Bert's Musings

We are finally getting some rain. It started a little before 8AM. So far it has been a nice gentle rain. After a little over two hours of it I am just starting to notice a trickle running down our sloping, hard packed, gravel driveway. It is pretty amazing that it was so dry that two hours worth of rain soaked into the hard packed gravel. The rain is supposed to let up, maybe stop, this afternoon and then really come down tonight. Forecasts are that we might get as much as 2-3 inches. Most of it will come down slow enough so that a lot of it will soak in. I bet the fish in our small pond are loving some fresh oxygenated water. Yesterday I started digging through one of several "board piles". At one time it contained 20-30 rough sawn 2x6's that were 12-13' long. A few of them still appear to be OK but most now have bad spots somewhere along their length, or they are so bowed that they are only good for firewood. I moved the good ones inside. I have a few more to sort t...

I went to bed at 8 last night. I had stayed up late then night before, watching stupid movies, on Netflix. I find it amazing that now that we supposedly have 200 channels available (first time we have had pay TV in many years) AND a subscription to Netflix, yet there still is virtually nothing worth watching. Got up around 3 this morning and figured I would add a blog post. I will probably go back for a "nap" before "officially" getting up. Yesterday I fired up the splitter and did a little more clean up work. Temps were only in low to mid 90's. Thought I might need to find a jacket <grin>. High is forecast to be 99 today, but drop clear down to 85 tomorrow as weather from Isaac moves into the area. I finished cleaning up an area next to the barn, actually I didn't really finish cleaning it up I just finished getting rid of the big pieces that were still in good enough condition to use for firewood. I had enough to make two rows across the back of my t...

My Mom called me last night to find out what was wrong with me. She was worried because I not quite posting. Told her all was fine, just didn't have anything worthy of posting. Our return trip to Missouri went fine. Our patch job to hold the motor home awning in place held up and we had no problems with it. (See earlier post about ponding on awning causing it to collapse). I called our insurance to see about having repairs made and when they called me back they told me that our policy had been cancelled last November because we had not paid our premium. We knew that there had been an issue with them not getting the payment on time but thought that we had resolved. The fault was ours, somehow we managed to let sending them a check fall through the cracks. We found no record that we actually did pay the premium. We have travelled from southeast Missouri to central Missouri, then on to Texas, from there to southern California, up through California into Oregon and Washington and back ...

This morning we head back to Missouri. I think everyone had had a reasonably good time but we (at least me) is getting tired, even after two naps yesterday <grin>. Last night we had supper at Maggiani's, an Italian restaurant up on the northeast side of Indy. The food was excellent, although pretty expensive for a cheapskate like me, over $300 for 7 of us. It was a feast. We ordered family style and they brought us far more good than we could eat. We carried home two sacks full of left overs. 400 miles and we will be home. A girl Kathy knows from when she was working at Teen Challenge will be riding with us. Kathy is taking her on to Kansas City so she will have a 700 mile day before she gets home. Have a great day and may God bless you and yours.

We arrived at a campround on the southwest side of Indy around 2 PM yesterday. It isn't much of a "campground" but it does have full hook-ups, and it was the only thing we could find within an hours drive of Doug & Anthony's place. Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia and Doug went up to Lebanon to visit Phyllis this morning and they, as well as Andy and Melissa, are now all at Anthony's salon. I'm going to take a nap and enjoy the peace and quite. Weather is not to hot, but it is warm. Tomorrow we head back to Missouri. Good day to all. May God bless you and yours.

We had a good time in Tennessee. It did rain on us, of course it almost always rains some while we are there. Tuesday night we got a real gully washer. It rained so hard that water ponded on our big awning and it wouldn't drain properly, at least that is what we think happened. Around 2 AM one end of the awning collapsed because of the weight of the water. We had planned on leaving for Michigan early Tuesday morning but the awning repairs slowed us down considerably. Finally with the help of my very handy brother-in-law (actually it was more like I helped him), and Andy, we got the awning rolled back up and stabilized against the motor home. Substantial repairs will be needed once we get back to Missouri. We arrived at my Mom's, at Coldwater Lake, about 1 AM. The trip was about 590 miles. We did stop at Demo's, in Lebanon, TN, for a late lunch. Kathy and I both really like that place. Kathy, Kelsey, Lydia, Melissa & Andy went to Angola for lunch at Auntie V's, Kathy...

Here we are in God's country, God just practiced on the rest of the Earth before he made Tennessee. We left our house at 4:30 PM Friday. In the motor home ready to leave. Kelsey is pretty good at snapping photos while holding her phone at arms length. We stopped at a rest area, about 25 miles into Illinois, and had a picnic supper. We also stopped for fuel, and to stretch our legs, about 30 miles west of Crossville. We arrived at Tom & Mary Lou's campground, we decided to park there rather than at our place, at 4 AM Saturday. I think Doug & Anthony arrived about an hour after us, I was sound asleep by then. Parked at the campground.  We had a nice campfire last night. I took these pitiful photos.  We didn't stay at the campfire all night. We were back out there eating biscuits and gravy and hash browns this morning. Kathy's Dad came for breakfast, he is on the far right. I missed getting Anthony, he was in getting his breakfast, and Melissa, she wasn't up ye...

Yesterday we split some more wood and cut up some small trees and branches that were already down and laying in one of the many trash piles around the place. Just more clean up work. For someone who has not been here, you could not tell what we did yesterday. We did cut/split enough wood to fill the bucket on the skid steer twice. I need to learn how to adjust the carb on the splitter, and do a better job with my Rube Goldberg choke linkage. Today is the nicest day we have had while in Missouri. Last night the weather reporter noted that we had a string of 27 days with highs 90 or above, then we missed one day when the high was in the high 80's, and then 20 more days with highs 90 or above. The high many of those days was over 100. Last night's low was 64 and now, at 1 PM, it is only 75. Also, there is a nice breeze. This morning we loaded stuff back into the motor home in preparation for heading out tonight. The plan is to leave here for Tennessee no later than 5 PM, after And...

Yesterday I went into Jefferson City and got a haircut at Larry's. This was the 2nd time I've been there and it is an experience. Larry has been cutting hair for 58 years. Says he would die if he just stayed home. His shop is right downtown amongst all the state politicians and he knows many of them of the politicians and bureacrats. I sure enjoy listening to what he has to say. He is quite the fiscal conservative. After the haircut I went to Tractor Supply to get hydraulic oil and a filter for the log splitter, plus some other odds and ends. They didn't have the filter. The old filter was a FRAM. I found out that it was used on several pieces of Case equipment. There is a Case dealership across the highway from Tractor Supply. I went over there and bought a filter, Case REALLY likes their filters. While there I talked to one of the sales guys about a small tractor with a loader. No luck. They don't have anything like I want at any of there three Missouri stores. He too...

Yesterday and today I played with my rocks again. I'm sure not making much progress, but I guess I'm not working all that hard. The top of the rock at the corner is pretty close to the same elevation as the top of the ground at the bottom of the wall up by the barn.  As you can see, I have a lot of wall yet to go. Finding the correct size/shape rocks is getting more of a challenge. I'm to the point now where I need to walk around looking for rocks for the wall. I not going to have enough to do all that I want to do. Carl left me a dozen or so old railroad ties that might be acceptable for use near the back of the wall section I need to build up next to the barn. All I accomplished today was adding two additional steps at the door you see in the above photo. I really need to add one more. I need to borrow, rent or buy a builder's level so that I can "shoot" some elevations to make sure that I end up with a near level pad for parking the motor home. I plan on ge...

Today was a tomato day. Kathy, Kelsey, Melissa (Kelsey's sister) and Lydia were here to can Hootch and tomato juice. Hootch is similar to V8 juice, but far superior. Kathy's Grandpa Melvin Towers got family members started making it. The batch of hootch, can lids in another pan and macaroni soup (homemade tomato soup with macaroni) for lunch. For those unfamiliar with macaroni soup it is mandatory that grilled cheese sandwiches accompany the macaroni soup. The pot of plain tomato juice. The littlest helper. It sprinkled a little this morning, just enough to make the dirt I've been moving around for the motor home pad stick to your feet, so I just laid around all day. Actually I shopped for tractors online. Probably a mistake not getting out after it dried off since the high today was only 92, almost cold for here. Good evening to all and may God bless you and yours. 

So far today (4:30 PM) the high has only reached 99, with a heat index of 101. Yesterday we were over 100 degrees. It was supposed to get to 104 today. I have to start getting up earlier and getting out to get some work done. Monday is to far back for me to remember. Yesterday I worked outside several hours. I came in around 2 PM, by then the temp was 90 degrees. Kathy said it was more like mid 90's by the time I came in. Today I don't think I was even out for 2 hours before coming in around 1:30. It was 91, with a heat index of 95, when I came in. I've been working on an area where I can park our motor home. Since we have been here we have it parked on the "inner" circle drive. We can drive around the "outer" circle drive but it is easier to back up and turn around to get out of the driveway. The plan is to make a 16-18' wide level area out from the bottom of the rock retaining wall for the barn. The rock retaining wall was continuous along the side...