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.

Nov 14th - Work in Tennessee

It has been a few days more than 2 months since my last blog post. For much of that time it was to hot for me to want to even venture out of the house, let alone get involved in an outside work project.

A few weeks ago I did start rerouting and installing new foundation drains and downspout drains. No major excavations, nothing more than 12" deep trenches, but in HARD, DRY, clay laced with tree roots. I'm not finished but one event that some of you have already been told about, should cause a smile, and maybe some reflection.


The ''event".  While working on the downspout drains I pulled my trailer up near the work area. My tractor has a ball mounted on top of the front end loader bucket. I had thrown a couple of 60# bags of Sackrete in the front of the trailer to put some weight on the tongue. Being lazy I just drove up to the trailer and set the tongue on the ball on the bucket, but didn't lock it down. When I got to the section of driveway that runs in front of the house the trailer popped off the ball, careened down the driveway and smashed into the front of Kathy's van. It knocked a hole in the plastic bumper which we had spent $850 replacing just a few months ago, but nothing catastrophic.

 I hitched the trailer back up to the tractor and moved it to where I wanted it to set. Mind you, I'm doing this because I had a goal set for where I wanted to be before it rained Wed afternoon/evening. The rain was not supposed to start until around 6PM so I was still doing OK. I also had thrown another 3 60# bags of Sackrete in the front of the trailer. I unhitched the trailer so that I could go get some stone to use in a small retaining wall I was building to direct water to the new catch basin. Then around 3:30 we got a shower, rain on the dirt and Sackrete on the trailer. I didn't want the Sackrete to get wet so I hurriedly hooked the trailer up to the ball in the tractor draw bar and even locked it in place with a pin to keep it from opening up. I headed for the shed where I park the tractor, got maybe 50' up the hill and the trailer popped off the ball. Down the hill it went, over the satellite dish, down about a 4' rock retaining wall and smashed into our 2 year old AC/heat pump compressor. Before I managed to get the trailer back on level ground it quit raining. I don't know why this happened, maybe just my carelessness. I did take comfort from the verse telling me that this type of thing will happen and it wasn't worth my getting all upset.

 On Nov 11th I drove to TN. Kathy did not come along. She didn't think she was up to a 10-11 hour trip in my truck. The trip was uneventful, other than a huge traffic jamb right after I crossed the state line into TN. As much as I love eating breakfast at any one of 3 restaurants in Crossville I haven't made it to town for breakfast yet. I've had to struggle making my own breakfast each morning.

Friday Marvin, a neighbor who is a great carpenter, and I started construction on a storage building for me. By Friday evening we had 9 holes dug for posts and had a load of rock delivered.

Saturday there was a benefit for Delmar Burgess, a neighbor who had a bad stroke several months ago. I went over for breakfast and was astounded at the turnout, small town America at its best. After breakfast I borrowed Tom's trailer and got a load of wood. In the evening I went back over to have supper at the benefit. The parking lot was full & their was a huge crowd waiting in line. I counted 35 vehicle parked along the road, just on one side of the road. I came home and fixed me some supper. Today I heard that they raised well over $20,000. AWESOME!

Today Marvin nearly worked me to death <GRIN>. We got the poles set & plumbed and the "band boards" around the bottom of the posts.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to continue the framing.