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.

The Invisible Blueberry of NC

So I spent a Saturday hour at a Blueberry Festival in Ammon, NC.
That is how long it took. An hour to walk around. Most of that time spent talking to the community center lady, she didn't recognize me so we had to talk. I guess I was the only one there from outside the community.
I told her I was disappointed that there wasn't a blueberry in sight unless you count the ones in the water colors that were for sale.
No blueberry theme decorations, no pie eating contests, no muffins at the church stands, in fact no food at the church stands past 1:15. Having grown up with the Dutch Festival's over laden tables - no food at a church stand was a shocker!!
No carnival with chances to win $14 tigers, but those games are rigged anyway.
I was a little disappointed if you can't tell.
The pictures I took are pretty poor, but I barely remembered to take any as I was leaving.
Here is a picture of the festival.

They had a car/tractor/old engine show. Had to combine it to have something to show I guess.

It was something to do. This weekend hasn't offered any adventures so far either. Good news is I will be heading home in a few days, which is actually two weeks early. I will be moving on to another contract. Still have the potential for travel, so we will see where I go next if anywhere.

Craft Time

In a return to the roots of this blog, pictures of things we have built or made, I decided to get a baseline for my current cross stitch projects. Since I am going to be here so long this time, I brought a couple of cross stitch patterns with me on this trip. I am showing the completion point as of today. I will hopefully be further along by the time I leave. Maybe with the goal of showing you some progress I will actually work on the pictures. I am a bit of a procrastinator on these things.

This first one is what I call the Birthday Bear. I started it in February 2007., minor procrastination at this point. It is one of those name/birth date/weight/length pictures. I hope to have a need for it one of these days.



This second picture provides a much clearer understanding of why I consider myself to be a procrastinator on these projects. It is a picture of a hunter with his beagle. I started this one while I was still in the Air Force. The date was sometime close to January 1994. I worked on it for a while during that summer after I moved to West Virginia. Then I put it away until sometime in 2005. Then I put it away again. We will see if I can get it done this year.

Wish me luck!

North Carolina 4

Hello from North Carolina... AGAIN!
This is my 4th trip down here. Life is like that sometimes. I have been here for a couple of weeks and will be for another 6 weeks. I plan on going home for Memorial Day and hope Billy can come down for a few days after school gets out. So it isn't a horrible situation. I might go home more often, but at $3 a gallon it is hard.

Last weekend one of the guys I am here with invited me to go along to the Special Ops Museum. I have mentioned the place before on this blog, but didn't have my camera along. This time I made sure to take pictures.
This is the building.

The museum has a lot of full size displays.
This one is a C46 cargo plane that was used to transport Paratroopers to their drop zone. There is a trooper in the door ready to go.

The displays cover every historical event that the Special Ops forces have been involved in. This is from the VietNam era.

There are displays for WWII in Europe and Japan along with many other locations. The equipement and mannequins are set up as realistically as possible. Even the "facilities" are included in one display.
Some of the more recently completed displays include Desert Storm and other actions from that area.
This weekend might include some more interesting places. There is a craft fair, an air show, and an Acorn Festival. I am planning on working on some crafts and my tan. Hey, cross stitch on the back patio! What more fun could there be? More later.

Positive Humor

The deed has been done!

The elementary school at which Billy is in his first semester of teaching math decided to have a fund raiser for their Positive Improvement program. The committee decided that if a couple of teachers would volunteer their hair for a week they could get the kids to buy 25 cent chances at deciding how to "fix" their teacher's hair. Mr Curry and Ms Davis volunteered to be the victims. Here is Billy's before picture. He usually wears a flat top style cut so you can imagine how much this mess has been bothering him for the last month. He even has Bangs!

The winner of the middle school contest decided that Billy needed to have a Mohawk with Virginia Tech initials etched in the sides.

And that the initials needed to be colored in the appropriate school colors.

And that the top should split in half to match those school colors too.

This is Billy and Vanessa, the girl who got to pick his hair style. She doesn't have him for math this year, but they will both be back next year.

Here we have Mr Curry and Ms Davis. Life should be interesting in the school halls for the next week. What a change from the long hair he started with today.

There is talk about Ms Davis trimming the sides off and making the top pink during Walk for Life. Mr Curry has even considered letting his go for a few days next week. Maybe with some different colors though. I will be on a business trip for a while so it won't bother me and the kids will really enjoy it.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph news article http://www.bdtonline.com/local/local_story_120195632.html

Jake at 5

I almost forgot to include Jake's birthday picture.

He and Rex were born round about April Fool's Day in 2002, which fit them pretty well. Rex is gone now, but Jake keeps us in line on a daily basis. So here he is at the ripe old age of 5, or I suppose 35 in dog years.

That is all for now.

Fresh Cherry Pie

My red angus cow Cherry had her third calf yesterday. I named this one Cherry Pie, which goes along with my naming scheme of #1 Chocolate Cherry and #2 Black Cherry. They have all been nice black angus calves.
I walked out with the guys when they went to feed the cows and check on the calf today. They use the four wheeler and a cart that Bill built to haul the hay on, in this case a couple of 4x3 round bales.
















After they were finished putting the bales out they went to tend to the calf.
First step is to catch the calf, here Bill has caught Pie, but Cherry isn't too happy about it.



The next step is to move the calf and the cow over to the new born lot. Seperating them keeps the babies from getting trampled in the herd while they get their feet under them.
Here is Rob and Jake (he is the dog) pulling the trailer that holds Bill and Pie, while Cherry chases along behind them trying to catch her baby.













Once they got the calf and cow out of the main field they stopped in the corral to give him his number tag. Cherry kept a close eye on this process too. The rest of the cows were standing behind us watching too. They weren't much happier than she was about the action.








After the calf was tagged and given a shot they let the pair loose in the next field to spend a few days before they go in with the rest of the young calves. They can get pretty wild sometimes, flying across the field with the cows chasing after them, but here Pie is just getting his balance.

Angus Pictures

People have been asking for calf pictures and I have been promising to get them posted, so here you go, finally.

The cows were keeping a pretty close eye on me. At one point I was watching a calf and got on the ground to take a picture of it, turns out the calf's Mom was behind me. When I got smaller than she was by being on the ground she started running at me. I stood up pretty quickly and she turned, but that was a bit exciting for a second.









This little guy looks like he has some attitude. We call him Big Ears because his ears were swollen when the guys tried to give him his numbered tag, which you can see they were not able to complete. His ears must have come out in a bind when he was born. Of course that name might be why he has the attitidue.








This baby was taking a nap, but I managed to wake her up and then she wanted some dinner. The zoom on my camera let me get this close. There is no way I could get this close while the baby was eating otherwise.
















Here the babys are taking a break after their Moms cleaned up a roll of hay.



Well that is all I have for calf pictures right now. There will be more though, my cow Cherry just had her calf today. I hope it is a bull calf they sell better at the market and I have student loans to pay off!!! Yes the grace period has ended.








More pictures coming up soon. We have Jake and Cherry's baby to show off.

Bill's Graduation

Finally we have made it to the big day.
Billy graduated with Cum Laude honors in Elementary Education and Math from Concord University on the 16th of December 2006.


Here he is outside the auditorim before the ceremony.













The line of people in the middle of this picture include his mother, two of his sisters, one brother-in-law, one nephew and one fiancee niece.









Here is "the Man" again waiting his turn to go across the stage.
My stage crossing picture was no good.

He started working "YEAH!" on 2 January. The math degree is what did it, there are plenty of available elementary school teachers, but not one of them was certified in math. So, with 3 math positions available in the county, he was hired before he even graduated. Nice thing about it is that he is working only two miles from the house.


Today is the last day of his first week at work. Things have been going pretty well. The kids don't know what to think of him yet and the other teachers like the environment he creates. I am very happy for him. He is a wonderful husband and a great teacher. The world needs more people like him.

Return to Georgia

I made it back home again and survived Billy's Graduation so now I have time to send out some updates.

First let's look at my second trip to Georgia.
Most weekends were spent doing not too much of anything, but Thanksgiving weekend was included in this trip and I had some visitors. Mom came down to see Paula Deen and Billy came down to see the alligators. LOL I was just there to show them around.

On Thanksgiving Day we went for lunch at Lady and Sons. We showed up about 15 minutes before the seating time and managed to get a table. Some people had been there for a couple of hours just to make sure they got a table. We got lucky on our timing. The food was wonderful, but we should have eaten more when we got the bill. It was fun though. We also went down to the river front and walked around some. Not all of the shops were open, but it wasn't crowded either so that was nice.


We went out to the animal preserve looking for gators and saw lots of turtles. There was a whole family of them getting some sun on some reeds in one location and a few others hanging around in a quiet pond.

















There were a few alligators out there though. We never saw any really big ones, but this one might have done enough damage if he wanted to.

We also went to the beach on Tybee Island one afternoon. Here Mom and Billy are looking for sea shells.

We had a pretty good time for the rest of the weekend. Did some shopping and relaxed a bit.

Once I got home I had a week to get the house ready for Billy's graduation party. I will post that story next time.

Georgia Part 1

HI! Yes it has been a while. I hadn't been on a trip for a while, but that drought is over. I just got back from a 3 week trip to Savannah, Ga. I like to find adventures or at least insteresting sights during these trips as you can see from past blogs. This trip has lots of stuff to see, but the best thing I took pictures of so far is out at the wildlife preserve in South Carolina.


The preserve is basically a swamp with wildlife in it and a four mile road that people can drive through it on. The grass is actually too tall at this time of the year to see much, so we didn't seem very many animals, but I did get some pictures. Like this heron below. It was standing in some shallow water waiting for something to happen.

The alligator below was sitting near the bird, just getting some sun. I missed him the first time I was looking, but he isn't exactly noticable until you know he is there.

We drove through most of the preserve without finding much else, but about 100 yards from the exit we found this little guy. I am pretty sure we were watched all the way through the park. The alligators are out there, they are just hiding.


After I left Georgia and got back to the land of hills, dales, and real trees I noticed how the leaves were just barely hanging on to their leaves. So I took the scenic route from the airport and snapped some pictures. Here is one that shows the top of the world from my angle.


I have another trip to Georgia in a couple of weeks. So look for new pictures. Later!