Dec 28th - Christmas is Over & I'm Glad

We had an enjoyable Christmas. Doug, Anthony & Sean came form Indy on Christmas day. We had Christmas supper at Kelsey's.

Nolan LIKES cranberries. Not sure why he looks comatose in photo. He certainly wasn't.

 Buffet style eating at Grams.

 

Checking out Gram's cabinets.

 Hard to get Lydia away from her "screen".

I am a bah humbug person at Christmas. Yes, I'm a Christian and I understand that Christmas is a celebration of the birth of Christ, but I also look around and see that the holiday has deteriorated into a bonanza for retailers. Jesus may be the "Reason for the Season" but Santa is the one who many choose to worship. (My main excuse for being a bah humbug person)

It seems to me that most of us have already given ourselves, and our children, everything we/they want that we afford, or that we can borrow the money to purchase.

Perhaps the problem is that I am so self centered that I refuse to spend time to learn enough about others to figure out what I might give them that would bring them joy. I received several gifts this year that I will enjoy. An audiobook by Chuck Colson (a man whom I admire), some jars of homemade salsa (made by a lady in Indianapolis and unavailable here in MO) and packages of Eckrich Smok-Y-Links (a breakfast sausage I love but that is unavailable around here). Thank you to those who spent the time to know me well enough to know about "little things" that I would enjoy.

May God bless you and yours.

Dec 22nd - Back in Missouri

Drove back to Missouri yesterday. The trip seems to get longer every time. It took me almost 12 hours this time. In Kentucky an SUV on its top, in the median, was the first slow down. It was just about cleaned up when I went past it. That delay was only about 10 minutes. Then came St. Louis. 3 traffic jams before I got through it. The first and last were each 10-15 minute delays. The middle one was almost an hour, 50 minutes to go 2 miles. At least the weather was good.

I saw 4 deer at my feeder Monday morning. The feeder is about 100 years from the cabin. I took this photo through my living room window. I need a better camera than the one on my phone. If you look carefully you might be able to pick out the 2 deer in the photo. All 4 were together, but the other 2 were still in the woods.

We almost got the building finished. Late Tuesday afternoon we realized the for some reason the ridge cap pieces were left off the material list and we didn't have them. The barn/sliding door is built and setting inside the building. We did not have time to install the track and hang it. It was so late when we finished that I needed to use a flashlight to clean up the work area.

A window in the end wall, and maybe white trim instead of the "barn red" trim would have looked nice. I can only see the "aesthetic" things after completion. I still need to get the the last pieces of electrical conduit run up out of the trench and through the wall of the cabin. Then I can install the electrical panel in the shed and pull the wire so that I have electricity in it. I have the wire sized for 50 amps of 220v so I will have plenty of power for anything I, or anybody else, would ever want to do in it.

I stopped and ordered the missing ridge trim on my way out of Crossville. Tom is going to pick it up for me and Marvin said he will put in on when he gets a chance. Once it is on, the building will be weather tight, except for the door opening. The 4' overhang will protect it from rain and snow until I get it hung during the next trip.

The wood storage area next to the Hardy boiler was full when I left a couple of weeks ago. (We have a larger wood storage building out back. Probably not enough wood in it to get through the winter, but close. I've got several dead trees I need to cut this winter here in Missouri.) Kathy has burned some wood while I was gone. Temperatures were zero one night and below zero another night while I was gone.

 

I cut some wood while in Tennessee, when the weather was to bad to work on the shed, and brought it back with me.  Everything I cut was dead or near dead. There is probably 20 times as much as I have here within 200 yards of the cabin; of just stuff that is down, dead, or that needs to be cut because it is damaged/near dead. Marvin came down with his tractor and helped me get this out of the woods and up to the cabin. He has a platform puts on the 3 point hitch on the back of his tractor. It is really handy for going out into the woods and bringing back what you have cut down. It is much easier to maneuver that a tractor and trailer.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Dec 14th - More Progress

High today was around 45. It felt cooler because we had very little sunshine. Temperature is supposed to drop to 16 tonight and only get up to 25 tomorrow.

Today we finished the trim work on the south side.

We put the siding on the north side, except for the overhang, put up the soffit panels and the face trim on the overhang. The first soffit sheet was 16' long. I thought my arms and shoulders were going to give out before we got some screws in it.

Tomorrow I drop my truck off to have the pinion seal replaced. Tom is picking me up and we are going to have breakfast in town. Marvin may join us, he has an appointment with a physical therapist later in the morning tomorrow.

We still have a days work to finish up the trim and to build and install the sliding door.

May God bless you and yours.

Dec 13th - Rainy & Cool

Monday - Sunday night it rained 1.5". Marvin & I worked on my storage building all day, in the mud. It was cool & damp. We got the siding on the back.

 And the the "edge" pieces for the soffit and door trim on the front.

Tuesday - Cool and drizzling rain most of the day. We worked from 8AM-2:30PM. The high temperature for the day was around 44 degrees.  We got the windows installed and started the siding on the front before lunch.

 In the afternoon we finished siding the front and sided the south end. Marvin is a wizard! The siding cut out for the window on the right is completely contained in one piece of metal, and it looks good. I should have taken a close up photo. I didn't think it was possible to do such a thing.

After being out in the drizzling rain for hours we will be lucky if we both don't end up with colds.

This afternoon the heating guy came out and installed the parts to fix my heat pump (a replacement 2nd stage heating element for the "emergency heat" and a defrost board for the heat pump). It seems to be working OK again.

Dec 11th - Church Day

Friday night the low was 14 degrees here. Saturday  morning we had a heavy frost. Marvin & I didn't get started until around 9AM. There was a breeze and it was quite chilly. I think it finally got up to freezing shortly after noon. We put on the roof sheathing and the roof metal. I was quite happy with our progress. We didn't finish until after 4PM. Sunset here is 4:28PM.

I'm not sure when we will get started on the siding. There is an 80% chance of rain tomorrow so I doubt we will make much progress until Tuesday.

I had breakfast in Crossville before going to church at Cumberland Fellowship. Today was their Christmas program. They did a production based on the movie Toy Story. There were 85 kids involved in the production.

Once I got back to the cabin I spent several hours doing research for a potential Letter to the Editor piece. After than I watched a mediocre movie on Amazon.

Based on a Facebook post it looks like Kelsey, Andy, Lydia & Nolan made it to Florida OK.

May God bless you and yours.

Dec 9th - Cold for Down South

Yesterday morning I went in to Crossville, had breakfast at 1 of the 3 great breakfast restaurants in Crossville and then picked up some OSB (plywood) sheathing for the roof of my storage building. The metal will go on top of the OSB and should minimize the potential for condensation on the underside of the roof.

Went back home in the PM and waited for the heating repairman. Yesterday morning I thought the heat pump sounded strange. I looked out the window and the entire exterior of the unit was covered with thick frost. There was no way air could flow through it. I went outside and took a photo because the guy who answered the phone told me it was normal for them to frost up.

The repairman said I need a new defrost board and a 24 volt wiring harness. I had used the "emergency heat" function to keep the place warm all afternoon and would have to use it until they could get the parts. This isn't a big deal. Under normal operation the heat pump shuts totally off when the outside temperature drops to the 25-30 degree range and the system switches to "emergency heat." When I went to bed around 10 PM the inside temperature was 67 even though the thermostat was set on 69. Went I got up this morning the inside temperature was 65. The outside temperature was around 19. The "emergency heat" should easily keep it 69 degrees when it is even 10-15 degrees outside. I think it rarely gets below 15 degrees here, at least not for any significant length of time.

At 8 AM I called the heating contractor again, they are the ones who originally installed the heat pump. The guy answering the phone was the same one I had talked to yesterday. Based on my discussions with him yesterday and today he obviously knows very little about heating and cooling systems. He tried to tell me that there was no problem. I told him I was coming in to talk to his boss. He decided to schedule another service call for this afternoon.

This morning I went over to Plateau Metals and picked up the metal for the shed roofing and siding. Marvin came down and we decided we would try working tomorrow.

The service guy came out in the afternoon and after spending some time checking things over he told me that half of the "emergency heat" was not turning on. (I had suggested this was the problem to the guy in the office.) In addition to the above mentioned parts I also need a "relay". I'm not happy with the performance of my slightly used (we aren't here that much) 6 year old HVAC system.

We used to talk about not buying a car that was built on Fridays or Mondays because on Friday the workers just threw things together until they could get off work for the weekend. On Monday they were to hung over to do good work. I think I got a Friday or Monday HVAC system.

It is supposed to get down to 17 tonight and then not get below 20 for the next 10 days. Hopefully the repairs will be complete well before then.

I did spend some time out in the woods. I hung up a deer feeder maybe 100 yards from the house, but where I can see it. It is down the "lane" I cut through the woods.

So much for my experimenting with cooking.

It was edible. Unfortunately I have enough left over for another meal 😊, it wasn't all that bad. The next time I get to town I need to buy some potatoes and make some of my Grandma Ruthie's potato soup.

May God bless you and yours.

Dec 7th - Remember Pearl Harbor

I drove from Missouri to Tennessee yesterday. I made good time. 580 miles in a little over 10 hours. There was some early morning fog in Missouri but visibility was never less than a couple of hundred yards. The road surface was slightly wet for much of the way but I ran into very little rain.

This morning I dropped of the old mower I brought for Tom. I'm not sure if it is repairable or something for his "parts inventory".

Marvin & I finalized the material list for the metal siding and roofing for my shed. Derrick walked over while we were out measuring and visited for awhile.

Later I went to Plateau Metals and ordered the metal. I can pick it up tomorrow afternoon. I bought a couple of cheap windows for the shed from Lowes.

Nothing to exciting, but that was my last couple of days.

May God bless you and yours. 

Dec 5th - Post Christmas Dinner

Not sure what I did Saturday, other than provide some assistance to Kathy helping to tote "fixins" down to the church basement.

Sunday more toting. We had rain and snow flakes Sunday AM.

 

Kathy at work in the kitchen Sunday AM.

We think there were about 65-70 people at the Christmas Dinner. Is was a nice turnout for our small country church.

We don't have a Youth Group. Trevor, our only teen, attends Youth events with the Main Street Baptist Church in California, MO. The group helped with the dinner. The teens you see in the photo are all from Main Street. Steve, our Pastor, is the guy in the red sweater. He is shaking hands with the Main Street Youth Pastor.

Kathy "caters" the dinner. She does all the work. She told Trevor that if the Youth Group wanted to help her during the dinner they could have the profits. We don't charge for the dinner. There is a plate, no sign, for contributions. Last year she donated the $150+ "profit" to Baptist Missions (Lottie Moon Offering, for any Baptists reading this). After the dinner was over the Youth told her that rather than they getting the profit they wanted her to donate them to Baptist Missions again this year. This year she made over $200.
Today we hauled the rest of the stuff back home. Not to bad, 7 trips from the basement to the van and 7 trips from the van into the house.
Tomorrow I head for Tennessee for a couple of weeks.

Dec 2nd - Another Nice Day - For Early December

Wednesday morning was our Men's Fellowship at Tammy's, a local restaurant. There were only 5 of us. 1 guy had a dental appointment, 2 others were sick and 1 guy had to work. We have breakfast and catch up on what we have been doing since we last saw each other at church, or last weeks Fellowship. We normally stretch that into almost an hour and then spend another 45-60 minutes of study time. We are currently working our way through the book of James. This weeks study was on James 3:1-5. It was on the damage we can do with our tongues. What we say is probably what is in our heart. We need to be careful about the words that flow from out mouths and the ideas we have in our hearts. We always have a good time.

Wednesday evening Kathy & I attended a study based on Billy Graham's book on angels. The group usually meets every 2 weeks. It is an interesting, thought provoking book. I missed the first 2 meetings and will probably miss the next one but I still get a lot out of just reading the book.

Thursday AM we took my truck into town to have the rubber suspension bumpers replaced and have new shocks installed. A young guy who recently started attending our church, along with his very pregnant wife and 2 children, owns and oil change and auto repair shop in Jefferson City. I had him do the work. Thursday evening Kathy attended a Bible study at a house down the road from us. I went with her once. It is mostly ladies. They scared me 😁.

I spent 3 hours today working on the garage door at our church parsonage. No one lives in the parsonage, it is used for a young adults Sunday School class. One time when I was up doing some work at the church I noticed that the garage door torsion spring support had broken loose and the door could not be opened. After 3 hours the door will not open manually. It has an electric door opener on it but I'm sure the "I'm from the government and I'm here to make sure you don't do anything to hurt yourself" limit switches need adjusted. We go along without such limit switches for decades but I guess the government thinks the younger generations are to ignorant to be able to safely open and close a garage door.

There was a purpose to my working on the door. When I was previously in the garage I noted an antique riding lawn mower stored in it. No one could remember the last time it had been used. I offered to get it out of the garage if the church wanted to get rid of it, and was told OK. I will haul it to Tom's when I go to TN next week. I'm sure that with with some of his TLC he will either get it running again or use some parts off it to put another old mower back in action.

Time to go upstairs and love on Lydia. Kathy picked her up from preschool this afternoon.
May God bless you and yours.

Nov 29th - Sunny and Warm (for late November)

Yesterday (Monday) I went to California (MO), got an $8 haircut and beard trim (I always pay him $15), picked up a 10' length of drain pipe from the lumber yard and then went to Jefferson City to see about a new set of shocks on my truck. After I returned home I did more trench digging. Nolan was here to keep Kathy entertained.

Last night & early this morning I did more studying on our Men's Fellowship lesson for this week. It is my week to lead our group tomorrow morning. After posting this I still need to write down some thoughts on the lesson. I also did some research, wrote a Letter to the Editor and emailed it to the Jefferson City News Tribune this morning.

Nolan was here again today.  He is cleaning off the shelf.

 

He has Lydia's calculator in his mouth. He thinks it is a great chew toy.

 I'm probably done with my downspout drain project for the year. I still need to increase the height of one retaining wall, and rebuild 2 others. I also need to regrade the yard in this area to make sure it drains away from the house. I wished I had a tiller for my tractor but the dirt is so hard I don't think a tiller would dig into it.

Andy picks up Lydia after he gets off work and then picks up Nolan from either our house or from David and Elaine’s (Andy’s parents). He arrived here a few minutes ago and Lydia came down to see what I was doing. She told me she wished we had a big tent so that Gram, Nolan, me & her could go camping in the woods. I told her we have the travel trailer. That seemed to satisfy her. I then told her that I had drained all the water out of it so that it wouldn’t freeze; we would not be able to go to the bathroom if we stayed in it. I was informed that it would be OK to go to the bathroom outside, “Even girls can do it.” I was also told there are some restrictions, “You can only go to the bathroom outside when no one is around. It is okay if animals are around. It is not OK if you are at the zoo.” That was my lesson for the day.

May God bless you and yours.

Nov 27th - Church Day

Yesterday (Saturday) I didn't do any significant work. We went to Jefferson City had lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then ran a few errands while in town. After coming home I took a nice nap (I love naps 😊).
We had a good Sunday School class and today was the "hanging of the greens at church". Johnny and his crew of kids ring the bell on Sunday morning and then the kids are rewarded with a stick of gum.

Part of the "hanging of the greens" ceremony is decorating the Christmas tree. Clarence boosted several of the kids so they could put decorations at the top of the tree.

We came home and had a wonderful roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy & green bean dinner. After dinner, some newspaper reading and a cup of coffee I headed outside to do some more digging.
I got in two hours of pick and shovel work, on this small section of trench, before it sprinkled a little. It only took a couple of drops of rain and I quit. I still have close to another hour of work to get the trench deep enough. Over the 20 years the house has been here material has washed down the hill and over the rock retaining wall. It is now higher than the floor on our lower level. I used the bucket on my tractor to peel of 1-2" already but I still need to peel off another couple of inches and slope the area to drain away from the house. I should remove the rest of the retaining wall, over to the house, and rebuild it, but I don't think I have energy enough to do that this year. No nap today 😞.

We are getting some light rain this evening so it will be far to "sticky" to do any more digging tomorrow PRAISE THE LORD!
Nolan is coming for the day tomorrow so Kathy will have her hands full with him. He is pretty good but like any almost 11 month old you can't leave him alone very long.
May the Lord bless you and yours.

Nov 25th - Good Thanksgiving

I didn't do much Tuesday or Wednesday. We had a light drizzle, at times, both days. Thursday we went to Kelsey's for Thanksgiving. Lots of folks and lots of good food.

 It was a nice enough day that the kids made good use of the trampoline.

 Nolan looks like he might be ready to cry in this photo. He was not. I took the photo because he was covered in his Thanksgiving dinner. He really enjoyed it. He was very good all day.

Nolan and Lydia came to our house in the evening and spent the night.

Today I did more work on drains. I wasn't sure whether I hit rock or concrete in the photo below. I was afraid that is it was concrete it might be encasing something. I enlarged the hole and dug around the area until I determined it was "rotten" rock, not concrete. I was able to knock off the top couple of inches without to much problem.

 

By early afternoon I had finished the trench and I the PVC drain line was in place. The corrugated black drain will eventually tie into the PVC back at the corner of the house. I still have about 15' of trench to dig before that can happen.

By late afternoon I had the trench backfilled. I still have to rebuild the rock retaining wall. Next spring this entire area of the year will need to be tilled. leveled and reseeded.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Nov 21st - Busy Time in MO

Saturday I got the Hardy wood boiler fired up. We are now heating with wood. Our hot water is also heated by the Hardy. The heat from it feels "warmer" than from the heat pump, because the temperature of the air coming out the registers is significantly warmer. We went to Jefferson City to get another gallon of RV antifreeze and a few other odds and ends. In the afternoon I winterized the travel trailer.

I had previously paged through a 3 ring binder that came with the trailer. I noted that the binder contained much information on the appliances and accessories in the trailer. I opened it up expecting to find a "how to" sheet on winterizing the trailer. To my surprise it contained no such sheet. After some searching I found drain for the potable water tank. I then found that you had to take 4 screws out of panel on the interior to get to the back side of the water heater; so that the water lines could be set to by-pass the water heater. The next item was finding the little on board pump. Since I'm deaf in one ear, no stereo hearing, I have no sense of direction to find sound. Kathy had to come out, listen to the pump run, and point out its location. After removing 4 more screws and a 2nd access panel I found the pump and the "pick-up" hose for the RV antifreeze. We pumped antifreeze through all the water lines and put antifreeze in all the drains/traps. The grey and black water tanks were empty so I just opened the valves to make sure there was nothing in them to freeze. I never did locate "low point drains" on the water lines. Since the lines are full of antifreeze it shouldn't make a difference. When I think about it I will email the trailer manufacturer and ask about them.

Sunday morning was church and Sunday School. Then it was back home for some lunch and I took a short nap. Later we went to Columbia, MO (about an hours drive) with Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan. Lydia participates in a gym class at her preschool. A traveling gym bus stops at all the participating preschools in the area, I think weekly. All the kids from the participating preschools showed what they were learning.

There were a LOT of kids. The ones you see in the photo are just one group and there were several groups. Kelsey took photos and some video. She will probably post something on Facebook.

This morning I spent 3 hours working on my downspout drains. The white in the photo is crushed stone, not snow. It did get down to 25 degrees Saturday night but no snow in any forecast. This downspout, and the catch basin with round green top, now drain down to the lower level. I build a short rock retaining wall on the back side of the catch basin. I still need to raise the top with another layer of rocks, to make sure water coming down the slope from the driveway goes into the catch basin and not over the top of the retaining wall.

 

This shows the drain coming down the slope. A section of the electrical line that runs to an outbuilding (100 amps at 220 volts) was actually exposed in this area. I dug about 20' of it up, buried it deeper, some of it under the drain line, and poured a little Sakrete on top of it to protect it. I had to remove a section of a rock retaining wall in this area. After I get the drain buried I will rebuild the wall.

The PVC pipe is for a foundation drain that was plugged. I'm lowering it. It will "daylight" through the retaining wall. The black pipe will "wye" into the PVC back at the corner of the house.

I've got a lot of digging to do to get the black pipe over to the PVC. I also still need to dig another 10' of trench to get the PVC buried, and break the top off some rock in the bottom of the trench.

After a long, late lunch this afternoon I changed the oil in my truck. It was dark when I got back in the house. Enough for the day. <grin>.

Kathy had Nolan today. He was good most of the day. She put him down for a nap, in the bedroom, and closed the door. He normally cries for a few minutes and then falls to sleep. I went into the bedroom before he got to sleep and he though I had come in to get him. He really pitched a fit when I left and shut the door.

Thank you Lord for a good day. May God bless you and yours.

Nov 19th - Early AM - Back in Missouri

I left Tennessee at 7AM yesterday (Friday) and arrived at our place in Missouri at 5PM, 578 miles door to door. Traffic was the lightest it has been during the last several trips. I did drive through HEAVY rain about 25 miles east of St. Louis, but the heavy rain only lasted for about 10 minutes. It was raining hard enough that about a dozen cars has pulled off the Interstate and were sitting on the shoulder.

Kathy was babysitting Nolan, our 10 month old great-grandson, when I arrived home. He seemed glad to see Papa. Lydia, our 4 year old great-granddaughter, was with Kelsey when she came to pick up Nolan. I KNOW Lydia was happy to see her Papa Bert. I was happy to see all 3 of them. They couldn't stay long. Kelsey had baked a cake for someone and had to get it delivered. She is quite the entrepreneur. In addition to being a wife, a mom with 2 kids & a registered nurse who works full time; she bakes, decorates and sells cakes for weddings and other events. She has also recently started an online ladies clothing boutique. (She and Andy, her husband, have to work hard so that the government can extort money from them and give to those who are not willing to work as hard as they do.)

Final progress photo from TN.

Thursday I finished digging the trench for the electrical service out to the storage shed. I dug down to rock, 12" deep at the cabin end and 18" deep at the shed end. Except for the top 2-3" every bit of it required breaking it up with a pick before it could be removed with a shovel. Had I known it was going to be that difficult I might have hired someone to come in with a backhoe and dig it. At the cabin end I broke off about 2" of rock so that I could get the conduit a little deeper. Marvin, my carpenter/neighbor, will schedule getting the shed's concrete slab placed while I am back in Missouri.

Thursday AM I went to Plateau Metals in Mayland, TN, about a 40 minute drive from the cabin, and turned in an order for the metal roofing and siding material. I will need "tweak" the material list before finalizing the order. I love doing business with the folks around Crossville! I told the salesman that I was leaving TN and that I would not be back for few weeks. I asked him about making a deposit so that I could just call him and tell him when I would be back to pick up the material. He told me to just call him 2-3 days before I needed to pick it up and he would have it ready, no deposit necessary. I have never purchased anything from this place. Along the same lines, there are 2 Cash Home stores in the Crossville area. One is in Crossville and the other (the Tansi store) is about 6 miles out of town on the road to our cabin. I have purchased quite a bit of stuff from the store in town, a lot of it before the Tansi store was built. The people who work at the Crossville store are very knowledgeable and show that they appreciate your business. (My limited experience with the Tansi store indicates the people there probably have the same attitude.) Last Wednesday Marvin and I needed some more 2x4's (I had not included enough for temporary frame bracing when I made the initial purchased). Tom, my brother-in-law, had stopped by to visit and offered to go pick them up, so that Marvin & I could continue working. He went to the Tansi store, told them I had an account with the Crossville store, and they let him charge the $78 cost of the 2x4's.

It is going to get below freezing in MO tonight (Saturday night), the first below freezing temperatures of the season. I needed to come back to MO so that I can winterize our travel trailer and get our outdoor Hardy wood boiler fired up. Out heat pump system is efficient and works well down into the low 30's, or even into the 20's, before the backup propane furnace takes over. The Hardy has no freeze protection so I need to get a fire in it to keep it warm the next couple of nights. When overnight lows are going to be above freezing for several days in a row I can let the fire go out.

I don't have enough wood cut to last all winter. Our neighbors whose property adjoin ours have at least 3 dead trees on their property. Both neighbors said I could cut the trees for firewood. They would be glad to get rid of them and they don't heat with wood. I also know of 2 dead trees on our property that I need to cut down (I can probably find a couple more if I walk around the 4 acres). I didn't want to do it during the summer, mostly because it was hot. The other reason is that my small woodshed, the one near the Hardy is full, it holds about a weeks worth of wood when the weather is really cold. Now that it is cold enough to start the Hardy I can cut the trees, one at a time, load the wood in my trailer, park the trailer at the Hardy and burn the wood as I need it. I won't have to temporarily store it in the larger woodshed out back and then haul to the Hardy.

May God bless you and yours. He certainly has blessed me.

Nov 16th - TN Progress

Tuesday evening progress.
We got the rock/gravel down as a base for the future floor slab. We also got some of the upper framing installed.

 Wednesday morning, sun was coming through the trees.

Wednesday evening progress. Ready for a concrete slab and metal siding and roofing.

This is the trench I'm digging for the electrical feed to the storage building. It is all pick and shovel work. The clay is HARD! After the first 2" I could stand on a round nose shovel, rock it back and forth and it would not penetrate the soil. I dug some more after the photo, until near dark. Hopefully i can finish the trench tomorrow since I must return to Missouri on Friday.

As the leaves fall, the view down the "alley" I cut through through the trees to the south. I still have quite a few more trees to cut to get a view of the ridge several miles away.

Temperatures have been great. Highs in the 60's, overnight lows in the high 30's & low 40's. It is very dry here. Forecast for the next 10 days here includes only 1 day where there is a moderate chance of some rain.