Tue, Aug 30th Back in MO

We are safely back in MO tonight. I'm sure we are all really tired. Gram & Gpa will sleep well tonight. I hope that Lydia and Nolan sleep well so that Kelsey can get some rest.

Parked at campground in Indy Friday night. Lydia is watching an airplane.

We parked in the same spot Monday night on our way back to MO.

Posing for Papa.

Kathy (in lawn chair), Kelsey, holding Nolan, Mom, David (my brother), Aston (one of David's grandsons)

Lydia, our granddaughter, and Colton, another of my brothers grandsons, playing at Mom's pond.

My brother by his 67 Chevelle. He recently took it out of my Mom's barn after setting there for 18(?) years.

 A fresh engine for the Chevelle.

Kathy's side of the family was also up at my Mom's while we were there. I must have had a brain cramp while they were there because I didn't get any photos of them. (Actually it might have been because I spent to much time talking to Elliot, one of our nephews, about guns/)

May God bless you and yours.

Thur Aug 25th - Hooked Up

It has been to hot to do much here. I mowed the lawn Tuesday and did a few things but did virtually nothing yesterday. The high temperature was 90 and the heat index was 99, absolutely miserable.

This morning Kathy & I and another couple went over to a friends house and spent 5 hours painting most of the interior. She is working toward getting it in shape to sell it. It was work but we enjoyed the chance to fellowship with one another.

In the afternoon we hooked up the trailer and started loading it. Everything is now loaded except the food that goes in the refrigerator and a few odds and end. I'm not sure what time Kelsey, Lydia & Nolan will get here in the AM but we will head for Indianapolis as soon as they arrive.

We are looking forward to seeing relatives in Indiana, Michigan & Ohio.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

Sat, Aug 20th - Rain

Over the past 3 days we have had an inch of rain. It isn't real dry here but we needed all the rain we got. Even a little more wouldn't have hurt. The rain we received was spread out so that almost all of it soaked in, instead of running off.

I was going to pull the wheels off the travel trailer yesterday so that I could grease the wheel bearings and check the brakes. The axles have grease zerks so you don't have to pull the wheels and hubs to grease the bearings. I checked the air pressure in the tires, between rains, and found the pressure in one of the tires to be surprisingly low.

Today I jacked up the left side and put jack stands under the axles so that I could spin the wheels and check that the brakes work OK. While I was partially under the trailer I spun the wheels some and to see if the brakes were dragging. As I was spinning the tire that was low I found a nail in it. I took it off and put it in the back of my truck. I will take it and get it patched/plugged Monday. That was the end of my tire/brake checking for the day.

Doug has been out working out our master bath again. The tub is just set in place temporary, a light still needs to be hung above the tub and the tile still needs to be installed on the wall between the lavatory and the bottom of the medicine cabinet. Other than that it is finished. we took our first showers in it last night. Lydia got to take the first shower.

Doug & Sean, who was here helping Doug, left after supper and headed back for Indy.

It was a little rainy today but overall it was a nice day. The high never reached 80 and the humidity was not that bad. Hopefully we will get some more days like it soon.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Wed, Aug 17th - Lazy Day

Yesterday I "played" with my tractor and chain saw. I reworked the pad I built as a parking area for our motorhome. It was built so that we could drive the motorhome on it and back it off. With the travel trailer we can only back it on the pad, can't drive off the other side because of trees and the slope of the ground. I built up a short ramp on the other end. I think I will be able to pull the trailer up onto the paid unhook it and will have enough room to get my truck jockeyed around and back into the driveway. I won't know until I try it. I moved a couple of small stumps to widen an area on one of our walking paths through the woods and did some minor grading on the path. After that I cleared some small trees and brush from around a dead tree, getting ready to drop it and cut it up for firewood. I now have good access to the tree. I can get the tractor and trailer right up to it. It is a "double tree". About 3' off the ground the stump splits into two 18-20" diameter trees. I think I will wait until cold weather before I cut it down. I don't have room to stack it by the Hardy furnace and I don't want to haul it out to the wood storage shed in the back, unload it and then have to load it back up and haul it back up to the storage area next to the Hardy.

Lydia spent the night last night and Nolan was here today, which made a busy day for Kathy.

Wed is my Men's Fellowship breakfast and Bible Study morning. We had a good lesson and discussion time. After breakfast I went over to California and got a haircut. The barber I go to there does an adequate job of cutting my hair and trimming my beard and he is a wealth of knowledge about past and current events in the area. Plus he charges $8 for cutting my hair and trimming my beard. I always give him $15. He tells me that is to much and I tell him I have lived other places and know that it isn't. This morning when I paid him we went through that ritual and then he told me that he cuts the hair of one other guy who also pays him $15. I said, "I bet he used to live other places." and Chuck said that he did. From the times I've been there it appears that most guys give him a $10 and tell him to keep the change.

It was over 80 degrees when I left the restaurant. I'm not sure what the high temp was for the day. I did virtually nothing.

Nolan the graham cracker eater

Popsicles are good.

Singing with gram

Blocks taste OK.

Sunday, Aug 14th - Finally Cooler

Attended a good church service today. We had a good turn out both in our adult Sunday School class and in church. We had 2 ladies join the church last Sunday and a young, compared to me <grin>, couple at church today who I had not previously met. They had attended before but when I was in TN.

Lydia came for a "sleep over" Friday night and Nolan was here for a sleep over last night. Kelsey & Andy went to a party with some of Kelsey's co-workers from the hospital. Lydia spent last night at Jack & Debby's. I think Nolan will be here Tue & Wed this week.

Thursday was still quite hot, I think the heat index hit 100. I mowed the lawn and that was enough outside work for me. Friday Carl, a friend from church, and I cut down brush to clear the view for one of our church signs.

It only took us an hour but we were soaking wet with sweat by the time we finished. All the brush on my trailer is some type of thorn tree. The thorns were mostly about an inch long and there were a lot of them. We had a good time of fellowship. Carl is one of the guys in our Wed AM Men's Fellowship group.

Yesterday I finally did some weed eating at our place, and not much else. In the evening I did have a nice visit with our son Drew who lives in Oakland, CA. The house next to his was remodeled and added to while we were out there the spring of 2012. We saw photos of the exterior and interior and it was nice, but not all that big. It sold for $400,000 in mid 2012. The couple who bought it then just resold it for $700,000. Property values are NUTS in CA. Drew has put a LOT of sweat equity in his home. He isn't interested in selling it because it fits his needs well. If he did sell it I would not be shocked it he managed to sell it for close to 3 times what he paid for it in late 2011.

When I got up this morning, about 6:30, it was only 65 degrees. Today's high was only 79 with much lower humidity that we have been experiencing. Temps during the week are forecast to be in the high 70's and low 80's during the week, MUCH cooler than they have been.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Aug 10th - Back in MO

I drove back to MO last Saturday. The trip was uneventful. No accidents directly in front of me this time. Also, no any lengthy construction delays as there were on my way down. My $1,100 worth of new truck tires just hummed along. I brought back a trailer load of firewood. My trailer would have hauled more but I ran out of gas, me not the chain saw, when I was cutting it. It is all wood I cut down when opening up the "lane" behind the cabin, trying to get us a view of the high ridge (mountain to us flatlanders) some miles south of our property. There are still at least 2 more felled trees, well down the slope from the cabin. I think I can get to them with Tom's tractor, and a long chain, so that I can drag them up nearer to the cabin the next time I'm in TN. I probably won't get back until late September.

We went to church Sunday and then to a BBQ supper our Sunday School had. Between times at church I mowed our lawn for the first time in almost 3 weeks. It wasn't nearly as tall as I would have thought. I mowed it high and will probably mow again tomorrow.

Kathy watched Nolan Monday and Tuesday and Lydia was here today. Lydia isn't feeling great so she came to Grammy's today, rather than going to pre-school. She was also here for a "sleepover" Monday night. After an relatively active early morning with Grammy she took a 4 hour nap. Kelsey is working four 12 hour shifts and one 8 hour shift this week.

While in TN I had some problems with the portable gas grill we bought to take camping with us. I hooked it up here Monday and it works fine. PTL! Yesterday I unpacked the propane fueled 3250 watt generator we bought to take camping. I hooked it up and ran it for nearly an hour, with the trailer AC hooked to it, and everything seemed to work fine.

There was a hard (4") rain here while I was gone. Run off did some damage to our driveway. I had tired to order a load of rock before I left, and while I was gone, but could not get the guy I previously bought rock from to call me back. I got the name of another guy Sunday, from a guy at church, and they brought be out a tandem axle dump truck load of rock yesterday. They tail gated some of it for me and then I did some work with my Kubota, I do like that tractor.

Since I've been back the temperatures haven't been to miserable here, until today. Highs in the 80's and heat indexes in the 90's. Today the temperatures were in the 90's and the heat index was over 100. We are supposed to have more of the same tomorrow and then highs are to drop back down to mid 80's and even in to the high 70's for the weekend.

This morning was our Men's Fellowship breakfast. We typically have 6-8 guys. 6 of us are retired, one is a fireman who comes whenever his schedule allows (he knows he can't be there next week and asked us if someone would take notes, or tape, our discussions, so that he wouldn't miss out totally). The other guy is a paramedic who works a LOT of hours. He also comes whenever he is not working. We are working our way through a study on the book of James. We typically spend the first hour getting (our local restaurant is SLOW getting food out) and then eating breakfast. Lots of good discussion on what happening during this time. We then spend another hour, at least, discussing the lesson for the week. We take turns "leading". It is a good time that we all enjoy. Sometimes, like this morning, the discussion get quite spirited, but that is good. We are all Christians who recognize that we are still sinners, even though we have accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord. We may not all agree on all the fine points but we love one another and respect each others views. We all agree that none of us is smart enough to understand everything God has for us in the Bible. Hearing the views of others and having to explain/defend your own views is a great way for us to be sure we know why we believe as we do.

I had told Kathy that I wasn't going to do anything today or tomorrow, because of the heat. I ended up unloading most of the wood on the trailer before I got to hot. The remaining 10-15 pieces can wait until tomorrow or Friday.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Thur, Aug 4th - Local Election/Primary

I haven't done much the lase couple of days, just some more "yard work", cleaning up the area under the power line. It has been quite warm and humid here the past several days, and again today. Right now, 12:22PM Weatherbug says the temp is 81 and the heat index 85. Still not bad for August. The highest temp in the 10 day forecast is 84.

Today is election day for state primaries and local elections (county commissioners, school board, etc.) I spent a fair amount of time trying to dig up real information on the candidates and was mostly unsuccessful. They have the typical half truth, or outright lying, campaign advertisements on radio and TV but there is nothing of substance in them. I went back through almost a months worth of Crossville newspapers and found nothing of substance. (According to my online searches the voting place for our district was about a half hour drive from here. I just talked to Tom and he told me that is is just a short distance from us. He and Mary Lou voted there this AM.)

It is amazing that no one seems to want to talk about real issues, on the national or local levels. I hear the same bull$hit lies that they are going to do whats best for America when I know that the vast majority of politicians are going to do what is best from them and their millionaire buddies. It is sad how far the morals and ethics of our nation have fallen. Far to many in government think "We the People" are to stupid to decide how we want to spend our own money, how we want to live our lives and what we should think. Personal responsibility and accountability for our actions is a lost value in today's society. Enough before I really get on a rant <grin>.

The last time Kelsey was here she left a bunch of meat in the freezer. I've sure been enjoying it. Steak a couple of nights, pork steak 3 nights & sausage for breakfast. This is the 2nd pan of sausage I've fried while here. These 3 pieces are cooling before I put them in a plastic bag and then in the refrigerator. I already took the 4th piece out for breakfast.

Sally, the neighbor down past Tom & Mary Lou's driveway, gave me eggs, she wouldn't take any money for them. They are small but good.

I had in interesting experience yesterday evening. I was watching TV and happened to look out the window to the east. It looked like their was a raging fire out in the woods, maybe just on the other side of Duane and Teresa's driveway. I put my shoes on and walked outside and saw no evidence of it. Came back in. looked through the window and the fire was still there. The "fire" was the reflection of the sunlight/sunset coming through a window in the west wall.

It had faded a lot when I took the photos below.

This is actually taken out the west window but it looks almost exactly like what I thought I saw looking out the east window.

May God bless you and yours.

Monday, August 1st - POOPED!!!

Yesterday was another good church service at Cumberland Fellowship, but before church I had breakfast at Family Ties. It was the first time I have eaten there. It was fine, better than any place near me in MO, but I'd rank it in a tie for 3rd place in Crossville. Triple D Diner & Sisters are better but neither of them are open on Saturday or Sunday.

This morning I had some things I needed to do in Crossville so I took the opportunity to have breakfast at Triple D Diner. I love their pancake breakfast. 2 eggs, 2 pancakes & bacon or sausage for $4.75.

When I arrived home Marvin Burgess was working on a gate into his pasture field. The gate is located across the road from the cabin. I visited with him awhile and provided an extra pair of hands to help a little. A little later he was back with a couple of bit tomatoes. I had purchased some sweet corn when I was in town. Lunch was w pieces of sweet corn and one of the tomatoes. Goood!

This afternoon I borrowed Tom's tractor, took my trailer back and cut up a couple of the trees I had felled when I was opening up the "lane".

Stacked in the trailer it doesn't look like that much wood but it sure felt like a lot more cutting it up and loading it. It took me around 3 hours back in the woods.Today's high temp was around 85 degrees. The heat index was probably 90. There isn't much of a breeze when you are in a "lane" with trees of all sizes on both sides of the lane.

Praise God that I am able to do this. I'd probably be a lot better off if I did it every day <grin>.

May God bless you and yours.