Mar 28th PM - Deers

We were sitting out on the front porch this afternoon. We watched 3 deers wander from out by the trailer over to the yard that is outside the circle drive. One of them wandered off into the woods but the other two grazed for quite awhile as we watched.

They were less than 50 yards from us most of the time they were grazing.

Forgive my crude mark-up attempt.

Mar 28th - Warm Day, Finally

It is quite nice out today. It is still wet from the melting snow but the warm temperatures that are melting the snow are welcome.

Nothing exciting happening here. Lydia was here the past two afternoons. Below is a photo and video clip of her.

In the photo below she is having and after lunch cracker.

 In the video below we are seeing who has the most stamina. She is pulling the newspapers off the table and I'm putting them back on. This went on for a long time. Probably not a good "game" to play. I think I lost.

Kathy is off grocery shopping this morning. I've been sleeping a lot the past few days. I must have gotten caught up on sleep. I've been up since 3:30 AM. Now I need a nap before actually going out and getting something done this afternoon.

Have a great day! May God bless you and yours.

Mar 24th - SNOW!!!

It rained on and off throughout the night, the about 6 AM it started snowing. We actually had some lightening and thunder this morning.

At 8:30, when I went out to add wood to the boiler, there was a little over an inch on the ground.

 There are lots of birds at Kathy's feeders this morning. She has posted some of the photos on Facebook. I took this photo out the kitchen window. The female cardinal is sitting on top of the snow on a branch.

 I took the photo below at 11 AM. There is probably 7" of snow on the table top.

At our house we haven't gotten much wind, as you can see by the snow piled on the tree branches in the photos. Below is the tree at the end of our front porch, by the hot tub. Weatherbug says the wind is blowing at 20 mph, with gusts of 26 mph, but we are sheltered by all the trees.

Glad we decided not to go to church today. I'm sure we could have gotten out but may not have been able to get back down the drive to get home. The snow has let up a little, but it definitely is still snowing. It is supposed to keep snowing all day. I think we already have most of what we are going to get.

We went to Jefferson City yesterday, mostly because I wanted to buy a cordless Hitachi impact driver that was on sale at Menards. I also bought 10 gallons of diesel fuel for the tractor. It was almost full but it takes over half of a tank to plow our driveway. We also bought some groceries so we have no need to get out. I won't start working on the driveway until mid-morning tomorrow.

Hope you all have a good, and safe, day. May God bless you and yours.

Mar 21st - Back In Missouri

We arrived back home in Missouri about 8:30 PM. Traffic was no problem. Roads appeared to be a little wet the last mile or so.

It is a LONG drive. I only drove about 240 miles of the 580 miles. It seemed nearly as long as when I drove the motor home to TN a few weeks ago. I think we left about 10:30 AM. We stopped twice for gas, once at Demo's for lunch (in Lebanon, TN) and another time to stretch our legs and empty our bladders. I reset the fuel mileage indicator on the CR-V when I filled up the first time. It read 27.1 when we arrived home. We drove 5-8 mph above the speed limit most of the way, 75-78 mph except in Illinois where the speed limit is only 65. My guess is that if we did a fuel mileage calculation we probably only got around 25, but that isn't bad for the speeds we were driving.

Every thing was fine here. There is a light dusting of snow on my truck but no significant snow on the ground. It looks like we are going to get some additional moisture over the next several days but not much, if any, of it will be in the form of snow. I don't think Andy put more wood in the wood furnace after last Sunday afternoon. There were still enough coals in it started fine after I added wood. The house was 55 degrees, which is what Kathy had set the thermostat at when she left.

Mar 20th - Packing Up

We plan on heading back to Missouri tomorrow. Tonights low is supposed to be 18 here, we just had snow flurries, even though it is still 45 degrees. We are driving the CR-V and leaving the motor home here.

Below are some photos of our TN building.

Our building is behind the motor home. The red that you see is the entry door. The building is 28'x32', approx 900 sq.ft. This photo was taken from the edge of Allen Burgess Road. Our address is 1063 Allen Burgess Road, Crossville, TN; if you want to look us up. Use Yahoo maps, not Google; Google shows the wrong place.

Below is a floor plan of the building.
This photo is taken standing in the living room looking at the kitchen. The door on the left is for the bathroom. The door on the right is the main entry door, it is red on the outside.

 This photo was taken standing in the kitchen looking at the living room. Bedroom #2 (future) is on the right.

This photo was taken standing in the living room looking at the future bedroom. It is now my tool room. The framing on the right if for closets. The "master" bedroom is on the other side of the closets.

This is the bathroom. We did it when we were here in August 2011.

 This photo was taken standing in the "master" bedroom and looking into the utility area, which is located behind the bathroom. The heat pump air handler is in the attic area above the bathroom and utility room.

I had hoped to get all the wiring in the exterior walls and to install the insulation in the exterior walls this trip. I have the runs from the panel to all the different areas but did not get all the outlets installed. I only got about 15% of the wall insulated. A contractor is supposed to come blow about a foot of insulation in the attic area.

I had not planned on building the closet area this trip but am glad to get it done.

I'm hoping to buy a used refrigerator, range and microwave from the Habitat Re-Store where we volunteer Friday afternoons. I'd like to bring them with me when I come back the first or second week of April.

The neighbors finally got their well drilled. The stopped trying for water in the first hole after drilling 300'. They had a guy come out and "witch" for water. He had them move the drilling a relatively short distance (maybe 100-200 feet, I don't know for sure) and told them that they would hit water at about 150'. Yesterday, at 140' they hit water. This morning the water level was at 100'. I'm not sure why the wanted to drill a well rather than just hook up to the county water line.

Enough of a book for today. Hope you all had a good day. May God bless you and yours.

March 17th - Sunday

Went to church this morning and then to Ryan's for dinner. Also had to make a stop to pick up some light bulbs and covers for electrical boxes.

Church was good. I don't care much for the contemporary music but the volume was reasonable and the lyrics were fine, it just wasn't southern gospel. The church is getting ready to grow AGAIN. The new sanctuary building won't be 2 years old until June. The old sanctuary is used for youth church. It is not longer large enough for the youth. They are working towards adding 3,000 sq.ft. to have room for more youth. At a youth event last week they had 550-600 youth attend, the population of Crossville is 11,000.

Just typed up, and lost, some comments about the Pastor's message. Bad Internet connection. May add them later.

Marvin and I finished installing the drywall on the ceiling, except for a small piece in the "utility room". I had to add a box for a light in that room, which I have now done. Marvin is coming back tomorrow and we are going to frame the closet walls between the two bedrooms, and install real door on the bathroom. Still no drywall on the walls. That is one or two trips down the road. I won't have any taping done until all the drywall is up. A big Praise the Lord for my shoulders not giving me any significant problems installing the drywall on the ceiling. We had a "panel hoist" to raise the drywall sheets up against the bottom of the trusses but there was still a LOT of overhead screwing to attach the sheets to the trusses.

I still intend on installing the batt insulation in the walls but am having a contractor blow the insulation into the attic. He is supposed to do that some time this week.

We plan on packing up Tuesday and heading back to Missouri Wednesday. We are going to leave the motor home here. I plan on coming back, probably with my pickup, in 2-3 weeks to continue working on the building.

Weather has been beautiful the past several days.

Better get this sent before I lose my connection again.

Hope you all have a great day. May God bless you and yours.

Mar 14th - SNOW!

The official low last night was 18. The thermometer in the dash of our motor home registered 22. Tom said his thermometer said 19. I think that was the coldest night we have experienced while in the motor home. One of the nights when we were at Logan Valley, Oct 2011, it got down to 25. I think that was the lowest temperature until last night. It warmed up into the 40's today and it supposed to stay above freezing tonight, and for the rest of the week.

The heating contractor got our heat pump working today. We know have heat and air. I worked in our building all day today, mostly on the electrical wiring. Marvin and I were going to put up some drywall on the ceiling this afternoon but just as we started hoisting the second sheet into place the hoist cable, on the lift I rented, broke. Kathy took it back to the rental place and got us another one. We will start on the ceiling drywall again tomorrow.

We went to Tom & Mary Lou's for supper. Kathy made pies again. We had mashed potatoes, roast beef, cole slaw, peas and pies for desert. When we left to come home it was snowing! It snowed quite hard during the short drive home but soon quit. There was no accumulation.

Time for bed.

Good night. May God bless you and yours.