A New Link To Pictures

I have added more pictures online. They are pictures that were taken from July 2008 to December 2008. The link can be found at the bottom of the right hand column of this page or you can click HERE to see them.

Pole Barn Planning

Early this morning, I received a return phone call from a company I had contacted about building a new pole barn. I took my drawings and drove to his office just outside of Waterview. I was surprised at the amount of work they had done at their farm. Since his work was basically laying concrete, there was stamped concrete around a lot of their buildings. I showed him what I had in mind and he made a few suggestions and told me he would work up an estimate and let me know. Later, Stacey, Linda and I went to town for lunch, then picked up one of Stacey's prescription. We decided to then go to Columbia to buy groceries. We bought those and then came back to the farm. Linda and I went to the house trailer and took out a set of cabinets that we may be able to use at a later time. Stacey fixed supper of hot dogs on the grill and then she watched a Pacer game on TV.

Road Construction Underway

This week the Highway 61 road construction has begun. They have started digging trenches for new water lines alongside the existing highway and laying the pipe in the trench. They are covering the pipe with dirt and then spreading hay over the bare earth. The trenches are being dug with large track hoes, one with a jack hammer on the end for busting rock and the other with a large bucket for digging.
 
It seems they are moving from one area to another because they haven't purchased the right of way from every land owner, so they are leaving some areas undone for now. We can hear the jack hammers pounding when we are inside our house. At least they quit during the night time, so far. On down the road, closer to town, they are hauling busted rock from the 'Saw Mill Cut' area and spreading it out for a road bed with a bull dozer.
  
Several tri-axle dump trucks are running the road in both directions and there is always a short wait when we drive to town.
 
Near Wade Flowers' house, they have erected small fences with plastic to keep the dirt from flowing into fields when it rains. The wood stakes with orange plastic streamers is the path the future road bed will take. I guess it's progress, but it will sure make a mess of things around here when they get to our farm.

Saturday Stuff

I started our day with breakfast, then a quick trip to town to the bank and to pick up another one of Stacey's prescriptions, then back to the house while Linda was making a banana pudding. She finished and we headed to the Veteran's Building for a craft show.
  
Santa Claus was there and Linda found some nice gifts for Christmas while we looked through the booths. We went home and dressed warmly with several layers of clothing before going up on Jone's Ridge to Bonnie and Henry Holley's place. They had invited us to a hog roast and pitch in dinner, so we took the banana pudding, a couple 2 liter pops and drove the HHR.
   
We ate, set and talked a while, set outside around a campfire, then Bonnie took Stacey outside to show her the goats, miniature goats and baby goats. They had animal crackers to feed them, but Stacey was a little scared, so Bonnie showed her how to feed them, then took one out of the pen, picked it up and handed it to Stacey to hold.
   
Stacey didn't know what to think of the little goat she was holding and it was making her giggle with excitement. After Stacey and Bonnie were done feeding the goats, we said good bye to everyone, thanked Bonnie and Henry for asking us to come to their hog roast, then we headed home. We took a short break, loaded lawn chairs in the back of the HHR and drove to town for the Christmas Parade. We parked on the Courthouse Square, Stacey and Linda set up their lawn chairs and covered up their legs with afghans. We had been listening to the local radio station and they were beginning their broadcasts of the parade from the Courthouse Square with a Troop of Girl Scouts singing Christmas Carols.
   
   
   
The high school band marched through, then there were several nice looking floats with the riders throwing candy to the kids, then a few cartoon characters, a couple of queens and then the main man, Santa Claus ended the parade.

Warmer Weather

The temperature was between 55 and 60 degrees today, so we went outside and did some cleanup work in the old barn across the road. It is one of the barns that the Highway Dept. will be taking, so we need to move everything that is inside the barn. Today, the plan was to move all of the scraps of wood we had left over from building our house. We use it as kindling for starting fires in our wood stove and there was plenty of small pieces leftover from the construction. I had already moved the red trailer out of the barn hallway, so this morning, I moved the hay wagon from the hallway in the upper barn to the hay mound after starting and driving the ATVs out. Stacey drove the Mule and took me down to get the tractor, we started it and drove over to the old barn. I pulled the tractor in the hallway and we started tossing the pieces of wood into the scoop. We filled the scoop, then drove to the upper barn and tossed the pieces in one of the open stalls. Linda came outside and helped us with the rest of the pile of wood pieces. We probably moved five or six scoops of wood, then Linda went to the day care to work. I borrowed a cross horse to lay the old tobacco sticks in and we tied them into bundles, then we hauled them to the old corn crib. Stacey and I put the tractor back in the shed, the ATVs back in the barn, returned the cross horse and then went inside and watched TV until Linda came home.

Rain Tuesday, Rain Thursday

It was warm and rained most of the day on Tuesday. It felt like spring time around here. The creek was too deep to cross down by the mum patch when Stacey and I took Daisy for a run. It hasn't been that deep since early in June. We came back up the road and crossed, then let Daisy out to run. Most of the limbs that had accumulated in the creek had washed away and the water was still a little muddy from all the highway work going on around the farm. After we put Daisy back in the barn, Linda and I went to the little house and loaded the Christmas Tree into the back of the Mule during one of the lapses in the rain. She went to work at the day care and Stacey and I went to the Cumberland County basketball game. CC won both the girls' and boys' games. Linda had assembled the tree when we came home.
Wednesday we went to Campbellsville to shop and eat. Not much to say about that, I went to Tractor Supply and bought dog food while Stacey and Linda did most of the shopping.
Thursday, the temperature began dropping and rain was falling too. Linda and I took more trash out of the house trailer, put some over at Regina's house, some at Steve's house and 3 cans at our house. We're trying to get rid of the stuff a little at a time instead of having a dumpster. Linda spent most of the day decorating the Christmas Tree with a little help from Stacey. We went to town for lunch and I brought the girls back to the house, then took the HHR to the Chevy dealer to have them check out a thumping noise. They believe a sway bar hold down has broken loose. They ordered the parts and I drove back home. Linda worked again at the day care. It wasn't cold enough for the rain to turn to snow most of the day, but as daylight turned to darkness, a few flakes of snow was beginning to fall.

Neighbor's New Home

Our neighbor's new home was brought in today. They are being forced to move because the Highway 61 relocation is taking their property, which is visible in the top left of the first picture. They traded in their current home for a discount on the new home. Workers have set the septic tank and poured footers earlier in the week. Today, they drove up with one half of the new house and several pieces of equipment and left the home setting in the road while they readied the equipment to pull the truck onto the lot. They laid down large rubber mats for the vehicles to drive on to keep them from sinking in the mud.
  
They hooked a cable run through a pulley to the front of the truck and to the winch on the bulldozer and began pulling the truck. At first the bulldozer was spinning it's tracks without moving the entire setup, but after the mud was dug through, the bulldozer began moving the truck to the right location.
  
After the first half was set in place, they left and returned about two hours later with the last half of the house. They pulled it off the road the same way, then used the bulldozer to move it into it's final location.
 

Krafty Kritters Homemakers Christmas Party

Linda had been getting things ready for the Krafty Kritters Homemakers Christmas Party for several days. She began the day by starting the ham cooking in the oven while we took the HHR to the Chevy dealership for some repair work. After dropping the car off, Linda and Stacey picked me up and we went to Gengerich Concrete to get his estimate on building a pole barn for us. Lester and I talked a few minutes after he gave me the estimate and then Stacey, Linda and I returned to the farm. Linda went to Jone's Chapel to decorate for the party for about an hour, then returned home and continued her preparations. I sliced the ham while Linda made several other food items for the party when our neighbor, Steve stopped in and talked for a little while. A little before 5 PM, Stacey, Linda and I loaded the stuff into the pickup truck and stopped at Regina's house to let her ride with us. I helped Regina load her items in the truck and then I drove to the church. After we carried everything in, Regina and I lit the gas heater while Stacey and Linda setup the table.

  The rest of the club members began arriving with their dishes of food and filled out their Secret Pal forms with their personal preferences. Club President, Bonnie Holley, called the meeting to order, a short prayer was said, then a couple of Christmas stories were told and then the party began.

The Krafty Kritters asked their guests to begin the meal by going first, then the members passed through the kitchen, made their selections and everyone sat down and ate. The food was excellent, it's hard to beat a pitch in dinner with a group of homemakers. After eating, the Secret Pals passed out their gifts to their pals and opened their presents.
  
Some of the members were surprised to find out who was their Secret Pal, others had clues and thought they had it figured out. After the gift exchange, they began another gift exchange called "Dirty Santa", where they drew numbers and then were instructed to pick a gift. As more members opened their gift, they could keep their gift or exchange with a person that had already opened their present. Some members kept their presents, while others took the "dirty" option and traded for someone else's gift. They had fun during this exchange.
  
The last event of the evening was Bingo. Several members had brought small presents to use as prizes for the winners of the Bingo games and everyone was a winner before the night was over.

Looking Like Christmas

Pauline, Brent and Julie came over last night and this morning we had a light breakfast while everyone was getting dressed. The plan was to take Julie to see Santa Claus at the bank and then go to help at the school with passing out presents. Pauline had Julie up early and I took a picture of Julie on a rocking horse in front of the Christmas Tree.
  
Linda wanted one with Julie standing next to Frosty the Snowman so we could tell how big she was in later years, so I took one of those too. Then we took a couple in the red chair that Linda had when she was a kid and that Stacey and Brent had also sat in when they were little.
  
By then, everyone was dressed and ready to go, so we loaded into the truck and went to the bank to see Santa Claus. Santa and Mrs Claus were inside with treats for the kids. We waited our turn for Julie to talk to Santa, but weren't expecting it to go well. Linda led Julie up to the area and turned her loose. Mrs Claus was talking to Julie and Santa was trying to persuade her to set on his lap, but that wasn't getting much acceptance. Finally, Brent picked Julie up and set her in Santa's lap for the "screaming child" picture. She only remained there long enough for me to snap a picture and it was over. Julie quit crying and took Linda's hand as they walked away.
  
Next, we drove to the elementary school and began our work of helping pass out presents to the underprivileged kids in Cumberland County.
   
There were lots of presents that had been donated by churches in Louisville and the people in the center picture above had actually drove down to deliver the presents to the school. Others didn't make the trip, but their generosity was appreciated by everyone. We passed out gifts to various local organizations and at noon began passing out presents to individual families. We were done a little after 2 PM. It was a lot of work, but will help a lot of families have a better Christmas for their kids. The school had collected coats, gloves and mittens that they distributed also.

Lazy Sunday

We were slow getting up this morning and took our time getting dressed. It was a lazy Sunday morning with cereal, toast or pop tarts for breakfast. Julie and Brent started it off with each having a bowl of cereal. Julie needed to practice with a spoon anyway. She hits her mouth OK, but knocks some of the food off of the silverware on the way in, LOL.
   
Oh, and for the record, it isn't cold enough in our house that Julie needs that hat, but it is nice that she likes to wear it and will keep it on when we go outside. Pauline and Julie played with the Care Bears and I took a picture of them with the animals around them on Stacey's bed.
 
Pauline was able to work on a quilt most of the morning while Linda and I took turns playing with Julie. It was cold and windy outside, so Brent and I only took a short trip to the equipment shed to hook up several float chargers to the batteries in the ATVs and tractors. We all ate leftovers for lunch and Brent and I watched some of the Titan's football game. PB&J left for home a few minutes after 2 PM. The temperatures are going to drop to single digits tonight, which will be the coldest, so far, of this winter.

Stephanie Retires

Linda left early for the day care because the kids were out of school, so she needed to be there by 7 AM. It was about 8 degrees overnight and the ground was frozen. I started a fire in the wood stove and enjoyed a cup of coffee while Stacey made us pop tarts for breakfast. Shortly, the wood stove had heated up the house enough the thermostat caused the heat pump to stop running. Stacey and I watched TV and some shows recorded on the DVR, then went outside a little after noon. We loaded the Mule with wood and brought it up to the back of the house and stacked it on the edge of the porch. The Mule makes less of a mess in the yard when the ground is slightly frozen, so this was a fairly good time to replenish the stack on the back porch. After Linda came home, we went to the Veteran's Building for Stephanie Young's retirement. There was a nice crowd of friends and coworkers around the room as Stephanie was walking around and talking with people while they were served cake and punch. Stephanie is Jason's mom and he was there for the party and when Stacey sat down with us, Jason came over and joined our table. Jason gave Stacey her Christmas gifts and Stacey gave Jason his. They were chatting as they opened their gifts and watching each other too.
 
Linda and I talked with Stephanie and Tommy shortly, then mingled with the other guests as the party continued. Stephanie opened her retirement gifts as everyone watched. She was sentimental about the cards and gifts and had a little trouble keeping her tears held back. A couple of times, she opened a card, then said, I'll read that one later.
 
Stephanie finished the evening by giving hugs and taking pictures with her coworkers, friends and family.

Christmas Visit

We packed our presents and headed to Smith's Grove a little after 1 PM on Christmas Eve. We stopped in Columbia for a last minute present and some sandwiches, then drove the Cumberland Parkway towards Pauline, Brent and Julie's house. The driving was difficult as the rain was pounding the windshield of the HHR. Some drivers were pulling off to the edge and waiting on the hard rain to ease. We arrived and went inside and began our visit with PB&J. We talked with Pauline and Brent and played with Julie. Pauline fixed dinner and afterwards we opened our presents from PB&J as they opened the ones from us. We went to bed around 11 PM.
Christmas Day, Linda helped Pauline fix breakfast and start the stuff for dinner. Pauline's Mom and Dad, Dorothy and Larry, came over a little before 10 AM and brought their dog, Buddy. It was a wild scene for a few minutes as Buddy had never met our dog Coco.They chased each other around the living room until Brent caught Coco. The dogs settled down and got along well the rest of the time. All of us enjoyed watching Julie open the presents everyone had brought for her. It went slowly at first, Dorothy helped Julie get the idea of tearing into the packages, and after a few were open, Julie began tearing the presents open. I think Julie really enjoyed getting the presents, but also, the part of having both of her grandmas there made it even better. When Julie had finished opening presents, we all ate dinner and talked. After dinner we went back in the living room and played with the dogs and helped Julie play with her new toys. The dogs provided some excitement every now and then as a dog race would begin and end around the chairs and living room. Once dinner had settled, we ate some of the dessert Pauline had made. Dorothy and Larry took Buddy and headed home to Morgantown, then we packed our stuff, grabbed Coco and headed home after saying good bye around 5 PM. It was really a nice time spending the Christmas holiday with PB&J.

Record Temperatures

We had not used the wood stove since before Christmas and the heat pump didn't run much of the day as temperatures were above 70 degrees. Stacey and I went outside and Stacey drove me down to the equipment shed, where I started the tractor while Stacey picked up Daisy at the barn. Then Stacey followed me across the creek and she let Daisy out of the Mule. I used the tractor to remove some of the trees and limbs that had either fallen or been washed into the hay fields. We let Daisy run loose all the time I was working with the tractor. Stacey loaded Daisy in the back of the Mule and took her to the barn after picking me up at the equipment shed. We went inside and ate sandwiches for lunch, then I went back outside to work with the back hoe on the tractor. I cleaned out the ditch along the backside of the hay field where I had removed a small tree that had fallen. Linda used the warm weather to take down the Christmas Tree and return it and a lot of the decorations to the storage building with the Mule. At one point, I noticed she had left the back door open and was walking in and out without closing the door. Even that didn't cause the heat pump to run. The wind picked up towards evening as a front was approaching that had a line of thunderstorms embedded in it. Even those storms were mild.

Warm Weather Continues

The last few days have been really warm and nothing but sunshine. I have taken advantage of the weather and worked outside. I have used the tractor to clean up a few ditches. I have used the chainsaws to cut up the wood I had laying out by the wood shed. Today, I went to Steve Riddle's place out on Jone's Ridge and helped the two Steve Anderson and Steve Riddle cut wood and load it into his pickup truck. They had cut enough wood to make a heaping truck load, then decided to cut down another tree. After they had it down and on the ground, I left for home. I split the wood I had cut and pushed over to the wood shed, then loaded the black trailer with the rest of the pile and backed it over so it is right by the log splitter, ready to split. Pauline, Brent and Julie came over after dark and Brent hooked up a new wireless router for me. Our network had been flaky and I couldn't figure out why, so Brent bought me a new router as a Christmas present. After a couple of days trying to hook it up by myself, I told Brent he had bought the wrong kind, that I needed the kind that had 24 hour, 7 days a week live tech support in my home. I guess Brent is as close as I will get to that. He had it fixed in about 10 minutes.
 
While Julie was checking out Linda's Country Cousins in the antique case, Pauline, Brent and Linda were getting ready for a trip to IN tomorrow. Stacey is staying with me and we are going to be "dog whisperers" till the weekend.