Feb 27th - Splitting Wood

Spent my energy today splitting wood. I split 6 pieces but still have 2 of the smaller pieces to go. I wore out.

While taking a break sitting on the porch in my shirt sleeves I had the thought that it isn't often you can sit out on your porch in shirt sleeves at the end of Feb. The temperature was in the mid 60's. There were some clouds and it was breezy, but it was quite nice.
We only have 1 day, in the 10 day forecast, with a low below freezing. Daytime highs range from 51-78 degrees. Last night we had an overnight low of 27. Tomorrow we are supposed to hit78.

Not much else going on. Kathy had Nolan today. That boy loves to be outside. Just saw Andy& Lydia coming down the driveway, to pick up Nolan. Better get upstairs and get my Lydia fix.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 26th - Sunday

Church day today. Kelsey & Andy decided not to go to church today and Lydia decided she wanted to go with us. On Sunday mornings, before Sunday School, Kathy normally goes to California to visit a young man from our church. He has been in jail for several months, awaiting trial. (The young mans relatives say that his spending time in the county jail is a good thing. Once he goes to trial he will probably be convicted and sentenced to time in prison. The pre-trial time he spends at the county jail should count against his sentence.) I picked Lydia up and met Kathy at the church.

Kelsey, Andy, Lydia & Nolan were over for supper a few night ago. Lydia sure likes Ranch dressing. Note her chin.

Friday I cut up the rest of the log from the dead tree I felled last week.

I've cleaned up that tree. I have a lot of splitting to do, especially since I'm doing it by hand. I also have another dead tree to cut down on that neighbors property (the property is along the north side our driveway just before our driveway gets to the road). I also have at least one dead one to cut down on the neighbors property that borders the south side of our driveway and at least two decent size dead trees on our property.

Yesterday I spent almost 4 hours cleaning up some trash trees around our small pond. I pulled out the ones my tractor could handle and cut down several larger ones, nothing larger than a 4" trunk. I drug all the trash down below the dam and pushed in it a small ravine. In the late afternoon, when I went out to put wood in the boiler, I split a couple of the pieces in the above photos.

Lydia stayed overnight Friday night and all day Saturday. She likes staying here because she can be "Queen Bee" 😉.

The Daytona 500 is on TV. I'm listening to it but I am so disgusted with NASCAR and their continual tweaking of things that I'm about to quit watching entirely. It seems to me that NASCAR won't be happy until they have beaten any thought of innovation out of the NASCAR teams. NASCAR says it wants to cut costs for teams. After all the wrecks because of the wrecks caused by restrictor plate racing I wonder how serious they are about saving teams money, & safety.

No doubt there are a lot of things I could do that would be better than watching NASCAR, taking a nap sounds like one of them.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 23rd - Cooler Weather On Its Way

Today was another nice day but we are heading into some cooler weather. Sure can't call it cold for February. Nothing drastic, in only 3 nights out of the next 10 will the overnight low slip just below freezing.

Yesterday's Men's Fellowship went well. As usual we enjoyed visiting during breakfast and we enjoyed our discussion during the lesson time. I was shooting the breeze with one of the guys, outside after the meeting. We were standing by his truck, Everyone else had left. We ended our discussions and he got in his truck and left as I walked over to my truck. The day took a downturn when I saw the passenger side rear tire was flat as a pancake. We have AAA road service but I thought I'd just change it myself, rather than wait on them. I popped the back seat up, where I had seen the jack previously. It was there but there was no lug wrench and the rod you have to use to lower the spare was also missing. I called AAA and told them I had a flat. Told them I had a spare but no lug wrench or tool to lower the spare. 45 minutes later the guy showed up to put the spare on. He asked where I kept the tool to lower the spare. Told him I didn't have one, neither did he. He ended up loading my truck on his and driving me over to Nathan's Tire Shop in California. No charge, AAA covered it.


He backed up to one of the overhead doors and when my truck rolled off the bed it was inside the building. The young man at Nathan's jacked it up and jerked the tire off in no time. He broke it down, they patch instead of plugging, and called me over. He said, "Looks like you have a railroad spike in your tire." I thought shoot, these are new tires that just cost me $900 and I'm going to have to pay to replace one since I didn't buy the optional road hazard warranty. When he looked inside the tire he said, "Good news, it just looks like a nail on the inside." This is what was in my tire. It is a square nut and part of a bolt. The head of the bolt is gone and the bolt itself is worn down to a point.

$10 at Nathans to have the tired taken off, patched and put back on. I gave the young guys who worked on it $5 to buy them a couple of Cokes.

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday and most of the morning today doing research for another Letter to the Editor. I enjoy it.

This afternoon I met Kathy in town for lunch and we went to Menard's. She bought some lights. We had 3 pendant lights that were part of our kitchen lighting. We had problems with the bulb socket in the center one previously and it recently quit working again. She bought 3 new ones and I installed them after we got back home. It isn't smokey in the kitchen. It's the glare from the ceiling light.

They are off in the photo above and on in the photo below. They give off a lot more light than the old ones, which is what she wanted.

The neighbors at the top of the driveway bought 2 kid goats a week ago. They are starting to wear on us with their near constant baa-hing. They were really bad the first few nights. Now they only do it when they see someone, then it is constant. They have 4-5 year old daughter. My guess is that they are going to get her in 4H.

God is good (especially when my major problem is kid goats making noise 😀) May He bless you and yours.

Feb 22nd - Early AM Foggy

Only got up to 69 yesterday. It is a foggy 53 degrees this morning. We had maybe a half inch of much needed rain a couple of days ago. It was a nice soaker rain. It would take another at least 3" of that kind of slow rain to get enough run off to fill our pond.

Nolan the climber getting a better view of what is happening. Nothing is happening, he just likes to climb up and look around.

 Gram showed him how to climb the ladder so that he can now use the slide without help.

She still has to help him with the glider. He is still learning that he can't just bail off whenever he wants.

Yesterday I "played" on the computer most of the day. I'm leading the Men's Fellowship group this AM. It took me a couple of hours to prepare for that. Also did some research for another Letter to the Editor.

Nolan will be here again today, 3rd day this week. His Grandmother Elaine has some work done on the veins in her legs so Kathy is picking up both their days for this week.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 19th - Calm Day

The beautiful weather continues. High of 72 yesterday & 74 today. Lowest temperatures in current forecast is 31 degrees for next Fri & Sat nights.

Not a lot happening here. Our Pastor has the flu and one of the younger guys in the congregation gave the message today. He did a fine job. It was the first time since we have been attending that someone from the congregation gave the message when the Pastor was unavailable. Prior to this someone from outside was brought in to preach. There are several people in the congregation would could easily handle a Sunday morning message. This is a pleasant change in policy.

Nolan was here several days last week. He loves popsicles.
"I'm just checking out what we have in the freezer."

 "I have to dig clear to the back to check out everything."

 "Gram, look at what I found."

 "Gram, I need the top cut off so I can eat this."

He can't open the freezer door yet, but he is almost able to do it.

We went to Kelsey's for dinner this evening. We had a good time.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 15th - After Dinner Photos

After dinner sitting around in the living room. Kathy threw a dog toy over the back of the couch thinking Copper would go get it. Copper ignored it but Nolan "fetched" it. This video shows him doing it about the 4th time. I can't get the video to upload and process. I emailed it to some of you who regularly view the blog. If anyone else wants a copy, and if your inbox can handle a large file, let me know & I will email you a copy.

Relaxing after dinner. Kelsey, Kathy, Nolan & Lydia with her nose in a screen.

Lydia & Andy. Lydia has something of a frown on her face because asked her to temporarily look at me.

She was quickly back on the screen.

Feb 15th - Not Much Happening

Not a lot going on here. The weather has been awesome for Feb. Lows the last few days have been near freezing. After tonight no lows are forecast below 41 in the 10 day forecast. I put enough wood in the boiler to provide heat through tonight and tomorrow, then it can go out. Temperatures are to warm to fool around with keeping the fire going. We will almost certainly have some more cold weather but I will refire it when that happens.

I finished splitting & stacking the wood I brought back with me. Kathy burned more leaves, in addition to watching Nolan a couple of days. I think he is coming here tomorrow. He is checking out my phone/camera in the photo below

Prior to coming over to my chair he had been pounding on the front door, wanting to go outside. He loves being outside. We got our coats on and I took him for a 20 minute stroller ride out through the woods, across the dam and around our small pond. (Kathy normally either gives him a stroller ride around the big driveway loop or walks him around the small loop, at least once a day when he is here.)

Last night was our Valentines dinner at church. Lots of folks are sick so attendance was down. I think we only had about 25  people. Kathy fixed everything. I helped carry stuff from our house to her van, and then into the church basement. A lady helped her with cleanup. Other than that she did everything, just like she wanted. There was no charge for the dinner, just a free will offering if people wanted to make a contribution. She made a little over $100 which will go to church missions.

This morning was our weekly Men's Fellowship breakfast. There were 6 of us regulars. Just as our breakfasts were being brought to us a guy ask if he could join us. He was in Centertown checking out a piece of ground he had rented, north of town. He joined right in with our discussions. I hope he comes back again. He was on my deaf ear side so I didn't hear everything he said. I'm don't know where he goes to church.

Sunday afternoon we went over to a small "hole in the wall" restaurant in Russellville, about 6 miles from us, for lunch. The place could use a good cleaning, but the food was good. We went back over today and had hamburgers for lunch. (They have great deep fried mushrooms.)

Kelsey & family are coming for supper tonight. We have lots of left overs from the Valentines day dinner.

After Men's Fellowship I drove over to California and got a haircut. While I was there I went to the feed store and bought 50# of corn for the deer feeder. Between the deer, the squirrels, and a few birds they emptied the feeder while I was in TN. I filled the feeder, then took a couple of bucket fulls of gravel up the driveway and filled potholes. After that I sharpened the chain on my chainsaw. I've got to get motivated and get several dead trees cut down and cut up before it gets hot, but not today 😊. Today I'm going to take nap right after I hit the send button on this.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 10th - Global Warming Ain't Half Bad

Today's high temperature was 70 degrees, IN MID FEBRUARY! It was a very nice day. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice.

Andy brought Nolan over this AM, on his way to work, so that Kelsey could go to a hair appointment. He brought some Ott bacon and sausage for breakfast. He fried the bacon and sausage and I fried the eggs. The Ott family ends up with good bacon and sausage when they butcher. Kathy & Kelsey went to the Amish grocery stores when she came to pick Nolan up later in the morning.

I split some wood today. I was curious to learn how my shoulder would react to splitting wood. No real problem. I have some discomfort but nothing to fuss about. This is what I split. The stack is a little over 6' tall. The pieces are 24-28" long. The Hardy will accept larger pieces than these but the wood split well and I wanted to have a good stock of wood that is not to large for Kathy to handle when I'm not here. (Mary Lou would laugh at my stack of wood. She would have all the little holes chucked full of small pieces of wood.) I also cut did some minor pruning with my pole saw. I think I cut off 6 or 7 1-1.5" diameter branches.

I still have some larger chunks of wood that are to large to fit through the door of the Hardy. When I get them split they will make another pile at least as large as this one.

In the afternoon Kathy burned a bunch of leaves and burned off her small garden area.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 9th PM

I had my last physical therapy appointment for my shoulder this AM. I was scheduled for several more but I'm to the point where I don't think they are going to change anything. My shoulder still hurts at times, but I don't think more therapy is going to reduce the discomfort, its just something I will live with. The therapists have given me an exercise routine that would take me at least a half hour to complete. It is only for strengthening my shoulder muscles. Strengthening the muscles may help prevent more damage in the future but I don't think it is going to reduce the level of discomfort I currently experience. I don't want to blow this out of proportion. It isn't a big deal. I was able to spend several hours digging a trench one day. Another day I was able to fill a wheelbarrow with rock, push it across my yard and dump it 15 times. These activities did bother my shoulder some, but only to the point that a single ibuprofen was all I needed. I could have gotten by without even that. I started the entire doctors visit, MRI, physical therapy process because I wanted to learn if there were things I shouldn't do, things that would likely cause further damage. What I learned was, "If it hurts when you do it, quit doing it." Makes sense to me.

After I returned home from therapy Lydia went out with me to help me work. The temperature was in the low 20 's. We took the tie downs and tarp off the trailer. I was folding up the tarp and looked over at the trailer. She had climbed up on the trailer and was throwing pieces of wood off onto the driveway. I told her to stop and explained that I wanted to back the trailer up closer to the wood shed so that we didn't have to carry the wood. The next time I looked over she had climbed down and was throwing the wood back onto the trailer. I backed the trailer up next to the woodshed and she handed me all the pieces she could lift. She found a couple of rectangular blocks of wood, in the trailer, that I use to block the wheels. She asked about them and I told her that I use them to block the wheels. Next time I looked over she had put them behind the tires, with no coaching from me. A few minutes later I looked again and she was down behind the truck trying to unhook the cable where I tie off the break away brake cable when I pull the travel trailer. I told her that didn't need to be unhooked. She then helped me put down the trailer jack and she unhooked one of the safety chains while I unhooked the other, not as easy as it sounds because the hook have safety clips. After driving the truck up to the shed I lifted her up into the bed and she handed me out all the tools she could lift. At that time we had been out long enough that I was feeling the cold. She would not have been ready to come back into the house but I told her I wanted a cup of coffee.

Kelsey & Nolan came over for lunch. Nolan is now walking.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 9th Early Morning - Back in Missouri

I left the cabin about 7:10AM and drove back to Missouri yesterday, Wednesday. The trip was long, but relatively uneventful. Traffic was slowed down to 10-20 mph for maybe a mile along westbound I40 just west of Monterey, Tennessee. There is a relatively steep (800' vertical drop in just a few miles) downgrade west of Monterey, where you go down off the Cumberland plateau. There was a lot of equipment just beyond the end of the downgrade, along with a semi trailer that had burned above the rear tandem axles. My guess is that the brakes got hot and something caught on fire while coming down the grade.

I stopped at the Rural King in Paducah, Kentucky. It is right off an exit on I24, almost at the Kentucky-Illinois border. I had a $40 rebate coupon, from buying 4 - 6v "house" batteries for our motorhome back in 2015) burning a hole in my pocket. I bought a couple of ammo cans and 250 rounds of 9mm ammo. Spending my $40 rebate coupon ended up costing me $30.

About 50 miles east of St. Louis it started snowing. It was light snow for a few miles and then it got heavy enough that visibility was no more than 200'. Even the semi's slowed down to around 40 mph. The band of heavy snow was only about 5 miles wide. After maybe another 10 miles of light snow it quit. The air temperature had dropped to 31 degrees so the wet roads did make me a little more cautious.

I finally ended up arriving back home around 6:40PM. Lydia was over to welcome me back home. She stayed overnight.

God is good. May He bless you and  yours.

Feb 7th - Packing

Tom & I had breakfast at the Triple D Diner this morning. One of my 3 favorite places for breakfast, all 3 are in Crossville.

It rained on and off for a couple of hours today, hard for some of the time.

Today was cleaning day, getting ready to head back to Missouri tomorrow.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 6th - Drains finished for this trip

Cool, damp & FOGGY this AM. I borrowed a wheelbarrow from Marvin and moved rock from the driveway to the drain line.

This was wheelbarrow load 4 of 15.

Drain behind shed filled with rock. I need to figure out how I'm going to terminate the open end. It can wait for my next trip.

 

The concrete block marks the end of the trench I've finished. The line should drain fine until I get time to dig the remaining 50' of trench & backfill it with rock.

The rain was supposed to start at noon. When I walked back into the cabin at 11:47 it had just started sprinkling. In the afternoon I took Marvin's wheelbarrow back and visited with him awhile. Later I took a nice afternoon nap.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 5th - Football Dynasty?

Like them or not the Patriots are a football dynasty and Tom Brady is one the all time great quarterbacks. I was cheering for the underdog Falcons. It was fun watching the first half. Then came the disastrous second half. I didn't start watching until a minute or so after the game started. I took a shower during the half time "entertainment". I turned the TV off immediately after the game ended.

Interesting service at church this morning. Almost all of the "sermon time" was taken up with a video of pro football players, and some of their wives, taking about their lives and their faith in Christ. I don't know if they will have it as part of their videos of services. If they do I will post a link if I see it. The last sermon currently posted is Jan 15th. The church is doing 3 sessions of Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. 130 people are signed up to take the classes. 17 families went through training to act as "leaders" during the classes. They completed the training 9 weeks ago. Since then the families have, in total, paid off $62,490 of non-mortgage debt & put $71,318 into savings. They had to sell some things to be able to do this but its pretty amazing. My guess is that part of this is because  they sold off some expensive vehicles and paid off the loans. Ramsey is big on not making big payments just so that you can drive a vehicle to impress others.

I ran a few errands while in town. By the time I got home it was close enough to lunch time to have some lunch. Then I went out and started digging. Even though the concrete slab in my shed if above grade some muddy rain water rain across it during some heavy rains a couple of weeks ago. I didn't put a gutter on the roof because it would be a constant maintenance problem, cleaning out leaves & branches. Instead I'm installing a drainage tile along the back of the shed, and eventually along the back of the cabin. I still have 40' of trench to dig along the back of the cabin but it will have to wait until a later date. I'm hoping to get the tile behind the shed covered with rock before the rain starts tomorrow. Its also supposed to rain Tuesday & Wednesday.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 4th - Loading Wood

This morning I cut up the logs I had hauled up and loaded the wood on my truck and trailer.

In the afternoon I put the rest of the hardware on the shed sliding door (a hasp for locking and a roller to keep it from swinging in the wind.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 3rd - Logging

Cool and partly cloudy today. I think the high was around 35, with a brisk breeze.

I borrowed Tom's tractor this morning and did some "logging". I had cut down several trees last spring when I was opening up our "viewing alley". This morning I cut two to the trees in to section and hauled them up near the cabin, to be cut up for firewood and hauled back to Missouri when I go.
 I was able to back up about 20' beyond the large rock on the left. Rock outcroppings prevent going further down the hill, with the tractor, in this area. It took 50' of chain to reach the last section I pulled up the hill.

After getting the logs up beyond the big rock in the previous photo I would back up and shorten the chain before dragging them up the alley to near the cabin.

Logs up near cabin.

I also cut down 2 more large trees to open up our "viewing alley" a little more, So that we can see the far off ridge better. When the leaves were on the trees this past summer you could not see it at all.

That was enough for me today. There is still one more decent sized tree (15" diameter truck) and 4 or 5 smaller (6-8" diameter trunks) left back there from last spring. They can wait for the next trip. I already have enough up at the cabin to make a load to haul back this trip.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 2nd - Cooler Today

Nothing exciting happening here. It was cooler today, high was only around 45 and no sun. Low is dropping down to 28 tonight and 20 Friday night.

Yesterday Tom and I changed the fuel filter in my truck. It wasn't a piece of cake, but it wasn't as bad as I feared it might be. Should be good for another 12,000 miles.

Today I went for my annual eye exam. The results were good. No sign of any damage to my eyes from my diabetes. I didn't expect any because with the oral meds and insulin I take I have been able to keep my blood sugar level well within reasonable levels. Didn't get much done today. I'm blaming my fuzzy eyesight, after having my eyes dilated for the eye exam.😊

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Feb 1 - Mid 60's

Haven't been doing a lot this trip, just enjoying Tennessee. The weather wasn't good during the first couple of days.

Sunday AM I went to church at Cumberland Fellowship. I almost had an "event" in the church parking lot. I backed into the center space of a 3 space gap in cars, along the back side of the lot. I noticed that there was a deep ditch at the edge of the asphalt, and I noted the car on my left had backed in with rear tires against a curb stop. I backed & backed and finally thought, "I'm easily as far back as I need to be." I got out of the truck, looked at the back and saw there was no curb stop in my spot. If I had backed up 1" further my rear tires would have dropped down the edge of the steep ditch bank and my truck would have sitting on its frame. It was a relief when I pulled it back away from the edge.

Looking out east cabin window Monday AM

 Looking out south cabin window Monday AM

It was warm enough that the vast majority of the snow melted immediately after it fell. Even so there was enough that school was cancelled on Monday. Cancelling school with this little bit of snow is hard for some from the "flatlands" to understand. Here many secondary roads are very hilly & very twisty.

I went to Crossville Monday PM for a dental check up. Got a good report from the dentist. Roads were still wet but fine other than that.

By Tuesday morning the snow was mostly gone.

Marvin came down Tuesday AM and we put up the track and door up on my shed. I still need to put on the door stops and latch, but I can do that by myself.

  

I went into Crossville midday Tuesday to meet Andy Kindrick, who I haven't see for quite a few years. We had a good time catching up. Andy & his wife Karen are very active in their church. It was uplifting to hear Andy, who does some homebuilding locally, excitedly talk about the annual mission trip he takes with a construction team, to Honduras. The thermometer in my truck said 64 degrees on my way back to the cabin.

In the PM I took some chainsaw chains down to Roger Burgess. He does a great job sharpening them.

We sat on his porch and visited until dusk.

After leaving Rogers I stopped by Tom & Mary Lou's to visit a little with them.

Today looks like another great day.