Early Mother's Day

Linda had to work at a school carnival until 8 PM, so we left the farm around 8:30 PM headed for Daleville. By the time we made it to I-65 and went through Louisville the traffic was mostly gone. It was nearly 2 AM when we arrived at the house in Daleville, so we quickly unpacked the Equinox and went to bed.
Saturday, Stacey and Linda remained in bed, so I made coffee and then went to Anderson and picked up donuts for breakfast. I returned to the house, ate a couple donuts and the girls were still in bed. Nothing was going on there, so I took a ride around town to see what had changed. Not much, a few new sidewalks was the biggest change I noticed. In Chesterfield, I stopped at Lana & Frank Dial's house since they were outside having a yard sale. We chatted for a while and then I went back to the Daleville house. Linda and Stacey were up and eating donuts. They went shopping that afternoon and bought groceries and some other odd things.
Sunday morning we had a light breakfast, then Linda had me call Reba and see if she wanted to go eat lunch with us. She did, so I told her I needed to take a shower and get dressed and we would be down to her house in about 45 minutes. We left Coco in the cage and went to Pendleton. Nana was ready to set in the kitchen and talk, but I said we we ready to eat and we could talk during lunch, so we headed out. As I pulled the car into Bird's Smoke House Restaurant, Nana said, "Oh, I ate here a few weeks ago." and she wanted to go somewhere else. OK, I remembered that Stacey, Linda and I had ate at Kamack Station last fall, so I headed over there. Nana had never ate there, so of course she didn't know what to order. Linda and I had planned for that, so Linda took over ordering. We received our food and talked as we ate.
  
We finished our meal and then stopped at the Daleville house to let Nana see what we had worked on since the last time she had been there to visit. Linda took her Mom home around 5 PM, then Lana & Frank dropped in to visit. I called Linda and told her we had company about 6 PM. Linda took a potted plant to Linda K, her Mother had passed away a few days earlier. Stacey and Linda returned to the house and we all talked with Lana & Frank until 10:30 PM.
Monday morning we closed things up and headed towards home. The trip went well until we passed through Louisville and were almost to the exit at the 91 mile marker on I-65. Traffic was stopped on the Interstate and it was 3 miles from the spot we exit, so I took a different route home. We ended up on some really narrow country roads that wound up and down and around the hills and valleys eventually making it home safely.

Shelter House Construction I

One day a few weeks ago, Stacey and I were at the grocery store in Columbia. I stopped to talk to a guy with a sign on his truck that read Tarter Roofing. The sign also mentioned that they did small construction jobs, so I asked if they built shelter houses. They did, so we made an appointment for Charles Tarter to come to the farm and see what I wanted built. After the meeting, he had his crew begin working on a Wednesday. They drilled holes and set posts in concrete and did a little bit of framing to hold the posts plumb. Charles ordered the trusses and metal for the roof. A few days later the crew returned to finish the job.
  
They managed to get the trusses set their second day of work and returned the next day to install the metal as soon as it was delivered. We used the Mule and the black trailer to haul old barn siding from the upper barn to the construction site. They removed the nails and cut the old siding to cover the ends of the shelter house.
 
Everything didn't work out exactly as I had planned, but I'm satisfied with the job they did. We're going to add a few more things before we consider the job done, but that will take a little while longer.

Dale Hollow Mother's Day Trip

Pauline had planned a day with her Mom, so Linda mentioned to Brent that he could come over with their kids and we would go to the lake. I guess that plan worked for him since he showed up early with Julie and Kyle. They brought brownies that Pauline had helped Julie & Kyle bake for Linda. After the hugs and initial excitement was over, we loaded all our stuff for the lake trip and headed out, filled up the boat with gas and drove to the State Park. There were a few sprinkles of rain hitting the windshield as I drove, but I followed the family rule and never turned on the windshield wipers. I guess that worked, because as we neared the lake the weather was getting better and better. Julie and Kyle couldn't contain their excitement as we left the dock area, immediately hollering to go faster. The water was so smooth and the air temperature was about 85, so I powered the boat on up and we went fast. That lasted about two minutes, then they were ready to find a cove and play in the water. We weren't too sure about that, we had figured the water might be too cold, but I stopped and told them to jump in. We were wrong, they jumped in, climbed out, jumped in and back out several more times. Stacey joined them in the water and said it wasn't that cold.
  
After letting them swim for about a half hour, we loaded them back in the boat, dried them off and Brent drove us over to Pusley Creek. We ate some of our 'cooler hoagies' that Linda had put together at the house, then stopped for more swimming.
  
This time Brent dove in with the kids and Stacey. He commented that the water wasn't as cold as he thought it would have been. Must have been the 85+ temperatures we've been experiencing that has warmed the water up quickly this year.
  
Another ride, more swimmng, more sandwiches and a little too much sun for the first trip. We decided to pull the boat off the lake around 3 PM, before anyone was burnt.
 
Linda's Dale Hollow Mother's Day trip gave her and the rest of us big smiles.
Brent left for home around 4 PM with two tired kids.

Shelter House Construction II

  
After the Tarter Roofing crew finished their work on the shelter house, Linda and I swept the area with a small magnet on a long handle for nails. We also removed some of the rocks they dug up while digging the post holes. I had them toss all of their scrap in the fire pit and we've had a small fire to burn that stuff too. Next on the agenda is to rent a trencher and bury a power cable from the pole barn to the shelter house.
 

First Batch Strawberry Jam

Linda and I picked strawberries. Honestly, Linda did most of the picking, I did pick a few more than I ate. The berries are a little smaller due to a lack of rain I believe, but we had nearly a gallon. Stacey helped me make the first two batches of strawberry jam.
  
We ended up with 10 sealed half pints of great tasting jam when we were done with one more in the refrigerator ready to eat.

Pavers Arrive From Lowe's

  
Lowe's delivered our pavers for the shelter house this morning. A lot needs to happen before I'm ready for those! I did lay a few out in the pattern I'm going to use just to see how they look.
  

Trencher Work

A few days ago I had stopped in Albany at Grand Rental Station and checked on renting a trenching machine. The machines are self powered and steerable, but small enough to fit into the area between the fire pit and some flower beds. I reserved it for 4 hours and Stacey and I picked it up this morning and after a short instruction period we were headed back to the farm by 9 AM. I unloaded the machine and drove it to the location I wanted the trench to start. The steering on these things is weird at best, then you have to drive them backwards while digging, so, needless to say there was a small learning curve. Curves are what I dug, around the flower bed, beside the large stepping stones at the fire pit, then between two small groups of paw paw trees and finally to open ground.
  
Those tree roots barely slowed it down. Then I turned the machine around and started at the corner of the pole barn and headed back towards my open ditch. The digging here was a little tougher than near the fire pit had been. First the gravel kept filling back into the trench and then I must have hit a fairly big rock about a foot deep because the machine reared up and jumped sideways causing my hand to slip off the lever which automatically shuts off the motor. No problem though, I returned all the levers to the correct position and it started right up. I took it a little slower for a foot or two and then headed for the open trench I had dug from the other direction. The guy that instructed me said that this is the place you over lap the trench and then you must clean out the loose dirt with a set of post hole diggers. I tried another way, raising the digging chain so it would quit digging deep but spread out the dirt so I may not have to do any hand digging.
  
After finishing the trench, I loaded the machine back on their trailer, chained it down and hauled it back to Albany. Total time was about 2 hours and 20 minutes including the 25 minutes drive time each way.

Sonic Car Show Presented by Bun

 
 
 
  
  

Click HERE to see all the pictures I took at the Albany Sonic Drive In Car Show presented by Bun. Once on the next page you can change image sizes, view as a slideshow, or go to the index and just view the images you want to see. Please feel free to right click and download any images you want to use or print.

Construction & Trial Run

Brent and I worked on the shelter house. I measured and cut the old barn siding inside the pole barn, Julie & Kyle carried the pieces to the shelter house where they handed them to Brent. Pauline helped some, but picked strawberries most of the time. Brent screwed the pieces along the side of the shelter house. We finished one side of it, then went to the house and had steak, corn casserole and salad with strawberry shortcake for dessert. We also made two batches of strawberry jam that Pauline and Brent took home.
  
Later that evening, we had a small bonfire and tested our shelter house.
  
We had to run an extension cord for the lights, but it made it nice being able to see what we were doing on the picnic table.
 
There is still a lot of work to be done, but soon it will be wired and later the pavers laid.