Recycling, Furniture Store & Cell Tower

Friday morning, Linda helped me unhook the finish mower and hook the tractor to the bush hog. I drove the tractor and she went in the Mule and we cleaned up a few areas that had become over grown. We returned the tractor to the shed and when we were going to drive to Columbia to eat, Stacey asked if we could take her aluminum cans to the recycling center. Yep, that would be a good time, make one trip take care of two things. Linda helped Stacey pour the cans into plastic bags and load them in the back of the pickup truck.
  
We drove to Columbia and ate lunch, then stopped at the recycling center.
  
We carried the bags inside and they dumped them in wire baskets, weighed the two baskets and told us we would get $18.50. I signed the paper and Stacey took the money. We went across the road and into Wal-Mart, bought groceries and took them home. Henry Holley was parked in the driveway when we drove in and parked. He was needing to use the hay wagon for a hay ride on Saturday. I told him he could use it, so he said he was coming back later to pick it up. A couple hours later, Henry brought Jake and two other boys, loaded a few bales of hay on the wagon and I helped them hook it up. The hay ride was going to be during a birthday party for Jake, who had turned 14 years old the day before. They pulled the wagon down the hill and headed up the road. About two minutes later, Brent drove in and parked. Pauline, Julie and Kyle were with him. Pico and Poco jumped out of the car too. We walked up to the pond and sat outside there for a while talking and letting the little dogs run.
  
Saturday morning after breakfast, we loaded into the Traverse and Brent drove us to Greensburg. Pauline and Linda like looking through Central Furniture that is just outside of the town. We looked through the entire store and Linda talked to the sales woman while looking through a couple catalogs. I took a couple pictures of items I liked because it is hard to tell exactly what color the wood and fabrics are in the store compared to what we have at home.
 
We had lunch at Pizza Hut in Columbia on the way back to the farm. Later in the evening, Brent and I took a ride up the road to David Branham's place to see what the crew building a cellular tower had been doing. After leaving the highway and driving down a gravel road, we crossed a dry ford at the creek and headed up a very steep gravel road up the hillside.
 
When we reached the top of the hill, they had build a turn around area big enough for semi-trucks to unload the pieces of the cell tower with another road over to the actual location the tower would be built.
  
They had cut the rocks into a square and were chipping the inside out with a hoe-ram. It is basically a big powerful jack hammer attached to a track hoe. Then they remove the end, replace it with a bucket and scoop out the debris. A dozer then shoves the rock to the edge of the clearing.
We drove back down the hill and to the farm and went inside. Pauline and Linda were fixing supper when Nancy and Steve Riddle stopped. Nancy and Linda went walking after Linda finished eating. Brent gave Julie a breathing treatment when she had finished her meal.

A Busy Thursday

We started the day with pancakes since the egg recall, then took Daisy for a run. Linda was taking a shower when the door bell rang. It was Jeff Dick, a guy that had worked with Linda in IN at Lehman's. He was on his way to Dale Hollow Lake and stopped by for a while. When Linda finished her shower we all talked and got caught up on what had happened since we moved to KY. We showed Jeff around the farm in the Mule as we talked. I said good bye to Jeff and went to the bicentennial committee meeting in Burkesville. I also talked to Dorothy (the 'D' in J&D Restaurant) a short time concerning ordering ink pens to give away at the car show.
 
After the meeting, I returned to the farm. Linda said that Jeff had stayed about a half hour after I went to the meeting, then headed towards Star Point on Dale Hollow Lake. I had another meeting to attend. The Tennessee Valley Authority is planning to upgrade the main power line to Burkesville and it may or may not cross our property. They are planning on installing a 161 kV power line on metal towers or metal poles in a 100' wide clear cut path. Their planning currently has 13 possible routes for the power line.
 
I talked with a representative of TVA about the procedure to decide which route they would implement. He also explained that if they buy the right of way, it is a permanent right of way and that they pay for it and the timber that is cut too. He would not say what price they would pay or how much the timber would be worth. I really never got a straight answer about how they determine which route they will finally build. I think the meeting was just a procedural meeting that TVA must conduct to make sure the public has been informed of their intent. I went back to the farm and Linda was staining the pressure treated benches with a gray stain down by the pole barn.
 
Around 6 PM I rode the Harley to town and attended the Cumberland River Cruisers Car Club meeting.

Heat Relief

Practically everyday had been above 90 for about a month and a half, some days were near 100 degrees. It was miserable being outside with the high humidity. But now, wow, it feels a lot better around here since the temperatures have dropped into the upper 80s and the humidity has went down. Linda had taken Coco to the pond and he was chasing the frogs and went in the pond water. He was a muddy mess, so she brought him down to the creek and they were walking in the water to rinse some of the black mud off.

 
After she rinsed him off, he ran around cutting and turning, then running and jumping like a jack rabbit. We picked him up and walked over to the pole barn, where Linda had a couple of pop sickles. She shared with Coco while I drank a cold pop.
 
We managed to start a fire in the fire pit. The wood was what Linda had lopped off of the trees and it was still green. We used a few marker stakes to start the fire that were left by the road crews and we had picked up. We sat back and listened to music coming from the speakers in the pole barn while watching the fire until about 8 PM. When we went inside, Stacey said Jason had called her from Jamaica. He is out of the country on a cruise ship trip with his dad, David Strange.

Road Trip

Stacey and I left the farm at 8 AM in a thunderstorm. I drove to the bottom of the driveway and took a picture to have to show to the road relocation crews. I am going to ask them to rework the area around the bottom of the driveway where they have slanted the dirt towards the driveway. It now funnels the water that is running off the hillside onto the driveway.
 
We went towards Columbia and took the Cumberland Parkway towards Bowling Green. The rain was coming down hard and water was ponding in the slow lane, so I drove in the fast lane most of the way. About two miles west of Glasgow, I was about to pass another car and that car began to swerve to the left, went back to the right and hit the guard rail. I was pressing hard on the brake pedal and the ABS was alternately applying and releasing the brakes to keep our car from skidding. The other car bounced off the guard rail, spun completely around, went across our lane of traffic and slid through the median at about 65 mph. I thought it was going to roll over, but the grass in the median was wet and it just slid to a stop with the front wheels on the pavement on the other side of the median. I was nearly stopped when the other car drove out of the median and headed back towards Glasgow. Whew, that was too close, about 30 feet when it went across in front of us! We continued on to Smith's Grove and then to Brownsville and Brent's office at the Edmonson County School Board building. Brent cleared up some problems with one of our computers while we talked to Lamar and him. When he finished, Stacey and I said good bye and headed on to Bowling Green. We stopped at Mancino's for lunch.
 
After lunch it was still raining when we went inside Sam's Club, shopped for groceries and supplies and checked out. When we went back outside it had stopped raining. We packed the frozen food in a cooler, closed the hatch and headed towards the farm. As we drove towards Columbia, we could see the rain clouds a few miles ahead of us.
 
We eventually caught up with the rain, but it was a light rain the rest of the way home, not near as hard of a rain as we had drove in earlier. We parked inside the garage and unloaded our stuff, then took the computer in and returned it to operation.
 

Cook Out

This morning, Linda and I went for a ride in the Mule with Daisy running around the fields. I was checking on what needed mowed and how the hay fields looked. Around noon, we all took the 65 Mustang to town and parked under the awning at J&D's, went inside and ate. After we had finished lunch, Jimmy and I talked about me helping him with a car show during the Burkesville Bicentennial Celebration October 21-24. When we returned to the farm, Linda went to work at the day care, Stacey and I watched a recorded WWE program until it was time for her to go to a cook out. Jason had invited Stacey to a cook out at his grandparents, Hazel and Odis, in Burkesville. Christie and Bryant, Jason's brother, were there too.

I dropped her off and then headed back to the farm. Linda came home after working and walking with Nancy at the park in town. A phone call let me know that Stacey was ready to come home at 8 PM, then I went and picked her up. Stacey said she had a great time and that the food was good. She said Hazel had also made a butterscotch pie that she liked.

Hay Fields & TR-3

There has been a few days of mostly dry weather and Larry Anderson cut the hay in the fields down the road and across the creek last week. He rolled the hay on Saturday and has hauled it out of the fields and up on Jone's Ridge to his farm. I think he had about thirty rolls.
 
Phil Garmon cut the hay fields across the creek from the house yesterday and he should roll it on Thursday.
 
I had ordered a new fuel pump from Moss Motors for the Triumph TR-3 last week. While Stacey and I were outside and I was mowing back in the 'holler' it was delivered and left on the back porch by the door. We found it when we went back inside the house. I opened it and later took it down to the pole barn. About 5:30 PM the sky became cloudy and the air temperature cooled down, so I went to the pole barn and began removing the old fuel pump from the TR-3. It came off fairly easy and scraping the gasket material off the engine block wasn't too bad. By now, it was raining hard and the rain hitting the metal roof was making a loud roar. I put the new gasket over the studs in the block and began by placing the fuel pump in the proper location and screwing one nut on the stud. That was the easy part, trying to get the other nut started was tougher. I ended up dropping it several times and finally lost the nut on the car. By that time I was dripping sweat and could hardly see. I went to the house to cool off when the rain stopped. After about an hour, I went back, used my glasses and found the nut stuck on a piece of the engine block. I picked it out with a screw driver and then managed to twist my hand around the pump and get the nut started on the stud.
 
Linda had came down to the barn by then, so after tightening the fuel lines I told her to start the car. It didn't start until I sprayed carb cleaner in the intakes of the carbs. It would run a minute or so until that was burnt up and then the motor would die. We quit for a while and went to see what the rain had done, then went inside and had supper. I kept thinking about what to do and about 10:30 PM, after Linda and Stacey went to bed, I went back down to the pole barn and used the air hose to blow some pressure into the gas tank and force gas up to the pump. The TR-3 started and ran after I did that. I'll take it out for a test drive tomorrow.

*UPDATE* Linda drove the Triumph to town with me following her Thursday morning. The car made it to town and back and the fuel pump worked fine, so Linda parked it in the pole barn and began wiping the hand prints off the fenders.
 

Kyle & Pop Sickles

Linda dressed Kyle in a cute shirt and short set and put a pair of really small sandals on him, then said he was ready for his 'close up'. I took a look and set him at the end of the little bed, put his hands on the foot board's rails and he stood there holding on. I took a few pictures and then Coco jumped on the bed and gave Kyle a lick, Kyle leaned back away from Coco and when we told Coco to get down, Kyle laughed and I took the third picture.
   
When the pictures were done, we went on a Mule ride, then stopped at the 'pop sickle barn'. That was what Julie started calling the pole barn. We ALL had pop sickles this time, including Kyle.
   
We went back inside the house and Kyle took a long nap while Brent read Julie a story.

They headed home around 1:30 PM.

Friday & Saturday

Friday morning we had agreed to meet Jason in town for breakfast. It seemed like it had been a long time since we had saw him at Jone's Restaurant. As soon as we sat down, Stacey and Jason were giggling and arguing over their favorite teams and NASCAR drivers. Stacey gave Jason a Chicago Cubs shirt she had bought for him while she was recently in IN. Julie was tearing the paper wrapper from around her straw and throwing the paper wad at me.
   
That is something that I've done to her since she was barely able to set up in a chair at restaurants. After I would throw the paper wad at her, then she had to throw it back. Now, she usually fires the first shot! Oops, my fault on that I guess. We always do it, what can I say? Julie really liked riding in the 65 Mustang with the top down, she could see a lot of things and was telling us everything she saw on the way back to the farm. We then did the usual things, Linda and Stacey took Julie for a Mule ride with Daisy running and then ate pop sickles at the end of the ride. Pauline, Brent and Kyle came over around 5:30 PM.
Saturday morning after breakfast, Pauline, Brent and I went to town in the pickup truck and bought a used kids' bed at the Methodist Store. We returned to the farm and Linda washed the plastic covered mattress while Brent bolted the bed frame back together. We then turned Julie and Kyle loose on it.
 
Later in the afternoon, Linda and I drove the 65 Mustang to town to set things up for the CRC Cruisin' The Square cruise-in. Julie, Pauline, Kyle, Brent and Stacey came to the cruise-in later and Julie drew out the winning ticket for the 50/50 drawing right before the end of the cruise-in. When we returned to the farm, we took another Mule ride and threw rocks in the creek. As we were going back to the house, we saw that Nancy Riddle was there with her niece, Kaylee. Nancy and Linda went walking on their exercise routine and Kaylee and Julie played together and ate popsickles at the pole barn while Brent and I finished hooking up the computer to the web cam and watching the kids play. Pauline wasn't having any trouble with Kyle because the Mule ride had put him to sleep, so she was listening to music and dancing with Julie and Kaylee. The younger girls took turns riding "Wilbur", the stick pony and then the tricycle. Nancy and Linda finished their walk just before dark and sat down at the table to drink a bottle of water and watch the girls play.

New John Deere Mower Trouble

I had hooked the trailer to the back of the truck Tuesday evening and when I woke up Wednesday morning, my back had a catch in it and I was having trouble moving around. Linda went to work at the day care and when she came home, my back was a little better. We decided to go ahead and drive to Bowling Green. I pulled the trailer to the front of the Home Depot store and parked. We went inside and purchased a new John Deere LA 175 riding mower. The two guys pushed the mower out of the store and onto the back of the trailer. They also loaded a FREE JD cart into the truck. We tied the mower down with our straps and then drove to Pauline and Brent's house. Julie came running out the door with Pico and Poco right behind her as we were getting out of the truck. We had hugged Julie and Pauline drove in and scared us all because Julie was in the driveway and so were the dogs. She slowed down and stopped when she saw that the dogs and Julie were running loose. We went inside for a little bit, then Brent drove us to Brownsville to eat pizza. After we ate, we went back to P&B's house and played with Kyle while Pauline packed a suitcase for Julie to go to the farm with us. We drove home and Julie took a nap in the car during the ride.
Thursday, I fixed breakfast and then Linda and I went outside to unload the lawnmower while Stacey and Julie watched a movie. I unhooked the straps and Linda helped by letting down the tailgate of the trailer. Julie came outside to see what we were doing when I had Linda get on the mower to drive it off the trailer. Linda asked Julie to climb on her lap and I took a picture of them on the mower.
 
Linda sat Julie down and she walked off the trailer and I told Linda to start the mower and back it off. WRONG! It wouldn't start, it wouldn't crank, the lights wouldn't even work. I checked the fuses, unplugged the fuse and plugged it back together. I decided to read the owner's manual, nothing in there that helped. I tried everything again. It was like the battery was dead or there was a switch that was not working. I thought there might be something the store did to the mower to keep it from starting in the store, so I called the Home Depot store and talked to a customer service person in the lawn and garden section. He said to try jumping the battery and if it started it was the battery needed charged. I said OK. I went out and jumped the mower off the battery in the Mule. It started right up, but wouldn't run when I took the cables off. I let it build up a charge in the battery a little while, then unhooked the cables and drove it to the equipment shed and filled the mower with gas. I mowed about a half hour and shut it off. It started again, so I let Linda mow about a half hour.

A couple hours later, I went outside and tried to start the mower and the battery was dead. I called the Home Depot and talked to the same customer service person, he gave me a couple options to choose what I wanted to do. I chose to take the battery out and return it to the store for replacement. I drove the HHR to save on gas and when I went inside the store the customer service person had a battery waiting on me. He gave me a better battery and a $25 seat cover for the mower for my troubles. I returned to the farm, installed the battery and everything is fine now.
 

Stacey's New Dell

Stacey's iMac computer had quit working about two months ago. Brent and I looked inside, but decided it wasn't anything we could fix. Rather than try to have it repaired, I decided we would buy a new computer. The iMac prices were nearly $1,200 for a new machine from Apple. I thought that was way too much! So, I looked at Dell's web site. I found a Dell pc that was comparable to the iMac in looks and specs. Dell called their machine a Studio One. The list price was $499, but it was on sale with shipping and tax for a total of $503. At less than half the cost of the Apple product, I ordered it and didn't tell Stacey.
I had been watching the tracking information and I told Linda it should be delivered. A few minutes later, I had started outside to mow, but I noticed a FedEx truck coming up the drive way, so I went back inside. I told Stacey to answer the door when the door bell rang. The delivery guy handed her the box that had Dell in big letters on the outside. She looked at me and said, "It's for you!" I said it was for her. I signed the delivery acknowledgment and we shut the door. Stacey, Linda and I unwrapped the completely white Dell. It has a cordless keyboard and a cordless mouse with a Windows 7 64-bit operating system. We set it in Stacey's room and powered it up, then I installed iTunes and Thunderbird and a few other programs and turned Stacey loose on it. She has been playing songs and reading about the Pacers since then.

Opener Repaired

I drove the Mule down to the pole barn, opened the sliding door and started the Harley. I rode it outside, shut the door and headed to Campbellsville a little after 8 AM. After a nice ride in the cool air, I pulled up in front of the Overhead Door Company and turned the bike off. I went inside and talked to the service manager, who handed me a new circuit board for our garage opener. He said he had called and left me a message on the answering machine. He had scheduled a service call next week when they would be working in our area. He told me to replace the circuit board and if that fixed the problem to call and cancel the service call. I agreed, took the circuit board and put it in the saddle bag on the Harley. When I rode out of the parking lot, I wondered if I was going to get wet on the way home, but the closer I rode to home, the lighter the sky was becoming. No rain at all. I parked the bike in the pole barn and took the Mule back to the house and noticed it was nearly 10 AM. It took about 15 minutes to replace the circuit board, make a few settings and then program the opener to our remotes. IT WORKED! Just like it had been working before the problems had begun, finally success! Raising and lowering the door to make the adjustments had drove Coco into a frenzy, he was thinking it was Linda and Stacey coming home, so I had to let him out into the garage to see they were not home. I erased the message on the answering machine and called and canceled the service call. I mowed grass with the tractor and finish mower until I was unable to see because of the sweat running in my eyes. At that point, I went inside and cooled off and watched TV until time for the Cumberland River Cruisers meeting at 6 PM. There was a thunderstorm that went through our area while I was at the meeting.

Door Opener Problems

I had mentioned in a previous post last week that a lightening strike had messed up some things in our house and pole barn, one being the electric garage door opener.
Tuesday, I had removed the electric eyes at the bottom of the garage door tracks and when Linda came home from working, we drove to Campbellsville. I went to the Overhead Door Company and talked to a service man about the trouble we were having with our garage door opener. He took the two electric eyes and put them on their floor model in their show room and said they worked. He said I must need a circuit board replaced in our door opener. He then showed me the circuit board and gave me a quick course on how to replace it. I paid the $80 plus tax for the new board with my credit card and took the circuit board and my old electric eyes. We ate lunch and then walked through the Peddlers' Mall. After that, we drove back to the house and I worked on the door opener. I replaced the circuit board, which was easier than I thought it would be.
 
After closing everything up and tightening the screws, plugging the door opener back in, it still didn't work properly. AHHHHHH CRAP!!!!
Wednesday morning, Linda was up early, fixed breakfast and was packing for a trip to IN. Stacey had said she was going, but as time to leave was getting closer, she was having second thoughts. She finally packed her bags to the HHR and then we all said good bye and I took their picture right before they drove away.
 
As soon as they left, I went to work on the door opener. I took the circuit board out, put it back in the box and then drove the truck to Campbellsville and returned the circuit board for a credit. I bought two new electric eyes, $38 plus tax, and headed back to the farm. I replaced the eyes and tried the door opener. Once again, AHHHHHH CRAP!!!! It still didn't work properly. I tried calling Overhead Door for a service call, but the place never returned my call to schedule a time. I may ride the Harley up there tomorrow, 90 miles round trip, and re-buy the circuit board and install it, now that I know I have two working electric eyes. The service techs told me it can only be those two things. If that doesn't fix it, then I guess I will just tell them to install a new unit. The last few evenings a group of deer have came out of the pine and cedar trees behind our house and walked down the hill. Tonight, I was able to take pictures of three out of seven that walked by the end of the house. There were five doe, a spotted little one, and a young buck just growing his antlers for the season. The buck is to the right in the picture.
  
Coco was standing at the back door barking like crazy while I slid the kitchen window open and took the picture through the opening. It was too dark by the time all the deer came out of the trees and they wouldn't stand in a small group for a flash picture. :-)

Blazing Hot

We've had enough rain in the last few days to cause the water in the creek to begin flowing again. The water is really muddy from the road work being done a couple miles upstream from our farm. Some of the freshly bull dozed dirt has washed off-site and into the creek. The hay fields are growing again and will probably be cut in a week or two. The hay is not as high as usual, but by delaying the cutting, the harvest will be nearly normal. It may make the fall cutting a little bit shorter. We've been taking Daisy for runs in the early mornings due to the extreme heat later in the day.
  
The Nashville TV channels have been forecasting temperatures of 100 degrees. I'm not sure if our area was that hot, but I did see that our thermometer, on a post in the equipment shed, was showing 96 degees at 3 PM, and it is mounted in the shade. I was headed to the tractor to do some mowing. I mow for a while, then go inside and cool off, then back and mow a little more. Linda is trimming on the riding mower and doing the same thing.
 

House Driveway Paved & Mustang Engine

This morning the paving crew was back at work and started paving the driveway approach to the house. They graded the driveway smooth, spread a gravel base, rolled it till it was packed hard, then paved it with asphalt and rolled it till it was firm.
   
While the paving crew was finishing the driveway the road crew was putting the final touches on the dirt bank in front of the little house. I watched them work for a while from the front porch, then began watching the humming birds swarm the feeder that Linda had filled the night before. They are draining it nearly every day.
  
Dave Neff had asked me to help replace the hood on Linda's 1966 Mustang, so Stacey and I went to his shop in Burkesville. He had stored the hood above his office in the attic space below the roof. He handed the hood down to me, then he climbed down the ladder and I held it while he bolted it back in place on the car. He started the engine and it ran fine, he shut it off and restarted it, it was good to see and hear it run again.
  
Dave wiped some of the smudges off the windshield, then I drove the car to Jeff's Auto Service to see if they could replace the muffler. It had blown apart when the engine backfired at a parade last fall. We left it there and Randy picked us up and took us back to DC Auto where we had parked the HHR. We drove home and were only there a short time when the muffler shop called and said they didn't have a muffler that would fit. I ordered one from Amazon.com, then Stacey and I went back to town and picked the Mustang up and took it back to DC Auto Service for some minor adjustments. I paid Dave for his work and then we returned to the farm. Linda had been at a training seminar for the day care until nearly 5 PM.

Driveway Work

I went down to the pole barn this morning to work on a piece of glass for the frame of the button flag that Pauline had glued together. I took a piece out of an old storm window. On the way back to the house, I noticed that the road crew was working on the driveways in front of the little house.
  
Stacey and I went to the hardware store and bought a small glass cutter and returned to the farm. I cut the piece of glass the size I needed for the frame and took it to the house. Then I went back outside and drove the Mule down to watch the Gaddie-Shamrock crew pave the little house's driveway approach.
   
One pass, then they backed up a little and turned slightly to widen the approach where it met the highway. A little shovel work and they were done in approximately 20 minutes. A guy on a roller came over and rolled it after about another half hour and it was done until the finish layer of pavement is laid down. I went outside just before sundown and took two pictures on the way back to the pole barn.
  

A Field Trip & A Few Showers

Linda went on a field trip with the kids at the day care. They went to Tompkinsville, KY and visited the Old Mulkey Meeting House State Historic Site. The kids did 'rubbings' of the names on the old tombstones of people buried on the grounds.
  
They also stopped for lunch at McDonalds before returning to the day care and hearing a story read by a guest reader, Jason. After the story was read, they laid on mats and watched a movie while taking a break.
  
We've had a few showers of rain and the temperatures have been in the mid 80s the last two days.
  
I hope the little bit of rain that fell will get the hay fields growing and cause the fescue to fill in the gaps. There is a little water flowing through the creek.
 
Of course the grass in the yard has quickly greened up and began growing.

Dry Creek

We haven't been mowing at all because of the weather. The heat has been in the 90s nearly every day for almost a month. There hasn't been enough rain to keep the grass growing. The hay fields are still green with Johnson grass, but the clover and fescue hasn't done much growing since it was cut just after Memorial Day. The creek has a few pools of water left, but no water is flowing. The blue herons are picking the small minnows and fish out of the remaining pools. We interrupt them each day we let Daisy run. They fly off when they hear us coming, make a large circle and return as we drive away. The flowers have taken a huge hit with the high heat and dry conditions, I'm glad we didn't grow mums this year, it would have been a bad year with no rain and hardly any creek water to use.
 
There is rain in the forecast and it is showing up on the radar, but several times that has happened and when it arrived in our area, we never received any. Usually, hurricane season provides us with plenty of rain showers.

4th of July Weekend

Julie and Kyle were already here when Pauline and Brent joined us Friday evening. We went out to eat and then spent the evening relaxing and playing with the kids.
Saturday morning started a very busy day for us. Brent and I had loaded some stuff in the back of the pickup late Friday evening, but there was plenty more to pack in for the Independence Celebration the car club was participating in at the park in Burkesville. We were selling T-Shirts and taking pictures as well as compiling the votes for the People's Choice voting. We had also collected items from merchants to give away to everyone participating in the cruise-in. Pauline, Brent and Stacey took Kyle and walked along as Julie rode her tricycle in the bike parade while we took care of business at the cruise-in.
   
We were at the park beginning at 9:30 AM and left at 5 PM. It was a long hot day! After going home to rest for a while, we returned to the park a little before 9 PM to watch the fireworks show.
Sunday, the 4th of July, was a day to recooperate from the heat the day before. We did get outside long enough to take the kids for a Mule ride and let Daisy run. We also unloaded the truck that I had parked inside the pole barn. Pauline worked on a flag she was making with buttons that Linda had in a jar. I cut a piece of poster board the size to fit inside an old picture frame for them, then they glued a piece of material over it and hot glued the buttons in place.
 
Brent shot off some bottle rockets and Roman Candles from the front of the garage after dark. We sat in our lawn chairs and cheered and clapped just like we did for the big fireworks the town had shot off the night before.
Pauline and Brent had to work on Tuesday, so we celebrated my birthday on Monday. Julie and Kyle helped me 'blow out' the battery powered candle on the cake Julie had helped decorate with colored sprinkles. I then cut a small piece of cake and gave Kyle the first taste. The icing was VERY BLUE!
   
We all had a piece of cake with ice cream.

Julie & Kyle Visit

Thursday, we did a lot of running around in the HHR. We left the farm and filled the gas tank and reset the trip odometer. I headed towards Glasgow on 90 and we made it to the west side of Marrowbone where we were held up by road construction. They were busting up the hillside and had traffic stopped in both directions for about twenty minutes. Once we were through that the trip went better. I stopped at Ben & Elmer's Tractor Sales to buy a piece to replace a broken connector on my Ford tractor. Sorry, they didn't have one. OK, on to Cave City to find a part to fix Linda's 65 Mustang motor. I parked at Key's Shop and went inside. I explained what I was looking for and he said we would need to look through some old engine blocks. Well, he had them setting everywhere. Inside the back room there must have been over a hundred, then we went outside and looked in a shed, then in an old bus, then a trailer, still not what I needed. I was beginning to get worried when he said he would have to go look at his Mom and Dad's place. He left his business and was gone about 10 minutes and returned with the part I needed. Great! Finally we could get the Mustang back together. The guy wanted $10 for the part, so I gave him $20 for the part and the extra time he took getting it for us. Next I drove to Oakland to the Coke distributor and picked up a free banner for the Cumberland River Cruiser's car club. No problem there, so we headed to Pauline and Brent's house to pickup Julie and Kyle's stuff. I dropped Linda and Stacey off at the house and I went to their baby sitter's house. I went inside and Ashley was feeding Kyle a bottle, so Julie told me the other kids' names. After a few minutes Ashley put Kyle in his seat and we were ready to leave. I set his seat into the base unit and strapped Julie into her seat and we picked up Stacey, Linda and the suitcases. I drove the parkway back to Columbia and stopped at the New Holland tractor dealership. They had the part I needed, so I bought it and drove to Wal-Mart. Dave Neff had asked us to buy a poster frame for him if we were there, so I called him, told him the price and then bought it. We also picked up a two pack of pacifiers for Kyle. I drove to Burkesville and gave Dave the poster frame and the part for the Mustang so that he could get it back together, then we went home to the farm. One hundred and eighty miles on the trip odometer when I pulled into the garage. After unloading the kids and their stuff, I replaced the broken piece on the tractor and moved some dirt for our neighbor. They appreciated that and gave me some tomatoes, squash and cucumbers along with a check for $20. I found Julie, Kyle, Stacey and Linda at the pole barn when I returned to the farm. Julie ate pop sickles and played with her stick pony until nearly dark, that's when we went to the house.
Kyle was a good baby overnight and seems to be enjoying his first trip to the farm without Pauline and Brent. We were a little worried about it at first, but it's going good.
  
  
The only problem we're having is, when we speak "baby talk" to Kyle, our dog Coco thinks we're talking to him and he wants to be the center of attention. :-)

Chuck Comes To Breakfast

Chuck Anderson, one of my friends from high school, work and playing basket ball drove down from IN and stopped at our house. He had called the day before and said he was going to Dale Hollow Lake and wanted to stop by early. I had told him to come on down and we would fix breakfast when he arrived. When he came in, we talked a little while, then I fixed omelets for us. As we ate, we continued to talk about what was happening with the people we had both known and what we had been doing since his visit two years ago. Like several of our acquaintances, he said he had read the blog and had kept up with us on there. Chuck filled us in on the where abouts of several people that we used to know and what he had been doing too. After breakfast, we showed him the pole barn and how we had fixed the 'club house' with the old barn siding. He looked around the barn a little bit, then we went back to the house. He asked us all to carry in some boxes from his car as we started back inside. We had to make a trip back to the car to pickup the rest of the boxes. Once inside, we set the boxes on the table and Chuck asked Stacey to look at some of the stuff in the boxes. She was surprised to see it was NASCAR collectibles. Chuck picked out some of the items and handed them to Stacey for her to take a closer look. Stacey was telling Chuck how much she liked Jimmy Johnson and he pulled out a couple of the Johnson collectible cars. Stacey's eyes lit up when she saw those cars.
   
Linda and I were amazed at the amount of NASCAR items Chuck had brought and was giving to Stacey. I asked Chuck what he was doing giving his stuff away and he said he was ready to let it go and didn't really have anyone to give it to that he thought would appreciate it as much as Stacey. There was a lot of items that don't show up in the picture above, like the commemorative plates and coins, the programs and even some things that had never been unwrapped. There was a collectible winning car from every year of the Brickyard since 1994. I posted a few of the pictures of the cars below.
   
There were collectible plates and coins from every year also. The plate and 4 coins pictured below are from the inaugural race in 1994. The other Franklin Mint coin is from last years race.
  
Chuck talked with Stacey about the stuff and about the Pacers too. He has sent her Pacer tickets more than once and he knows how much she likes the Pacers. We all talked a while longer, said thank you to Chuck and then good bye. Chuck left a little after noon and was headed down to Dale Hollow Lake. He was meeting Bruce Beck and Gary Brown at Star Point and going boating with them Thursday and Friday.