Bert's Musings

Yesterday we went to Sunday School and then church. We then came home for the rest of the day. Andy, Kelsey & Lydia came over for an hour or so after they got out of church, and after they had lunch with Andy's folks at McDonalds (a family tradition). They came back later for supper (HOMEMADE NOODLES! and other things). Andy is working today and Kelsey goes in this afternoon for a 3 PM to 3 AM shift. It makes me so angry that they are punished by having to pay so much in taxes so that others (who are to lazy to find and keep a job or who have kids they can't afford to support) can sit around on their butts with their hands out, but I won't go off on that subject, it is for my political blog <grin>. This morning, around 7:30, when I went out to add wood to the boiler it was just starting to rain/snow. All our snow from the last snowfall had melted. I took this photo an hour later. I think we have received another inch in the last hour. We are suppo...

We went in and volunteered at the Habitat Re-Store again this afternoon. I did not think I did enough last Friday to make it worth bothering to drive to Jeff and back. I had decided that if I weren't busier today I probably would not go back. Today I had no problem keeping busy. The store sold close to $3,000 worth of merchandise, which may be a record. Kathy left about 2 and went up to Kingdom City to meet Tiffany for lunch. Tiffany was one of the Teen Challenge councilors. She was on her way from Lebanon, IN to Kansas City so they made arrangements to have lunch in Kingdom City, which is right on Tiffany's way to KC. Not much happened that past few days. Doug and Anthony have their travel trailer stored here for the winter. I checked their relatively new battery and saw that there was ice in the cells. I took it out and put it under a box in the shop. I put a light bulb in the box to heat the battery up to above freezing. The next day I put the charger on it. This ...

Let me know if you can't view the video. I've never inserted a video before. I've got another one I'll try to put in another post if this works.

Christmas day at our house. Doug, Anthony, Kelsey, Andy & Lydia were here for Christmas dinner. Doug and Anthony arrived Sunday evening. They had planned on leaving tomorrow afternoon but they decided to head back this evening. A blizzard warning is in effect for Indy starting a 5 AM tomorrow. They are supposed to get 8-12 inches of snow, with winds gusting to 40 mph. Before dinner Lydia was just tired out from Christmas activity  She managed to wake up in time for opening presents.  She liked the wrapping paper almost as well as her presents.  Lydia's dinner attire. This was after dinner. Kathy ran some prime rib through the blender and put it on the high chair tray. Lydia loved it, although she is wearing a lot of it. She sent straight from the high chair to the kitchen sink, for a bath.  Mid afternoon. Soon after this photo Lydia got down and chose a plastic laundry basket as her favorite toy of the afternoon. So often I forget to be thankful for my ...

Thursday Lydia got to see snow for the first time. She wasn't impressed. Right after the photo was taken, with Kelsey, Kathy and I all close to her, she tipped over face forward into the snow, and onto one of the walkway stones. She really didn't like that. So far snow is the only thing I've seen her not want to put in her mouth <grin>. By the way, those of you who have been here know how our driveway goes steeply down and then steeply back up. Mid-day Thursday it took 4 tries to get Kelsey's front wheel drive car out onto the road after the 2-3" of snow. She didn't have any problems on Friday. Depending on how much snow we get it should be an interesting winter. The neighbors at the top of the driveway have told us several times that we could leave one of our cars up at their place. They said the previous owners did that when much snow or ice was forecast. I think they then drove their skid steer up to their car. Yesterday Kathy and I volunteered at the ...

The weather today was not supposed to be bad. I had procrastinated about getting the RV winterized, knowing that I didn't have to do it until today. For several days the low for tonight has been forecast to be 20 degrees. I wanted to get it done before it got that cold.  Last night when I looked at the weather the forecast was for rain today. Not great for doing the winterizing, but not to bad. During the night we had a thunderstorm go through. We only got a little rain, and some some pretty good wind. This morning was something of a shock. Looking out over the upstairs patio doors.  Looking out the lower level patio doors.  This was the scene on my way back to the house from the RV, about noon.  My fingers were numb, my feet were wet, and I was cold. Temperature was 31 with wind gusts reported to be as high as 51 mph, wind chill 16 degrees. The combination of  cold and wind is the worst I have experienced in almost two years, since the winter of ...

I made it home a little before 4 this afternoon. Things look a little different. It is strange to see the house when you turn off the highway, with the leaves mostly gone; but things aren't a lot different. The load of gravel that I ordered last week is here. I can finish levelling the RV pad tomorrow.  I still may want to get a load of "clean" rock to top the area so that the gravel doesn't splash up on the sides of the RV when it rains. I unhooked the car from the motor home down at the small grocery on the corner, and drove the car home. Lydia had just started a nap so we waited until she woke up before going back for the motor home. By the time we got it back it was sunset. I only unloaded a little more than what I need for tonight. I needed time to play with Lydia. I was whispering in her ear and she when I would quit she would lean her head over against my lips for me to keep doing it. Roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy and asparagus for sup...

This morning I "officially" said goodbye to Messiah's Ranch.  John came up from his home in Bryan to thank me again and to give me a copy of a book he wrote, and had published, several years ago. He is currently updating it and revising it for an ebook release. I had almost asked him for a copy but did not because he only had five copies left. I'm looking forward to reading it. The Oklahoma welcome center is a fantastic facility.  I hope you can pick out the buffalo in the photo below. It is cut from a single sheet of steel, but actually looks like a 3 dimensional figure, from both sides.  The hallways inside the facility. They bring to mind water flowing down a creek bed.  This is actually a concrete bench. I had to touch it to make sure it was actually concrete. The sinks in the mens room were also concrete. It rained last night and I didn't get left until almost 10 this morning. I'm spending the night at the Flying J truck stop in  Joplin, Missouri, a littl...

Today was my last “work day” at Messiah’s Ranch. I've go to meet, and work with, several interesting people, be involved in a "sawmill operation", attend a small local church with an outstanding Pastor, etc. Now its time to go home. Mark and I worked for about 3 hours this morning. We ran the sawmill for maybe two hours and spent the rest of the time getting set up and cleaning up the area when we were finished. We added more wood to the first trailer that we had loaded. We only cut about the top four layers today. John took Mark and I out for lunch. John, the camp director, is on the left and Mark is on the right.   I spent the afternoon getting ready to leave tomorrow morning. I hope to be on the road before 10. Good night. May God bless you and yours.

Mark and I sawed logs into boards all day today. We filled up the trailer we partially loaded yesterday afternoon. The picture doesn't look nearly as impressive as the actual trailer. The top of this pile was almost up to my eye level (5'-6"?). I didn't measure it but I think the bed on this trailer is 6'-6" clear inside. These boards are all at least 10' long and some are probably 14' long. There are several layers of 8-9' long boards "crosswise" in front of these. If you look real close you can see some of the shorter boards sticking out past the rails. We are going to work tomorrow morning. I think we are done with the pine and that we will be sawing hardwoods in the morning. John is taking us to lunch tomorrow. After lunch I need to get packed up, my laundry done, etc.. so that I am ready to leave on Sunday. I plan on taking my time going home. I told Kathy not to expect me until the 20th. I was planning on winterizing the RV while at...

Yesterday started out slow. I uncovered the saw mill and installed the new gas line. John came over and said Mark had called. Mark's wife was ill and so was one of their boys, he didn't know if he was coming to the camp. I covered things back up and we switched to Plan B. John had mentioned that some people who are scheduled to rent the Lakeside building over the Christmas holidays had mentioned that the kitchen sink was to small. He told them he would install a larger one. He planned on installing a full size wash tub, but the hole for installed oblong tub was to large along the length. He went down and went through his stock of old sinks. He found an old double basin white sink that will work. I spent the rest of the morning disconnecting all the plumbing and removing the existing sink. Then Mark called and said he was on his way.  After lunch it was back to Plan A, the sawmill. This is the wood we sawed in the afternoon. Only had a little down time when one blade broke. I h...

I spent all day scraping the old wax/varnish off hardwood flooring. John salvaged an entire gym floor some time ago and is now wanting to use the flooring in several places. All the edges of the hardwood pieces have to be scraped to remove old varnish and wax that had migrated down between the boards. Some aren't to bad, some are a real problem. I bet I spent at least 10 minutes scraping one board. I probably spent about 4 hours actually scraping, and another 2 hours going to the barn/shop to get the boards, setting up a place to do the scraping and then putting things away when I finished for the day. I think it would take me at least two more days to get enough ready to do a 200 sq ft room. I'm sure looking forward to sawing wood the next two days, rather than more scraping. <grin> The couple from Wisconsin, the grooms parents, arrived around 8 last night. I chatted with them briefly. When they left their home in Wisconsin there was about 6 inches of snow on the ground....

Lunchtime. I didn't do a lot yesterday. I swept and vacuumed Fallow Hall (about a 2 hour job for me) and swept the Lakeside building (about a 1 hour job for me). I also replaced the bracket that holds the shower head in the RV, it broke again. I had glued it once before because I couldn't find a new one. We found a new one so I had it in reserve. I also filled the water tank and disconnected and drained the water hose. It got down to 28 degrees early this morning and is supposed to get down to 24 tonight, but then it warms up again. The water in the cats bowl, which sits on the back porch of the dining hall, had quite a bit of ice on it this morning so it most definitely got below freezing. I spent the morning cleaning up wood scraps. Some of the time around the new building but most of the time at the saw mill. I've got a fire going over by the saw mill. This afternoon I'm going to mop Fallow Hall. Robert, the college student who lives in one of the houses in the camp,...

A normal Sunday, except warm. It was 82 this afternoon when I was in Bryan. At 6 PM is was still 76. The forecast low for tonight is 38, it is sure going to have to drop a lot. Pastor Dana had another good message this morning, I am going to miss him. One thing he mentioned was that how science keeps finding new wonders. The smarter we get the more we realize how little we know/understand. Scientists once believed that the Earth was the center of the universe. Now we know that is not so. Scientists once believed that the Earth was flat. Now we know that is not true. Scientists once believed that the universe was infinitely old. Now they agree that it was came into being during the "Big Bang". Darwin's convinced many that evolution was a "scientific fact", instead of a theory pushed by atheists. Now we know that many of his theories were wrong. Today there is not "Theory of Evolution". There are many, many different theories because all of them have maj...

John came in this morning and took care of any needs the campers might have had. He actually came in to move some things out of the "barn" and haul our load of wood down there so that it was inside in case of rain. It was warm again today, 82, and quite humid. The high is supposed to be 80 again tomorrow. I changed sewer hoses, the old one had some leaks in it. I also worked on the sewer pipes and drainage. The sewer inlet is just to high, or the RV parking area is to low. There is virtually no fall in the sewer line so after about the first 15 gallons of sewage it fills up, unless you only open the valves part way. There is really no fix other than raising the RV parking area, or using one of the sewage grinder/pumps. I don't think it would be a problem raising the RV pad about 12", there is plenty of fill material readily available, on site. John just can't seem to get his hear around the fact that what he thought should work won't. I thought about cutting ...

The left wing main stream media may want us to forget, because they hate the America of old, but never forget Pearl Harbor. (I bet the media will be sure that we remember what terrible people we are (NOT!!!) on the anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki) On December 7th, 1941 the Japanese murdered 2,400 Americans when they bombed Pear Harbor. The sneak attack was their way of declaring war on the United States. Maybe the worst part of this was the men who were trapped in the capsized ships. Over the next two days, after the attacks, holes were cut in the capsized hull of the Oklahoma, where it was above the waterline. 35 men were pulled out of those holes. These men had alerted others that they were alive by banging on the hull. The banging continued for another day in an area that was below the waterline. Rescue workers had no way to get to the men trapped in that section. They suffocated, or drowned in the dark cold water. This morning Mark and I sawed ...

Yesterday I finished the mezzanine screen wall and did a few other small tasks. Last night on his way home John stopped by the barn and saw that the tractor had a flat front tire. He took it off and took it to Bryan to have it fixed. He sent Mark an email asking him to pick it up on his way to the camp this morning. Mark didn't check his emails and came to the camp without the tire. We needed to use the tractor to load logs on the sawmill so Mark turned around and drove back to Bryan to get the tire. While he was gone I did a couple of loads of my laundry in the camp washer and dryer. I also loaded the left over barn boards and hauled them back to storage. Then I fed the fish in the aquarium, the cat and the fish in the pond. Check out all the turtles in the photo below. The white areas are splashes from fish grabbing the food pellets. Turtles come up and get them also, but the turtles are very wary. Just the slightest movement and they are gone. We finally started sawing logs...

It cooled off a little today and we had very light rain for a couple of very short periods.   In the photo below the area above the walk in cooler is a mechanical mezzanine. There are four 7.5 ton air handlers on the mezzanine. This morning John asked me to build a screen wall to hide the units. You can just see the end of one of the units at the left of the boards I have already installed. I'm using more of the old barn siding.    When he asked me it looked like a pretty straight forward job. I went down to the "barn" area, loaded up a bunch more of the barn siding and brought it to the dining hall. Then I started looking at the details and the job got a lot more complex. Originally I was going to put the outer layer of the "shadow wall" on the face of the floor joist and the face of the rafter. It was easy to see that the two were not in the same plane but I figured I could add some blocking on the face of the floor joist to bring it out even with the rafter....

John asked me to build a shelf under one of the main kitchen sinks. He bought a set of  drawer rollers so that the shelf could be pulled out and pushed in. A lot of it was a "from scratch" project. I dug around the scrap board pile and found some rough sawn boards that were usable. I got out the portable planer and planed them to smooth the rough sawn surfaces. Next I ripped them to a 4" width. We found an old scrap of plywood down at the "barn", and dug it out of the pile of plywood scraps. In the midst of the above I decided I was tired of fighting the sliding cut off saw we have. At one time it was a nice saw, but it has not received much care. I blew out as much saw dust as I could and did some oiling. Most of it works pretty well now. I also had to make a couple of trips to the "barn". Once for some screws and another time to get the angle grinder. The "barn" is a pole barn with a partial concrete floor. It is the main storage area for ...

This morning Dana's message, Dana is the Pastor at Five Points Baptist Church, was taken from the 7th and 8th chapters of Romans. Some key points: When we sin, and we all sin, it always ends up hurting us. It also often hurts people around us. We tend to focus on the the physical and forget that we are in a spiritual battle. We need the help of Christ if we are to resist the temptation to sin. Satan loves it when we rely on ourselves to fight sin. We will lose. We must enlist the assistance of Jesus to fight the battle. We need to look to God every day and ask Him to show us right from wrong. Christians should be the most accepting people in the world. We know that we are sinners. We have had our eyes opened to our sin and have no excuse. Those who have not accepted Christ are still blind. Satan will make sure non-believers can't see the truth. (I think this last item is part of the explanation for the shape of our nation. Our government continues to increase the rewards for ne...

I didn't do much yesterday. I did finally get the woodwork in the back half of the motor home dusted/polished. I also had a mountain (looked like a mountain in the small RV sinks) of dishes to do. I had not done my dishes after making potato soup and had an extra breakfast dish or two after making pancakes yesterday. The weather was nice yesterday, and looks like it will be nice again today. It hit 80 yesterday and is supposed to do the same today. There were a bunch of college age youth here in one of the weekend groups. It was good to hear them laughing, screaming and having a good time. The other group that was here was on the other side of them camp. I didn't see anything of them. Yesterday evening John stopped by the RV, he was at the camp all day, and asked if I would mind checking on the trash cans in the dining hall after 6, so that he could go home. I told him I had a bag of trash to take to the dumpster and it was no bother. The dumpsters are outside the gate, maybe ...