Sunday, 29 June 2008
 

A day well spent

Ever notice how someone always gets the sun squints in the picture you really, really wanted?

Anyway, a good time was had by all.

Ian even got to see Sunshine get in a hurry when he heard munchies hit the bucket.

I won't be seeing Ian again till I get to Ft Worth on the 26th or so. I miss him already.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 29, 2008 at 11:20 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 27 June 2008
 

Not much shakin' at The Lazy F

I don't know why I've been so lazy lately. After effects of spending too much time out and around getting the fence finished before my ex and my grandson got here? At any rate I'm not exactly a bundle of energy lately. I managed to go shopping for a few minutes Wednesday I think, or was that yesterday?

My ex brought Ian down for a cookout last night and he paid a little more attention to the swingset than he has before. Enough that I won't feel like I'm wasting money buying one like it for my daughter's place. We invited Kyle and Brian out to eat and meet Ian and he thought they were pretty neat; Kyle worked hard enough helping get the swingset set up that I wanted him to see Ian enjoying it. .

Sunshine did finally realize the pasture's bigger than it used to be. My sister says he spent several minutes this morning gazing over the east fence at people and cars coming and going in the Wal-Mart parking lot. My ex thinks we should run a lawn mower over that end of the field but I'm going to wait a little longer to see if he really will eat the tall stuff before we do.

Dude, I found your recession. I didn't know it till just a few days ago but all Toyota assembles in their Princeton IN plant is full size trucks and SUVs. They're cutting production there for an unannounced length of time, which means that ATS (Automotive Technology Systems, formerly TrimMasters), whose only customer is Toyota, is also cutting back. My brother in law isn't completely out of work but he's going to be working less than 40 hours a week till something changes. That's that much more of my pension my sister's going to need to keep things going around here. Throw in the fact I still can't get any straight answers about when I'll get the rest of my Social Security back settlement and it's definitely time for some spending cutbacks around here. I still have money stashed away for a trip to Ft Worth next month and a swingset for Ian but I've told Kyle and Brian I'm not going to have much work for them for a while. As much as I'd like to have them add rails to the fence before they find "real jobs," it just isn't in the cards right now and I probably won't even have them move the rest of the dirt I need moved any time soon.

I guess my niece and her husband have finally decided to let us give Daniel, their 14 year old, a  summer in Illinois for an 8th Grade graduation present. He can stand a break from his bratty brothers and maybe having him here will get Cordell off the couch and out into the fresh air now and then. I wish they'd made the decision earlier so he could have more time here but better late than never. The tentative game plan at this point is for Scotty and Kyle and Brian to go to Alabama after him shortly after the weekend of the 4th. If that falls through I'll go after him about the same time they plan to but I know they'll enjoy the trip a lot more than I would.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 27, 2008 at 11:14 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 24 June 2008
 

Boring day at The Circle F

I'd hoped Ian would pressure his grandma into bringing him down again today but no such luck.

Kyle and Brian spent about 4 hours today digging up about the top three inches of part of the pasture that was packed down so rock hard we couldn't get grass started on it. It'll take a few days to find out if the seed we scattered after they were done does any good.

They've broken ground for something, presumably a McDonalds to replace the one in the old Wal-Mart, in the northeast corner of the Wal-Mart parking lot.

Maybe I'll get to see Ian tomorrow.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 24, 2008 at 10:55 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 23 June 2008
 

Of grandsons and swingsets -- More Ian pictures

I just uploaded 7 new still pictures and two new vidoes to my Ian page on Photobucket. A couple of samples:

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 23, 2008 at 11:44 PM in Around our place , Ian | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 22 June 2008
 

Worth every cent I paid for it

The swingset's a hit. Of course Ian got where he is by ignoring the ladder and climbing the side nearest the house but at least he made me feel like I made a good investment.  I'll have some camcorder video up later; that takes a little longer to "develop."

Of course there are other things at The Circle F worthy of a young man's attention:

Two of my favorite people, my mother and my grandson:

***

Well, between not having the camcorder running sometimes when I thought it was, not being too steady on my feet today, and people walking in front of me I didn't get much of a video after all. Maybe in a couple of days. Anyway, here's proof I tried:

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 22, 2008 at 10:29 PM in Around our place , Ian | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Saturday, 21 June 2008
 

Ian on Photobucket

OK, so I haven't done a very good job of keeping my Ian page on my old pre-blog site up to date. Partly that's been due to not having a decent scanner around, partly it's been the fact that the old place is a lot of work to update, and partly it's been things getting lost around here while I didn't have a scanner around. I've created an Ian page on Photobucket for a few of my favorite shots off the old site and for any new pictures and videos I take or my daughter sends me. A couple of my favorites from the new page (Click to enlarge):

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 21, 2008 at 07:05 PM in Ian | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 20 June 2008
 

We're done building fence for a while

Compare the picture above (click it to see it bigger) to this one from yesterday. Please note in particular the absence of the temporary north-south fence. We now have everything enclosed that we're going to enclose. The east fence is about 10 feet in from the actual property line so we can plant something fast growing down there to provide some privacy between us and the Wal-Mart parking lot and the back fence is about 3 feet in from the property line so we can grow a thicker fence row between the two. Eventually I plan to add horizontal 1 x 6 rails to the north and east fence but that's going to have to wait till I get the rest of my Social Security back settlement.

I told Kyle and Brian to plan on having the weekend off. I don't expect my ex and my grandson to be here before Sunday at the soonest but I need a day to rest up so I'm a little more energetic when they do get here. As soon as the weather cooperates I still need some dirt moved and I want to make another attempt at breaking up the top layer of soil in one part of the pasture well enough to get some grass started.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 20, 2008 at 10:56 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Thursday, 19 June 2008
 

It's almost a fence

The large post just below the center of the picture is the northeast corner of the pasture. Running to the right from it you can see there's now wire on the east fence and running left from it you can just barely see there's wire on most of the north fence. I didn't take a picture of it but the "back" (southwest to northeast, ending at the south end of the east fence) fence is also done now. Tomorrow we'll tear down the temporary fence -- the one with steel posts -- and use wire from it to complete the north fence. After that we have some posts to straighten up after they moved when wire was nailed to them and then we'll be done except for carrying some posts and wire we didn't end up needing back up this way.

Does anyone but me think it's sort cool to be able to use a $100 camera that fits my shirt pocket to take pictures of fence wire almost 300' away?

***

It doesn't take half bad videos either. Not exactly camcorder quality but not bad for something I can carry in my shirt pocket for spur of the moment stuff:

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 19, 2008 at 07:53 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 18 June 2008
 

Cool, clear water

A beautiful day today, high in the low 80s. Too bad Kyle had other things to do. Or maybe just as well since my sister needed some help getting things out of our old fridge before the new one got here and into the new one later.

They lifted the boil order for Lawrenceville at 9:00 this morning, leaving me "stuck" with about 12 gallons of bottled water. I'll have the guys put it in the storage shed out back tomorrow in case we need it again some time.

We got our new fridge about 2:00 this afternoon. It's not as nice as the one I want to buy one similar to after I get the rest of my money but at least it's bigger and cools better than the old one and should last us till we can afford something nicer. Fridges aren't real exciting so I'm resisting the urge to post a picture of it.

As near as I could tell from the road or the Ace parking lot there's nothing left where the old Wal-Mart used to be except dirt waiting to be properly compacted and paved but they're still hauling something from over there to the field behind us and they have a bigger 'dozer out there than they've had in the past. I've given up on guessing what the long range plan is. I have noted that the ground for about the first 20 yards out from our property line is still level with our place, then it drops away sharply for several feet, then levels off till you get closer to the lake. Dare I hope there won't be anything but grass, or maybe even some trees, for that first few yards behind us?

I realized today there's a way to finish what we're doing at the east end of the pasture without Sunshine having to spend any time restricted to just the barn lot. We recovered enough wire when we took that temporary pen down this spring to finish the new east fence before we tear down the temporary one. It's also 60" wire, which I think it makes more sense to use than 48" wire now that I've seen how close the parking lot for the new Wal-Mart is to the end of our place. I consider the area north of us friendly so 48" is high enough for our north fence. If the weather hold for a couple more days we should be able to get everything done by the time my ex and our grandson get here this weekend.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 18, 2008 at 11:04 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 17 June 2008
 

Another productive day at The Circle F (Updated)

It cooled off -- our high was in the low 80s -- and we were able to work longer before the guys wore out today than anytime recently. We now have all of the posts in the ground for the final versions of the north and east fences and all but 8' of the wire on the north fence; we left that off for now to be able to get in and out of the pasture easily to do what still needs done. I got to the east end of the pasture without my camera and didn't feel energetic enough to come back to the house after it but if you look close at this picture I took from in the east yard you can see wire we do have up:

The post that looks bigger than the others is a 6 x 6 at the northeast corner of the part of the property we're fencing. The steel post with the green ribbons on it is apparently the actual corner of our place; that's what they tell us anyway. The wooden posts to the left of the corner post in the picture run along our north line and the ones running to the right are where the east fence is going. The steel posts and the wire attached to them will come down after we get the new fences done.

Kyle's  expecting company for part of the day tomorrow so we won't be doing any more fence building till Thursday. I need to call the VA about a couple of things so that will be a good time for me to do it.

In other news, my sister found a good in-from-rental-and-repaired refrigerator this morning that we're having delivered tomorrow afternoon. The one we have now leaks around the door and barely keeps things cool enough not to spoil. After I get the rest of my Social Security back pay we'll probably buy a nicer one and either sell the one we're getting now or give it to Goodwill or some similar organization.

As soon as we finish looking for the best deal we can find we're also going to buy a new or slightly used portable dishwasher; the only thing the one we have now is good for is setting dishes in to dry after they've been washed by hand.

I guess they found the water main break responsible for our boil order and closed the necessary valves to isolate it Saturday. They think the water coming through the system is probably safe to drink now but they're waiting on results from a state lab before they lift the boil order. In the mean time I picked up about 10 gallons of free bottled water today, some in 20 oz bottles and some in gallon jugs. We'll keep the gallon jugs and the 3 liter bottles I bought last week in the garage in case there's another problem with the water system sometime.

***

In the process of sending me links to portable dishwashers she thinks we might be interested in my sister also turned me on to the fact that built-in dishwashers come in two widths. I'd had myself convinced the north wall of the kitchen was 6 inches too short to do what I'd really like to do in there; the solution is to use an 18" wide dishwasher instead of one 24" wide. In the process of following up on that I also finally grokked the fact that side-by-side fridges don't have to stick out 3 feet from the wall like I thought. Here's my latest floor plan if you're interested. I still need to come up with a way to have more storage space in the kitchen and get the dining room table out of my room but the cabinet space the new floor plan adds along the west wall of the kitchen should help quite a bit.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 17, 2008 at 11:06 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 16 June 2008
 

A little better day at The Circle F

The kids are still on a learning curve but today definitely went better than that last two days. It took a couple of tries (due to my mistake, not theirs) but we finally got two gates lined up right so we can restrict Sunshine to just the barn lot or just the pasture. I mainly helped from that lawn chair.

The gates will spend nearly all their time folded back against the fence. We may or may not need to close them while we finish fencing the other end of the field and we'll probably have to restrict Sunshine to just the pasture side when we have a new barn built.

Scotty decided he'd help a while today in return for Kyle and Brian knocking off for the day earlier than normal. That's Kyle coming toward the camera, Scotty with his back turned, and Brian on the right.

The three wooden posts visible beyond the temporary fence are the beginnings of the permanent east fence. The big one on the left will be the northeast corner of the pasture; we're leaving some space between the fence and the actual property line to grow some trees or something to block the view from the Wal-Mart parking lot a little bit.

I've given up on even trying to guess what the plan is in that field behind us. They're definitely dumping rubble from the floor of the old Wal-Mart into the lake but I have no idea what the big tubes are for.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 16, 2008 at 10:36 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Sunday, 15 June 2008
 

A more productive day at The Circle F

Sunshine, Kyle and Brian building a fence:

I hadn't met him till recently but I guess Brian is my nephew Scotty's only friend of longer standing than Kyle. They're both good kids with good attitudes toward work but let's just say the last couple of days have been a bit of a teaching and learning experience, including some downtime waiting for Kyle's head to clear and quit bleeding after he dropped a T-post driver on it. Anyhoo, as you can see below we finally did get some fence built. We need to hang a gate from that post in the middle of the picture so it can close nose-to-nose with the one hanging from that post on the left, after which we'll have the ability to restrict Sunshine to just the barn lot, or just the pasture, when the need arises. After we get the gate up tomorrow we'll get started fencing in what's left down at the far end of the pasture. With a little luck we'll have it done in time for my grandson to see it when he's here next week.

Ok, so you're a horse. You have access to a big well established pasture I busted my butt getting fenced in so you'd have more room, and to a much smaller area where I'm still trying to get grass established after you picked it bare last winter. Which one are you going to spend your time in? Need I even ask?

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 15, 2008 at 10:58 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 13 June 2008
 

Another "Lazy F" day (Updated)

The plan yesterday was for Kyle to spend some time moving dirt today but we got enough rain this morning that we had to call that off. The rain last week caused the ground to settle quite a bit over the water line for the hydrant and it needs leveled off with some of the top soil I bought a couple of weeks ago.

I got out and around long enough to pick up some free bottled water from the distribution center the city has set up at the local elementary school.  I think we have enough on hand now to skip a day or two. After this is over we'll fill some 2 and 3 Liter containers with water and store them in the garage to have in case we need it again some time. This time around we still had some bottled water we bought when we were expecting Fight4TheRight and Scottie last week; enough to last us till the city started passing it out for free. They're saying now it may be up to a month before the city tap water is safe to drink again; they can't repair the damage till the flood waters recede.

If the forecast doesn't change Kyle and Brian, another of my nephew's friends, will be here tomorrow afternoon to build fence. Part of me would like to put it off till it cools off this fall but they both need the money now and thy may not be available then. It shouldn't take more than three or four days max to finish what still needs done (I'm putting off adding pretty wooden rails to the fence till I get the rest of my Social Security back settlement.) so if the weather holds maybe we can be done before my ex and grandson get here next weekend. I want Ian to go home knowing Grandpa's taking good care of his horse for him.

***

Along with his other help over the weekend, Scottie explained to me why my plans for a new Dining Room would turn into a disaster if I followed through on them; good solid "you can't get there from here" reasons. I guess instead I'll probably have the kitchen remodeled and keep looking for some additional ways to alleviate our space problems around here. Click here for a look at what I have in mind if you'd like.

***

We couldn't even get Sunshine very excited today. I guess yesterday when my sister went out to give him his daily sweet feed he was down at the other end of the field and really came a runnin'. Today I went out a couple of minutes ahead of her with my camcorder and this was the best I could do:

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 13, 2008 at 11:08 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 12 June 2008
 

... and not a drop to drink, Day 2.

The situation's under control but it sounds like it could be a while before it's back to normal. Apparently there are two large water pipes from the pumping station out on the prairie to town and one of them is broken. They both have valves at both ends so normally the broken one could just be isolated from the system and things could get back to normal; unfortunately the valves are under water due to the levee breaks. The city has established distribution points where you can go and get enough free bottled water to drink but it's not at all clear how long it will be till it's safe to drink unboiled tap water. I went and bought 4 3-Liter bottles of water this morning to have here if Sunshine's tub gets low. Between those and no longer throwing away 2-Liter soft drink bottles like we routinely do we'll have enough reasonable size containers that if we need to we can start hauling water here from my brother's place or from one of my sister's friends' place in Vincennes. It's just gonna be a bit of a drag for a while.

I shouldn't have with gas prices like they are but when I went to buy water for the horse I did some sightseeing. 3rd Street's under water but apparently nothing west of there is; I didn't drive down 4th to make sure none of it was. You can drive as far east on Old 50 as the airport road, which isn't under water anywhere between Old and New 50. You can drive a couple of miles north of New 50 on the airport road, then you're faced with this:

That's some of the best farm land in the world under that lake folks, and there's no way those farmers are going to get a crop in between the time the water goes down and winter.

Closer to home, there's still one little corner of the old Wal-Mart still standing; I don't know what they're waiting on to knock it down:

From the Ace Hardware parking lot. That's our place in the red circle:

Apparently a lot of the rubble from the old store (just the concrete from the floor and some dirt from under it, I think) is going to end up in that lake behind us. The picture below was taken from the same spot as the ones I've posted before to show how small the lake was getting.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 12, 2008 at 04:08 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 11 June 2008
 

... and not a drop to drink.

Salt in the wounds -- Lawrenceville's water comes from an underground lake under the prairie between here and Vincennes -- the same prairie that's partially under water due to the levee breaks. Either by coincidence or due to the flooding the main water line between the pumping station out on the prairie and the city broke overnight or early this morning, under flooded land. We have, for now at least, a trickle of water to fill a drinking glass, etc with but not nearly enough volume or pressure for laundry, showers etc and the earliest the situation's going to get better is sometime tomorrow. As I said, for now we have water to drink and if we lose that we have bottled water we bought for the big goings on this weekend, so I guess the situation could be worse.

***

Damn it! I wrote the above shortly after noon and then saved it as a draft instead of posting it.

In addition to all his help over the weekend, thanks also go out to new friend Scottie for reminding me in this post that health and money problems or not, I am truly one lucky human being. 

I think the original story on the radio about what's going on with our water may have been a little imprecise. We've had decent water pressure off and on all day but the official word is out to boil before drinking. Maybe the evening paper will explain the situation better but it may be a couple of days before the whole story's available.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 11, 2008 at 08:18 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 10 June 2008
 

How high's the water, mama?

It rained folks, a bunch. We didn't get more than 3 or 4 inches total here, and we're on high enough ground that all we have to show for it is some soft spots in the yard, but upriver from us was a different story. The Embarras River comes into Lawrence County from the northwest, wraps around Lawrenceville on the north and east sides, then flows into the Wabash about 10 miles southeast of here. I haven't gone sightseeing to know exactly where but that top picture has to have been taken somewhere along that 10 mile stretch. Lawrence County itself didn't get all that much rain but the same storm system that caused all the flooding in Indiana moved from southwest to northeast west and north of us, just grazing this area, and dumped lots of water upriver from us. I haven't been out and around personally but my sister had business in Vincennes yesterday and says she's never seen the river higher than it is right now. 

So far MSNBC seems to be providing pretty good coverage of the situation, which is about the best thing I've had cause to say about them recently.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 10, 2008 at 03:51 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 09 June 2008
 

A good day for just sitting around

It's at least as hot out as yesterday but with humidity thrown in, and I'm totally exhausted from "supervising" the assembly of that swingset yesterday. A perfectly good day for not getting that much done, in other words.

Again, my thanks to Fight4TheRight, Scottie, and Kyle. Not only for the effort building the swingset, but for being so nice to Mom while you were here. I don't  think there's anything she could have enjoyed more on her birthday, absent having her great-grandkids here, than sitting in the shade watching something they'll enjoy become a reality.

Here's a better look at the finished product. That's not where that picnic table normal sits, just where we moved it when Matt grilled and we all ate in the back yard last night.

I guess part of the rubble from the old Wal-Mart is going to end up in that hole behind our place; part of it still heads west past our place by highway.

There was also a survey crew out there when I was out earlier today. I'm still waiting to see what the long term plan for that area is.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 9, 2008 at 03:53 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 08 June 2008
 

It IS a swingset!

How I spent my Sunday:

How Scottie and Fight4TheRight and Kyle spent theirs:

The end result:

Now all I need is my grandson and my sister's grandkids to hurry and come play on it.

Deep thanks go out to Fight4TheRight and Scottie for their volunteer efforts, and to Kyle for his willingness to put in two days of hard work in the heat on short notice. Without all three of them here the job would not have been done by the end of the weekend.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 8, 2008 at 11:22 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Happy birthday, Mom. I love you.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 8, 2008 at 12:01 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 07 June 2008
 

The best laid plans ...

To say that not as much was accomplished today as I'd allowed myself to hope for would be an understatement, to say the least.

I guess we dodged a bullet last night and this morning. We got somewhere between two and three inches of rain last night but that's nothing to compare with the 10 inches parts of Indiana got. Fight4TheRight's friend Scottie had to cancel on spending the afternoon here because of the flooding situation in Terre Haute. As it stands now he still plans to be here tomorrow but I'm not going to blame him in the least if he isn't. Throw in the fact I woke up even more feeble than most days here lately and the only thing that saved the day from being a complete waste was Kyle's willingness to come out on short notice. Work on the swingset finally started about 3:00, only about two hours later than the original game plan.

As if life wasn't already becoming challenging enough, when we opened the cartons the swingset came in we found (all of, fortunately) the parts for the right swing set but the assembly instructions for a different model. My sister was the first one to realize instructions might be available on the manufacturer's web site but she let me suffer several more minutes so I could think I thought of it on my own. Throw in not having enough printer paper in the house to print that many pages and the time required for the actual printing process after she went and bought some and that cost us at least another hour.

I still think we're going to end up with a nice swingset but while I'm on the subject of not being totally pleased with the manufacturer I guess I'll also mention the fact that putting the thing together requires drilling several holes that I really don't understand why they didn't drill.

Oh, did I mention that there are lots and lots of parts involved?

With Scottie not here today there's no hope of him tying that hydrant into our existing plumbing like I'd hoped but that wasn't part of the original plan for the weekend anyway so that's no biggy. The setbacks on getting started on the swingset have also pretty much scotched any hope of getting much fence built this weekend but I can have Kyle and Brad, or Kyle and Taylor, or Kyle and somebody, do that one of these days but after seeing how complicated building the swingset's turning out to be I'm not at all sure I could have gotten that job done that way.

Heather, here's hoping you decide there's not room in your back yard for "a swingset like the one at Grandpa's." I'd hate to guess how many day's of working on it after Ryan gets home from work it would take for him and me to put one together. Maybe I can buy Ian a simpler one for down there?

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 7, 2008 at 11:57 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 06 June 2008
 

Another "Lazy F" day

I didn't even try to get much of anything done around here today; basically I just rested up so I won't be quite so draggy when Fight4TheRight and Scotty are here over the weekend. It's looking now like we might get some storms overnight and tomorrow morning but they'll probably be over by the time my company arrives.

The surface area of that lake has definitely shrunk but there's still some deep water in parts of it.

I stood and watched for several minutes and never did figure out what this guy was up to. Maybe it'll be clear in another day or two.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 6, 2008 at 10:01 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 05 June 2008
 

I have a cool car again!

No, I didn't just buy a shiny new 'Vette, but I did get the air conditioner in my car repaired after two summers without it. Now I won't be putting of shopping and canceling medical appointments because of teh heat like I did the past two years. Add that to having an air conditioner in my room for the first time I moved back here from Texas and it's sorta like being on Cloud 9, even if I am still old and sick.

I guess they're pretty serious about getting the old Wal-Mart out of the way to create a better parking situation for the new one. Check out the view across our pasture about 9:00 this morning:

From a different angle later in the day:

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 5, 2008 at 11:25 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 04 June 2008
 

Trying to love my newest toy

UPS brought my latest toy this morning. I'll probably like it more after I figure out how to create CDs I can play in my car. That may or may not just be a case of buying the proper software. At least the thing is capable of converting music cassettes to MP3 files, which is all I guess the description on Wal-Mart's web site said it would do. I also have the ability to copy tapes for the first time in years.

The water level in the lake dropped another couple of feet overnight. It was later in the day than usual when I went out to look due to playing with my new toy. There are still spots out there at least 30 feet deep; I'm still waiting to see whether they intend to drain the whole thing.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 4, 2008 at 11:34 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wearing down at the Circle F?

I don't know if it's just the fact it's warmer out or if I'm just wearing out, but I'm having a hard time staying fired up about all of the outdoor projects I still have planned around here and starting to wonder how many of them might be able to wait till it cools off this fall. None of them, probably, but I may end up putting off some of them till I get the rest of my Social Security back settlement; I'm down to not much more than a comfortable emergency fund. I guess I need to get the rest of the wire portion of the fence done while I still have help available; right now Kyle's out of work but I don't know how long that will last. I guess I'll get Kyle and Taylor, or Kyle and Brad, or Kyle and somebody, started on whatever part of the  fence F4TR and Scottie don't get to this weekend early next week, then put off adding wooden rails to the whole thing till I have more money.

As far as I know I'm still going after Daniel one of these days but I don't know when yet. I think when I do go I'll leave here up in the day with the intention of finding a room part way there and arriving mid-day the next day. That way I can have an afternoon to rest and spend some time with the kids then start back the day after that with the intention of driving straight through. I'm thinking right now I might plan to get to Dothan on the 14th to help celebrate Daniel's birthday, then we can drive back on the 15th. I know he wants to spend his birthday with his family and anything much later than that will mean I'm still tired from the trip when my ex and my grandson are here later in the month.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 4, 2008 at 01:37 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 03 June 2008
 

Rain day at the Circle F?

That's what the weather people said but if it's rained today I haven't caught it. I had things I'd have had Kyle come out and do if I'd known the weather was going to cooperate.

Ah, that feels good. A little lower, maybe. Yeah, that's it. (YouTube version of the vid here. )

I guess the water level in the lake is going to drop faster as the surface area gets smaller. Compare this picture to this one from yesterday.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 3, 2008 at 04:49 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Still finding reasons to like the new notebook

Behold, proof I can copy things from the camcorder I bought last month to my hard drive and post them on my blog:

The truth is Vista makes it so simple I really shouldn't even brag about it. Just hook up the 1394 cable and click a few  menu options. I'll have to find out one of these days whether it's that easy under XP. BTW, I hereby take back what I said earlier about my pocket camera taking good enough videos that I don't really need a camcorder. The pocket cam takes pretty good videos but it's not  even in the same league as the camcorder.

YouTube likes the camcorder a whole lot better too:

There are details to be worked out and firmed up but it sounds like sometime within the next couple of weeks I'm making a quick trip to Alabama and back to bring my sister's oldest grandson, Daniel, here for the summer as an 8th Grade graduation present. He deserves a break from spending so much time being the oldest child in the house, with all the responsibilities that go with that position, and bringing him up here is the best way I know to keep Cordell from spending the whole summer in front of the TV and computer. I can't go till after F4TR and Scottie have been here this weekend and I don't know at this point whether Daniel wants to spend his 14th birthday, on 6/14, here or in Alabama. At any rate I need time to recover from the trip before my ex and our grandson get here on the 21st.

I need to get off my butt and have Kyle come out to help me with some things either today or tomorrow. Among other things, before the weekend I need to measure some fence lengths and get an accurate post and rail inventory. I also still need him to spread some of that topsoil I bought around over some rough spots in the yard.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 3, 2008 at 12:43 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 02 June 2008
 

Call this one a "Lazy Bill" day

I don't know what I did to my back Friday but I'm definitely still feeling it. Kyle called looking for work but I told him I just didn't' feel energetic enough to get out and show him what I wanted done. I did manage to get out and around long enough to have the shop I want to have do the work look my car over and order parts to fix my air conditioner. On the way home I noticed part of the east side (the side away from our place) of the old Wal-Mart is gone. Maybe I can get some pictures when they start on the side of it I can see from our place.

They're dropping the water level in that lake behind us a lot faster than I thought they'd be able to. Compare the island in this picture to the two smaller ones in the picture I posted yesterday:

I'm finally seeing some proof I didn't pay for 10 pounds of sterile grass seed to scatter over the area we messed up digging the trench for that freeze-proof hydrant. I shudder to think how long it's going to take to get the yard back to looking halfway normal.

***

Sunshine doesn't get near as excited when I take him munchies as when it's my sister or nephew but I did grab a better video today than the one a couple of  days ago: (YouTube version here. It's not as good.)

Here's the house that turkey who bought the field behind us wanted to trade us even for our place. It's bigger and more modern, with a basement under it even, but the yard ain't near big enough to pasture a horse in, or even have an open-fire weenie roast. On the other hand, we could have sat in the back yard and watched them demolish this place. Wouldn't that have been fun?

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 2, 2008 at 05:27 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 01 June 2008
 

Another "Lazy F" day (Updated)

I don't know how I did it just watching Matt and Kyle work but somehow I did something uncool to my back the day they put the new air conditioners in. I can get around but it's not much fun. I hope I'm a lot more mobile by the time Fight4TheRight and Scottie are here next week.

F4TR, are y'all still coming? It's been a while since I heard from you. I don't think the weather people really know what's coming that far in advance but right now they're calling for a 50% chance of rain Saturday and nice weather (except for the heat) Sunday. Other than that plumbing job I hope Scottie's going to do there's nothing I'm planning on y'all doing that I can't have done by unskilled labor if things don't work out. I'm leaving the swingset for y'all to assemble and more fence to build than there's really any realistic chance of y'all getting done. I'm thinking what I'd most like too see built is a pretty wooden fence down near the east (Wal-Mart) end of our place but you can also learn all about driving steel posts and attaching wire to them if you want to and there's time.

They're making progress on lowering the level in that lake behind us; those two little islands were under water yesterday.

The neighbors seem to approve. Matt says if I'd gone out earlier in the day I could also have gotten pictures of some geese; maybe another day. 

I just realized the flag on that survey stake in the top picture is the same color as the new ones down at the east end of our place but I don't know what that means. I'll be watching with more than idle curiosity to see what ends up being done in that field.

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Maybe after the little constitutional I took I don't have to call it a "Lazy F" day after all.

Here's a look at our back property line from near the northwest corner of the field behind us. The survey marker you can just barely see up and left from the prominent one is the same on as in the first picture above.

I didn't even realize we had Honeysuckle around here. I have a hunch Dad brought some down from his parents' place but I have no idea when he did it. That's the back of our old barn near the upper left.

Looks real scared, don't he? Didn't even bother to move to the other side of the tree.

Here's another look at our place from where I intend for the northeast corner of our pasture to end up. That fence closest to you will be going away after we build a better one parallel to it and about 80' east.

***

It just soaked in why this thing seems so fast compared to my desktop. "Dual core" really does mean it's running two microprocessors, each of which is about equivalent to the one in the desktop.

Contributed by Bill Faith on June 1, 2008 at 04:24 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack