and I both really like that place.

Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia, Melissa & Andy went to Angola for lunch at Auntie V's, Kathy's niece's place. They are also going to get some groceries. I stayed at Mom's with her and Pressley, my brothers granddaughter.

Last nights low was 58 and the high today is supposed to be a sunny, breezy 81.

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

PS. I will take a couple of photos and post them tomorrow for those who haven't seen my Mom's place.

Aug 12 - Morning In Tennessee

Here we are in God's country, God just practiced on the rest of the Earth before he made Tennessee. We left our house at 4:30 PM Friday.

In the motor home ready to leave. Kelsey is pretty good at snapping photos while holding her phone at arms length.

We stopped at a rest area, about 25 miles into Illinois, and had a picnic supper. We also stopped for fuel, and to stretch our legs, about 30 miles west of Crossville. We arrived at Tom & Mary Lou's campground, we decided to park there rather than at our place, at 4 AM Saturday. I think Doug & Anthony arrived about an hour after us, I was sound asleep by then.
Parked at the campground.

 We had a nice campfire last night. I took these pitiful photos.

 We didn't stay at the campfire all night. We were back out there eating biscuits and gravy and hash browns this morning. Kathy's Dad came for breakfast, he is on the far right. I missed getting Anthony, he was in getting his breakfast, and Melissa, she wasn't up yet, in the photo.

The "official" low temperature last night was 52 degrees. It is supposed to warm up into the mid 80's today.

Yesterday evening we were sitting around under a canopy that Tom leaves set up at the campground. We heard a couple of shotgun blasts and didn't think much about it. Gunfire in rural TN is not an unusual event. Than after one shot something rained down on us. We joked that it was shotgun pellets. The shotgun went off a couple of more times with nothing odd occurring. Then after shot, stuff rained down on us again. By then we were pretty certain that it really was shotgun pellets. Doug and I went looking to see who was shooting. It turned out that it was one of the neighbors, Aster Burgess. He and sometimes one of his brothers, occasionally go down the road/lane to a place where starlings fly across the road just before dusk. They use them for target practice. Since they shoot almost straight up there isn't much danger even if there are people around. We weren't in any danger, but it was an interesting experience. He didn't know there were campers at Tom & Mary Lou's and also didn't think the pellets would have reached the campground even if he had known. He was very apologetic.

We are going for a hike. Have to get gone.

Good day and may God bless.

Aug 10th - Packing

Yesterday we split some more wood and cut up some small trees and branches that were already down and laying in one of the many trash piles around the place. Just more clean up work. For someone who has not been here, you could not tell what we did yesterday. We did cut/split enough wood to fill the bucket on the skid steer twice. I need to learn how to adjust the carb on the splitter, and do a better job with my Rube Goldberg choke linkage.

Today is the nicest day we have had while in Missouri. Last night the weather reporter noted that we had a string of 27 days with highs 90 or above, then we missed one day when the high was in the high 80's, and then 20 more days with highs 90 or above. The high many of those days was over 100. Last night's low was 64 and now, at 1 PM, it is only 75. Also, there is a nice breeze.

This morning we loaded stuff back into the motor home in preparation for heading out tonight. The plan is to leave here for Tennessee no later than 5 PM, after Andy gets home from work. We think we have everything we need loaded, except for our prescription meds and my laptop. It will be our first "family trip" in the motor home. It will be interesting to see how Lydia, our 2 month old great-granddaughter handles vacationing, along with Kelsey and Andy, her Mom & Dad.

 Our trip to Tennessee will be almost 600 miles. If we only stop once for fuel ,and maybe once or twice more just to stretch our legs, we should arrive around 5 tomorrow morning. Doug and Anthony are leaving Indianapolis around 10 or 11 tonight. They are taking their 30' travel trailer with them. They will probably have around a 7 hour drive.

Les and Connie Rocke are arriving at Tom & Mary Lou's this evening, from the Tampa, Florida area. It has been a couple of years since we have seen them and it will be great to get to spend a little time with them.

In the continuing saga of refrigerator repairs - Our new Whirlpool refrigerator, which we purchased from Sears back in late June, still won't make ice. The repair man came out once, diagnosed the problem, came back a week later with parts and installed the parts. The ice maker still doesn't work. Sears is supposed to replace this one with another new one after we get back from our trip.

Time to get off here, finish packing, grab a shower and maybe a short nap.

Have a GREAT day and may God bless you and yours.

Aug 8th - Log Spitter Runing, but not well

Yesterday I went into Jefferson City and got a haircut at Larry's. This was the 2nd time I've been there and it is an experience. Larry has been cutting hair for 58 years. Says he would die if he just stayed home. His shop is right downtown amongst all the state politicians and he knows many of them of the politicians and bureacrats. I sure enjoy listening to what he has to say. He is quite the fiscal conservative.

After the haircut I went to Tractor Supply to get hydraulic oil and a filter for the log splitter, plus some other odds and ends. They didn't have the filter. The old filter was a FRAM. I found out that it was used on several pieces of Case equipment. There is a Case dealership across the highway from Tractor Supply. I went over there and bought a filter, Case REALLY likes their filters. While there I talked to one of the sales guys about a small tractor with a loader. No luck. They don't have anything like I want at any of there three Missouri stores. He took my name and said he would call me if someone traded in something that he thought I might want.

On the way home I stopped at the gas station and filled up some cans with diesel fuel, for the skid steer, and bought a couple of gallons of non-ethanol gasoline to use in our small engines.

Below are two photos of the two steps, the bottom two, that I added Monday. I should add one more but.....

I'm going to buy a builder's level when we get back from our trip next week. Then I won't have any excuse not to get serious about finishing the motor home parking area. Well, I can always claim that I'm out of rocks, temporarily. Some guy about 50 miles north of here had 6 - 2,000# pallets of them for sale on Craigslist, $150/pallet. I think that is a decent price, but I'm not driving 100 miles to get a single pallet.

This is our log splitter, after getting it out of the weeds and up by the barn.

 When I removed the old hydraulic filter I found a complete plastic bag wedged in the filter housing. The reason the splitter wouldn't work is because the pump could not get hydraulic fluid.

I removed all of the bag that I could see and installed the new filter. I removed the gas tank, drained it, reinstalled it and put in some fresh fuel. I then started playing with wires trying to find out which of the loose end wires were used to run the electric start on the G400 10 hp Honda engine. The float must have been sticking initially because I had a gas leak. It appears that it has stopped. The engine started with surprising ease, considering that it has been setting for some time, not sure how long. It ran for a short while and then died. It appears that some of the linkage on the choke is missing, and maybe more carb linkage might be missing. I restarted it and as long as I held the choke open it ran, maybe not great, but it ran. I was able to cycle the splitter ram back and forth a couple of times so at least I know that it works okay.

Hopefully I can cob up some type of choke linkage out of a piece of wire and get it to run long enough to try splitting a piece of wood. I downloaded some information on the engine and am now going out to see if I can get a better handle on how the throttle/choke/governor is supposed to work.  I would like to run it a little and then change the oil in the engine.

UPDATE:
I cobbed a piece of wire on the choke and have it so that it will hold open after starting the splitter. After I "adjusted the "piping" for the exhaust it is loose enough so that the engine vibration causes it to roll over and push the choke closed. Hopefully it will rust fast, in the position I want it, again; if not I will need to cob something together to hold the muffler upright so that it stays away from the choke and the hydraulic hoses.

This is the first piece of wood I split. I rolled it over near the splitter and then split it in half with a splitting axe and wedge. I couldn't lift the entire piece up onto the splitter.

 Splitter in action.

 I split enough to feel comfortable that the splitter will continue running. I'm not sure that the carb/valves/etc are all correctly adjusted, but it runs.

 Now I will have to get some oil and change the oil.

Time for a shower and supper. Good night to all and may God bless you and yours.

Aug 6th - More Playing With Rocks

Yesterday and today I played with my rocks again. I'm sure not making much progress, but I guess I'm not working all that hard. The top of the rock at the corner is pretty close to the same elevation as the top of the ground at the bottom of the wall up by the barn.

 As you can see, I have a lot of wall yet to go. Finding the correct size/shape rocks is getting more of a challenge. I'm to the point now where I need to walk around looking for rocks for the wall. I not going to have enough to do all that I want to do. Carl left me a dozen or so old railroad ties that might be acceptable for use near the back of the wall section I need to build up next to the barn.

All I accomplished today was adding two additional steps at the door you see in the above photo. I really need to add one more. I need to borrow, rent or buy a builder's level so that I can "shoot" some elevations to make sure that I end up with a near level pad for parking the motor home. I plan on getting a load, or maybe two loads, of 3/4" rock to "dress" the top of the area once I have it level.

Today I also got the log splitter out of the weeds and backed up in front of the barn. I put the battery charger on it. Next step is to see if the battery takes a charge and then see if I can get the engine started. Once the engine is running then I can see if I can figure out why the hydraulics don't work right after the new seals were installed in the hydraulic cylinder.

Last night it dropped clear down into the 60's, the coldest it has been while we have been here. Yesterday's high was 91 and today it looks like the temp will top out at 94. It doesn't feel all that bad out today. The humidity is only 21% and there is a nice breeze. I was out for at least 5 hours today, the most time I've spent outside. Tomorrow's high is supposed to be 98 so I doubt I will be out more than a couple of hours. I am such a wuss <grin>.

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

Aug 2nd - Tomatoes

Today was a tomato day. Kathy, Kelsey, Melissa (Kelsey's sister) and Lydia were here to can Hootch and tomato juice. Hootch is similar to V8 juice, but far superior. Kathy's Grandpa Melvin Towers got family members started making it.

The batch of hootch, can lids in another pan and macaroni soup (homemade tomato soup with macaroni) for lunch. For those unfamiliar with macaroni soup it is mandatory that grilled cheese sandwiches accompany the macaroni soup.

The pot of plain tomato juice.

The littlest helper.

It sprinkled a little this morning, just enough to make the dirt I've been moving around for the motor home pad stick to your feet, so I just laid around all day. Actually I shopped for tractors online. Probably a mistake not getting out after it dried off since the high today was only 92, almost cold for here.

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



August 1st - Cooled Off

So far today (4:30 PM) the high has only reached 99, with a heat index of 101. Yesterday we were over 100 degrees. It was supposed to get to 104 today.

I have to start getting up earlier and getting out to get some work done. Monday is to far back for me to remember. Yesterday I worked outside several hours. I came in around 2 PM, by then the temp was 90 degrees. Kathy said it was more like mid 90's by the time I came in.

Today I don't think I was even out for 2 hours before coming in around 1:30. It was 91, with a heat index of 95, when I came in.

I've been working on an area where I can park our motor home. Since we have been here we have it parked on the "inner" circle drive. We can drive around the "outer" circle drive but it is easier to back up and turn around to get out of the driveway.

The plan is to make a 16-18' wide level area out from the bottom of the rock retaining wall for the barn. The rock retaining wall was continuous along the side of the barn and then turned out to encircle the cedar tree.

 In the photo below I've already removed part of the wall.

 This is looking at the area from the rear. There is a large enough area behind the barn so that we can turn the motor home around and drive it up between the barn and the cedar tree. I've already done some serious pruning on the cedar and will have to do more before I can drive the motor home through the gap. The limb I still have to cut off is 14-16" in diameter, at the main trunk. It sticks out towards the barn and will fall on the barn unless I force it to fall some other way. I currently don't have enough chain or good rope to tie to the limb, and to something for an anchor (my pickup?), that will allow me to park the anchor far enough away so that the limb won't fall on the anchor.

 This is where I stopped this morning. Monday and yesterday I used Carl's skid steer to move the rocks that I couldn't lift and dug through the area between the cedar tree and the barn. I have a lot of leveling yet to do (I am definitely not a skid steer operator) but I'm headed in the right direction.

 I've also have a lot of retaining wall to build. I think the wall corner, by the post in the photo below, is about the right elevation now. I have to build a section to go back up to the barn and another section to go to the cedar tree. Those are the short sections. I also have to build a taller section along the barn where I dug out between the cedar and the barn, as well as a section that is now missing around the tree.

I hoping that I don't kill the tree. I think I helped offset the damage to the roots when I cut off a 14-16" branch right after we first got here. I read that deciduous trees drop their leaves during droughts because that helps them conserve water. I don't know about cedars but hope that by removing two large limbs I am helping it do the same thing. I let the hose run on the "island" around the tree for over an hour yesterday. No water came close to running over the edge of the "island".

When I look at his area it looks huge. The motor home is 41' long and the barn is 54' long. If I park the motor home so that the front of it is flush with the front of the barn, the back of the motor home will be in the middle of the window you see at the extreme right edge of the above photo.

There isn't close to room enough to drive forward off this area. We will need to back up into the area behind the barn and then drive out past the other side of the cedar tree.

Highs are forecast to be 99, 98 & 99 for Thursday thru Saturday, with a 30% chance of some thunderstorms. We sure could use about 72 hours of nice steady rain. I think it is to late to help the crops, but the rain might save some trees from dying.

This morning the appliance repair man came out to work on our new Whirlpool refrigerator. In June we paid Sears over $3,400 for a new refrigerator and range. Our check cleared our bank on July 2nd. They were unable to deliver the appliances until June 20th. The ice maker never worked and today was the earliest they could get a repair man out to look at it. Surprise, surprise - he didn't have the right part, the water control valve for the ice maker, and has to order it. Currently he is scheduled to come back next Wednesday to install the part.

Between TV's, ranges (I had to do the propane coversion on the range that we purchased) and refrigerators it is easy to understand why our nation is in such a mess. It appears to be impossible to buy anything good today.
Good afternoon to all and may God bless you and yours.