March 28th - No Rain Today

Sunday evening we went to Kelsey & Andy's for supper and a trip planning session. We are all going to Gulf Shores Alabama for a few days, including Lydia & Nolan. We are leaving here the evening of Thursday, April 6th, after Lydia gets out of dance class. We will stay overnight somewhere along the way and drive the remainder of the distance Friday. It is about 840 miles down there.
We will head back north on the Tuesday, the 11th, and finish the drive on Wednesday. Temperatures down there for the next 10 days are highs in the low 70's and lows in the low 60's.
Nolan was here yesterday. It drizzled rain most of the day so he couldn't be outside as much as he likes. Actually I don't think he ever gets to be outside as much as he wants.  Kathy read books to him and he spent some time playing with his phone.

 Kathy went in town this morning to run some errands. She had lunch with a friend from church. In the afternoon she went back to town with me. I needed to pick up a sheet of paneling to make some repairs in the church basement wall and get some no ethanol gas to mix for my chainsaw & weedeater.

Our pond has come up a few inches which means we are getting a little run off from the recent rains, but not much. The forecast if for a 60% chance of rain tomorrow and a 70% chance on Thursday. We can still use several more inches of rain, especially if it mostly comes nice and slow like the last couple did.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 25th - AAAAARRRGHHH

I had a good morning. Lydia stayed overnight and this morning we went to Russellville, just Papa & her, for breakfast.

After that I spent most of the day working on federal taxes. IT SHOULDN'T BE THAT HARD! The self-serving scum that run our country should all be tarred and feathered! Taxes would be so easy if we would only change to the Fair Tax https://fairtax.org/index  We will never see it happen because then the politicians and bureaucrats in DC could not sell their favors (tax exemptions) for campaign contributions. Also, if people really learned how much the federal government costs us we would revolt.

Next I need to tackle Kathy's Missouri taxes. Missouri's system is beyond stupid. Last year I had something like 20 pages of forms. Kathy owed a whopping $28.

For my Tennessee taxes I had zero pages. I love Tennessee!

Okay I'm over my rant 😁.

We continued to get light rain on and off most of the day. We are probably approaching an inch of rain with what we got yesterday. Looks like we are going to get more next week. We can still use it.

God is good, even if he doesn't send everyone in the IRS straight to hell 😊. May He bless you and yours.

March 24th - Got A Little Rain

Temperatures have warmed back up some and we got a little rain this afternoon. We are supposed to get more this evening and tomorrow. We sure can use it.

I had been building another rock retaining wall but it was unfinished. Yesterday I finished it and leveled some soil I had put in it. Kathy is going to plant some kind of bushes there.

We went into Jeff this AM and ran a few errands. This afternoon I took Kathy's van in for a vehicle inspection so that she can renew her plates. I also stopped at a body shop and got an estimate for fixing her bumper, the one my ran away trailer damaged.

This afternoon I finished our pre-check in for our anniversary tour cruise. May 28th is our 50th anniversary. May 29th we fly to Fairbanks, Alaska. We spend the next 6 days touring Alaska. On June 4th we board ship cruise to Vancouver Canada, arriving June 11th. While on the cruise we spend a day in Haines, AK, a day in Juneau & a day in Ketchican. We fly back to Kansas City after getting off the ship. We are sure looking forward to the trip.

Lydia just came over. She is "sleeping over" tonight. Kathy just made popcorn, a ritual when Lydia comes.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 21st- Not Much to Note

We received some much needed rain a couple of days ago, about 0.75" at our house. It sprinkled a little this AM but hardly enough to settle the dust.
Yesterday's high temperature was 87 degrees. Today's was 63. I cleaned up some trash wood alone a path through the woods and fired up the Hardy boiler to burn it. Kathy did several loads of laundry this afternoon and the burning trash wood preheated the hot water she used. I still have a lot of cleanup work to do along the remainder of the path.
Nolan was here yesterday & today. Yesterday he snagged an almost empty gallon jug that had distilled water in it. He was playing with it today when Kathy offered him a drink. He wouldn't take a drink until he filled the glass. The cap was still on but that was OK with him.

 Guess he figured he had the glass full so it was OK to take a drink.

When he heard the chainsaw running he fussed until Kathy took him out to see what was happening. He didn't like the noise but when it came time to pick up the wood, and ride on the tractor, he was ready for that.
God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 15th - Back in Missouri

I drove back to Missouri yesterday. The trip was uneventful. Before I left I was able to get the electricity for the shed hooked up and now have a light and an outlet in the shed.

I left our cabin at 7:30AM and arrived at our house in Missouri at 5:45PM. An average of 56.4 mph. I stopped twice and got sandwiches, which I ate on the road, made 3 stops for fuel and stopped once to buy Kathy some flowers.

This morning I had breakfast with the guys in our Men's Fellowship group. We had a good visit and a good study time.

Nolan is here today.

Last nights low was around 16 degrees.This afternoon the blossoms on our Bradford Pear trees look like they are starting to turn brown. No more below freezing temperatures in the 10 day forecast. Daytime highs are forecast to be around 60.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 10th - Conduit Finished

It rained last night and was quite muddy this morning. One trip around to the back of the cabin made it apparent that waiting for things to dry out made sense. In the PM I finished the conduit from the shed to the cabin and backfilled the last of the open trench. After the soil settles some finish grading will almost certainly be necessary, but for all intents and purposes the trench work is complete.

Tom came over and helped me pull the electrical wire through the conduit. One end is now sticking into the main panel in the cabin ready to connect to the breaker. The other end is sticking up out of the conduit in the shed, also ready for termination and connecting to the panel in the shed.

A couple of days ago the forecast for Saturday was some snow. Yesterday Saturday's forecast was changed to a snow/rain mix. I just looked now the forecast for tomorrow is mostly cloudy.

Other than some trash cleanup and returning Marvin's wheelbarrow, my outside work is done for this trip. Hopefully I will get enough wiring done to energize the panel in the shed and maybe even put up a light and install a receptacle tomorrow. That will complete all I had hoped to accomplish this trip.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 9th - Digging Done

The drainage trench is finished except for figuring out how to terminate the end of the pipe. I plan on cutting the pipe off at the end of the rock and then building some type of headwall to protect the end of the pipe.

 

I thought I might run out of the coarse rock but I didn't.

I 

If the rain holds off tomorrow I should be able to get the conduit into the cabin and backfill this last area.

My back and shoulder are glad to be done with the drainage part of the project. It was nice out today but supposed to cool down and rain some tomorrow.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 8th - Still More Digging

It rained hard Monday. I took this photo a couple of hours after the rain had let up.

 I finished digging the trench today. The drain pipe will end where the rock stops. I haven't figured out just how I'm going to do that yet.

 I've still got a LOT of rock to move. I figure about 5 wheelbarrow loads of the small rock that has lots of fine in it, that is what is going against the cabin foundation, and 20 wheelbarrow loads of the large rock that has no fines in it. I will also have to do some "regrading" by moving some of the dirt I dug out along the sides of the end 10' of the pipe.

Hopefully I can get a lot of that done tomorrow. The forecast is for a 30% chance of rain Friday and a 50% chance of a frozen mix Saturday.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 6th - More Digging

It misted rain here most of the morning. I'm sure we did not even get a tenth of an inch. After lunch I borrowed Marvin's wheelbarrow and a hoe from Tom and got some work done. I dug another 5' of trench and filled what I had dug with stone. The break between the light stone and dark stone, at the bottom of the photo, is where I started filling the trench. I'm slowly pecking away at it.

The photo makes it look like the end of the trench is getting close to the end of the cabin, not so. I've got another 20' of trench to dig before I get clear of the end of the cabin.

I intended on borrow a hole saw from Marvin when I was at his place, but I forgot. I need it to drill a hole through the cabin wall for the electrical conduit that goes to the shed.

It is supposed to rain tomorrow. I'm hoping it does, my back and shoulder could use a day off 😊

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

March 5th - Church Day

Had breakfast at Family Ties restaurant before church this morning. It is my 3rd favorite breakfast place in Crossville & the only one open on Sunday. Even 3rd place in Crossville is very good.

I had wondered if attendance was dropping a little at Cumberland Fellowship. I almost always go to the 9AM service. The last couple of Sundays I was there it seemed that there were more open seats than previously. Today was just the opposite, there were a LOT of people. As I left the parking lot looked like there was also going to be a lot of people at the second service.

Remember MasterCard's "Priceless" commercials from a few years ago? This morning the church showed a video "starring" one of the Pastor's. The church is holding finance/budgeting classes trying to get members out of debt and help people be more responsible with their finances. The Pastor was outdoors wearing a sleeveless tee shirt and carrying a shotgun. He said, "This is a Remington Tactical XS 12 gauge shotgun, cost $469." Then he held up some shotgun shells and said, "These are 6 double ought buckshot shells, cost $39." He then pulled out his wallet and took out a couple of credit cards. In the next scene you saw the credit cards nailed to a pallet. He opened fire blasting away at the credit cards. His final comment was, "Freedom from credit card debt, priceless." He got everyone's attention. I thought it was great and joined in the applause.

I did some rock busting and a little digging this afternoon. I managed to "cut" a 3" deep trench across the top of the rock, so that the drainage pipe will lay down in the trench I cut. It wasn't to difficult. The rock is something like sandstone. I could break it up with a pick. I also dug on a little further to see if I would have to remove more rock. So far so good. I'm down to rock but the trench is deep enough. By then my back said it didn't want to do any more digging today.

I mounted the electrical panel in the shed. I will probably take it back off the conduit when I pull the wire through into the cabin, but now that everything is ready that will be easy enough.

It was cloudy all day but warm enough that I was comfortable with no coat, just long sleeve shirt.

I took a picture of our new neighbors driveway this morning on my way to church.

God is good. May He bless you an yours.

March 4th - Actually Accomplished a Little

I didn't need to go to town for anything today, I got to stay at my mancave all day 😊

I don't think I mentioned that I'm getting another neighbor. As I understand it, a friend of Duane Burgess bought 5 acres from Brady Burgess. It is located on the east side of Duane & Teresa's property, their property adjoins ours on our east side. They are cleaning out some of the trees along the road and have what I assume is a driveway cleared. Duane and Teresa's building site if quite a ways back off the road. (You can't see it from the cabin.) My guess is that the site of the new neighbors home will be at the back of the 5 acres. I was told they are going to move in a double wide, but I don't know when.

Today was the first day I actually made a little progress. I swept out my shed. It is probably the cleanest it will ever be.

 I raked a bunch of leaves away from the cabin and did a little digging to continue the drain pipe. I still need to extend the buried electrical conduit up and through the cabin wall directly below the electric meter. The conduit will go through the wall just above the bottom of the siding.

the

I extended the trench this far and said enough for today.

The white that you see in the photo below is a rock shelf. My next step will be trying to break some of it out so that I can get the drain pipe lower.  If I don't knock off some of the rock the top of the drain pipe will almost be exposed. I can't add more dirt on top or it will be above the bottom of the siding.

It wasn't all that muddy. The current forecast is a 30% chance of rain Monday and an 80% chance on Tuesday. I may give the rock breaking a go after church tomorrow.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Mar 3rd - Back in Tennessee

I drove back to Tennessee Wednesday, Mar 1st. The heaviest traffic I encountered was driving through Jefferson City. Traffic in the left lane was backed up a couple of miles. It was all the state workers waiting to make a left turn, at a traffic light, to get in the parking lot. I wonder how many thousands of them are on the payroll, just in Jefferson City?

Yesterday I went to Cookeville in the AM to sit with Tom & Mary Lou while Mary Lou waited for back surgery to start. Tom called after the surgery was done. The report from the Doctor was good. She will be in the hospital for 4 or 5 days.

I had received, and lost, a notice to renew the license on my truck. This morning I walked into the court house at 8:59, without the renewal form. I walked back out at 9:02 with my renewal sticker. I LOVE DEALING WITH FOLKS IN TENNESSEE!

I had quit wearing my $3,700 hearing aids because I had given up on getting them adjusted to the point where I thought they were worth the bother of wearing. I found out that the place where I have my eyes examined, here in Crossville, also has a hearing center. I made an appointment before leaving Missouri and went to the appointment this AM.

I had copies of my last 2 hearing tests. The newest one was about 1.5 years old so Emily, my audiologist, gave me another test. The result was good news, the hearing in my good ear shows no deterioration since the last test. Emily reprogrammed my hearing aids and seemed reasonably sure that she could make adjustments that would improve them to the point where I thought they were worth the bother of wearing them. Time will tell. She asked me to wear them for a couple of weeks and then come back in so that she could "tweak" the programming based on my experience with the adjustments she made today.

They had lots of rain here Wednesday. It is still to wet to start digging to extend the drainage tile I started the last time I was here. The good news is that even with all the rain the floor of my storage shed was dry. The drainage tile I installed is working fine.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.