Egg Hunt

Pauline, Brent, Julie, Kyle, Stacey and Linda returned from IN late Saturday night. Julie and Kyle were sleeping in the car and had to be carried inside. We talked about their trip for a while then went to bed as they were all tired from the ride.
Linda fixed breakfast and started a ham cooking in the oven, then we took Julie and went for a ride in the Mule. Daisy went along and we let her run while we rode around the hay fields. We stopped on a sand bar in the creek and let Julie throw rocks into the water. After she had thrown a lot of rocks, we hopped back into the Mule and finished our trip around the fields, then rode back to the farm. Pauline, Kyle, Brent and Stacey were outside and walking around the fire pit, so we stopped down there. I let Daisy out of the Mule, but kept her on a leash, Julie jumped out and they told her to start finding the plastic eggs they had hidden.
   
   
Once Julie had found most of the eggs, we helped by pointing out where some of the harder ones had been hidden until she had them all. Then Pauline and Kyle watched as Julie and Linda popped the eggs apart and dropped the candy and change into a container. We went to the house and had ham sandwiches for lunch, then went back out and sat on the back porch while Julie played. Nancy and Steve stopped for a few minutes on their way to their farm on the ridge. PB&J+K left for home around 5 PM.
There are 25 pictures of Julie hunting eggs that readers can see by clicking this LINK.

Buds and Dirt

With a lot of the flowers blooming and the trees beginning to bud, I took the camera with me when I went outside. I walked around the end of the house and took a couple pictures of the trees near the house.
  
I walked to the barn and started the ATV and rode down to the fire pit and took a few more pictures of the trees in that area.
  
As I was riding around on the ATV, one of the highway relocation workers flagged me down and asked if I wanted some top soil to put around the pole barn. I said that I did and that I would stay down there and show the dump truck driver where to dump the dirt. I had the driver dump the dirt at the end of the pole barn where the large door is located.
 
After dumping five truck loads at the end of the building, I had him dump the dirt at the back side of the pole barn. Linda had saw what I was doing and brought me breakfast and I ate between dump truck loads. I'm not sure, but I think that there were around 12 truck loads of dirt dumped and then I told them that was enough. I thanked the driver and the track hoe operator. During the afternoon, the track hoe operator used the hoe to bust up the concrete that was left from the shed I stored the boat inside. He buried the pieces of concrete at the edge of the new road and smoothed out the dirt. Near 5 PM, right before they quit for the day, the dozer operator brought the dozer to the pole barn and spread out the dirt. It took about twenty minutes and he was done. I told him I would finish smoothing out the dirt with my tractor using the scoop or grader box. I thanked the dozer operator and he parked his dozer and they were done for the day. I used the tractor to move some of the dirt closer to the building and pull some away. I also drug the scoop across the dirt to smooth the tracks the dozer had left. Linda came down and took a look and I quit as it was getting dark.

Dirt Spread Out

I didn't have time and enough daylight to take pictures of the dirt after it was spread out yesterday, so this morning after the rain stopped, I went outside and took a few.
  
The sun popped out as I was outside, so I took a few of the trees in the sun that were budding against the background of a cloudy sky.
   
The highway relocation crews are not working today because of the rain.

Sowing Our Seeds

After Stacey picked up a lot of the rocks that were in the dirt, I mixed the grass seeds and put them in a bucket. Linda took the bucket and hand seeded the grass over the dirt. I took the Mule and hooked the little black trailer to it, loaded on 10 bales of hay and took them down to the pole barn while she finished tossing out the grass seeds. We cut the strings on the bales and started spreading it over the top of the grass seeds. We finished the 10 bales and I brought down a couple more to finish up in front of the pole barn where a cement truck had left deep ruts when they built the barn last year. I tossed all of the rocks Stacey and Linda had found into the bucket of the tractor and then dumped them in the gully to fill in a hole. Linda mowed a little around the house with the little JD mower while I used the tractor and finish mower to mow the front yard and around the old barn. Around 4 PM we decided we had done enough for the day, I asked Stacey and Linda if they wanted to take a ride in the 97 Mustang with the top down. They did, so we rode the ATVs down to the barn, backed out the Mustang and lowered the top. We took a slow ride through Columbia and down KY 55 towards Jamestown. We crossed the dam on US 127 and then took KY 90 back to Burkesville. It was a beautiful day for a top down ride through the country on curvy roads.

Highway Workers Lunch

  
Early this morning, the highway relocation crews unloaded more equipment in front of our house. During the day, they dumped more rock and dirt to bring the level of the new road up about a foot. A dozer with two GPS locators on the blade pushed the debris along to the exact level the engineers had planned. Large rollers with vibrators inside would then roll over the rock and dirt and compact it. The driveway to the new pole barn was covered with the ditches formed as they filled it in. I had told the crews that I would fix them cheese burgers for lunch since they had dumped the dirt and spread it out around the pole barn for us. Linda fixed some side dishes of a corn casserole and baked beans while I fried the 16 hamburgers. We took the food down to 'the club house' and set it on the counter, ready for the crew to eat at noon. They stopped work and begin eating a few minutes after 12 PM. We had extra sandwiches and it was a good thing we did because more workers showed up than we had planned on. Linda went to the house and brought back a lemon pie and passed out pieces. Their half hour lunch was over quickly and they all said thanks and went back to work. Linda and I cleaned up and then she went to work at the day care while Stacey and I watched a couple TV shows. Linda came back home and we took Daisy for a run and checked out how the highway work had went during the day.

Break Down

Thursday afternoon, we met Pauline, Brent, Julie and Kyle in Glasgow, had dinner and brought Julie to the farm.
Friday, we played with Julie and took her with us when we ran Daisy. Julie also helped Stacey and me wash the HHR.
 
Pauline and Brent came over and brought Kyle around 5 PM.
Saturday was cooler and we stayed inside until around 10 AM. Linda, Julie, Brent, and Pauline had Kyle with them and took the little dogs for a walk to the pond. I rode with Brent when he drove the Triumph to the grocery store for stuff for lunch. Later, we all went to a cookout at the park in Burkesville for Scott Daniels, who is running for sheriff. There probably were over 500 people at the cookout.
Sunday we played with the dogs in the morning, then went outside and messed around with Daisy. We also split some of the wood I had on a trailer inside the equipment shed. After PB&J+K left, Stacey and I drove the TR-3 to Jason's house to give him his birthday present. He wasn't home and when we left, the Triumph quit running on the highway. We pulled to the side of the road and in a couple of minutes Emery Messenger stopped and called Linda for her to bring the truck to where we were stopped. About 20 minutes later, Linda arrived, I then drove the truck home, unloaded the wood on the trailer and hooked it to the truck. I grabbed the chains and went back to load the TR-3. Stephanie, Tommy, Jason S and Jason W were there and helped push the Triumph onto the trailer. Tommy helped me chain the car to the trailer. Linda, Stacey and I drove back to the farm and put the trailer in the shed with the TR-3 still on it.

Hauling

Since things are breaking down, I decided I needed to get the TR-3 off the trailer. The highway relocation crews have removed both of the driveways on the creek side of the old road, so I had to tow the trailer with the TR-3 on it down to the neighbor's driveway and then drive up the dirt road to the pole barn. Linda opened the doors and backed her 97 Mustang out of the barn, then I backed the trailer up to the pole barn door and we rolled the TR-3 off the trailer and left it inside the pole barn. My preliminary diagnosis is a bad fuel pump. Linda drove her Mustang to the house and I pulled the trailer to the driveway at the back of the barn. I loaded the Mule on the trailer and chained it down. A little later, Stacey rode with me when I took the Mule to the Kawasaki dealer in Columbia to have the starter replaced or repaired. Stacey and I returned to the farm and watched part of the NASCAR race that had been rained out on Sunday. Linda went to work at the day care and I loaded the Harley on the trailer and tied it down securely. Stacey rode with me again while I towed the trailer to John Newby's place in Burkesville. John and I unloaded the bike and then I asked John to replace the front tire and tube and install a new battery on the bike. He said he would drain the old gas and get it running too. Stacey and I returned to the farm and finished watching the race that was recorded on the DVR. Linda came home from working and took Stacey with her to their Home Maker's Club meeting. About 7 PM, they returned to the house.

Rocking The Roadbed

The highway relocation crews began the day by rolling out a fabric layer on top of the dirt. They began dumping and spreading rock for the roadbed about 7 AM. The dump trucks just kept rolling in and lining up. Then they would back up to the edge of the rock layer and dump their loads. The bull dozer operator would then spread the rock out and make it level using the GPS system mounted to the blade. The roller operator would compact the gravel where ever the bull dozer wasn't working at the time.
  
  
  
The dozer and roller operators worked through lunch and didn't stop until 5 PM. The crew estimated they dumped over 100 tri-axle truck loads with about 20 to 25 tons of rock on each truck. That was just the first layer, next there will be a 6 inch layer of smaller rock, then a layer of pavement. Linda and I would watch a while, then do something else, then watch some more. We took Daisy for a run after the workers left for the day. I took a couple of more pictures too.
  

Even More Rock

The highway relocation crew added another layer of gravel to the road bed this morning.
 
The trucks lined up and waited for their turn to dump the smaller gravel into the tub on the front of the bull dozer/spreader.
 
They have built the road bed up so much that Connie and Bill Pollicks' house is partially hidden. The smaller gravel was then rolled and compacted to make a smooth hard surface.
 
I went to the bank in Burkesville and took our Mule title out of the safety deposit box. I transferred some money and picked up a bank check to take to Rex's Cycle Shop. We were going to trade our single seat Mule in for a new two seat model. I drove back to the house, then Linda and Stacey rode along with me to Columbia. Linda went inside at Rex's to take care of the paper work while I cleaned our stuff out of the old Mule. When I finished I went inside and checked to see how things were going. They were just about done, so I went back outside and began loading the new Mule and chaining it to the trailer. Stacey helped and when Linda came outside we finished. I took a picture of Stacey in the Mule and we headed home with it.
 
Back at the farm, we unload the Mule and pulled it into the garage. We checked out the controls and tried the fit of the old windshield. It will fit, but I will need to cut off a couple inches at the top. The slow moving vehicle sign will need a trimming to fit between the rails of the guard screen at the back of the passengers' compartment. After a few minutes of inspection, we took it for a ride. Daisy balked a little bit about jumping into the rear. She could tell it was a different Mule, but after a little persuasion, she jumped in and we took her for a run. Later in the evening we took Nancy and Steve a ride.

Rainy Weather

The storms that went through AL and TN that killed 12 people and destroyed a lot of homes missed our area. There was a tornado about 30 miles away in northern TN, but our area only had thunderstorms and rain. We had heavy rain Saturday with the creek getting up and almost out of it's banks. We were lucky with no creek water going through the hay fields.
Sunday was sunny in the morning and then cloudy in the afternoon, so we worked in the pole barn on the new Mule. We put the slow moving vehicle sign on it and did a couple other things to stay busy while it rained outside.
Monday was more rain, so I went to town in the truck and picked up a partial sheet of Plexiglas and 3 twelve foot 2 by 4s. We worked on cutting and mounting the Plexiglas on the Mule for a windshield. We cut the old windshield down to fit behind the passenger's seat. Linda worked at the day care while Stacey and I went to Columbia to pick up a replacement headlight bulb from the Kawasaki dealer.
Tuesday, more rain off and on during the day. We ran Daisy and got caught in a light shower, then put her in the barn and the sun was out. We worked in the pole barn again, this time putting up a sheet of peg board behind some cabinets. The rest of the week is supposed to be nicer.

New Washer

We had been struggling with our washer for several months. The timer would not advance after certain cycles should have finished. We would set the timer on the microwave and when it sounded, we would manually move the selector on the washer. I had heard on TV a month or two ago that the government was planning on having a program that was similar to "Cash For Clunkers" for appliances. Last week I was reading some of the links on the right side of our blog and found that the next day the rebate program was going into effect. On Monday morning, I opened the web page at DEDI and then read the following paragraph.

While at that page, I was directed to Kentucky Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program web site. There I read the following paragraph.

There I was able to find out that the rebate was $100 for new Energy Star washers and also get the exact model numbers that were eligible for the rebate. I printed out several brand name lists and then looked online for the models' prices. Linda and I talked about it, then I signed up for the rebate program at the web site. Today, since Linda was not working, we decided to drive the pickup truck to Lowe's and buy the washer we had picked out online. Lowe's also gave us a 10% price discount and loaded the washer in the truck. We strapped it down, stopped to eat and then headed back to the farm. I backed the truck into the garage at the house and Linda removed the straps that held the washer in place in the truck.
 
Linda and I drug the old washer out of the house on a piece of cardboard, then I used our two wheel cart to move the washer in the house. We then slid it across the hardwood floor on a piece of cardboard to the utility room. I installed the leveling legs, the new stainless steel hoses, plugged it in, turned on the water and then leveled the washer. Everything went well and it worked perfectly. I drove the Mule to Garmon's place and asked Steve if they wanted the old washer for scrap metal. They did, so he rode with me back to our house where we loaded the old washer on a trailer behind the Mule and we towed it to their place. We set the old washer off of the trailer and they will scrap it out for junk metal prices later. I pulled the trailer back to the farm and put it away. Job done!

Laying Asphalt

The rainy weather has stopped for the last two days and the grass has jumped since the sun has been out. Yesterday, I spent a lot of time on the tractor running the finish mower around the hay fields, Regina's yard at her old house, the front yard, the barn lot, around the shed and the little house. We took the truck to Columbia and picked up the top for the Mule at the Kawasaki dealer. The road crews used the sunny weather to lay asphalt on top of the rock road bed.
  
Today, the road crew spread gravel along the edge of the pavement and fixed most of the rough spots along the right of way. I mowed the area down by the pole barn and where the trailer used to be, then went around the two hay fields across the creek from the house.