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Posted on Saturday, April 01, 2006
April Fools Anniversary
I started the blog on April 1st last year, so the Norris Family Blog is
one year old today. I set the web counter to not include our own visits,
so the number of visitors to the blog was 1,140 during the past year. I
have written 258 posts to the blog and I'll admit, it's not as easy to
try to write an entry every day as I thought it would be when I started
the blog. The blog has helped me to remember when certain things
happened and should enable me to plan a little better in coming years.
An example of this is with the planting, fertilizing, trimming, digging
and selling of the mums. I have also made contact with several people
through them reading the blog and contacting me by clicking my name
under the posts to send me email. One family contacted us about Dr Zhu
and their child's medical problem and I have actually made money from
the blog. Not much, just $10, sent to me in the form of a coupon for
Amazon.com by a group of Carnegie Melon
University students. They had read the blog and wanted some
questions answered, so I responded to their questions and they sent the
coupon in an email. I logged in to my Amazon account and pasted in the
numbers and was credited with the money. Family members have also been
able to read about what has happened with us during the year. Although,
Linda claims we don't get as many phone calls because people read about
us on the blog and then don't have to call to find things out. Hmm, I
don't know if that's a good thing or not??
Overall, it has been a
fairly good experience and I will try to continue posting entries...
Posted on Sunday, April 02, 2006
Weekend and Wild Weather
Saturday was a beautiful day with temperatures in the upper 70s. Brent
came over early and brought his dogs. Linda was starting the Triump when
he arrived and they immediately took a ride into town in it. They had
the top off and were both enjoying the nice weather. Later in the day we
took the dogs walking around the pond and the rest of the farm. We
loaded into Linda's Mustang and went to town to eat at Hamilton's BBQ.
Once we finished eating we rode out of town to the road to Dale Hollow
Lake and took a slow drive through the country, back through town and to
the farm. Stacey and Brent were ready for naps, so they laid down to
watch TV. I went and mowed behind the trailer and down by the creek. We
watched the NCAA Men's Final Four games in the evening.
Sunday was
nice in the morning but clouds began to appear by mid morning. We took a
short walk and let the dogs play outside a little before lunch. I fixed
chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. We watched the start of the NASCAR
race, and then went outside again. Linda and I took a Mule ride around
the hay fields and spotted a tree we want to mark for transplanting this
fall. It began to rain and we had a nice shower for about 30 minutes.
Brent took his dogs and headed to his house about 5 PM. I told Linda
there were severe weather forecasts for TN and KY. About 7 PM the
weather alert radio sounded an alarm and we were under a 'tornado
watch'. I started watching the Nashville channels and they were
reporting tornadoes in western TN. Around 9 PM the radio sounded another
alarm and we were in a 'tornado warning'. I started the laptop and
checked the online radar sites and then we jumped in the Mule and I
parked the trucks inside the sheds with Linda picking me up and bringing
me back to the house. I continued to monitor the radar sites and keep an
eye on the weather reports being broadcast at each commercial break. The
tornadoes were never closer than about fifty miles to our location.
About 11:45 I decided the worst was over and I went to bed.
Posted on Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Tractor Returned
Linda left for Smith's Grove with Stacey this morning. They were going to clean up the pole barn at the trailer over there and then stay the night with Brent. I mowed the barn lot and down behind where the old house was including the creek bank. I went to town for lunch at the Corner and on the way back stopped at the hardware store to buy a couple of FOR SALE signs. Mike, that works at Brown's Hardware, made a call and told me to take the truck over to a car lot, that the owner might buy my truck. I drove over and let the guy take a look and he made me an offer of $6,000, which was $1,000 higher than the GM dealer had offered me on a trade. I told the guy that I thought I would try to sell it myself for a couple of weeks, so I went back to the hardware and bought the signs I was looking at earlier. I came home and put the signs on the truck and parked it down by the road. I went down to the mum patch and was checking to see how many of the mums were begining to grow after being dormant through the winter. As I expected, not many, so I will plow them under. I ended up crossing the road and helping Steve Riddle hook up his new bush hog to his tractor. He may have bought one that is bigger than he needs, his tractor front wheels nearly lift off the ground when he raises the bush hog up in back. He was a little worried about the weight of the bush hog and if the tractor would handle it. I came home and was inside when Cooter started barking, so I checked outside and there was a guy unloading my tractor. They had put a new hydraulic hose on it and serviced the tractor too. He didn't bring a bill, so I don't know how much G&G Tractors charged me. He left and I started the tractor and it runs a lot faster than it did before and just seems peppier. I went down the road and moved the dirt that Carl had asked me to level out by the mum patch. It took about a half hour to get it the way he wanted it done. After dark, Linda called and said there were two groups of people that had looked at the trailer that we have FOR SALE in Smith's Grove.
Posted on Thursday, April 06, 2006
Plowing And Paying
I was planning on plowing the patch for the mums, but when I was
listening to the news on TV they were predicting rain, so I checked the
radar on the laptop. There was rain appearing on the radar, but it was
west of Bowling Green, so I thought I would have time to plow before the
rain arrived. It was about 6:15 AM when I left the house. I unhooked the
grader box from the tractor and hooked up the two bottom plow and
leveled it. I filled the tractor with diesel fuel and headed to the mum
patch. After determining which way to plow I laid off the rows two at a
time. I was nearly done when the rain arrived as light sprinkles. It
took about another ten minutes to finish the patch for the mums and then
I did a smaller area for Regina to plant some garden plants. I figure
people driving by thought I was crazy plowing in the rain, but the
ground never got wet enough to make a difference by the time I was done.
I drove the tractor through the creek a couple of times to clean the dirt off
the tires and then parked it behind the upper barn to let the rain
gently wash the dust off too. I went inside and it was a little after 8
AM. I guess I'm a farmer now that I've been plowing before sun up.
(giggle) I showered and headed to Columbia to pay for the tractor
service. It was raining harder on the way there and water was puddling
on the road. I parked and went inside, talked to the service manager and
he told me what they had done to the tractor. They had put on about six
new air, oil, and hydraulic filters, replaced two seals, replaced one
high pressure hydraulic line, filled it with hydraulic oil, and welded
the muffler stack back together. He said they were figuring the bill and
I could go to the parts department to pay. I told the service manager
that the tractor ran a bunch better and he remarked that the muffler
leaking had clogged up the breather filter and the tractor wasn't
getting enough air to run right. There were also two $50 charges for
hauling, one for each way, that was included in the $516.77 service bill
that I paid. Back at home later, Regina came over and we talked about a
half hour even though Linda wasn't home. I noticed when I was outside
that some of the trees around the farm and near the house were blooming.
Linda called a little later and said Stacey and her were staying the
night at Brent's again and that they believe they have sold the trailer
on contract.
Posted on Friday, April 07, 2006
Sitting At The Cellar
Brent, Stacey and Linda came home yesterday about 10:30 AM and unloaded
a truck load of 'stuff' that we had left at the Smith's Grove trailer.
They came inside after unloading the junk and talked about the people
that are supposed to buy the trailer. We went to Hamilton's BBQ and ate
lunch and then back home. The weather reports were predicting severe
weather and I told them they shouldn't head back to Smith's Grove with
the utility trailer yet. The Nashville channels were breaking in on
regular programing with reports of tornadoes predicted by radar. We kept
watching and eventually people were reporting tornadoes on the ground
just north of Nashville in the Rivergate Mall area. It was easy to keep
track of the 'super cells' as they moved across the state towards
Burkesville. The Nashville news programs were showing pictures of
baseball size hail and reporting fatalities from the storms. I waited
until the storm that had produced tornadoes on the ground and killed
several people was about 30 miles away from our house, then we loaded
into the Mule and rode it down to the cellar near the creek. We took
lawn chairs and lanterns along with our weather radio and flashlights.
We set the chairs inside the smokehouse and I went over and picked up
Regina, she was ready to move to her cement block well house, having
already put a chair, flashlight and bottle of water in there in case she
needed to take cover. We returned to the smokehouse and we all set there
and talked for about 45 minutes. The storms never arrived and we never
actually went down the steps in the cement cellar, we did get a light
rain and a little thunder, but that was about it, no wind or severe
weather. I took Brent and Stacey back to the house and returned the Mule
for Linda to take Regina back to her house. Brent and I looked at the
radar images on the PC and it looked like the same storm that had caused
several deaths near Nashville simply divided and went around us at
Burkesville. Linda and Brent hooked up the utility trailer and headed
back to Smith's Grove about 6:30 PM.
Nashville reported at least 167
homes destroyed near Galatin and 11 confirmed deaths so far. The news
has reported about 27 tornadoes in TN. There were a few tornadoes in KY
also.
Posted on Saturday, April 08, 2006
Mobile Home Sold
Pauline, Brent and Linda came home with good news. The mobile home in Smith's Grove is SOLD! They have a signed and notarized contract along with cash. The deal is finalized and we don't have to worry about mowing and all the other things involved with the mobile home. They said the new buyers were a young couple that were very happy about getting the place. Linda said one of their mothers were there when they signed the contract in front of the notary and they understood it and were happy with the deal. Brent pulled the utility trailer over here with a bunch of stuff inside, but they said they had everything out of the mobile home and pole barn in Smith's Grove. That was good to hear. Linda unloaded the utility trailer and I used the Mule to drive old clothes over to the fire pit and I had a fire going and burnt them along with the other junk stuff. Several loads later we were done and I parked the truck and trailer and we went inside for a while. Later we walked the dogs around the farm and after dark played cards.
Posted on Sunday, April 09, 2006
Burning and Taking Down a Building
Linda started our day with a pancake breakfast and then I went down to
the firepit with Brent. We dinked around until we had the fire burning
again, so we threw some more wood on. Brent brought the chainsaw down
there and we used it to cut a wall in four pieces and then placed them
on the fire one at a time letting the fire burn down before throwing on
another wall piece. The walls were from us tearing down part of the shed
a couple of weeks ago. Linda, Pauline and Stacey came down with the dogs
and we trimmed some bushes and burnt those trimmings too. Linda raked
the leaves away from the flowers and we used the mulching mower to cut
those up. Stacey and Pauline rode with Brent in the TR3 while Linda and
I rode in the Mustang to town and we ate a late lunch at Subway. Once
back at the farm I tossed some more drift wood on the fire to keep it
burning. We decided to tear down the shed in front of the hay shed, so I
took the tractor over and tore part of the roof off while Brent and
Linda were hooking up the black trailer to the Mule.
Then I pushed the building off the blocks and used the scoop to lift
up one side and tip the building on to it's side. It was a little scary,
because I didn't want the building to fall into the front of the hay
shed. After the building was on it's side, Brent and I used crowbars and
hammers to pry and pull the old metal roofing loose and placed it on the
black trailer behind the Mule. Once one side of the roof was done, we
drove up the road to one of the dumpsters the Circuit Court had placed
around the county for spring cleanup. We tossed the sheets of old
roofing in the dumpster and returned to remove the other side. Then we
took that load up there and dumped it in the dumpster too.
I then raised Brent up in the tractor scoop and he hooked a chain
around the rafters and then I backed the tractor away from the building
and he and I hooked the chain to the tractor scoop. I slowly backed the
tractor away from the building pulling it down until it was flat on the
ground. We quit as I told Brent I could manage from there, now that the
building was on the ground. Pauline and Brent left about 6:30 with their
dogs. Linda and I went back to the shed and I used the saws-all to cut
off some pieces of wood and we trailered them over to the fire pit using
the Mule. We hauled three loads over, burnt those and quit for the night
as it was getting dark.
Posted on Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Cleanup
The Circuit Court providing several dumpsters around the county has been
working great. The one they placed about 1/2 mile from our house has
been filled twice. We added a bunch of junk to it ourselves. I've even
hauled an old coke machine down there and dumped it for one of our
neighbors.
I have been using a saws-all to cut the old shed we
knocked down into small pieces and putting those pieces on the trailer
behind the Mule. Then I have hauled those pieces across the road to the
fire pit and burnt them. I have kept the fire going for three days
without having to restart it, I just threw pieces on the ashes and it
started burning again. Linda mowed behind the house trailer while I was
cutting and picking up the shed pieces. She burnt the last pieces of the
shed while I used the scoop on the tractor to scrape the ground into
piles of dirt. I tried to scrape the nails and pieces of debris into
those piles too. Then I scooped up the dirt piles and dumped them in the
ditch as fill dirt. I'm hoping the dirt will pack down and not be washed
away when we get hard rains, but either way the nails and debris will be
away from the hay shed. Hopefully this will let me avoid flat tires. I
picked up a tractor scoop of creek gravel and spread it where the shed
was located as the area looked a little low.
Posted on Friday, April 14, 2006
Spring Colors On The Farm
The tulips are blooming and the redbuds are blossoming and the trees
are budding. It really makes a naturally beautiful palette of colors
during the springtime. I consider this the best time of the year to live
or visit KY. The hay fields are really green and the hills are popping
with wildflowers. It is nearly the perfect temperature around here now.
Not too hot and not too cold. A short sleeve shirt and shorts works just
fine for me. The only trouble I'm having is with the pollen and
allergies. Mowing is in full swing, I'm mowing some where every day it
seems, either on the mowers or on the tractor.
We had visitors arrive today, Kim and Kenny came in about 10:30 this morning.
Kenny had dug up several bunches of lilies and brought them to Linda.
Linda fixed lunch and after eating we then went to the pond and fed the
fish while talking and catching up on each others lives. Kim's daughter,
Alicia, had just had her fourth baby and they had pictures of the baby.
Posted on Saturday, April 15, 2006
Rocks And A Fountain
Linda started our day with sausage and egg breakfast. Then Kim and Linda
planted flowers in two old bed pans and in the half whiskey barrel at
the corner of our house. Kim and Kenny were wanting to take rocks back
to IN to use as stepping stones, so I took a short 4-wheeler ride to
locate a few. I returned to the house and asked Brent to get his boots
on and help me pick them out of the creek with the tractor's scoop.
Kenny and Stacey rode on 4-wheelers and Linda and Kim pulled the trailer
behind the Mule. We took a short ride down to the creek and Brent lined
up the scoop with the rock and I picked up the rock with the tractor and
drove up on the bank and unloaded it on the trailer. I drove back down
in the creek and picked up another rock with Brent's help getting it
lined up. We all then drove up to the garage door of the house and
checked out what we had. Whew, the rock in the scoop was too big to put
in the back of their Suburban, so I stacked it over behind the barn for
use latter. The girls washed off the smaller rock, which probably
weighed in around 300 pounds before we loaded it.
Three people stopped down where I had the S-10 setting with FOR SALE signs. I
went down and talked to them and the guy ended up saying he would buy
the truck. I called the county office and they were closing too soon for
us to get there, so we will complete the deal Monday. We had lunch of
ham and cheese on a salad and then Linda started us making a fountain
for Kim.
Brent and I drilled holes in an old piece of barn siding and screwed a
galvanized bucket to the board. We added a water spigot and plastic hose
running down in the bucket to a small electric pump. Once we had all
that working, Linda burnt their names and the date of their wedding into
the wood. Next it was time for my project, I brought the oldest tractor
to the garage and we wired it with a toggle switch and new wire running
to two new headlights. We finished that in about a half hour and I tried
them out. The new lights worked great. I wanted to run the tractor and
use the lights for a few minutes to make sure they continued to work so
I made a lap around the hay field, bush hogging a 4-wheeler path as I
went. All continued to work so I parked the tractor in the hay shed and
we were done for the day. We went inside and had a late snack, then some
watched a movie upstairs.
Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006
Kim And Kenny Head Home
I fixed everyone ham and cheese omelets for breakfast then we chatted
for a while. Kim took a shower while Kenny packed their stuff into the
back of their Suburban. They talked a little longer and then it was time
to go.
Linda handed Kim the old bed pan they had planted flowers inside, we all
hugged and told them to come back soon and off they drove. I tried to
find something for us to do by washing the little truck to keep Stacey
from crying, but it only worked for about two minutes. She was
blubbering within ten minutes of Kim and Kenny leaving. So much for
trying to focus Stacey's attention on something else. Then Brent headed
for home and that made it worse again, but Stacey's friend, Debra called
and she perked up and talked with her for a while. The guy that is going
to buy the S-10 came by again today and brought his girlfriend to look
at the truck. We had washed the truck and swept out the inside and
parked it in the garage. They both seemed like they liked the truck a
lot, so I think the deal will go smoothly tomorrow.
Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006
S-10 SOLD
Linda was fixing breakfast when Cooter started barking. I looked out the window and there was a truck pulling in the driveway. It was JC Shoopman and his dad. They were ready to buy the S-10 pickup. He was going to talk to his insurance company and I was to meet them in town at the Courthouse about twenty minutes later. I finished eating breakfast and headed to town. A few minutes later they showed up and paid me cash. We went inside to the clerk's office and I signed the title and JC continued to transfer the title and fill out the paper work. When the clerk said everything had been processed, I gave him the keys and we shook hands and I left. Linda and Stacey picked me up and drove over to the bank. We stopped at the grocery too, then came on home. Linda mowed around the house and the barn lot while I mowed the front yard and the ditches. Later Linda went to a Home Makers' meeting where they painted cement lawn statues.
Posted on Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Glasgow Trip
Stacey, Linda and I decided to go to Glasgow to look for new cars at Goodman Chevy. I had checked their inventory on the internet site called GM BuyPower. We loaded in the Mustang after having a light snack and headed to Glasgow. We went highway 90 and between Summer Shade and the town of 88 we noticed some of the tornado damage from several days earlier. We pulled into Goodman's lot and I only saw one of the cars we were wanting to see. Linda wanted to go inside and talk to a salesman, so I parked. We were met by the person she had talked to a week ago and taken inside to be shown a book. I told him we already had seen a book and wanted to see the cars they had listed on the internet. He said they had sold them that morning. BS! He wanted to 'locate' one for us, I asked how long that would take, he said, "Overnight." I said "OK, thanks." and we left. We drove to Cave City and looked at their lot but saw nothing we liked. We drove back to Glasgow and went to Wal-Mart where I picked out a new pair of gym shoes for wearing on the farm. Then we picked up some groceries and checked out. We put the convertible top down and headed back towards Columbia on the parkway. We exited the parkway and drove to the Chevy dealership in Columbia. They were much nicer and were able to locate us a car almost like we wanted within five minutes of trying. We talked about price and told them we didn't have a trade-in as I had sold my truck earlier in the week. They had one HHR on the lot, but it was Majestic Amethyst Metallic. Stacey and Linda liked the color, but I wasn't 'crazy' about it. After looking at it a few more times, we decided to buy it.
Posted on Thursday, April 20, 2006
We Have A New HHR
Wednesday when we stopped at the Chevy dealer in Columbia we told them
we wanted to buy the HHR that was on their car lot. This morning, after
fixing a 'sausage and egg scramble' for breakfast, I called our State
Farm Insurance agent and told them the VIN for the HHR and that I wanted
to buy insurance. Then I went to the bank and withdrew the money in a
cashiers check from our savings to pay for the new vehicle. I returned
home and Stacey and Linda were ready to go to Columbia to pick up the
HHR. The
HARVEY-ELLIS MOTORS dealership had it ready and parked in front of the
dealership. We looked it over one last time and then went in and
completed the purchase. The salesman, owner and clerks were extra nice
and friendly. They were really nice people in an 'old school' sort of
way, but completely computer literate, which usually doesn't go
together. Linda and I were both impressed by how friendly and nice they
were while getting the paper work done and our HHR ready to go. They
took care of the taxes, gave us a paper plate and will mail our regular
plate to us. We don't have to go to the courthouse to register or
anything. Linda wanted to take the CK truck and Stacey and go shop
before coming home. I sat in the car lot a few minutes figuring out how
to work the radio and windshield wipers and then drove home in the rain.
Once Stacey and Linda came home we ate lunch and took a short ride
towards the lake and Linda drove it to a meeting at Jone's later in the
evening.
Posted on Saturday, April 22, 2006
Buying Flowers Near Pall Mall
It was raining during the night and continued through the morning. I
checked the radar and thought we could drive to Pall Mall TN while it
was raining and it might clear off. Stacey was ready to go some
where but Linda thought it would be too nasty to look at flowers in the
rain. We weren't doing much while at home, so we decided to go. We had
been there before, but I didn't remember the country roads we had to
take to get to the greenhouses. We took the laptop and used the
DeLorme GPS to get us there without missing a turn. On the way it was
pouring down rain and Linda was teasing me about saying it was going to
'clear off', but as we got closer the skies were getting brighter. We
pulled into the nursery and luckily the rain had stopped. We walked
through several greenhouses looking at several thousands of plants and
items being readied for sale. The lady working there said they supply
seventeen Wal-Marts with flowers ready to sell. We picked out several
perennials and a few annuals, paid and headed towards home. On the way
home, Stacey declared she was 'starving' and wanted to eat, so I drove
us to a placed near Static TN called the Farmhouse. We ate and then
drove home through more rain.
I'm not sure how much rain we had while we were in TN, but the creek was up,
though not out of the banks. We planted six of the perennials we had
purchased and I carried two cement pots to the barn where Linda was
painting. She painted those with a base coat, then a dry brush effect
and once they are finished we will plant the annuals in the pots and set
those on the front porch.
Lawn And Gardening Trip
We ate breakfast and a little later left for Pauline and Brent's house.
We drove the truck and as we pulled up to their house, Brent had already
trimmed the bushes and was mowing and Pauline was cleaning up the
trimmings in the landscape beds around the house. We talked for a few
minutes and played with the dogs, then piled in the truck and went to
the Smith's Grove trailer, that Brent had sold a few weeks ago, to pick
up the last bit of junk left in the pole barn. We filled the truck with
one load and took it to their house and went back and picked up the
last load and then headed to Bowling Green. On the way Pauline said
she was needing something to eat, so Linda suggested Applebee's. We
stopped there and Linda and I had steak with shrimp, Stacey a nacho
plate, Brent had steak and Pauline a big cheeseburger with fries. Brent
bought for all of us. We drove to Lowes and Brent bought a couple lawn
tools, potting soil, vegetation killer, a wheelbarrow, gloves, and some
flowers. On the way back I stopped at
Petco and Pauline went inside and picked up dog food for Pico and Poco.
Back at the house, we unloaded the truck and the girls began cleaning
out the landscape beds around the house while Brent and I drove the
truck to a farm. The farmer sells mulch for $20 for a skid steer bucket
load. He scooped up a bucket full and dumped it in the back of the truck
and we were on our way back to the house. We assembled the new
wheelbarrow and began shoveling the mulch into it and dumping the mulch
into the beds. Pauline and Linda were spreading it out as fast as we
could unload and dump the mulch. Linda was edging the beds while we were
filling the wheelbarrow. We emptied the truck and the girls decided we
needed another load of mulch, so back we went for a second load. Once
back to the house we hurried to unload and spread the mulch as we could
see lightening from a storm a few miles away. We finished the mulching
and then shoveled the dirt from the edging into the wheelbarrow and
Brent dumped it where he needed to fill in around his yard. We picked up
the tools just as dark and a light rain arrived. We all set on their
front porch and admired our work while it misted rain. After about a
half hour, Stacey, Linda and I headed home and arrived a little before
10 PM.
Posted on Sunday, April 23, 2006
New Flower Bed
We skipped breakfast and about 9:30 I went out to begin mowing. I mowed
the slope in front of the house and the front yard too. Linda mowed
around the house and the barn lot and I mowed the ditch between the
little house and the barn. We both mowed until it was lunch time. We ate
and I went back out and mowed the little house yard, then started the
oldest tractor and bush hogged the trails around the hay fields.
Later, we began working on a new bed for the flowers that Kim and Kenny
brought us from IN. I started by using the tiller to bust the grass and
dirt loose. I went around the trees we had planted there two years ago.
Then connected the circles around the trees with straight lines into a
triangle shape. After going over the ground three times with the tiller,
Linda and I began raking the loose grass into the scoop on the tractor.
I then took the grass and dirt with the tractor and filled in a gully
caused by water draining away from the house. I moved two scoops of
grass and dirt that way and after that the beds were fairly clean of
grass. Stacey came out and loaded pavers in the Mule and we drove it
down the driveway to the flower bed. Linda and Stacey handed the pavers
to me as I laid them to form the curves outside of the tilled dirt. We
quit for the evening as we were all tired and then we took a ride out
near the lake in the HHR.
Posted on Monday, April 24, 2006
Flower Beds
The flower bed above is the first one we created two years ago when we
finished the sidewalk. The flowers are doing pretty well but a few of
the little shrubs are in trouble. They aren't dead yet, but they only
have a little green on them.
Last fall we planted most of the flowers at the end of the walk. This year we
outlined the bed with the pavers and mulched it heavily. After our trip
to the nursery at Pall Mall over the weekend we added six more
perennials to the bed.
I went out this morning and used a flat blade shovel to edge the new flower
bed. I piled the grass I removed into piles and scraped the dirt as
level as I could. Linda came out and we loaded the Mule with the pavers
we needed and finished lining the bed. Then we went around the outside
of the bed and scraped the extra dirt up and shoveled it into a bucket.
Linda filled some gullies with the dirt. We quit for lunch and then
mowed everything on the other side of the road. Linda had to work at the
day care from 2:30 to 5 PM. Then we talked to Regina about her going to
Louisville to have a couple of stints placed in arteries near her heart
on Tuesday.
Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Tractor Boy Work
Linda went to work at the school today, so it was Stacey and I left to clean up the dirt and grass piled in the new flower bed. We loaded it in the scoop of the tractor and I dumped it in the gully. We had to go to town to take a 'Secret Pal' gift to the Extension Office and we also checked out the video shack to see if there were any new videos we wanted to rent. We pulled the HHR back in the garage and went inside right before the rain started. It poured for about twenty minutes and the rain was over. Within a half hour the sun was back out and I was too. I drove the tractor to the hay shed and stretched an electrical wire between the little house and the hay shed. I dug a small hole underneath the wall near the corner of the hay shed and stuck the wire through. I tied the other end to the porch post leaving enough to hook up later. I went inside the hay shed and pulled the extra wire inside the shed. Then I used the scoop on the tractor to open a trench along the wire laying on the ground. I was removing dirt about 4 inches deep and 6 inches wide and flipping it over. I then pushed the wire into the trench and covered parts of it with dirt to hold it in place. I used a shovel to flip the grass portions back into place and used the scoop on the tractor to mash it down almost level with the rest of the yard. I used the scoop to scrape the loose dirt over the wire where we had tore down the old wood shed and then I drug the scoop across the dirt to level the dirt. I drove the tractor to the creek and pulled some of the scrub trees into the middle of the creek so the next big creek will wash them away. I had dug them out of the creek bank a few weeks ago, but they had too much dirt around the roots then to move. The flowing creek water had washed away quite a bit of the dirt and they were a bunch easier to move.
Posted on Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Hay Shed Wiring
Right after Linda left to work at the school, Regina called and said she was OK. Her catheterization and stints being placed in her arteries had went well. That was nice to hear and a few minutes later, Nancy called and asked about Regina, so I relayed her condition to Nancy. A little later, Stacey and I went to town and stopped at the hardware store, where I bought 3 electrical boxes and 3 outlets and 1 switch and the plates to cover those. I also picked up some wire nuts and plastic wire staples to hold the wire in place. I fixed us lunch before I went to work on the electrical wiring job. I started where I had passed the wire under the wall of the hay shed and pulled the wire up to the level of the switch box I had nailed in place. I cut the wire and pulled it inside the box and wired an outlet and a switch for a light. The toughest part of the job was pressing all the wires into the double box with the switch and outlet. It felt like I needed a crowbar to get those wires inside and screw the outlet and switch into place. I continued from the other side of the outlet and strung the wire across the board that the shed siding is attached to over to the next pole. I installed another plastic outlet box and wired the outlet and continued to the next pole and the last box and outlet. Then I moved to the little house and took apart a light fixture on the back porch. I wired the supply end of the wire for the hay shed to the outlet and capped off the wires with wire nuts. I put the light fixture back in place and tried the circuit. The light worked on the back porch and the radio played inside the hay shed, so I was successful. The job took about three hours. I'll have to pick up a light for the hay shed later. Linda came home and fixed us dinner of pork chops and salad.
Posted on Thursday, April 27, 2006
Flower Bed Nearly Done
I fixed a sausage and egg scramble for breakfast and then we took the
HHR and headed to Campbellsville. We checked out Big Lots and Wal-Mart,
then bought some flowers at Lowes. We ate lunch at Sonic. Linda didn't
think much of the flowers at Wal-Mart or Lowes so we decided to take a
different way home and see if we could find another place that sold
flowers. We went through Greensburg and between there and Columbia we
passed a small place. I turned around and pulled into their parking lot.
It was just what Linda had been looking to find. The lady had a small
pole barn building with all sorts of decorations and knickknacks They
had two greenhouses with flowers in one and vegetables in the other. We
picked out several flowers and loaded them in the back of the HHR and
headed on home. In Columbia, I stopped and filled the HHR with gas.
Since purchasing the HHR, we had drove 381 miles and used 12.3 gallons
of gas. That figures out to over 30.9 MPG, which I am very happy about.
We unloaded the flowers once we were home and worked on the new
flower bed we had started a few days ago. We brought the lilies to the
bed and split them with a machete. Then I laid out the plants and dug
the holes while Linda planted them and smoothed the dirt around the
plants. After we had planted all the lilies, Stacey came out and helped
us spread mulch around the lilies and cover the flower bed.
Linda and I would like to thank Kim and Kenny Bourke for bringing us all
the lilies we planted in this flower bed!
Linda fixed us
supper and then I went and bush hogged around the hay fields at the
other farm. It was way past dark when I finished and the lights we put
on the tractor worked well.
Posted on Friday, April 28, 2006
Wedding Day
Linda fixed breakfast and after we ate, I called Gaddie-Shamrock to have
a load of gravel delivered. The person that answered said all their
trucks were busy in Columbia and he didn't know if they could deliver a
load. I reminded him he told me to call that day to get a load. He said
they would try to get it delivered. I hung up and went to bush hog the
area around where the mums will be planted later. Linda called me on the
FS Radio and said they were on their way with the gravel. I returned
home and waited on the truck which arrived in about 15 minutes. The
driver backed up to the front of the hay shed and dumped the 22 tons of
gravel. I had said I would spread it out. He drove away and I started
the tractor and went back to the mum patch to finish the bush hogging.
Once done I put the tractor back in the hay shed and went inside,
grabbed the check book and went and paid for the gravel. I came back
home and entered the transaction into Quicken and an IM from Brent came
through. He was writing that Pauline and him had been married at 9:17 AM
in Brownsville. WOW!
He wrote they were going to come over after looking at a car in Glasgow. I
told Linda and Stacey what had happened and they came inside and watched
a short movie of the wedding that Brent had placed on the internet.
Linda and Stacey went back out and were working on planting flowers in
the whiskey barrels and potting plants to set around the house. I went
to the hay shed with the tractor and used the scoop to start spreading
the gravel. Mr & Mrs Brent Norris arrived a little later. We
congratulated them and welcomed Pauline to our family with hugs and
giggles. They were excited and we were happy for them. Brent was also
trying to make a car deal with the
Chevy Dealer in Glasgow, but wasn't sure about the price they were
offering for his Sunfire. We talked a while about the choices, he made a
decision, and then decided to call the dealer back and buy the car. He
called and they agreed on a price and he will pick the new car up
Saturday. I asked Brent to help me level some cement blocks near the hay
shed before I spread the gravel completely around the front of the hay
shed. Later, when the diesel fuel tank is emptied, I will set the tank
on those blocks. After that we took the dogs down to the creek and let
them run wild for a while. Pico had been in the creek, so I decided to
'dunk' Poco. I tossed him in gently and he came swimming out just like a
'farm dog'. Poco seems to think he is a 'farm dog' anyway, he wants to
hang out with Cooter and run with the big dog, even though he is a small
chihuahua. We ended the evening by going to town to eat.
Posted on Saturday, April 29, 2006
Newlyweds' New Car
I started the day with ham and cheese omeletes for everyone and then
Brent and I went to the Courthouse. We went inside the County Clerks
office and I signed the title for the Sunfire Brent had been driving.
Back at the house, Stacey, Pauline and Brent loaded in the Sunfire and
headed to Glasgow to pick up the new car he had traded for the day
before. While they were gone I mowed with the little JD mower since the
grass was still fairly wet. Linda was working with the flowers and over
at the little house. I am so in the habit of checking on Stacey that
when I went inside to get a drink, I yelled for her and when I didn't
get an answer, I went through the house looking for her. Then I
remembered she had went with Brent. I went back to mowing the barn lot
and then used the tractor to move the gravel over by the hay shed. I
scooped up buckets with the tractor and gradually dumped it to make a
path from the hay shed to the driveway behind the upper barn. While I
was still working on the path, Brent drove up with the new HHR Pauline
and him had bought. We washed it as the dealer hadn't had a 'detail
crew' to clean it up on Saturday and Brent wanted to pick up the car
anyway.
