Dec 26th - Post Christmas

I am pretty bah, humbug during Christmas time. I enjoy family getting together, and of course the eating <GRIN>, but the commercialization of Christmas has gotten totally out of hand. I am grateful that Lydia was able to receive all the gifts, and more importantly the love, but I feel sad for all the children who received neither. There has to be a better way for us to do more "sharing the wealth" than government forced income redistribution. (There is a lot more to "sharing the wealth" than just handing over money or presents. Teaching the parents the value of work and to be self-supporting would go a long way to solving our nations problems.) Okay, now I'm off my soapbox.

Doug and Anthony came Tuesday afternoon and left this morning. It was good to be able to spend some time with them. They stayed in our motor home. Doug called it the "chateau on the hill". The first night they didn't have any water because I had "winterized" it and didn't want to put water back in it since the low Tuesday night was supposed to be zero, or below. I added water Wednesday so that they had all the conveniences of home. Doug said it was warm enough Tuesday night even though it did get down to at least 2 degrees. Only one bedroom slide was out and I've posted previous photos of the straw bale skirting.

We had ice on the trees until this morning. Doug and I were out back around 9 AM. The the dripping from the melting ice sounded like it was raining. The photo below doesn't even come close to showing how beautiful it has been when the sun was shining with all the ice on the trees.

This was Christmas evening after Lydia was in bed and after Santa had arrived.

Christmas morning.

Lydia is "sweeping" with her new vacuum.

Today after a hearty lunch of vegetable soup Lydia was enjoying a piece of candy that Aunt Cindy & Uncle Ed sent.

I am so blessed to be able to enjoy my family. Drew wasn't here but we did email back and forth to update one another. He recently hosted an open house for his 2nd anniversary in his home. 80-90 people attended, about a fourth of whom lived within a few blocks of him. He has spent some money on his home, and put a LOT of sweat equity into improvements, and it appears that it has paid off handsomely. Last December the house on south side of him sold for $450,000. It was remodeled and had an addition put on after we were out there. The house on the north side of him, which is in terrible condition, is now on the market for $290,000. Both houses are larger than his but the improvements in the neighborhood bode well for the value of his property. While I don't put a lot of stock in their estimates it is comforting to see that the Zillow real estate web site values his home at over twice what he paid for it.

Nothing much planned for the next couple of days. We are tentatively planning on spending 2-4 weeks somewhere along the Texas Gulf coast, maybe near Corpus Christi, starting in late January. We will see how things work out.

I hope you had an enjoyable holiday. May God bless you and yours.

Dec 22nd - Sunday & Icy

We have had some much needed rain over the past couple of days, not nearly as much as we need. It has been cold enough so that the rain caused ice to form on everything above ground. We didn't get much ice on roadways, in fact, this morning there was no evidence of any ice on the roads nor on the church parking lot & sidewalks. There was evidence of it on the trees.

Saturday the ladies baked cookies and painted them.

Kathy is still fighting being sick. The past week she had the flu and a cold. The flu lasted several days and she is still fighting the cold.

The daytime temperatures have hovered around freezing the past several days. It is 29 now and isn't supposed to get back above freezing until midday Wednesday. Monday nights low is forecast to be 4, some forecasts are for as low as minus 3. If it really gets that low it will be our coldest night of the year. Average temps for this time of year are highs of 40 and lows of 22. Where the heck is that global warming?

I hope you have a Merry Christmas, make sure to take some time to remember the Reason for the Season. May God bless you and yours.

Dec 17th - Interesting Day

It was beautiful here today. Sunny with a high in the mid 40's. It is even supposed to be nicer the next two days.

Yesterday and today I cut some wood and moved it near the splitter. I already had enough wood for this winter so this if for next winter.

 The wood in the above photos came from one dead tree that I cut down and from other stuff that was lying around the property.

This afternoon we went to St. Mary's and visited Kelsey. The photos below show why you don't let kids, or careless old farts, handle chain saws.

The leg of my bibs.

The top of my boot.

My ankle after some stitches.

The interesting thing is that it hardly bled at all and it has not been the least painful. (I'm sure the cleaning and stitches would have been painful without the local.)

I was cutting off a 27" diameter stump flush with the ground, with my 20" bar. It kicked back and whacked me in the ankle. One of the nurses said that I should tell people that my "cat like" reflexes <grin> saved me from further injury. If anything I will give thanks to angels protecting fools.

After I did it I finished cutting off the stump. Loaded up a bucketful of wood in the bucket on the tractor, hauled it up to the house, went back and loaded up the stump and hauled it to the splitter. My sock was hardly bloody. It really isn't that bad a cut but it did need a good cleaning.

Hopefully it was a good learning experience.

May God bless you and yours.

Dec 16th - Nice Day in Central Missouri

We are supposed to get a couple of nice days here. Sunday Kelsey couldn't get up the driveway in her front wheel drive car, because of the ice/snow on the asphalt section. Andy had went to church early and seemed to make it out OK in their 4WD truck. Kelsey & Lydia ended up going to church with us. We got out fine in our AWD CRV.

Nothing exciting going on here. Kelsey and Lydia painted Christmas decorations one night last week.

 OOPS! Bending over the table to reach for more paint has some drawbacks.

 

Kelsey made the ornaments earlier. She mixed up something that looked like cookie dough and baked it. Lydia was sitting on the counter "helping" her. Several times Kelsey told her that it was not cookie dough and that it tasted bad. The temptation was to great, Lydia finally slipped a finger into the dough and stuck it in her mouth. I would give a lot for a picture of her face. The only thing that comes to mind is when Tom Hanks, in the movie Big, tasted caviar. He spit it out and then took a napkin and used it to wipe off his tongue. Her antics were similar.

She had a routine checkup last week. Everything was fine. The Doctor thinks that she is going to be very "petite", since she is so small for her age.

Up until the last week I had been burning a lot of trash wood, stuff I had cleaned out of the woods, in the wood burner. I ran out, been to lazy to cut more, and have been burning some good stuff. The difference in the amount of heat from a load of wood is amazing. A full load of the trash wood would last overnight if the temps were in the 20's. A full load of the good stuff lasted over 16 hours with an overnight low of 9 degrees. With the good stuff I only need to add wood once a day, although it takes a LOT of wood, a good wheelbarrow load, most days. It the overnight lows are going to be below 10 I have to throw in a few pieces during the day and then fill it in the evening.

Wednesday we go back to St. Louis for Kathy's final(?) checkup with the surgeon. She is still not 100%, maybe not even 75%, but she is improving.

I just received a call from Mel Calahan, he works with the Baptist Builders group. I helped him with a job over in High Point and we are working on one if Jefferson City. He was asked if he has time to do some work on trailer that is home to a working mother with three kids, on the outskirts of Jefferson City. He is going to look at it today and see what is needed.

I need to get out and cut some wood. May God bless you and yours.  

Dec 9th - Brrrrrr

Still cold here. It is supposed to get down to 9 degrees tonight. Todays high was in the 20's. Tomorrows high is supposed to be 33.

Saturday I spent over 5 hours raking, leaf blowing and leaf burning. My timing was excellent as we got a dusting of snow Saturday night. It has not gotten above freezing since then so the snow is still here. We didn't do much Sunday, although Kathy did go to church the first time since before her surgery.

We had Lydia most of the day today. Kelsey had to leave for work at 8 this morning. Things were slow for Andy so he was home around 5.

I cut a little wood today, only enough for maybe a day and a half, at these temps. Last week I found out that the propane distributor in California would come over and fill the propane tank in our motorhome. It has been my experience that very few will do that. He stopped by today and filled the tank. It saved me having to remove all the straw bales around the motorhome and then drive to Jefferson City to get the tank filled.

Hope you all had a good day. May God bless you and yours.

Dec 5th - Getting Cold

No walk-abouts today. This morning was banana bread/cake baking.

 Lydia went to Grandma Elaines again today, so she was only around before nap time.

Kathy and I went to Jeff today. We signed up for a YMCA membership, had lunch at the Mexican restaurant and I picked up a few things at Aldi's prior to coming home.

After getting home I went over to the Ott's and picked up another 6 bales of straw. I wanted a few more to go around the base of the motorhome.

It is 24 degrees now, and on its way down. It is not supposed to get back up to 24 again until noon Sunday. No snow, rain or ice here yet. It looks like all the significant precipitation has moved south of us.

I messgaged with Doug a little while ago. We were going to replace his porch roof next week. With 6-8" of snow in the forecast for Indy, and low temps in the single digits some of the nights, he decided to postpone the work.

Time to go out and fill the boiler with wood before dark. May God bless you and yours.

Dec 4th - Tractor Driver

During yesterdays "walk about" Lydia had to get on the tractor and "drive" it.

We may be taking fewer "walk abouts" during the next couple of weeks, temps are going to drop dramatically. Yesterdays high was in the low 60's, tonights low is forecast to be 25. The 10 day forecast has 5 nights with lows 15 or below. Other than tonight the highest overnight in the 10 day forecast is 22. Today we are supposed to have a high of 61, with drizzle that will turn to snow by tomorrow morning. After today we don't have any highs forecast above freezing until next Wednesday. The drizzle/snow is OK, we will take any moisture we can get. It has been months since we had enough rain to have any run-off go into ponds. I bet it would take 3-4" of slow, steady rain to fill our pond.

Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia & I went to California for lunch at the "Chinese" restaurant yesterday (Tuesday). The restaurant is across the street from the hardware store. Lydia and I went into the hardware store to drop off my leaf blower for repairs and pick up a couple of chainsaw chains they had sharpened for me. It was our first trip to the hardware store, I will have to take her over again when we have more time to browse. I'm sure she wouldn't have any problems looking at stuff for an hour or so.

Kathy had a good day yesterday, and I think she overdid it again. She is having a rough night and I bet today won't be much better. Don't anyone tell her you read that on my blog or I'll catch hell for it. Last night while she was on the phone I heard her tell either her Dad or Lillian that her surgery was not as bad as she thought it was going to be. During a couple of her "bad" days she has told me that if she had know that she was going to be in so much pain during her recovery she might not have had the surgery. We watched Lydia yesterday, which is not a problem but it does cause Kathy to push her limits. On top of that, and going out for lunch, she did several loads of laundry (which I could easily have done) made supper, and who knows what else.

I cleaned up another small area of mostly trash wood. It yielded enough to provide for a couple of days heat. I also salvaged 12-15 cedar fence post for Doug. He wants a lot more than that, but it was a start.

I hope you all have/had a good day. May God bless you and yours.

Dec 2nd - A Walk in the Woods

It was a nice day here today. The high was in the 50's.

Lydia and I took a walk. She spent time investigating something along one of the out buildings.

Found a walking stick.

 Breaktime.

There is a lot of debris on the ground in the woods. She wanted to walk on her own. After the debris caused her to fall down several times she got a little upset. She finally allowed me to carry her until we were out of the woods.

 She always looks for stones while walking around the driveway. For some reason, rather than sitting down like she normally does, she flopped down on her belly.

 After getting up and moving further down the driveway she laid back down and acted like she was making a snow angel. I have no idea why she did it.

Kathy and I went to Jeff to buy some groceries. We had a hamburgers, at Freddie's, for lunch. She is feeling better today than she did over the weekend.

I hope you had a great day. May the Lord bless you and yours.