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.