Amazing!

Well, it has happened the dream, the impossible dream has come true. It took about 3 years of threats (he said... "I am going to do it") and promises (I said... "If you do I will") and finally we have had a result.

"I am going to do it" finally resulted in a cleaned out garage.

This is my parking spot... look at the organization!
This is Bill's parking spot... that is space and a clear work bench.

There is a pretty good reason for why it took so long. First it was just not time yet and then Grandma decided it was time to leave the mountain and she moved in next to us so a lot of her stuff moved into the garage. We put up a building to hold it, but there were some heavy pieces, cookstove and coal stoves, along with some odds and ends that just never got moved. That finally got taken care of in the last few weeks and now there is already a project in the work shop end of the garage so that is good.
Which leads us to my obligation and the "If you do I will" promises of that first comment. The other thing that is in the work shop end of the garage is this monster that I promised to buy him if he would get the garage cleaned out and organized.

Notice it is so big that Billy can hide behind it! What did I do?
He is a happy camper now. The Big air compressor is his. Now of course comes the fun part. It has to be bolted in and metal discharge lines need to be run to different points in the garage - for example - I want a connection on my end so I can air up my tires without unrolling 40 feet of hose. I know that is a really minor reason to buy this big of a tank, but it is important to me. I am looking forward to some of the projects we have discussed, it should be fun.

Speaking of fun, I found this piece of foam packing in the office one day a while back. It struck me as pretty funny, maybe you find it funny too.



That is all for now. Later!

Around the house

Nothing much happening this week. We are just working our way through summer now that vacation is over. Bill is getting some projects done around the farm during summer break. One of the things he has been thinking about for the last year or so is a plan to build a round bale hay wagon. He had access to an old mobile home trailer and plenty of wood to make his frame, so he did it.

Bill's round bale hay wagon.

Ok, it is a bad picture, they put up the hay while I was in NC and then parked it in one of the barn stalls and this is all I could do for a picture at the moment. It is dual axeled, 20 feet long, and able to carry 8 round bales while being pulled by a pickup. In a 2,2,1,1,2 configuration down the rails. It could probably carry more, but the tractors we have at the moment can't reach any higher to load it, so you work with what you have. Being able to carry 8 is a lot of help though, otherwise all 8 bales would have to be carried to the barn individually.

Other than that all I have to show you is some views that make up my world.

The view out my office window.

the horses

and Poochy.

Have a nice week.

More Georgia Vacation

Hi again.
We are home now from our vacation stay at Mom's in Georgia. It was a nice visit, Billy got most of her projects finished - the antenna removed, replaced some shingles that had blown off, tarred some cracks, proved the lawn mower just needed a battery charge, new mailbox, tree trimmed, air filter changed, and tried to fix a drawer that is still too wide. It was a busy few days, but that stuff all keeps him from getting too bored. I don't need so much motivation, but try to help when I can not cause too much trouble.

After we got the projects done we went looking for another roadside attraction.


The Athens Double Barreled Cannon. It was built by the Confederate Army to use during the war. In case you can't blow up the sign to read about the cannon it basically tells the story of how the cannon was designed to fire two cannon balls connected by a chain to "mow down the enemy somewhat as a sythe cuts wheat". The test firing failed because they couldn't fire both cannons at the same time, causing the chain to break and the cannon balls to fly off on an eratic trajectory. Since there was no way to solve the problem they parked it and has since been an object of curiousity sitting by the Athens City Hall... by the way, the cannon is pointed North, just in case.

Another curiosity we found during our drive around Athens was this steeple. We had no idea what it was, but I like taking pitures of curious things so we stopped and did just that. It looked like it might have been interesting at one time, but the base is crumbling and the weather is getting into the bricks. If it was further north it would have been ruined by water freezing in the cracks, but its location seems to have preserved it a bit, and someone has bothered to close it up with plywood to keep people out.

After I got back to Mom's I did a little research and discovered that this steeple does indeed have a bit of history. I found this on a website somewhere...
“The Church,” where R.E.M. lived, recorded and appeared in the 1986 documentary “Athens, Ga.: Inside/Out,” [which] was torn down in 1990 to make way for condominiums. The steeple is all that remains of the old St. Mary’s Episcopal Church. It’s beginning to crumble and owners of the Steeplechase Condominiums have found no takers willing to adopt the landmark, with its liability concerns and thousands of dollars in needed repairs.
So I did find something interesting! Are you wondering about the music of that time? Check out this link to an R.E.M. website and checkout the album "And I feel fine... The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987". There is a lot of information about the band there too.
http://www.remhq.com/albums.php

The last thing I found on our little trip around Athens brings us back to reality.
A pig on the roof of a Pork BBQ hut.
I just had to include it for my redneck loving friends out there in cyber space! I am just sorry I missed the one I saw on the roof of a pickup truck in a countryside junkyard, now I wish we had turned around to get that picture!
Well, vacation is over and we are back home. I have to go to work and write about supply stuff and Billy has a bunch of farm projects to get started on.
Have a nice summer!

Day 1 and 2 of July Georgia Vacation

Hello Everyone.
We decided to take a vacation to Mom's over the 4th of July week. So far it has been two days and we have been on an adventure and made major improvements to Mom's house already!
Before we came down here Billy declared that he had never been to Alabama and he wanted to go during this trip, D%^$ the price of gas we were going to make a 3 hour road trip... beyond the 6 hours it took to drive here in the first place! So I went on line and found a couple of attractions worth the trip. We chose the Mountain Top Flea Market in Attalla, Alabama as our destination with a side trip to the (formerly) Biggest Chair in the World in Annniston.
On Sunday, the 1st of July we took off for Alabama. I didn't bother with a picture of the flea market. It was big and the temperature was very hot already at 830 in the morning. We walked around for 2 hours, found a couple of things besides water to spend money on got back on the road.
On the way back we found this dreamy Alabama condo. It really was a pretty sight.



On our way back we went looking for the chair in Anniston. As you see below we found it, but not because the town is proud of it or anything, almost by accident. I had looked this up before going there and I think this is a different chair than is shown on the Roadsideattractions.com website, but it is still big and now part of our story.


Today is Monday, 2 July.
One of our biggest projects for this trip was to help Mom get her old, unused TV antenna off the roof. She didn't ever need it, but it was there, so Billy climbed up there with one of Mom's friends who needed an antenna to remove it. Here is the beginning of what could have been a real adventure.

Luckily it was not a problem. The whole assembly came down just fine and when they got done the trash man showed up just in time to haul off the old support wires.

Another big project for this trip required some pre-travel research and coaching, but we got Mom through the process of switching from Charter cable to DishNetwork. She told us she was paying way too much for not enough channels and fuzzy locals. Now she has all channels (ok, minus Hallmark) clear and she can record her favorites on DVR. We are happy with it too, channel guides and real information is so much better than cable! So here is a picture of the new flower growing in Mom's yard.

That is our trip so far, well besides a trip here to Jittery Joe's where we can get a caffine zoom while hitting the Internet! We have more roadside attractions to find in the area so keep an eye out for us on the web.