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Posted on Tuesday, January 01, 2008
New Year's Day Snow Flurries
New Year's Day, the temperature started out around 39 degrees and
dropped quickly as the wind began to blow out of the north and the skies
clouded over. I ventured outside early to take Daisy for a short run
across the hay fields, but I didn't let her run through the creek. I
figured it would be too cold later in the day for her to get wet. About
3 PM the snow flurries began to fly.
There
wasn't any accumulation because the ground wasn't frozen and there
wasn't enough snow either. We stayed inside and burnt wood in the stove
while watching football on TV. Linda watched the DVR and made a
blackberry cobbler in her new toaster oven. It turned out fairly well.
The flurries seemed to reach their peak a little later as caught by the
web cam in the picture below.
We received a message from Brent saying that they had made it to IN and back without any problems.
Posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Relaxing At The Farm
We've kept the wood stove going for two days and the dogs are liking it.
They have both settled down and are getting used to being here. The
first few days they were a little nervous about where Pauline and Brent
were at, but once they figured out we were going to feed them and keep
them warm, they were OK.
Linda
will be taking Pico and Poco home tomorrow when she goes to babysit for
Julie.
Posted on Saturday, January 05, 2008
Wood Cutting and Splitting
Several days ago, I wrote about having trouble with the motor on my log splitter. Stacey went with me and I took the splitter in to the ATV shop. They looked at it and told me the motor needed work on it. I opted for a new Briggs and Stratton motor from Northern Tool. It was delivered and they installed the new engine. I went and picked it up and paid, then brought it home and unloaded the splitter. After splitting several pieces I decided it worked great and I was ready to split wood again. Steve Riddle and I had been talking about cutting some oak up on his place on Jone's Ridge, so we made plans for this morning. It was misting rain, but we decided to go ahead and meet at his farm at 10 AM. I loaded in my chainsaws and equipment to keep them running and headed up there in the pickup truck. Steve unlocked the gate and I followed him to the spot where he wanted to cut the trees. He pointed out the tree for me to cut and I started my saw and down it came, almost. Of course, the tree fell against another tree and didn't completely fall to the ground. We used a chain and my 4-wheel drive pickup to pull the tree the rest of the way to the ground. It took about 20 minutes to do that. Steve used his saw to trim the smaller limbs off the trunk and branches while I cut the larger part of the trunk. We worked, took a break, worked, tightened our chains, worked, sharpened my chain, and worked some more. We picked up the pieces and threw them in our truck beds. We divided the wood evenly without worrying about being exact. We took a break and drank a coke, then pulled over to another tree trunk Steve had already cut down. The pieces had been too big for him to use without splitting, so we cut those up and loaded them in our trucks. I headed to the hay shed while Steve fed his cattle and closed up the gates. I pulled the log splitter to the inside of the hay shed and had it ready to go when Steve pulled inside the sliding door. Nancy had finished working at the bank and came along to help. I started the splitter and showed Steve how to run it, then I rolled the bigger pieces off his truck and over to the splitter. Steve set in a chair and ran the splitter while Nancy picked up the split pieces and put them back in the truck. We finished the pieces Steve thought needed splitting and Nancy went on back home. Steve stayed a few minutes and helped me put the splitter back in the wood shed. It was 3 PM when we finished and I went inside.
Posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2008
Breakfast and Ballgames
Stacey's friend, Jason has went back to work after his surgery. The restaurant where Jason and Stacey had been meeting for breakfast closed down, so I had asked Jason to meet us at Jone's this morning. We dressed and headed into town and met Jason around 7:30 AM. We all had breakfast and then took Jason over to Houchen's grocery store. We dropped him off and went back to the farm. The temperatures have been at least 70 for two days. Linda went to work at the day care and when she came home we went to the Cumberland County High School to watch the basketball games. Jason came to the game and Stacey set with him. The girls played the first game and won easily against Metcalf County. The boys game was rougher and the lead swapped back and forth several times during the entire game. CC boys were in the lead with about 2 minutes left in the game, but due to several errors ended up losing by one point. It was pouring down rain as we left the ballgame and headed back to the farm.
Posted on Thursday, January 10, 2008
Thursday Thunder
Linda left for PB&Js house early this morning. Stacey and I had
breakfast after that and then I took the Mule for a ride. I let Daisy
run along as it began raining. It was a light rain so I let her take her
time without being in a hurry. With the leaves being off the trees Daisy
can run around the hills and I can still keep track of her.
That
light spot in the center of the picture is Daisy about half way up the
side of the hill going back into the 'holler'. She can run along the
side of the hills nearly as fast as I can drive the Mule on flat ground.
We went on back and turned around. As we were coming back down a long
stretch of solid rock, Daisy sniffed all over a few old logs lying by
the bottom of the hill.
I
watched her go all around it, get half way buried trying to find
something down in the dead wood. Finally, I called Daisy off the pile of
wood and we went on out of the 'holler' and started back across the hay
fields. The rain had let up a little and I stopped and took a picture of
the farm from the edge of the hillside.
I
put Daisy back in the barn and fed her, then Stacey and I walked down
and started the pickup truck. I drove out of the hay shed and over to
the old smoke house. I loaded in a chipper shredder and took it to the
ATV shop for them to get it running and maybe sell it. We bought it and
used it a couple of times in 2003 and it has set covered up ever since.
We ate while we were in town and then stopped for a few groceries on our
way back to the farm. Around 3 PM the weather radio went off with a
tornado watch for most of KY. About a hour later, there was a
thunderstorm that hit our area. It was a downpour with thunder and
lightning mixed in for good measure. The storm lasted about 45 minutes
and then the sky cleared and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.
There
was only about 7-8 minutes time between those pictures. It's amazing how
much the sky can change in that amount of time.
Posted on Sunday, January 13, 2008
Our Vacation In 1978
Not much going on at the farm with it raining and being cold, so I
decided to post some old photos from our vacation in 1978. You might not
recognize us, but remember we were young once too!
We left
Indiana the day after Memorial Day and drove the van to Arkansas and
visited Hot Springs Arkansas.
We
stayed in the van the first night parked in a rest area along the
interstate somewhere near the Arkansas / Texas state line. The next day
we drove to Dallas/Fort Worth. As luck would have it, we reached the
city right at morning rush hour. To this day, I've never been in worse
traffic than on the interstate between those two cities. It was 30 mph,
bumper to bumper for an hour and a half at least. Traffic on the access
roads alongside the interstate was moving faster. We eventually made it
and drove and drove across the biggest state I've ever been in and
finally stopped for the night near Corpus Christi. The next day, we
decided to take a break from driving and go to the beach. It was nice
and really hot, just what we had came for, so it was a relaxing day at
the beach.
We
were ready to leave so I started driving down the beach but the beach
ended in a rock wall with sea water on the other side, so I turned
around. That was a mistake. The van sunk and I had to pay to get it
pulled out. It's been so long I can't remember exactly where we stayed,
but I do remember it was too hot to stay in the van again, so we found a
motel room and stayed the night. The next morning we began our drive to
Brownsville and over the bridge to Padre Island. We checked into a
modern place and were on about the 8th floor with a nice view of both
sides of the island.
We
dinned out on shrimp and the best fish for three nights. The beaches
were white sand and the water was really cleaner. I could have lived
there for a long time if we would have had tons of money. All too soon,
it was time to move on. We crossed the border at Brownsville by walking
and took one of the strangest bus rides of my life through Mexico to
what they called the 'mall'.
It
was a group of 'buildings' made of chicken wire and tin roofing with
several shops inside. Linda bought some jewelry made of onyx and nickel
and I bought a chess set made of onyx. I paid $20 for it, but at the
time, they were selling for $60 in the USA. I'll never forget the meat
lying out on carts for sale with flies all over it. We never ate or
drank anything the time we were in Mexico. We paid our nickel to cross
back into the USA and returned to the van and headed towards San
Antonio. We stayed in a hotel and took off early the next morning and
drove into the town and went to the Alamo.
I
was impressed with how small of an area it was and how big of an image
it had been in my mind. There was no comparison to the importance it had
played in our battle with Mexico over Texas. We briefly crossed into
Mexico again, but didn't think much of it, so back across the border. We
left the border area and headed towards Houston. We went through there,
stayed the night, and then crossed along the gulf coast to Galveston. We
had planned another day at the beach, but things didn't work out real
well.
We
had been at the beach about a half hour when I was standing in the water
and was stung by a jellyfish. It stung me on both arms, through my swim
trunks and I went running from the water. I was told 'it won't kill
you!', how comforting. That ended our day at the beach and we drove
towards Alabama. We stopped and toured the USS Alabama and a WWII
submarine.
It
was very dark in Alabama and we had trouble finding a place to stay,
seems there was a lot of poverty too. We finally found a place and then
next day we went to the Alabama Space Museum.
After
that we headed on towards Nashville and stayed a night. The next day we
went to Opryland Park and to the Grand Ole Opry.
That
is the nicest theme park I've ever been to because there were plenty of
shade, lots of rides, and music shows to entertain people while resting.
I was so disappointed many years later when they tore it down. We stayed
two nights in the Nashville area and then drove back to Indiana.
It
had been almost two weeks since we had left and we had one heck of a
time.
Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Clinton County Games
Stacey, Linda and I went to lunch in Columbia and afterwards we stopped at the Ford garage to order a sway bar for the rear of Linda's 1997 Mustang. The service/parts man said it should take around 4 days for the part to be delivered and about an hour to install, so I ordered it and they're to call when it arrives. The next stop was at the grocery store and then back to the farm. We put the groceries up and hung around until about 3:30, when we left to pick up Jason. He was going to the Clinton County basketball game with Stacey. We picked him up and headed to Albany and drove on through into TN and to the Farmhouse restaurant. We ate, paid and drove back to Albany and to the high school for Cumberland County's game against Clinton County. We were early enough to get some good seats about 5 rows off the floor at mid-court. Cumberland boys played the first game and led most of the way. In the final two minutes, Cumberland threw the ball away several times and ended up losing the game by 2 points. They had less than two seconds to get the ball the length of the floor and take a final shot, but it didn't go in. After a short intermission, the girls game began. Cumberland's girls made easy work of Clinton County's girls until around the 3 minute mark, when Clinton County came within about 3 points. Cumberland stretched the lead and pulled away to about a 12 point win at the final buzzer. Jason didn't ride home with us, Tommy was at the game and took him home to save us the extra drive.
Posted on Friday, January 18, 2008
The Last Two Days
Thursday morning Linda left for PB&J's house to babysit. Stacey fixed us
pop tarts for breakfast and then she went to exercise in the study. I
was in there surfing the net while she was on the elliptical exerciser.
After she finished, she went to her room and I went into the bedroom to
get dressed. I heard a light thud and yelled at Stacey to see if she was
OK. No answer so I immediately went in to see what was going on. I found
her sitting on the couch and beginning to have involuntary movements in
her arms and facial muscles. I grabbed the bottle of Valium and gave her
a 10mg at 10:05 AM and then set down to see how she did with that. I
waited another 20 minutes and decided to give her another 5mg Valium
Stacey began to show signs of being under control, so I called Linda at
PB&J's house. She said she would be home as soon as Brent could leave
work at school and get there to take care of Julie. Linda made the trip
home and came in a little before noon. Stacey was laying in the bed with
me beside her with my arm over her so I could tell if she had any more
problems. Linda took over watching her for a little bit, while I took
out the trash and fed Daisy. We continued watching Stacey the rest of
the day. She was groggy from the Valium but no other seizure activity
occurred
Friday morning Linda said Stacey was having problems again,
so she laid down beside me and I once again placed my arm over her until
I had noticed a couple of involuntary movements. We decided to give
Stacey a 5mg Valium and see how she did. Her movements weren't as
pronounced as they had been the day before. A few more occurred and then
they stopped. She watched TV until time for lunch and wanted to go to
Burger King for lunch, so we checked her out by seeing if she could
dress herself. She did and was walking OK, so we went. She ate and
seemed like she was back to normal after eating. After lunch, we decided
to drive to the Dale Hollow Lake State Park and take a look at the new
docks they are building in the cove. It is a monster set of boat docks,
supposedly, enough room for 300 boats. It looks bigger. They are
constructing a new dock store that is floating where the old docks were
located, but I expect it to be moved out of that location and placed
near the entrance to the cove for easy gas fill ups. There are docks
being assembled in the parking lot and then carried by big fork lifts to
the water, floated out and bolted together. If you've ever been to
Jamestown dock on Lake Cumberland, the same company built and owns both.
They resemble each other with maybe a different colored roof. It has
been said, they are building a new ramp that will go straight out into
the lake from the road. It is supposed to be only two lanes wide and
this sucks IMO. The current ramp is about 5 lanes wide. This is the dock
area we always used. It was free and excellent access to parking and the
lake. I think parking will be a big problem now. We returned to the
house and continued to keep an eye on Stacey. Jason sent her a bouquet
of flowers and then called a little after 7 PM to see how she was doing.
We missed having breakfast with him this morning and had called and told
him Stacey was experiencing some problems. These problems occurred
slightly off of Stacey's normal menstrual schedule and were not as bad
as some have been. She's always surprising us. Just when we think we
have a regular pattern figured out, she up and throws us a curve ball
that we didn't expect. At least we are keeping her out of the hospital
most of the time by giving the Valium as soon as we notice any signs of
a problem. That in itself is a relief, because it is better on us to
watch her at home than to set in the hospital all night.
Posted on Saturday, January 19, 2008
Twitches Continue
Saturday morning began early with Linda saying that Stacey was having trouble again. I went in the bedroom at 4:45 AM and observed Stacey for a few minutes and asked her some questions. She could only respond with "What?". Her shoulders were moving involuntary, so we decided to give her 10mg Valium and wait a few minutes. She didn't respond much and about 25 minutes later we gave her another 5mg of Diazapham. Linda and I continued watching Stacey and she began to get back to a normal response to questions. She was tired and irritable from taking the medication. We moved from the bedroom to the living room and watched TV while also watching her condition. While Linda was fixing breakfast, I was keeping an eye on Stacey. She continued to improve and we ate breakfast. Stacey slept as she watched TV and Linda and I took turns watching. We ate lunch a little later than normal and Stacey was feeling better, so we decided to take a ride to Marrowbone and look around at the new consignment shop called the "Yellow Ribbon Trading Post". We walked around in there and were surprised by how nice the items were and clean the shop was being kept. The items looked more like new or lightly used than what we had expected. It is one of the nicest consignment shops I've been inside. The owner, Lisa, was originally from NY and is really nice to talk with about any subject. She said she has many people that bring items to her shop. Many of the items are crafts made around this area. I told her that Linda will be back and I might stop once in a while too.
Posted on Monday, January 21, 2008
Cold Spell Breaks
It's been fairly cold the last few days in KY. The temperatures have
been in the single digits at night. My neighbor told me his digital
thermometer registered eight degrees Saturday night. Stacey has been
having problems, but has straightened up the last couple of days. We
have been staying inside burning wood in the stove and working puzzles.
Today
the temperatures were in the lower 40s, so I went outside to take Daisy
and let her run around a little while. On the way out to start the Mule,
I noticed something moving in the fields across the creek. I went back
inside and picked up the camera and then drove the Mule down closer to
the highway and walked across the road until I was spotted by three deer
eating winter wheat in my neighbors field.
They
were romping and playing, running and jumping like kids on a playground
while cars were driving by every few minutes. They appeared to be
unaffected by the cars or me until I started moving in closer. It seemed
like I crossed the line as to what they thought was safe and they ran
across the field a little further from me and watched me as they ate. I
moved to the side a little and the three deer didn't like the way I was
going, so they high tailed it off in the opposite direction leaping over
a small gully as they went. It looked like the first deer jumped eight
feet in the air to get across the gully, but the last two just sort of
stretched out their strides and then the white tail from where they get
their names was shown to me.
They
ended up running up by our house and into the woods behind. I returned
to the Mule and drove to the barn, let Daisy out of her stall and drove
down to the creek to let her run around a little while. She played
around the creek bank but was a little scared of the ice on top of some
of the creek water.
The
creek really looks frozen solid in those last two pictures, but it's
not. There is just a slight film of frozen water on top as shown by the
last picture below.
It
felt good to get out of the house a little and I know Daisy enjoyed the
freedom too. We went to Columbia to eat lunch and picked up groceries
while we were there.
Posted on Saturday, January 26, 2008
Basketball and More Basketball
This week we have be attending the Cumberland County (CC) basketball
games in the District 4 All 'A' Tourney. Teams from several schools have
all been playing in Burkesville at the high school. We've went Wednesday
and watched the CC Lady Panthers win their semi-final game. Then Stacey
and I went Thursday evening and watched the CC Panthers lose their
semi-final game. Friday night there wasn't an empty seat in the
building, with 4 different schools being involved in the championship
games for both girls and boys. Jason and Stacey sat by each other for
all the games. I made plans with Stacey and Jason for me to pick him up
Saturday at 2 PM and take him to our house to watch a NBA game with
Stacey.The girls' game was first on the schedule. We watched the CC Lady
Panthers win the championship game by nearly 20 points. The home town
crowd was going crazy during the game and immediately after the game the
girls cut down the nets and had their pictures made with the trophy. We
watched the first quarter and half of the second quarter of the boys
game before we left. Russleville was defeated by Metcalf County in the
boys final.
Saturday, Jason's favorite team is the Miami Heat and of
course Stacey's is the Pacers. They played today at 2:30 PM. I picked
Jason up and Stacey was at our house waiting with the TV on and ready to
watch the game. They watched the first half of the game while Linda
fixed a couple home made pizzas. Stacey was having a good time as the
Pacers were beating the Heat. Jason wasn't as happy as Stacey.
We
all ate pizza as the game was going on. After the first half and we were
done eating, we went upstairs and watched the second half on the big
screen TV. Miami started making a comeback and Jason started to show
some excitement as they got closer to the Pacers. Stacey started getting
quiet as the Heat took the lead. And at the end of the 3rd quarter, the
game was tied. Both were pushing and lightly slapping each other on the
arms and shoudlers. The Heat pulled away, but the Pacers caught back up.
It was a close game with Miami winning in the final seconds by 2 points.
Jason didn't rub it in and Stacey took it fairly well. Jason asked if we
could shoot a game of pool after the ball game was over. We did, then it
seemed like he was ready to go home, so Linda and Stacey took him home.
I think they had fun watching their favorite teams play each other.
Posted on Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Tornado Warning
There had been a light rain falling in the morning and several times
during the day it had become heavier. The water was flowing off the hill
and the creek had begun to get a little muddy, but not rising much by
dark. The Nashville TV channels had been predicting thunderstorms for
the evening hours, so we were aware there might be a few storms. About 6
PM the news broke into the normal broadcasts and stated there had been a
tornado in far western KY and that our portion of the state was under a
thunderstorm watch. Pretty soon the weather radio warning sounded and I
checked the message. Thunderstorm warning for our area. About 7 PM,
another alarm sounded from the weather radio and it was a tornado watch
for Cumberland County. I used the laptop and checked the National
Weather Service radar and it was showing a thin line of storms reaching
from the middle of IN through KY and into TN. I messaged with Brent and
told him to be ready for storms in the area. Julie and him were home
alone and they weren't worried he said. The line passed them and his
power went out for a few minutes, but he said the storms only lasted
about 8-10 minutes and were mostly wind. A few minutes before 8 PM, the
weather radio sounded a tornado warning for Cumberland County. I checked
the radar again and the warning area was directly over the farm. Our
neighbor, Steve Riddle, called and said the scanner was reporting it was
heading right for our part of the county and he asked us to come down to
their house and set in their basement with them. Linda and I decided to
take him up on his offer, so we picked up Stacey's medication, a
flashlight, Missy and all three of us went to their house to ride out
the storm. We went inside and Nancy and Steve were listening to their
scanner and weather radio. The police were saying it was coming close to
our place, so we went to the basement and waited and watched out their
basement door. The wind blew fairly hard with the rain going nearly
sideways for about 20 minutes and then it was over. We talked a little
while longer until the rain slowed down a little, then thanked Nancy and
Steve and headed back to our house. The lights flickered a few more
times during the evening, but that was about it. This morning I noticed
we had a real old big tree blown down last night. It was a hickory nut
tree that I can remember being there since I was a kid and I had played
in the shade under it.
I
also noticed that it had rained enough that the creek had been out of
the banks and into the hay field. So, while it was only a 20 minute
storm, it created several hours of work for me to clean up the hay
fields and cut up the downed tree.
"If it ain't one thing, it's two!"
