A Sign Of Spring

As Stacey and I were taking Daisy for a run today, I started to notice the grass in the fields was beginning to green slightly. I thought maybe it was just from the rain we had last weekend, so I drove the Mule down by the creek and saw that the daffodils were blooming behind the old smoke house. I snapped a picture before we took Daisy around the fields.
 
Today, it was in the upper 30s as we let Daisy run, but the temperatures are supposed to be above 70 degrees by the weekend if the forecast is correct. I'm looking forward to that, but I know that we usually have snow flurries the first week of April, so spring isn't here yet, but it's getting closer!

Family Visits

Friday evening Pauline, Brent and Julie came over for a visit. We played with Julie and talked until bedtime.
Saturday I fixed pancakes for breakfast and then Julie, Pauline and I took a ride in the Mule and let Daisy run around the farm. Julie seems to like riding in the Mule a lot and letting Daisy run gives her something to focus on and talk about as we ride. It was getting warmer and Pauline didn't mind the weather. We went back to the house and went inside for a few minutes. Julie was waiting to go back outside, so we decided to walk around the hay field with the little dogs getting to run along. It was a long walk for Coco, Poco, Pico and Julie. We stopped a few times and let Julie play in the water while the little dogs chased each other in circles, ran and jumped around and had a blast. We loaded back in the Mule and drove back across the creek to the house. After a sandwich for lunch we went out to dig up some of the flowers that had to be moved for the highway relocation. We dug up the flowers and laid them in the scoop of the tractor. I asked Regina to come over and take some of the flowers. She brought her riding mower over with a cart behind and we filled it with flower bulbs. Then I drove the tractor over to her shed and dug a place for her and Linda to replant the flowers. I moved a small tree for Regina and then we went to the barn and planted the flowers we had in the tractor scoop. Nancy and Steve stopped by and we loaded the rest of the hay he had in the barn on the trailer so he could haul it to his barn on the ridge. We finished with the flowers, cleaned up some wood scraps where I had split wood, then went down to the fire pit and picked up some limbs that had fell. Nancy and Steve returned with the trailer and put it back in the shed, then parked their truck down by the fire pit and we all set and talked a while. Nancy and Steve left to go buy groceries and we went inside for supper.

Record Temperature

The weekend was really nice. Pauline, Brent and Julie were here both days and the temperatures were above 70 degrees both days. Monday was even warmer and we reached 80 degrees today, which is a new record. We've been outside and don't have much to do because the grass has just started turning green and hasn't grown enough to need mowing. We've been picking up limbs that have fallen over the winter. The highway relocation process is getting more serious. Linda and I both received registered letters last Friday. The letters told us we were being called to court and needed to appear within 20 days. We have consulted with the attorney handling the highway relocation process for the State of KY. She told us that the state is wanting to be able to start working on our property without making an agreement with us for payment. We are still asking questions and determining if we need a lawyer to represent us at this point.

Sloppy Weather

The weather has changed again and again. This time we had rain, sleet, snow, then rain. We drove to Albany in the rain, came home with it sleeting, watched from inside the house as it snowed, watched the snow melt and it begin to rain, all in one day. The forecast is for rain most of the day Saturday and all the rainy weather to move out by Sunday and warmer weather to return.

Visiting PB&J

We used Skype to make sure Pauline, Brent and Julie were going to be home before we headed over to their house. We left a little after 9 AM and drove the HHR with Coco riding along. The rain and traffic slowed our trip down a little, but we arrived about 11AM. Of course the dogs went crazy, running around the living room and Julie was glad to see us walk in their house. She gave us hugs and kisses and then showed off her new skills at putting 6 or 7 words together. Pauline and Brent had been reading a book to Julie and she had picked up the line about "the doctor said, no more jumping on the bed." It was cute to hear her say those words so seriously.

After a while, Pauline and Brent wanted to go to Lowes in Bowling Green to pick up some shelving material for Pauline's closet, so we took Julie with us and Stacey rode along with P&B in their car. All of us could not "legally" ride in one of the HHRs. We ate lunch at Zaxbys before stopping at Lowes and buying the wire shelving. Brent had the 8' long pieces cut into four 24" pieces and also bought the plastic clips to mount them to the walls. We drove back to their house and began installing the shelves after Linda and Pauline moved things out of the closet. The shelving went in quickly and after finishing 4 shelves on one side of the closet, the girls moved things out of the way on the other side and Brent installed the last 4 shelves. As the day went on, we played with the dogs and Julie and watched a little TV at the same time. Pauline fixed dinner with Brent helping. Linda was doing something and I was watching Brent cook, so no one was watching Julie. We began eating and someone noticed that Julie had done some home decorating with a marker on the walls. Oops, that was a little bit of trouble for Julie. We all grabbed some rags and some of those 'magic erasers' and cleaned the walls and woodwork before Julie got in too much trouble. We stayed till about 8 PM, then drove home in a misting rain.

Foggy Morning

The last few days of rain left quite a bit of moisture in the ground, so when the temperature rose, so did the fog. We couldn't see the road from the house when we woke up this morning. By the time I went out to take Daisy for a run, the fog had cleared slightly, but it was still thick down by the creek bottom. Daisy was eager to go since she had been couped up for two of the last three days. She did cross the creek cautiously as it had been too deep for her a few days earlier, but then she took off like she was on the tail of something.
   
Back in the 'holler', Daisy was on alert, as every noise seemed threatening and she couldn't see what was out there waiting to attack. Actually, nothing ever attacked, but I think she was ready.

Julie Visits A While

Stacey and Linda went to Smith's Grove Wednesday evening and brought Julie back to the farm with them.
Thursday morning, Julie was up early and dressed quickly because she was wanting to take Daisy for a run and to ride in the Mule with me. We left the house at 7:30 AM and put Daisy through her exercises of running around the hay fields. We later drove to Columbia for lunch and to shop for groceries. After returning to the farm and putting away the groceries, Steve stopped by to talk a while, then we went to his house and worked on his fence for his new cows. We have all the posts set except one for the gate he needs to buy. We waited to see exactly how long the gate was before setting the second post. Julie played and had fun with Coco until Linda gave her a bath. Linda dressed Julie in her pajamas and brought her in to the bed room for me to keep an eye on her. Julie laid down on the bed and I put my arm across her and in about 5 minutes she was asleep. Linda picked Julie up after a few more minutes and put her to bed.
This morning, Stacey had made a date with Jason to have breakfast in town, so we all dressed quickly and while Linda was dressing, I took a picture of Julie in front of our house.

 
We went to meet Jason and ate breakfast, then stopped and visited with the ladies that work in the Adult Learning Center on the way home. The ladies seemed to be testing Julie as soon as she walked inside. One gave Julie a couple of puzzles to work and Julie worked them with a little help. Another gave Julie some stickers and was asking Julie what sound each animal made. Julie knew those and answered. After a few minutes of visiting, we were ready to leave, so Julie gave each lady a hug and said good bye. We returned to the farm for another Mule ride with Daisy running along and Stacey driving. Around 5 PM, Pauline and Brent arrived with Pico and Poco. Nancy and Steve came over and all of us took a walk around the hay fields with their dog, Lady, and our dog, Daisy running with us. We had a little trouble getting Daisy to come back down the hill as she was chasing a squirrel and finally caught it. She brought it with her and was chewing on it as I put her in the back of the Mule. Nancy and Steve left to feed their cows and we went inside and ate BBQ sandwiches that Linda had ready.

Beautiful Weekend

The weather was beautiful this weekend. Just a perfect temperature to be outside during the day. We did the usual things, let Daisy run and walk around the hay fields with PB&J. Julie stopped and played in the creek. Oh, there was a small crisis for a moment too. Julie was standing near the edge of the creek, playing in the water with a stick and throwing rocks into the creek. All of a sudden she fell down in the inch deep water. Pauline was right there to grab her quickly, but Julie was wet and she didn't think it was nearly as funny as the rest of us. She cried for a minute and then was OK. We walked to the house and changed her clothes and Julie was ready to go back outside. She played in the water again when we walked around the fields the next day, so it wasn't a lasting thing. We worked on moving flowers most of the weekend, but Brent and I did take the back hoe off the tractor and replace it with the plow.

Highway Relocation Speed Increased

After eating breakfast in town this morning we took a quick drive through the 'Saw Mill Cut' to see how progress was going on the relocation of Highway 90. There were more pieces of equipment being used and work had intensified since our last tour.
   
The crews had built better access roads to the tops of the hills where the rock was being loaded into large dump trucks and brought down the hillsides and then onto the main highway. The trucks were then drove through town and north on Highway 61 to the 704 Junction. There were several bulldozers spreading the rock and covering large steel tubes that were used for drainage under the new highway. The existing highway is being torn to pieces by the large tri-axle dump trucks hauling heavy loads of rock.
  
Farther north on Highway 61, new bridges are being constructed. One bridge was built using pre-cast concrete and simply sealed together after being set in place by a large crane. Another bridge has been built from the ground up on site with only pre-cast concrete spans being used. A house has already been moved from one location and set in a new place farther back from the road with a foundation being built under it.
   

Rain and Storms

After about three days of rainy weather, the afternoon was disrupted by severe weather in TN and KY. There were tornado warnings for both TN and KY and a tornado watch issued for Cumberland County. By the time the storms actually reached our area, they had dissipated and were just thunderstorms that blew through about 8:45 PM.