Bert's Musings

Other than traffic jams in Dallas, todays 250 mile drive to Messiah’s Ranch was relatively uneventful. I entered the Dallas metro area a little after 9. The first stop and go traffic jam was only a little over a mile long. A TransAm was stalled in the left lane. The driver couldn’t get off the road to the left because of a barrier for the HOV lane.   After traffic just got back up to speed we had to slow down again. This time it was slow (stop and go) for maybe 4 miles. The second slow down was caused by an accident that had been cleaned up by the time I arrived at the accident site. This was not the most impressive view of Dallas freeways, but it was a place I could take a quick photo.   This place is certainly out of the way. The approximately 5 miles of gravel road was some of the dustiest road I've every seen. The CR-V was totally covered with dust. I thought I had let it run long enough last night to charge the battery, after a day on the road. It wouldn't ...

Todays drive went well. I managed to make it 470 miles, just into Texas. The Lake of the Ozarks area was quite interesting. All the water was steaming. It looked like the Smokies. The white strip you see just above the top of the semi is actually a cloud/steam.  More of it in the photo below.   In a few places it was pretty foggy.   Traffic was quite heavy in places. This was taken in rural Oklahoma.   I don’t associate lakes with Oklahoma, but Lake Eufaula is certainly something to see. These photos were taken one after the other; one out the driver side and the other out the passenger side. There were other sections of the highway where I could have taken similar photos. The lake is BIG! I'm currently parked at the Welcome Center, just inside the Texas border. It was closed when I got here. I walked around it and chatted with a guard who must spend the night here, in his car. It appears to be quite a nice place. I've had my supper (Kathy sent me macaroni soup. It...

I didn't do much today. I finished packing the motor home and moved it down to the grocery store near the highway. The CR-V is all hooked up. I should be able to make a "fast getaway" in the morning. Kathy did some target practice with the 22 Ruger semi-automatic. She wanted to be sure she remembered how to use it. She did fine. I did a little work on the rock retaining wall, the one by the side of the shed. I only added four or five rocks, but they were good sized ones. Kelsey brought Lydia over a little after noon. They had lunch with us and then Kelsey went to work and Lydia stayed with us. She is such a sweetheart. Andy came and picked her up after work. I hope to be on the road and headed south no later than 8:30 tomorrow morning. I'm excited about going to Messiah's Ranch and providing a helping hand, but I'm also sad about leaving the folks here. I sent John, at Messiah's Ranch, an email and told him my arrival would be delayed a day. He responded t...

After we had problems starting the motor home a couple of days ago I checked out the chassis (starting) batteries today. The end was blown out of one of them. I have no idea why, or when it happened. It must have been recent because we have never had problems starting it until a few days ago. I spent over four hours today removing the two chassis batteries, finding a place I could get another set on Sunday, going past Columbia (60 miles one way) to get them and installing the new ones. Even with the delay I am pretty close to being packed. Kathy has been a trooper hauling things to the motor home and packing them away. She has prepared me a bunch of meals that will only require defrosting and heating them up. I could still go tomorrow but I want to be as "untired" as possible when I leave. The plan was to take the CR-V down to the grocery store on the corner and have Kathy drive me back home to get the motor home. I would then drive it to the grocery store parking lot, hook u...

Kathy got up early so that she could be at Kohl's in Jefferson City when it opened at 8 AM. They were having some type of super sale. She bought a few things. After she got home we went over to Lohman, about 10 miles, to check out an auction. They had some old Craftsman tools (table saw, jig saw, planer, etc) that might have been of interest to me next year, but not now. Kathy bought a lamp and a couple of other minor items. We actually saw a couple of people we know while we were there. We then went into Jefferson City to pick up a prescription refill for me, at Walmart. I had called it in early this morning but they couldn't get in ready in time for Kathy to pick it up. We had hamburgers at Freddie's. They were a little overdone, but the fries were great. Once we got home we moved the motor home around so that it was level. When Kathy started it, it seemed as though the chassis batteries were almost discharged. It is the first time that has happened. There is an button ...

Yesterday Kathy and I put a few things in the motor home, for my upcoming trip. She has been stocking it with groceries over the past week or so. I drained most of the heavily chlorinated water out of the water tank but I'm going to have to get the motor home more level to dump the remainder. (A few blocks and a move of a few feet will get the job done.) If I don't get most of it out I will have some very smelly water for the first week. I recharged the water softener that I use for the motor home. It is now ready so that I can fill the tank with soft water, once I get the chlorine out. I also did a little more clean up yesterday. I cut up some cedar that was in a trash pile in the back, enough to provide wood for the boiler/furnace for a day. I threw most of the remainder of the pile over on my latest burn pile. Lydia came for a few hours yesterday. Kelsey brought her over a little after 2, on her way to work, and Andy picked her up a little before 6, on his way home from work...

Last night Kelsey fed Lydia some squash for the first time. She had eaten oatmeal before but Kelsey said she wasn't thrilled with the oatmeal. She really went after the squash. She would just dive for the spoon when she saw it coming towards her. She is still learning to eat "solid" food, and I'm sure Kelsey won't let her have much of it for some time yet. We had an enjoyable evening with David, Elaine, and K, L & A last night. Tonight Kathy fed her some more squash during supper. She is such a cutie.  I think the expression is because she is still trying to get used to the feel of solid food. I went to California this morning to take the hardware store a "core" battery to replace the one I had purchased for my lawn mower last week. No paper work, when I bought the battery the lady at the checkout counter just told me to bring the core back when I could and she would give me the lower "exchange" price. I also stopped at the "feed store...

I've split all the wood I'm going to split this year. I think I have well over 15 cords. About half of it is by the wood furnace/boiler and the other half is in a building out back. I may still do some clean up work, with the chain saw, where I cut down the big oak tree, but maybe not. Just depends on how much time I have before I leave. It only got to 82 here today, the forecast was 86. It didn't feel to all that hot. Rain is in the forecast for tomorrow and the high is only supposed to be 71, then the highs are only to be in the 50's for the next 4 days. Hopefully we will get another inch or so of rain. Tomorrow, depending on the rain, I will move the motor home from its "parking place" and start checking it out. The only thing I know I need to do is add 80-90 gallons of water to the water tank. I shouldn't need anywhere near that much water, but I would rather have more than I need rather than not enough; especially if I decide to spend two nights on th...

It started raining late last night and didn't quit until 9 this morning. We got 1.4", PTL. That was great, but we still need a LOT more. Today was a lazy day for me. I went to Jefferson City this morning to make arrangements to get my CPAP supplies through a local supplier. I had to meet with their nurse before they would switch my account from Indiana to Missouri. I also needed to change from a private insurer to Medicare. It was raining quite hard during my drive into town. All I did around the house today was hang some knick knack shelves, a towel ring in the master bathroom and I finally put up the porch swing. Recently you saw photos of the trees around the house. Below is a photo of where our driveways intersect. You are looking up one of the driveways. Another one crosses this one just beyond the trash bin. The leaf cover is solid. It got up to 84 here today. After the rain the humidity was high. I gave up and we turned on the air. We will probably let it run through Th...

We split and stacked wood today. Kathy used the tractor to haul the wood down from the splitter area to the shed by the wood furnace/boiler. This was the first time she had driven it. She even took it up to the mailbox to get the mail. She kept asking me how to make it go faster. I kept telling her she didn't need to go faster. Actually she only had the throttle about half open. Once I showed that to her she was satisfied, even without shifting into high range.  This is one of the chunks of oak that we split. This one was probably 19" in diameter and 21" long. These babies are HEAVY for this old man to wrestle around. Some of the smaller chunks of hedge that we split were as heavy as the larger pieces of oak. The oak split easier. I've seen tables that claim that oak is heavier than hedge, but the hedge I'm cutting and splitting here is significantly heavier than oak.  We finished the 4th row of wood, two in the shed and two out of it. This wood is in addition to ...

Weather was a little warm today, but nice. It got up to 80. By Wednesday the high is supposed to be 85. YUCK!!!! Fortunately then it will cool back down. The high next Saturday is supposed to be 50. Steve brought the wood splitter back this evening. Now I've got to really get to work for a couple of days. I used about 2.5 tanks of gas in the chainsaw today. I cut most of the wood shown in the photo below. Maybe half of it is from the oak tree I cut down earlier. The rest is hedge and walnut the I "scrounged" from all the wood still left laying around the property.   One thing that was interesting to me is how hard it is to cut the hedge and walnut. The oak cuts much easier. I don't plan on cutting any more. If I get this all split I will be more than happy. Almost all of it is to big for me to pick up and put on the splitter.   Kathy bought some more outdoor furniture from Lowe's. She went in and picked it up today. She varnished the porch swing so that it is now ...

This morning I went to California to pick up a chain saw chain that had been sharpened and to get some odds and ends at the hardware store. I ended up going to both hardware stores and still didn't find everything I needed. The service at both stores was great. After spending far more time there than I anticipated I headed for Russellville. I had told Kelsey and Andy that I would be at their place by 10. I called and told them I would be late. By the time I had breakfast at the little place in Russellville (good food & good prices but it takes FOREVER) it was after 11 when I finally arrived. We got the hose bib installed, made a cover for the entrance to the crawl space and installed the light fixture at the back door. The big thing is that their crawl space is now closed up. After I got home I moved the five chunks of wood that I had previously cut, from the woods to the area near the wood storage building. I think the remaining log will cut in 4 to 5 ...

Like most places fall is here. From the "back" deck, looking left.  Looking straight back.  Looking right.  From the front porch, looking left.  Looking straight back.  Looking right.   For those who haven't been here our property is outlined below. It is about 400' by 500' and starts about 250' off the county road. Our house is the building in the middle of the property. The back of the house is towards our pond, and the road. Now that some leaves have fallen we can see the traffic on the county road.  Low last night was 48 and the high today is only supposed to be 54. By Sunday it is supposed to warm up to 80/64. I'm still quite pleased with our outdoor wood furnace/boiler. I don't know if I would install a new one ($10-15,000?), the payback can't be that great even if you have your own wood supply. It takes a LOT of labor to cut the wood. I estimate that it will take 10-12 cords to heat our house during an average winter. You also have the both...

I'm not even sure what has happened since my last post, Tuesday(?). Some good news is that we got another 0.4" of rain. That is on top of the 1.5" that we got a week ago. We can see that the water level in the pond has risen, but not by much. the water level would have to rise almost 3' before water went over the spillway. For those who have been here, the edge of the water has come up the entry channel almost to the bridge (it is really a stretch to call the two old beams over the channel a bridge). I think we are still around 9" short of normal annual rainfall. Yesterday we went over to Kelsey, Andy & Lydia's. Kathy put Lydia in a stroller have they took a walk. I installed the perimeter face/sill board along the bottom of the kitchen wall. The exterior wall area that was removed during when the kitchen was remodeled. Tomorrow I'm going back over and hopefully we will get the back ready for siding. (Relocate/install a hose bib in the new wall, insta...

Sunday we went to Crossroads church in Jeff and then I didn't do much in the afternoon. Today was absolutely beautiful. The overnight low was 42 and the high was 74. It was mostly sunny. First thing this morning I drove steel fence posts at the corners of our property. The corners were all staked with rods driven almost flush with the top of the ground. The rods had colored tape on them at one time, but most of it has disappeared. Doug had shown me the back corners a month or so ago. One of the front ones was easy to find, there was a stake driven in next to it, but it was just dumb luck that allowed me to find the other corner. I knew I was somewhere near where the corner had to be but was headed back toward a fence line. My shoe was untied and as I knelt down to tie my shoe I saw a piece of the old tape that had come off the rod in the corner. The rod was only about a foot from the piece of tape. After locating the corners I ran 2+ tanks of gas through the weed eater. I neve...

Andy, Kelsey & Lydia came for lunch. Andy helped me unload my trailer load of pond trash before we ate. I was sitting at the end of the table and couldn't get him in the photo.  After lunch I went over to Andy & Kelsey's and helped install the exterior vent cover for their microwave vent fan. Lydia woke up and Kelsey brought her out to watch. She is so cute! If you are on Facebook make sure you look at the photo Kelsey posted.   It started sprinkling just as we finished the vent cover installation. We have had a nice rain since this afternoon and evening, 0.8 inches so far and it is still raining. That is close to the total of what we have had since we moved here in late June. I got the trash cleaned up around the pond just in time.   Good night to all. May God bless you and yours. 

Yesterday we went to town in the morning. Kathy had a doctors appointment. I got a much needed haircut from Larry, I love going to his shop. I picked up my new glasses, they are a disappointment. I don't notice that much improvement in my vision. Had I know the change was going to be so slight I would have kept the nearly $600 the glasses cost me. Yes, nearly $600 for one pair of glasses. My uncorrected vision is so bad that glass lenses would be horrendously thick. The lenses I get are some super duper high index plastic that allows them to be much thinner (but still quite thick), and lighter, than glass lenses. We got our annual flu shots while in town. After some grocery shopping we stopped for lunch at the Dragon Kitchen's buffet and then headed home. In the afternoon Kathy cleaned up dust from Doug's construction work and I cleaned up around the pond. The water is LOW! The lowest is has been while we have be...

Doug and my Mom left after lunch yesterday. By the time both had gotten home they had a nearly 600 mile, butt-numbing, trip. They sure helped a LOT while they were here. My Mom nearly wore me out trying to keep up with her as she helped me cut and split wood <grin>. Doug did some wiring (we now have a light in the stairway down to the lower level!), trim work and installed some braces on the back deck. He tried to install some lags in the ledger that attaches the back deck to the house but couldn't find anything solid enough to hold a lag. That is probably bad news. Kelsey and Lydia came over for a "goodbye lunch". Below is a photo of my Mom rocking Lydia. Lydia must be getting some teeth because she sure is chewing her fingers, or a pacifier, a lot. In the afternoon I cleaned up my tools we had out for the work at the house and cut a little more wood. Mom and I had started cutting up a tree that had fallen out in the woods while she was here, I finished cutting it ...

Yesterday Mom and I split wood for awhile in the morning. The wood pile keeps growing, but slowly. We then went to Russellville, picked up Kelsey & Lydia and went to the Amish grocery store near Versailles, MO. The grocery is in the middle of nowhere, about 25 miles from our house. Every time that we have been there it has been busy. Give generations of family in the photos below. My Mom &  Lydia, Kathy, Doug & Kelsey.  Five generations outside the grocery. I took Lydia out to the "barn" , where the workers keep there horses and buggies. There were two horses in the barn. Lydia was not impressed. I don't think she cared for the smell of horse manure.  We had lunch at a restaurant just outside Versailles. I had an open face roast beef sandwich that would have rated a 10 had it been 5-10 degrees warmer. There had to be two cups of mashed potatoes on the plate, with gravy, and over a pound of roast beef on a slice of homemade bread. It was as good a "hot bee...

Just more cleaning and burning the past few days. Doug, our son, came out with my Mom (Beverly) last Saturday. It has been good to see them. Doug has been working on our mystery wiring. We have lots of switches that don't seem to turn anything on or off. Mom & I have been cleaning and burning trash wood. We have also added some to our wood stores. The wood burning boiler/furnace seems to work fine. In this mild weather (highs mid 50's, lows mid 30's) I only have to fill it once a day. We have been keeping the house FAR warmer than we have in the past. We used to set the thermostat no higher than 70. We have had it up to 75 while Mom has been here. Doug had to strip down to his tee shirt. We do have the registers in our bedroom closed. We have the windows partially open at night, even the night that it got down to freezing. We sleep way better when it is cool. One nice thing is that our master bath has its own register and we can keep it warm while having the...