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.