Friday, 28 November 2008
 

Visitors at The Circle F

Well, not "at the Circle F," exactly. More like "near the Circle F." Anyway I stood on Circle F property and took their pictures.

Geese!

A bunch of em.

I guess they were here for a while yesterday but I missed them. Today they spent most of the day here. I'm sure they'll move on as the weather gets worse but having them there takes a little, not much but a little, of the sting out of all the noise and dust we put up with while that lake was being created.

Except for some painting I think we're within about a day of having the garage repairs done. We might have gotten done today if the lumber yard in Bridgeport hadn't been closed; Lowe's doesn't carry siding the same size as Dad used and we're only replacing what needs replaced, not tearing it all off and starting over. After we're done with the repair job I'm going to have the guys help me clean out a bunch of clutter and try to make some semblance of order out of what's left. I know the mess out there bothers Mom even more than it does me and I'm past tired of looking at it.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 28, 2008 at 10:41 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 23 November 2008
 

Stayin' busy at The Circle F

Busier than I'd really prefer, actually. I'm not sorry I decided to have Todd and the gang fix up the garage, just tired. After seeing how rotten some of the lumber holding it up was I know it really wouldn't have been a whole lot longer till part of it collapsed. Before we started tearing things apart I thought all we needed to do was replace some rotten trim and siding here and there to humor my sister. I didn't realize how much of the rotten trim and siding was hiding rotten 2x4s and 2x6s. I also thought all we needed to do was replace one pane of glass in a window that turned out to need replaced in its entirety, and plane a little off the bottom of a door that turned out to be beyond help.

I think we have all the rotten structural pieces replaced now and really are down to just replacing some trim and some siding. We also need to replace the storm widow on the west end of the kitchen -- All it needs is one glass insert replaced but no one around here sells just the inserts any more.

Things should start moving a little quicker from here out if the weather holds, which the weather.com seem to think it will long enough we should be able to get everything done. Brian woke up sick today so Todd brought his (and Brian's) dad, Brian Sr. with him instead. The guy definitely knows what he's doing and doesn't have a lazy bone in his body. Today (To me it's still Saturday.) it was just him and Todd but when Brian gets well and Kyle gets back from spending the weekend at his sister's I'll keep all four of them working whenever they want to, Todd and a helper working in one area, Brian Sr. and a helper somewhere else. As Todd pointed out when I brought the subject up, when I have three people here I typically end up, at any given moment, with two working and one watching, simply because most of what's being done only takes two people.

Tomorrow we're going to make a Lowe's run, then with a little luck get the rest of the trim and siding on the garage done. Monday will be storm window day first, then on to other things. As a minimum we need to paint the trim around the doors and windows, since it's all untreated lumber, and I guess I'll have the whole garage painted so everything's the same color. I've also decided to put a layer of Celotex on the outside of the wall between the kitchen and garage, with a layer of particle board over that; it won't take too many years for the reduction in heat flow through that wall to pay for the job. The kitchen has always been hard to keep warm in the winter and maybe this year it won't be quite so chilly in there.

Time for me to get some sleep so I'm at least half way awake when the guys get here tomorrow.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 23, 2008 at 01:15 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 20 November 2008
 

Baby news, some other things

Today's major news: Heather checked into the hospital about 4 hours ago and they're going to induce labor tomorrow morning. By this time tomorrow night I'll have a granddaughter!

In other news, winter's officially here:

You have to look close, but those are snowflakes. It quit snowing shortly after I took the picture, then snowed enough again later to cover the roof of my car, the hood of Daddy's truck etc. btw, that barn is the one Daddy built in the mid-60s and no one took care of after he got too sick to; there's now one about a month old about 50 feet east of it. For you city kids, that round thing with the hole in it is a hay bale. It didn't come with a hole in it; Sunshine just decided to eat the inside first and work his way out.

It's more than a little pathetic, and it makes me more than a little angry, how little it takes to make Mom happy these days. Little things, like clean walls in the kitchen, a bird feeder just far enough from the kitchen window so the birds don't scatter when we walk in there, a door that opens and shuts right on the back of the garage so we can keep the big doors closed to shut out the wind, new siding on the garage and new studs in some of the walls so they don't collapse, the fact that I ordered new storm windows for the kitchen and promised to put up miniblinds on the inside of the kitchen window sometime soon, things like that.  I know part of the repairs that got put off around here the last few years were put off for lack of funds, but how much does it cost to wash walls? You can buy a pretty nice bird feeder for under $10.00, which leaves me personally with no excuse for not putting one up way before now.

We ended up taking today off from the garage-repair project. First Todd called to say we'd be getting a late start because he had to go to court, then it started snowing, with rain visible on the radar not too far from here. I guess we're working tomorrow, with a predicted high of 36. Kyle and Brian were planning to take the day off -- it's supposed to be warmer Saturday -- but Todd wants to work if he can get anyone to help him. I guess I'll get up and around tomorrow planning on working and hope he can find some help. I guess we're to the point now where, except for putting the rest of the siding on the parts of the garage where there isn't any right now, we could put everything else off till spring, but there are still several things that need to be done inside the garage eventually and I'd like to go ahead and get them done rather than risk Todd finding a "real" job by spring and leaving me with no one available I trust to finish things up right. Kyle and Brian are good kids but when it comes to carpentry work Todd's definitely the brains of the outfit; he's the one I decided I trusted enough to start tearing the garage apart and put it back together right to begin with.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 20, 2008 at 10:45 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 16 November 2008
 

A good weekend to spend inside

... which I did, for the most part. It rained too far into the day yesterday to do anything on the garage-repair project, then Todd called this morning to say he wasn't feeling well. With some luck we'll get back to work tomorrow.

I did get out and around enough yesterday to buy and hang a nicer bird feeder out by the kitchen. The local sparrow colony liked the old one just fine but we're hoping the bigger one will attract Cardinals and maybe Blue Jays. So far all I've seen on the new one is sparrows but maybe with time.

I guess with the woods gone we're going to hang some miniblinds in the kitchen and on the door to the west porch. Aside from blocking a lot of wind that woods provided us with a lot of shade and privacy. Hanging blinds is something that can be done in bad weather so the garage project has priority till it's done.

If you haven't been reading my daughter's blog now's a good time to start. If she hasn't gone into labor on her own by next Friday morning the doctor's going to give her a shot to get things started. I guess she's going to make me wait till some time around Christmas to head south to meet my new granddaughter; we haven't agreed on exact dates yet.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 16, 2008 at 06:24 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 11 November 2008
 

Not a bad day in spite of the weather (Updated 11/12)

We have hay, and apparently a reliable source lined up for the winter. My first clue was when I saw Sunshine go prancing past my window like he'd just spotted his best friend in the whole world out by the barn. When I got outside to see what was happening Tom was about halfway down the drive headed this way; I'm not even sure he'd turned off the highway yet when Sunshine spotted the hay on the back of his truck.

It rained off and on all day, which meant we couldn't get anything done on the garage repair project, so I kept the guys busy doing things that could be done today. While Scotty and Kyle were washing walls in the kitchen Todd and Brian put a hydraulic closer on the back storm door and replaced the cracked plexiglass pane in the back door, both of which should make the kitchen a lot less drafty, then I had them start on the walls in the hall bath. I'll keep people working on the garage as weather permits and stay after the walls when it's too wet to work outside.

Todd and I went to Bridgeport yesterday and bought a new back door for the garage. From a dollars and cents (heating bills) standpoint it would make more sense to put in between the garage and the kitchen and move the kitchen door to the back of the garage but Mom and Vick neither one think the kitchen would look right with a different door. At least this year we'll be able to close the back garage door all the way so the wind doesn't blow through the garage so bad.

Why does watching people work wear me out like it does? Time for my nap.

*** 11/12

Another rainy, gloomy day, but we made the most of it. Mom's thrilled with the way the kitchen looks and we now have smoke alarms in the kitchen, front room, and all three bedrooms; something else she's been worrying about. If the weather.com people are right we'll work on the garage tomorrow, take Friday off due to rain, then  have good weather for the next several days, by which time the garage project should be finished.

I wish I'd realized sooner how much those dirty kitchen walls were bothering Mom. She's been mentioning them now and then for months, and almost daily the last few weeks. I think if Vicki hadn't fallen off Sunshine back in August she'd probably have washed the part she could reach right after school started, after which I think we could have gotten Scotty to do the rest of the job. I'd suggested several times that I could get Kyle and Brian to do the job but it took till three days ago for Mom to agree to having me do that. So now we have clean walls, a new plexiglass pane in the back door, and a storm door that closes itself and I don't think Mom could be much more pleased if I'd bought her a whole new house.

I think Mom will also really appreciate having the repairs done that the guys are making on the garage, although Vicki was the one that wanted them done the most. I guess my excuse for putting those off as long as I did was not knowing who I could get to do them, on top of not realizing till we started tearing things apart how much the repairs needed done. Chad supposedly knows enough about carpentry work that he and Brad could have done the job but after the disappearing act they pulled on me right after Memorial Day I'm not sorry I didn't have them start on it. Todd has turned out to be a godsend. Until I needed someone to haul lumber so we could build a barn I didn't even realize Brian had a brother and after we got started on the job it became pretty obvious that Todd really did have carpentry experience. Even at that it took me a few days after the barn was done to think of having him fix the garage. At least I thought of it eventually. When I first discussed the job with him I thought we just needed to replace some trim and a little bit of siding but when we started pulling that off we found rotten studs behind it. Vicki may have really been right that we were in danger of the garage actually collapsing if we'd waited too much longer to have repairs made.

After the garage repairs are done I need to do some checking, or have the guys do some checking, into replacing some broken and missing storm window panes, or entire window assemblies in a couple of cases. I know it would bring our heating bills down some if some of our windows kept heat in better, I just don't know whether I can afford to have them fixed up. Neither Lowe's nor Home Depot list storm windows on their web sites so I can't even get a ballpark feel for how much money I'm talking about. I guess what I should probably do is go to the lumber yard in Bridgeport (Leggitt's, where Todd took me to buy a replacement door and a replacement window for the garage) Friday and see what they do or don't have.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 11, 2008 at 08:14 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 09 November 2008
 

Ready for winter, I hope

Tonight I find out whether that freeze-proof hydrant I bought for out by the barn lot really works as advertised; weather.com says it will get down to 25 before morning.

Matt (my brother in law) crawled under the edge of the house this afternoon and wrapped heat tape and insulation around the water lines under the hall bath. They've frozen a couple of times every winter for the last few years but money was tight enough we just had to live with the situation, not to mention the fact we tore the insulation off of some of them last summer looking for the best spot to tie in the line for the hydrant. He also put some insulating board ("blue board") over the opening to that area for the first time there's been any there in years so maybe he won't have to crawl in there with a hair dryer when we have a serious cold snap like he has in the past.

The guys took the day off except for a couple of Lowe's runs. First they went after some material for the garage-repair project, then when they got here we sent them back after the blue board; nothing like planning ahead but I didn't know Matt wanted anything and he didn't know they were going there before they came here today. I got out and around long enough to buy some things at Ace and Wal-Mart but other than that and taking Sunshine some munchies I sat on my butt inside all day.

I need to have the guys help me take the air conditioner out of my window sometime soon but it can wait till the garage project's finished. We also have a Martin house to put up when we get around to it.

I've seen birds eating from the new bird feeder a couple of times but both times they've left as soon as they've realized there was anyone in the kitchen. Anyhow they know it's there.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 9, 2008 at 10:48 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 08 November 2008
 

A milestone at The Circle F

Sunshine went in the barn on his own! One time a few days ago he followed me into the barn in hopes I had food in my pocket, and he goes in without hesitation when we take him his corn and sweet feed, but today was the first time anyone's seen him go in with no one in there or headed that way. Brian and I were out by the picnic tables trying to figure out how to mount a Martin house to a pole that wasn't designed for it and I looked over toward the barn lot just in time to see Sunshine stroll in to the barn just like it was the most natural thing in the world. He didn't stay long and I suspect he may have just been checking to make sure his feed bucket was really still empty but it's a start. Maybe he'll eventually catch on that it doesn't rain in there and it's warmer in there than out in the open on windy days.

Between the cooler weather and the time change the guys have only been putting in about four hours a day on the garage project (replacing some rotten lumber in the walls) but things are going more quickly than I was afraid they might. They're going to Lowe's after more material tomorrow morning, then if the weather's as bad as the forecast says it may be I think that may be all that happens tomorrow. The predicted high tomorrow's only 44, with wind to go with it, then it's supposed to get up into the 50's Monday and even up into the 60s later in the week. I've told them I'll leave the choice up to them but it would suit me just fine to spend the day inside.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 8, 2008 at 11:48 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 06 November 2008
 

No rest for the weary

Not that I have any excuse to be tired, other than the fact watching people work wears me out. Today I didn't even do that, just a brief conversation with Todd and a little bit of shopping. Rain is a good excuse for just spending a day inside.

I guess I'm going to trust Todd to know what he's doing and have him and Brian and Kyle do some repair work on the garage. I'm not sure if there were termites involved at some point back the line or if the lumber just rotted but the the support joists on either side of both doors and some in the walls need replaced.

I guess I'm also going to have the guys get rid of a bunch of trash for me that accumulated in a pile out by the woods over the years because there wasn't money available to have it hauled off. With the woods gone it sticks out like a sore thumb and it needs to go somewhere.

Brian and Todd, and Kyle if he makes it back from his sister's in time, are supposed to be here at noon tomorrow to put up Mom's Martin house and get started figuring out exactly what needs done to the garage. I'll have them put my lawn chair in a convenient location so I can get tired watching them work as usual.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 6, 2008 at 09:57 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 05 November 2008
 

Saying goodbye to Summer

If the weather.com people are right today was the last really nice day this year for being out and about. We observed the occasion by spending some time out back letting Sunshine graze some grass he doesn't normally have access to. Normally that area is reserved for weenie roasts, etc but the main pasture's getting pretty picked over. We supposedly have hay on the way but there was apparently some confusion about who was supposed to bale whose field and it isn't here yet. (Personal to my daughter: I talked to your Mom and she says that at least for now there's no danger of having to sell Champ over the hay situation. There's plenty to go around, it just took some doing to figure out how to get some of it down here.)

At least till the guy who owns that area behind us actually finds buyers for some of the lots he hopes to sell off we're going to have a nice view back that way, even if we did get real tired of the noise for a while.

Would you believe I actually made it down to the edge of the lake, up the hill to that fence row on the right, and back to the house under my own power? I owe that horse big time. On my last VA visit my weight was just under 200 lbs and my blood pressure was well down into the healthy range. At the rate I was going last summer, before Sunshine needed a new home, I'd have probably been up to around 270 lbs by now and barely capable of waddling around the house.

With the barn done, the hydrant hooked up and hay lined up I guess The Circle F is ready for winter. Now it's time to get on with some other things I didn't consider as urgent. Come to find out when I finally got around to asking, Mom was missing having a bird feeder where it can be seen out the kitchen window and a Martin house out in the pasture (Sunshine ran into the pole the old one was on and it hit the ground in pieces).  So, as of this afternoon we have a bird feeder again -- Maybe the birds will realize it's there soon -- and I have a Martin house in the trunk of my car waiting for Kyle and Brian to help me put it up. I guess we're going to put it out near the old barn where the pole won't cause Sunshine any more problems. If I can get Todd involved and the weather cooperates I also want to get some repairs done on the garage before winter. For now Kyle's out of town for a few days and things are on hold till he gets back.

Contributed by Bill Faith on November 5, 2008 at 11:45 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 31 October 2008
 

Almost done at The Circle F

Finally, eleven days after my sister started making phone calls for me we got plumbers out here this afternoon to hook up the freeze-proof hydrant out by the corner of the barn lot. No more carrying water in buckets when the faucet in the garage freezes like it does a few times every winter. Just walk out to the back of the back yard, hook a short hose to the hydrant, fill Sunshine's water tub, turn the hydrant off, unhook the hose and drain it, and that's it.

Kyle and Bryan put a primer coat on the barn roof yesterday then came back today and put a coat of white semi-gloss over it. Up till yesterday I was thinking about painting the whole barn before the weather gets mean but the gent at Ace says paint won't stick to treated lumber till it's had a year to age and dry out. By that time I may be so used to how the barn looks without paint on the walls that I decide we don't need to do anything. The walls are made of the same 1x6 lumber as we used for rails on the wood fence around the pasture and I don't think there's probably any reason to paint them at all except just to make the barn prettier.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 31, 2008 at 10:59 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 26 October 2008
 

Slow Sunday at The Circle F

My nephew Scotty brought his friend Nicole and her son Jack out for a while this afternoon. They can hang out around here anytime they want as far as this old dog's concerned. (That's a hint, boy.) Cadby Cat agrees:

Somebody finally found a use for that little table under the fort:

Can't be up on those high places without a safety line:

Of course swings are lots of fun too:

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 26, 2008 at 10:26 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 25 October 2008
 

I guess winter is coming

I don't know why the trees in our yard aren't doing anything yet; I thought sure my favorite Red Maple would be changing by now. The tree in the picture is about 100 yds. north of the house. Weather.com says it's going to start freezing at night about Monday night; I hope that doesn't mean a bunch of our trees go straight to brown without getting pretty first. I guess we'll know soon.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 25, 2008 at 10:20 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 24 October 2008
 

I think the barn's gonna work out OK

I had my doubts for a couple of days but I think maybe the rain last night and this morning helped. When I was out there yesterday the place smelled like sawdust and new wood . Today not so much.

Before today, the only two times Sunshine had been in the barn he had to be bribed with munchies (corn and sweet feed mix), hesitated at the door even knowing there was food inside, then backed out the way he came as soon as he was done eating. Comparing his length with his head down to eat to the front-to-back depth of the barn left me thinking maybe the barn needed to be a little bigger in that dimension, lengthwise, or both.

I sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee this morning and decided maybe it wouldn't be too tough to tear one end out of the barn and move it 4' farther from the other end. (Moving the front or back wall would be a major undertaking, basically amounting to tearing the whole barn down and starting over.) When I went out later to refresh my memory about how we'd done some things Sunshine convinced me there wasn't a problem after all. When he saw me headed toward the barn he came galloping up across the field, apparently assuming I was bringing him his daily munchies. After he realized I didn't have anything with me we stood and visited for a little bit, then he followed me into the barn with no hesitation of any sort at the door. We visited in the barn for a while longer (farther into the barn than he'd ever been before) then he followed me out the back door; now he knows it's possible to walk through the barn instead of just going in long enough to eat and backing up to get out the way he came. At that point I decided he'd earned his daily treat, came up to the house to get a coffee can full of munchies, and headed back to the barn. Again he didn't take any coaxing to walk right in. I squatted against the wall at the other end of the barn while he ate, then when he was done he came over to see me. I rubbed his neck and talked to him a while longer, then when I went out the back door he did a U-turn inside the barn (the first proof I'd had that he could) and went out the front door.

Conclusion: The barn's big enough, but I'm still not certain he'll take advantage of it for anything but eating. Maybe if we keep feeding him there he'll eventually come to think of it as a nice place to be, maybe he won't, but I've done all I can.

I wanted to get the water line to the freeze-proof hydrant hooked up before our first freeze but that's looking like it's not gonna happen. I knew we were gonna be calling in close anyway due to not having money for a plumber till the first of this month and my sister not feeling well for a few days. Then we lost three more days waiting for a guy to call back, only to find out he was just ready to leave town for about three weeks to go meet his new granddaughter. (The nerve of that guy! Packing up and going on vacation just because he has a granddaughter he hasn't met!) It sounds like we have someone else lined up but it's going to be Monday at best before we can get the work done and it's supposed to freeze Monday night. If I have to live with a few more days of having to disconnect hose at nigh and reconnect them to water the horse the next day I can but we definitely need the hydrant hooked up before it starts being very cold out during the day.

I think maybe when we get the hydrant hooked up I'll finally be done working outside except for taking Sunshine his daily munchies and keeping him watered when it gets cold enough no one else wants to.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 24, 2008 at 05:02 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 22 October 2008
 

Look, ma! It's a barn!

Watching people work wears me out. Think I'll take tomorrow off.

***

btw, I guess the machine I bought at Rent One last January is up and running at Brian's and the one my sister bought there about 3 weeks ago is now in Scotty's room. I think when everyone thought the one I bought last January was messed up the problem was a bad USB port, which since the mouse was attached to it caused the computer to not respond to mouse movements. I gave Brian an adapter I had lying around so he can plug a USB mouse into the PS/2 mouse port on the computer, which may have been all we needed to do when we thought the thing was acting up. Brian's a good kid and he and Scotty have been good friends just about forever so I don't feel too bad about the situation.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 22, 2008 at 07:14 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 21 October 2008
 

Sunshine now has a barn roof

And a couple of walls, even.

Not much of a barn compared to the ones my grandparents had, or even the one dad built when he first decided we needed horses around here, but at least Sunshine will have a place to get out of the rain and wind. Tomorrow we paint the roof and put the other walls on. After that we may or may not paint it red some time simply because barns are supposed to be red but the walls are treated lumber that should be just fine for a long time without paint.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 21, 2008 at 11:26 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 20 October 2008
 

Progress at The Circle F

Considering that the first two hours after the guys got here today were spent going to Vincennes after lumber for the roof I'm fairly pleased with the amount of work that got done today. That's Scotty studying the situation, Kyle and Brian looking toward the camera, and Todd looking the other way. 

Still a little airy looking but at least you can sorta tell what it's gonna look like:

Things would go faster if I'd quit redesigning things as we go. I'd had it in my head for a while that I wanted the walls to consist of horizontal 1x6s attached to the 4x4 posts but I changed my mind after the guys left today. That means tomorrow they get to move 12 2x6s that are currently attached to the insides of the posts to the outsides so they can nail vertical 1x6s to them. Hell, I'll probably change my mind again by morning.

The future owner hasn't seen it up close yet. Maybe in another day or two. 

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 20, 2008 at 11:54 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 19 October 2008
 

Gettin' 'er done (gradually) at The Circle F

As usual, I did my share of the work from a lawn chair:

You don't get far below the surface in that barn lot before you hit hard clay. That's good from standpoint of knowing those poles won't sink farther in the ground as it freezes and thaws or when it rains next spring, but the guys did not enjoy digging those holes deep enough to suit me. Throw in the fact that several of the holes had to be moved over a few inches after they were dug to the proper depth because no one on the crew is good at eyeballing a right angle and we didn't really get as far into the job this afternoon as I'd hoped. Anyway we did end the day with all ten poles in the ground exactly vertically in a proper rectangular pattern. With the digging out of the way things should go faster tomorrow.

I think I'll change my plans and put a roof up before the walls. Either way the next step is to attach some horizontal 2x6s to those poles to make the assembly rigid. The horizontal 2x8 in the picture will be moving up several feet, high enough for Sunshine to walk under without ducking, and will be mirrored by another one about 6 inches farther from the ground on the front (near) side of the barn. Then we'll add some 2x6's front to back above the 2x8s to support a plywood roof. After that it's just a matter of nailing up some 1x6s for walls and putting the plywood on the roof. If we put the plywood on the roof first the horizontal 2x6's in the wall will be available as a ladder to make it easier to get up and down to to put the plywood on. 

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 19, 2008 at 09:01 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 18 October 2008
 

I guess we're starting the barn today (Updated)

I don't have formal drawings all done up that I could turn over to someone else and just sit around the house while they build it but I do have a design fleshed out in my mind that I think will work out and a materials list ready to take to Lowe's later today. The plan as of right now is for Kyle, Brian, and Todd (who has a truck and has agreed to move things for me) to show up here about noon so we can convoy to Vincennes. I also need to go to TSC to buy some corn and sweet feed while I'm over that way be we should still be able to get a good start by the end of the day.

***

I guess we're officially started. We now have 4 (out of 10) 4"x4"x12' posts in the ground, with no dirt tamped down around them yet. More of today went into buying and hauling lumber than into actually doing anything with it; I now have enough wood in the back yard to build all four walls but we'll need one more trip to buy material for the roof. I would help if Lowe's web site did a better job of listing everything they have at the store, and just what they have at the local store, so I didn't have to make design changes on the fly in the process of buying material. I'm expecting the guys back at noon tomorrow so we can seriously get down to business.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 18, 2008 at 12:22 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 17 October 2008
 

Staying busy at The Circle F (Updated)

I guess between election blogging and building a barn I can count on it being a little while before I really get caught up on my rest again.

Between the trip to Marion Wednesday (for a routine checkup with my kidney specialist) and the flu shot I got while I was there I really wouldn't have minded spending yesterday just being sort of lazy. Problem with that was that I'd told Kyle Tuesday to call me yesterday morning and we'd decide what time he and Brian were coming out to redo the fence between the house and the pasture. Anyway it now looks a little nicer than it did and there's room for Sunshine to eat under it. After the guys left I crashed for a while then more or less caught up on my blogging.

I'll be taking it a little easier today. I need to move the new family PC to the other end of the house and bring the machine that's in there in here for a few days, then I can spend the rest of the day sitting down or catching up on my sleep. To feel like I didn't waste the day I also need to design a barn so I can buy some of the material for it tomorrow night or Friday morning. I guess Jared's truck's broken down but Kyle has another friend who says he'll haul lumber for me. I guess I could rent a truck in Vincennes and try to get everything hauled in one day but it will make life easier to be able to haul it one load at a time.

I'm going to set a goal of getting a decent barn built before the weather gets mean but we may have to settle for just getting some walls up this fall and putting a roof on them next spring. If we do that Sunshine will at least have something to stand downwind of, which is all he had last winter, or for the 18 winters before he moved here. If the weather holds long enough to get a roof up so much the better. To picture what I plan to build, imagine an 8' x 8' square, then slice it diagonally and move one section 4' to the right to create an 8' x 12' rectangle with two 4' doors. Then put a roof on it. Maybe next summer we can even paint it red. I may or may not decide to include some way to keep Sunshine from getting out when we think he should be in but right now I'm not leaning that way.

I'm not sure how long we really have to get the job done. Last year it wasn't too bad outside till the 10th of November but my sister says she remembers snow on Oct 25 one year not too long ago.

Time for me to get some rest and think more about it later.

***

The new Gateway PC is now "the family machine" and what was "the family machine" for the last couple of weeks is sitting outside Scotty's door waiting to be moved into his room. The Rent One machine I bought in January and used for my blogging, etc, till I bought my laptop, then moved to the other end of the house when I bought my laptop, will be moving in town to Brian's place sometime soon; I told him he could have it for free and if it quit working again I'd give him his money back.

I need to throw together a list of things I need from Lowe's then go pay for them after bit so we can start on the barn tomorrow.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 17, 2008 at 02:04 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 14 October 2008
 

I guess I'm probably gonna build a barn, maybe.

I'm thinking about it hard anyway. My sister's firmly convinced we need one. I think my daughter and my ex (who owns the horse in question) agree with me that all we really need is something Sunshine can stand downwind of when it's cold and windy out. Last year he made do with plastic tarps hung on a 5' high fence but I promised we'd do something better this year.

The main thing that changed since last week, when I was thinking all I wanted to try to do before winter was build some sort of windbreak, is that Kyle went on a binge Friday night and lost his job for not showing up Saturday. I guess Brian's also still out of work so that means I can count on both of them working any day the weather permits till it gets too cold and miserable to work outside for good.

I need to spend a day or two scratching my head and trying to get some plans drawn up before we can do anything beyond that. I'll be spending 6 hours or so on the road to and from a medical appointment tomorrow so maybe I can come up with some good ideas by the time I get home.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 14, 2008 at 10:12 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 13 October 2008
 

A frustrating day on the computer front

I've been doing business with CompUSA off and on for years, and quite a bit the last few months. Up till now they'd never sold me anything that didn't work as advertised. Up till now. The external hard drive enclosure they sold me is either a piece of junk in general or isn't compatible with Windows Vista, I'm not sure which. In either case I have three computers which see the Western Digital 500MB external drive I bought last spring just fine but none of which can see a perfectly good 500MB drive in the enclosure that came today. Tomorrow I'll be calling them to tell them that if they'll give me a refund on it I'll order a different model from them, otherwise I'll order a different model from someone else.

On the good news side, I got the computer that died a couple of weeks ago (the one I bought at Rent One last January) up and running today. After the problems we've had with it I don't trust it enough to use it as anything but a spare but at least I was able to copy all of my sister's music and pictures off of it onto the Western Digital drive I mentioned above. What I wanted to do after that was move the 500 MB drive I added to it last spring to the enclosure that came today so we'd have two external drives around but that will have to wait till I get a different enclosure. Anyway, my sister was happy to hear that she didn't lose the pictures and music she had stored on the old computer when it quit working reliably.

I guess I'm out of reasons not to move the new computer to the other end of the house as soon as I have the time and energy to do it. After it's moved I'll attach the external Western Digital drive to it so my sister can copy her things from it to the C: drive. Eventually I want to end up with another external drive for my personal use but that can wait a few days. I guess I could just splurge and buy another drive like the WD external drive but hat would still leave me with a perfectly good 500MB drive I wouldn't be getting any good out of. ... I guess I could install that drive in the computer Scotty's going to end up with but after I had my mind made up I was going to put it in an external enclosure I'm inclined for now to go with my original plan.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 13, 2008 at 11:56 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 09 October 2008
 

Now that I've had some sleep ...

... things are making a little more sense.

The answer to "How do I get things from the F: drive on the machine that died to the new machine?" really isn't that tough. I'd been toying with the idea of buying another external drive anyway, just to have something that isn't physically part of the computer to use for backups. The External Hard Drive Enclosure I just ordered solves both problems at once. All I have to do is pull the F: drive out of the dead machine and install it in the external enclosure. Voila, external drive! Not just any external hard drive, but an external hard drive with all of my sisters music and picture files on it! Once I've done that my sister can copy her music and image files to the C: drive where they're easier to get to and still have copies in a safe spot.

It also soaked in while I was trying to get enough coffee down to trust myself near a computer that I can do a lot of what needs done to get the new machine up and running (install service packs, etc) without having to tie up the space where it will end up in a few days. I basically use my laptop as a desktop except when I'm on the road so I already have a good keyboard, mouse and monitor available in my blogging corner and the network cable is still around from the days when there used to be a desktop in here. Sometime soon I'll shut off the laptop and connect the new desktop, then when I have it all ready for the family to use I'll move it to the other end of the house. More convenient for everyone than doing all the things that need done to a new computer in there.

***

I got impatient this afternoon and decided it was time to at least make sure the new computer fired up OK. It did and while I had it hooked up installed all of the latest Windows and Norton Security updates. I'm going to keep it in my room turned off till the hard drive enclosure I ordered today gets here, which it looks like will be Monday.

I guess Matt ended up taking a week of vacation this week and Cordell doesn't have school tomorrow  or Monday for some reason so Tuesday's the first day things will really get back to normal around here. One day of peace then I spend Wednesday driving to the VA hospital in Marion and back.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 9, 2008 at 03:43 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 08 October 2008
 

Waiting for a chance to slow down

I'm tired, plain and simple. Between things I had no control over and things I might should have thought through better I haven't been getting nearly enough rest and it's going to be at least another couple of days before I can start catching up.

It was nice getting to visit with my niece and her family over the weekend but having them around is definitely not conducive to getting a lot of extra sleep. Add in the trip to Evansville yesterday and I guess I have an excuse for being tired.

I don't think I mentioned earlier that my sister's mother in law finally lost her fight with cancer Sunday. I think I met her once about 38 years ago so I'm not really feeling a deep personal loss but her passing has added to the general state of confusion around here. It's resulted in my brother in law and nephew being home the last three days and placed some demands on my sister's time. Right now they're all at the funeral home for visitation and I'm missing a nap I could really use so there's someone here if Mom needs anything. The funeral's tomorrow afternoon, then I get one day when things should be fairly calm and quiet around here, then it's the weekend again and I'll be looking forward to Monday. Monday and Tuesday maybe I can get some extra rest, then Wednesday I have a medical appointment in Marion, which is about 2 and a half hours' drive from here.

I love the car I bought Saturday but right now I wish I hadn't spent the time it took to pick it out and buy it till things calmed down a little. It might have ended up taking a while to find anything else I liked as well if it had been gone by the time I was ready to go buy it but I'm sure I'd have found something eventually.

The computer I ordered Monday came today but I don't know when I'll get around to setting it up for the family to use. I'm not sorry I bought it but it isn't exactly what I was expecting and that's going to cost me some time. Specifically, there doesn't seem to be any way to install the extra hard drive out of the machine that died in it; there's room for it and there's an IDE connector on the motherboard but no IDE power cable. That's going to cost me some time copying a bunch of music and pictures from the F: drive on the machine that died last week to the external USB drive I bought last spring, then moving the F: drive to the current family machine before it moves to Scotty's room. In the long run everyone will end up with plenty of hard drive space but the whole process will end up taking some time. Throw in trying to schedule around times other people are likely to want time on the family machine and the whole process may stretch out a while.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 8, 2008 at 09:10 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 06 October 2008
 

Odds & ends around The Circle F (Updated)

I'm going to wait a few days to order it but I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy the family one of these and let Scotty have the "new" "family PC" we bought last week. Buying it when we did made sense and I don't regret doing it -- I wanted something I could get up and running quickly before the weekend and at $150.00 it was a good buy -- but even with some work it's never going to be "just what we want." For one thing it will only access 2 GB of RAM, which isn't really enough to keep a Vista machine humming along smoothly. For another, it doesn't have an SD slot or a 1394 port on the front, ; I realize both problems can be solved with external USB modules but I'd much rather have built-in solutions. I think what I'm going to do is upgrade it a little -- add some RAM and a USB/1394 card -- and tell Scotty he can have the thing. Before Scotty takes it I want to use it to try to salvage some music and picture files off the hard drive on the family machine that died. One additional incentive for waiting a few days to buy the new machine is that I can get a $20.00 discount for paying for it with PayPal and I don't have enough money in my PayPal account to do that right now; I authorized a transfer from my bank account to my PayPal account last week but it hasn't gone through yet.

I guess if I can find someone who'll build something that makes sense to me for a price I consider reasonable I'm going to have a barn built for Sunshine. He's never had one and my sisters the only one who seems to think he really needs one but keeping my baby sister happy has been pretty important to me for over 46 years now so I guess I'll keep on trying. Also, when my daughter was here over Labor Day weekend she asked what I intended to do about providing something for Sunshine to stand downwind of on cold windy days and I told her I hadn't decided yet but I'd think of something; I guess a barn will fill the bill whether he actually goes inside or just stands near the downwind side.

As soon as I can manage I also want to make some changes to the fence between the house and the pasture. The wooden part of it's fine but I want to replace the wire. The wire that's on it now isn't stretched tight and is taller than the wood fence at points, as well as only being stretched hand tight and looking sort of ugly. When that wire went up I was scrambling hard to get something up so the horse didn't have to spend the winter in a 20' x 20' pen in the barn lot and I didn't know how hard he might try to get through or over the fence sometime. Now that we've established that he's a pampered pet with no desire to run away I want to replace the 48" wire we used with 36 in wire. That way I can have the top of the wire even or just below the top wooden rail and there will be a big enough gap under the wire for Sunshine to be able to eat the grass under it so it doesn't need trimmed to look nice.

***

I changed my mind about waiting to buy the computer. I decided it was too good a buy to chance CompUSA being sold out by the time the money I'm transferring reached PayPal.

The kids will be leaving to go back to Alabama first thing in the morning and I'm worn out. Sometime tomorrow I need to go to Evansville to have blood drawn so my doctor in Marion can have the results by the time I go there next week. I'm looking forward to the trip since it will be my first time out on the road in the new car.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 6, 2008 at 01:24 AM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Sunday, 05 October 2008
 

More car thoughts

I've had it with all the dead cars around this place and it's time for things to start happening.

The 92 Buick Dinosaur Scotty bought to fix up and drive hasn't moved under it's own power since the week he bought it and it's time for it to go the hell away. I'm not sure what all's wrong with it but I'm pretty sure the block and heads are still perfectly functional so he shouldn't have any trouble selling it to someone to fix or part out. I'll give him a reasonable amount of time to do that, then call the nearest auto salvage yard and tell them they can have it for getting it out of my sight.

Dad's '82 Ford F-150 has seen much better days but he loved it when he bought it and it's worth fixing, at least well enough for occasional local use, which will please Mom greatly. It's been sitting in one spot way to long waiting till we could afford to replace the alternator in it, which I intend to have done soon. There's also something not right in the front end that would have to be fixed before it was driven very much; I'm not sure if it's something simple like a broken shock or something more complicated; depending on what it turns out to be I may not have it fixed but I know if all we use it for is hauling trash up to the road on trash day just seeing it move under its own power again will make Mom happy.

My sister's 92(?) Chevy Corsica got parked over 4 years ago because we couldn't afford repairs at the time. What started off as a radiator leak snowballed into a cracked head gasket, which after the thing's set this long means it needs a complete engine overhaul, which would cost more than the thing would be worth after it was fixed. On the other hand, Scotty liked it when it was running right and it might make sense to fix it up to sell him then pay off the loan on the Malibu, sell it and pay off the loan on it.

That leaves Matt's Chevy Berretta, which hasn't moved since the clutch went out. I think it's probably worth the price to have it fixed. I'll put up the money for a clutch transplant with the understanding he'll sell the thing and pay me back out of whatever he gets for it. 

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 5, 2008 at 04:23 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

In other news

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 5, 2008 at 03:47 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Saturday, 04 October 2008
 

Mine! All mine! (Updated)

***

Specifically, what I bought today is a 2008 Pontiac G6 GT Coupe with a 3.5L engine and just about all the bells and whistles they could pack into it, including some things I didn't know about when I decided to buy it. For instance a remote start feature so it can be started and warmed up in cold weather from in the house. For instance 4 way (front/back, up/down) power seats and a separate button to move the gas and break pedals forward and backward wrt the steering wheel; that will be nice on trips to Texas when I want to reposition my legs a little after sitting in one position too long. For instance fold-down rear seats so I can haul things that wouldn't normally fit in the trunk. (No, Heather, it's not a match for your Matrix but if I had to I could haul 8 ft long boards or fence posts in it.)

The only thing keeping me from feeling more than a little sick over how much money I spent all in one place today is remembering that if things ever get really bad I have a paid-for car I can sell for most of what I have in it.

I talked to Scotty a little more about the Malibu. He seems very confident he'll have his GED soon and fully intends to get a better job as soon as he can after that, then buy the Malibu from me. It's the only half-way nice car he's ever driven, he likes it, and he wants it. In the short term I'll keep making the payments on it. He understands that mean that days I need to I drive the G6 and his mother has priority on using the Malibu. (What that usually boils down to is my sister takes him to work, takes her younger son to school, runs whatever errands she needs to, comes home for a while, picks her younger son up from school, picks Scotty up from work, then the car's his for the rest of the day.)

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 4, 2008 at 01:12 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Friday, 03 October 2008
 

An eventful day at The Circle F (Updated)

My sister's daughter and her family got a late enough start out of Alabama last night that my sister and I had time to spend some more time at the local GM dealership before they got here. We're taking delivery on a slightly used 2 door 6 cylinder 2008 Pontiac G6 GT tomorrow and for now we're also holding on to the '04 Malibu I currently have. They didn't offer nearly as much for it as my sister's online research indicated it should be worth, not even enough to buy the Stratus we'd looked at, let alone pay off the existing loan on the car, so I told them to forget about trade-ins and I'd just buy the G6 outright for cash. After we have time to think and talk without company around we may decide to advertise it in the paper or, if my nephew wants it on a long term basis I may sell it to him and let him pay for it gradually after he gets his GED and a better job. Unless we sell it outside the family we'll go ahead and make payments for the duration of the original loan rather than tie up that much more cash. 

Bobbi and her family got here about 1:00. It's been nice seeing the kids again -- I particularly enjoyed seeing Madysson and Noah giving the swingset I bought last summer a good workout -- but things tend to be a might hectic when they're around. I split my afternoon between sitting in the back yard watching the kids play and hiding in my blogging corner with my hearing aids turned off. I'll definitely be ready for some sleep when things settle down enough but I'll try to get some pictures posted soon.

***

From the limited amount of time I've had to talk to Scotty I get the impression he'd really like to end up owning the Malibu eventually. Whether we end up working things out or not, I definitely intend for it to be around till sometime after Christmas so I can drive the G6 to Ft Worth. Heather, that means we have a lot more flexibility on deciding what days I'm spending there since I don't have to tell Enterprise Leasing a month in advance to have a car available and it won't cost me extra to stay longer than originally planned if we decide I should.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 3, 2008 at 08:52 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 02 October 2008
 

More thoughts on the car situation (Updated)

It didn't take me long after I'd had some sleep to realize that instead of buying Scotty a car it makes more sense to loan him money for one till he gets a better job. With that decision made I may raise the limit on how much I'm willing to let him spend on something I think is a good deal.

I probably shouldn't have yet but I stopped at the local GM dealer's on my way home from Vincennes this afternoon.

In the spring of '04 when I first started getting a VA pension I very nearly ended up buying a slightly used '03 Dodge Stratus; the financing fell through at the last minute but not till I'd had time for an extended test drive and fallen madly in love with the thing. That probably explains a lot about why I hope Scotty will end up buying the '03 Stratus on the local GM dealer's lot. If he does I won't end up driving it much, if at all, but it would sure look nice sitting in our driveway.

I very nearly yielded to temptation and made an impulse buy for myself while I was at the GM dealer's. About the only thing that stopped me was remembering I'd said I'd let my sister make the final decision about what to buy since she'll be driving it a lot more than I will. They have two low mileage 2008 G6s on the lot, one a 4 door with a 4 cylinder engine and one a 2 door with a 6 cylinder. If they'd had a 4 door with a six I probably would have just bought it on the spot. My sister went back up town later and thinks she'd like the 2 door better but we're going to have the salesman get us prices on both, with and without the car I have now as a trade-in, taking into account that I can pay cash and eliminate the hassle of trying to line up credit. I guess I'd rather have the sporty model myself but it's more expensive and I want to find out what my options really are. Regardless of what we buy I'll probably follow through with my plan to rent a car for my trip to Texas this winter.

***

Part of my thinking about the car situation is that as long as I don't buy new it won't cost me more than I I'm willing to gamble to change my mind about what I want in a few months. That being the case, I told my sister a little bit ago to get in touch with the salesman we've been working with (She's known him for years, he has a good rep around town, and he earned a sale 4 yrs ago then we couldn't get credit.) and tell him we're very, very serious about the two door 3.5L G6 GT we both looked at this afternoon. If some sort of totally unforeseeable financial disaster comes along in a few months we can sell it and otherwise we'll have something here we both like a lot. If we're patient we might find something we like a little better, but not much, by waiting, but I've been waiting about as long as I can handle. It's been 20 years (since my '87 Le Baron fell apart before it had any right to) since I had a car I really liked and that's long enough.

Now if we can just get Scotty into something else before he has time to spend enough time in the G6 to trash it out like he has the car I have now. I'll probably go take a closer look at the Stratus I mentioned earlier tomorrow afternoon and unless there's something wrong with it push him hard toward buying it.

***

Next issue: Computers.

I mentioned before that we bought a computer from Rent One yesterday. That's not someplace I'd normally go shopping for a computer but keeping peace in the family required doing something fairly soon, my sister stopped by to check out rentals, and it was a good deal. On the other hand, it's not something I'm ever going to consider very impressive; even with the memory maxed out it's still going to be slow compared to mine. Enter Scotty again, probably. When I bought the computer I have now I moved the one I'd been using (the one that just died) to the front room for the family to use and moved the one one of my Dogs gave me a couple of years ago from there to his room. There were already indications then that the hard drive in that one was on the way out and about a month ago it gave up the ghost completely; he's been without a computer in his room since then. Sometime reasonably soon I think I'll buy a new computer with specs I like for the family and give him the one we just bought, which I consider good enough for his limited computer needs. After I've done that so I can mix and match and experiment without being a major hassle for anyone I'll see if I can turn the two dead computers we have now into one working machine and either keep it around as a spare or give it to my sister's best friend and her daughter, who has major health problems and no computer at all right now.

Contributed by Bill Faith on October 2, 2008 at 09:20 PM in Around our place | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thinking through the car thing

Trying to, anyway.

OK, so I've been promising myself for months that when I finally got the rest of my money I was going to buy myself a slightly used car and not let anyone else drive it. Now that the money's finally here, does that really make sense to do? What I'd been thinking of doing was buying a car similar to the G6 I drove to Texas last summer from Enterprise Leasing, which would set me back somewhere in the $20k range. I just made reservations for a similar car for the last two weeks in December, which will cost me about $380. (At that rate I could rent a car for right on a year for $20K.)

I think the better way to define my needs is that I need to quit sharing a car with my sister's son Scotty. For one thing, there's the clutter factor, although he does eventually decide it's time to bag his trash and get it out of the car when it gets deep enough. Also there's the fact he's about 8 inches taller than me and most if the difference is in his legs. That means there's no way we'll ever be able to agree on how far the driver's seat needs to be from the steering wheel and brake pedal. Between the two, something has to give. He has a steady part time job and he's finally gotten serious about getting his GED diploma, but it's going to be a while, probably some time after he gets his diploma and a better job, before he can buy himself a decent car without help.

On the other hand, other than times I have out of town medical appointments or head for Texas for a while there's not really any reason my sister and I can't share a car if I can just get Scotty out of the mix somehow.

What I'm thinking of doing within the next few weeks is buying a practical (4 cylinders, in decent condition) used car for Scotty's use, with the understanding that if he doesn't follow through on getting his GED he loses it and if he does get his diploma it's his to keep. He's been working hard toward the diploma already -- too bad the attitude change came about 4 years to late -- and I think he'd end up getting it without any extra incentive but if buying him a car gets him out of mine I'll figure it was worth it.

OK, so now we're down to two people on one car. Where to from here?

If I buy Scotty a car, I'm going to figure it's well within reason for him and my sister to work something out on days I need to go to a medical appointment. That leaves my trips to Texas about 3 times a year. Even if I call it 4 times a year it'll take between 6 and