Lydia Working Out

I dug our old Wii out of the corner and got it fired up. Lydia was exercising on it. Notice the handkerchief sweat band.

Nolan has a pretty good arm for a 2 year old.

All is well here. Kathy and I are both still fighting sinus problems and/or head colds. The good news is we don't have the flu. We are both out and around as needed.

My truck developed a very slight water leak. A friend from our small group owns a repair shop and does work on diesels. I discussed it with him and he said it was likely that it was the water pump leaking. He said replacing the water pump is a LOT of work and he had a backlog of promised work right now. I took it over to the Chevy dealer in California, MO and it is the water pump. Supposed to get it back tomorrow. 7 hours labor to change the water pump. Have to expect some issues with a 13 year old vehicle. I still well satisfied with it.

Last night (Tuesday night) was our Life Group (small group) meeting. Kathy had a headache that she stayed home. I went and enjoyed a time of fellowship with all the young folks. Kathy and I are the oldest, then there is a guy in his 60's and a lady in her late 50's. Nobody else is even in their 40's. A couple of week ago there were 14 adults and 17 children. The children, and one of their Dads, go downstairs while the adults have a fellowship/study time and then there are snacks for all.

This morning was our Wednesday Men's Fellowship breakfast meeting. 7 guys made it this morning. Last week we had 10, the most ever. We had a decent breakfast and a great study/discussion/time. After I got home I cut up the rest of log from a dead oak tree I felled last week, and split most of it. Maybe half a pickup load. Probably Friday I will take if over to a young family from church. He has to go out of town to work frequently and she also works. They have 3 kids (or maybe 4 with the new one). They heat with wood when they have wood. I took them a couple of pickup loads a few weeks ago but they are probably running low again, and Bryan is in Arkansas both this week and next. I've got enough wood cut to last us through the rest of the heating season. I need to start cutting some for next winter. Praise God that I am healthy enough to cut wood.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Winter in Centertown

I've been cutting wood every couple of days, even though I have close to enough cut to last us the rest of the winter. My 4WD Kubota make getting wood out of the woods relatively easy. (Thanks Tom for finding it for me.) When it is cold (highs around freezing & lows in single digits), like it is right now, we burn this much wood in 3 days, if it is good oak like this.

Hardy boiler firing away last week, before the snow.

We got about a half inch of snow Saturday night. Kathy made it up our driveway OK Sunday, in her AWD van. I did some slipping and sliding getting out with my 2WD pickup. Her trip back down the driveway to the house was quite exciting. The front brakes on her van grab first and you go sledding.The driveway is steep and there is a curve at the bottom of the hill. You can't just coast down the hill.

Last night (Sunday night) we got 1.5-2" more snow. I wouldn't even bother starting my truck. I know it won't make it up the driveway.
When I went out about 1PM to put wood in the Hardy it was easy to tell where the buried lines are that carry hot water from the Hardy to coil in our furnace ductwork.

Tomorrow mornings wind chill is forecast to be minus 14, that should be exciting. We both have routing doctors appointments in the morning so we have to get out in the cold.

It isn't supposed to get above freezing until Thursday so I don't plan on doing much outside until then. It's good to be retired and not have to get out.

Lydia stayed overnight last night. Hadly, the neighbor girl at the top of our driveway, just came down. I'll take both of them home in about an hour and stuff the Hardy full when I get home. At these temperatures it will keep the house heated for at least 15 hours.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.

More December Photos & Videos

 Another video from Lydia's school Christmas program. Sadly I can't include the two best ones because the files are to large. The best ones are the Reindeer Pokey (do the Hookey Pookey), and the Boogie Woogie Reindeer.

On Saturday the 16th Lydia and I had breakfast at Dudley's. It was my turn to pick so we didn't have to go to McDonalds.

 The waitress told her that the toys under the tree were there for kids to use.

Nolan likes to climb on my lap and sit because he can sucker me into show him tractor, combine & cow videos on my phone or tablet.

 We went to Kelsey & Andy's for Christmas morning breakfast. Lydia entertained us wearing her "Beauty and the Beast" outfit.

  Nolan was watching Lydia here but he spent a lot of time playing with his tractors and barn.

 God is good. May He bless you and yours.

Lydia's School Christmas Program

Lydia is on the bottom left. Hadley, the little girl who lives in one of the houses at the top of our driveway is on the top right. They are both in kindergarten, but different classes, and are best friends. They ride the bus home (Lydia gets off the ubs at our house) together.

Snowflake video. I have videos of more of the songs they did. Will post them later. We were sitting clear across the gym from them so I'm pretty shaky when I tried zooming in and out.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

An Update From Missouri

Today's high is forecast to be 17. Missouri - HOT in the summer and cold in the winter. Maybe not cold for you folks in Coldwater, but think about it, Centertown is as far south from Coldwater as Coldwater is from Grayling. Friday is the only day in the 10 day forecast where the high gets above freezing. PTL for our Hardy wood fired boiler.

November 18th - McDonalds - Lydia's turn to pick the restaurant for our Saturday morning breakfast.

We ran our Hardy wood fired boiler in early November, to burn some trash wood. After several days I noticed some steam coming out around the flue and thought we must have a leak. Fixing the leak meant removing the insulation jacket that surrounds the boiler. After several hours work it became clear that the jacket must be lifted off the top, in one piece.

So, I added a column and removed part of the roof and the end wall.

The wiring that powers the pump and forced draft fan was just a bare wire comiing up out of the ground. While I was doing the work it seemed reasonable to correct that issue. As I dug up the wire I found that it was in conduit below the surface. Why the conduit was terminated below ground I have no idea. I wanted to run the wiring up the new column. In order to not have to splice the wire I had to dig up 4-5 feet of the existing conduit and bend it to point towards the new column. The conduit is under a driveway area, full of rocks. It was a lot of work with a pick and shovel.

After a lot of work it turns out that I couldn't find any leak and it quit "steaming". The only think I can think of is that the seals on the ash and firebox doors are bad. The weather was warm enough that the Hardy was getting enough draft, even with the doors closed, to "overfire" and boil the water. It has a large vent pipe in case that happens. I have no idea why the steam came out where it did, instead of the vent. I bought new door seals but never installed them. It is cold enough now that even if the door seals leak a little the water in the boiler won't get to hot.

During the summer a storm toppled one of the trees in our yard and took the top out of another one. I cleaned up everything that was down and had a tree service company come out to give me an estimate to clean up the broken areas in the tree and to take down a severaltrees along our driveway. One of the trees by the driveway was dead and the other ones had large branches that would take down our power lines if they fell. The tree he is working on was maybe 20' taller before the storm took the top out of it.

Looking at guy in front yard, over the top of our house.

 Trimming along our driveway.

That gets us through November. I will try and get some photos and videos from Lydia's school Christmas program posted soon.

God is good. May He bless you and yours.

A Day With Lydia

Lydia stayed overnight soon after we were back in MO in early October. We "camped out". We roasted hot dogs & marshmallows, and then spent the night in the camper.

The next day we all went sightseeing in Jefferson City. The building on the left is the Lohman building. I can't remember the name of the building on the right. A section of the lower level of it is now the Amtrak station (don't get me started on what a rathole Amtrak is for taxpayers) 😊

 The Lohman building was a general store and hotel. The river used to come near (maybe less than one hundred feet) to the front of both of these buildings. It is now on the other side of the railroad tracks. The building called Jefferson Landing Historic is the Lohman building.

 The Lohman building was a general store and hotel.

 This building also used to be a hotel.

 Inside the lower level of the Lohman building is "general store", many paintings and photographs and a small theater.

 Then we walked up to see the fountain. If you look close in the satellite photo you can see a small ellipse on the left side, that is the fountain.

 My great-granddaughter is so cute.

 Looking out at the track and the river from the back of the fountain area.

 The bridge is one of the two bridges entering/exiting Jefferson City from the north.

This stone was presented to the State of Missouri by the Fraternal Order of Eagles on June 28, 1958. It is a wonder that we haven't had some out-of-state nutcase file a lawsuit over it. It is amazing that liberal have become so much smarter than people were 50 years ago. From the 1960's clear back to the founding of our nation we were just to ignorant to understand that it was illegal to display Scripture in public areas. 

I will try to do a little better and get some more photos up in a few days.

God is good, may He bless you and yours. I regularly fail to be the man He would have me be, the one I strive to be, yet every day He forgives me and I can start a new day with a clean slate, once again trying to be more Christlike. None of us will ever achieve that goal here on Earth, but if we all (those of us who call ourselves Christians) worked at it a little harder things here could be so much better.

Sunday - Day 25 & Monday - Day 26

The trip to from Miami, Oklahoma to Branson, Missouri was uneventful. We drove a far amount on old Route 66. The highway from Springfield, Missouri to Branson, Missouri turned out to be one of the most difficult areas to pull a trailer that we encountered, because it was so hilly. The elevation was all below 1,500' but it was up one hill then down. There were no significant level sections at the bottom of most of the hills. My truck shifted out of overdrive more in that 40 miles than it did in any 250 mile drive, at elevations above 5,000 ', out west.

A guy at the campground in Branson guided us to our campsite and positioned us on the campsite. The truck stuck out in the road and I was hurrying to get unhooked so that we didn't block the road more than necessary. The site was the most unlevel, side to side, site we encountered the entire trip, we needed to run the tires on one side up on 1.5" of leveling blocks. Got that done, the truck unhooked and out of the way, the corner jacks down, and told Kathy to put the slide out. It couldn't go all the way out because it would have hit the electrical box. Screwed the corner jacks back up, hooked the truck back up, moved ahead 3" and then repeated the unhooking and set up process. It tested my patience.

All we did that evening was walk over to Montana Mike's for a mediocre, but expensive steak. The next day we walked up and down a fair portion of the Branson main drag. We had an overpriced lunch at a spaghetti place and walked around a little more. I looked over a list of entertainers and the only one whose name I knew was Mickey Gilly. Tickets to see him and another guy were $40 each. Kathy is not a country music fan, and I didn't his act was probably worth $40, so we stayed at the trailer Sunday night. Monday morning we drove further out along the main drag before returning to the campground, hooking back up and heading for Centertown.

I know many people like going to Branson. Kathy & I are not among them. I can honestly say that if someone offered me a limo ride to Branson & provided me with a free nights stay at a hotel, I would not accept. After 5 years in Missouri it was our first trip to Branson. No we can say, been there, done that, and cross it off or list.

During our 26 days on the road we traveled 3,765 miles. Over 3,000 of those miles were pulling the trailer. We were at elevations as high as 9,100'. We had no significant problems. We had excellent weather almost the entire trip. I could easily go back to Canyon Country in Utah again and spend more time there. The 2 nights in Branson were a waste (other than that we won't need to wonder about it). I could have easily spent another week in southern Utah. To bad that it is a minimum 1,300 mile trip to get there.

We averaged 10.3 mpg during the trip. It would have been a little higher but for the biodiesel we had to purchase. My truck does not like biodiesel. We filled up once with fuel that contained "up to 20% biodiesel" and twice with fuel that contained (up to 5% biodiesel). Fuel mileage was less than 8.5 mpg on those tankfuls. We weren't climbing hills more than normal and we were at elevations less than 5,000' when we got the poor fuel economy.

The least we paid for fuel was $2.399/gal, the most was $2.999/gal. A lot of the big name truck stops had fuel priced at over $3/gal but we managed to find small truck stops or stations where we could get the trailer in and out without a problem. The only oil lost was what I wiped off the stick when I checked it every day. We did get a low coolant light when we left Branson. I poured a cup of distilled water into the overflow reservoir and that seemed to solve the problem. Parked on level here at home there appears to be plenty of fluid in the overflow reservoir. I will have to keep an eye on it to see if maybe the low coolant sensor is bad.

It was a great trip. I was ready to be home for a while. Kathy was REALLY ready to be home by the end of the trip.

God is good, may He bless you and yours.