Math Class

Just in case you were wondering what Billy's classsroom looks like. Here it is from the back. The really old desks with the wooden seats had to be brought in from county storage because of the extra high number of students that he has this year.

There used to be chalk boards all the way around the room. The chalk was starting to aggravate his throat by the end of the day, so he used his classroom improvement money to put a wall of white board up. The second white board wall was added this summer when he decided to turn his room sideways. If nothing else it is much brighter in there with the white walls instead of black. There is a lot less dust too.

There are actually a couple more desks in here since this picture was taken. It is a nice big room, but the seams are being pushed this year.

That ends this tour of Mr. Curry's math room.

The Cake

I was looking at a Taste of Home magazine a few weeks ago and learned about Fondant. I thought they had created some really beautiful cakes and true to my nature - I said "I can do that". What I needed was a subject and people to eat the cake. I wanted to make it, but I did NOT want it sitting in my house waiting to get eaten, because we know it would have been and nobody here needs all that sugar.

The perfect solution worked it's way into my imagination - Billy was heading back to school. He would be starting his very first full year of teaching and I figured some sugar would start it off nicely, plus there would be a whole group of people up there to eat up the product.

So begins the tale of The Cake. A little inspiration, a few ideas, and people to try it on. The project actually started the weekend before when I made the Butter Cream Frosting. I had never made that either and wanted to make sure it turned out okay and since it stores in the fridge so well, I made it early and even practiced frosting by using up a cake mix that was kind of old. That turned out fine so I waited for the real test.

In the beginning there was a chocolate cake and some yellow cupcakes for the people who don't care for chocolate. They were baked with the purpose of becoming a teacher's desk top and some apples. I baked them all on Wednesday, it was soooooo hot in that kitchen. Temps have been over 90 and the late afternoon sun heats up the kitchen side of the house, add in the oven at 350 degrees for dinner and then two loads of cupcakes and then a cake! WOW not often do I want an air conditioner, but this cake project just about pushed me over the edge.

The next day started the frosting. First I trimmed off the top of the chocolate cake to level it into a desk top. Then I sliced the tops of the cupcakes off and used the butter cream to 'glue' them together into roundish apple shapes. I used a couple of the bottoms stacked one on top of the other to make a pencil holder. Then I frosted the desk top. You can see the extra cake pieces in the plastic container, way to many of them!

The next step was by far the messiest and most amazing mess I ever made that actually turned out looking like it was no problem. Billy was there to witness what happens when you melt a package of mini marshmallows in the microwave and then pour in 2 pounds of powdered sugar... and then pour the whole mess onto the tabletop.

It was a HUGE mess. See you are supposed to Crisco up your hands and the table top before getting started. I forgot about the table top. Powder was everywhere! I didn't know where the whole thing was going, but I just kept kneading and kneading until it all somehow turned into a soggy ball of marshmallow and sugar. Luckily dinner was ready about that time so I left the soggy ball sitting in the middle of the mat and put the mixing bowl on top to keep anything from floating into it while I was gone. About a half hour later I came back up and was absolutely amazed to find that the soggy had disappeared. I don't know, but can only assume it was needed deeper in the ball and just soaked in because what I was left with was a perfect mound of fondant. You can see in the picture that it looks like bread dough. Perfect for what I needed. So I split it into pieces and started adding color.

Color is the biggest thing I need to work on if I do this again. I have 8 colors, but how do you make brown for a wooden desktop? I didn't think to look at a color chart before hand and didn't want to fool with it once I got started so I added color and kneaded. Added another color and kneaded. Added another color and kneaded. It finally worked out okay so I rolled it out and cut the size I wanted, it had a beautiful wood grain look, I picked it up and it stretched. Balled it back up, rolled it back out and lost some wood grain, messed that one up too. Balled it back up, rolled it out and most of the wood grain was gone, but I managed to do it right this time. I laid it out on the cake and then started the other pieces.

I added some color to the desktop leavings and wrapped that around the pencil holder. Added a different color to another lump and made a grade book. Got some unused fondant and made a half of a blue ink pen, with cap. Some more and made half of a pencil, with eraser. Then I put toothpicks in the bottom of the halves and stuck them in the top of the pencil holder. Then I rolled out a full pencil, added the eraser, and a bit of lead. Then I added the candy numbers and did some writing on the different pieces.

I ended the day with this. One desktop and a plate full of sorry looking apples. It was an idea that needs some refining. I frosted them with butter cream and used canned frosting with a leaf tip to add leaves and then put some green food coloring on the leaves. Next time, I think I will just let the cupcakes stand on their own. Frost the tops and go on.

The next morning while Billy was in the shower I added some graffiti to the student's side of the desktop. The Athens mascot name is Trojans and I thought a little SC + BC in a heart would embarrass him a little and make the ladies laugh. He thought it was funny too when he saw it.

I dropped the cake and cupcakes off at the school on my way to work Friday. Billy said it was delicious, everyone was surprised, and there was very little left at the end of the day.

Will I do another cake? Yes. Will I take requests? Not too quick. It was a lot of work and really takes some creative motivation. It was also expensive, because it took a lot of time to learn different things and I made too much fondant. Next time I know better how much I really need and with more knowledge I can make a better construction and color plan too.

The Ridge News

Several years ago, like back around 1995 or so Billy got some American Chestnut seedlings from someone who told him about the blight that took out whole forests of Chestnut trees back in the 1940s. So he planted the seedings along the little valley that our creek runs along and sort of forgot about them. Well earlier this year he and his brother Rob noticed that there were some Chestnut hulls laying around under a tree and yesterday we looked for it again. What we found is a really tall American Chestnut tree that is in fruit - has lots of these spiney balls on it that hold the nuts.
Unfortunately, when I went back to take pictures I found out that the tree seems to be in distress by the blight too. I really don't know what the Chestnut blight looks like, I looked on line, but all I found so far was pictures of healthy trees. This is the base of the tree and those cracks go up the trunk pretty much as far as I could see. Doesn't look good for the tree.

I sent an email to the WVU contact of the American Chestnut Foundation telling him what we found and we will see if he has anything to say about it. We wouldn't mind being part of the test for a blight free seedling to try. Since the trees like our soil we could try some more, long as they don't fall down and hurt the cows anyway.

In other Ridge news, Billy's nephew and neice built a house a few years ago and now they have just finished building the garage. The next project is cleaning up in front of the garage so they can use it. Eric rented an excavator to dig out some stumps that didn't come out when they cleared the space earlier. In this picture Billy is running the excavator and Eric is moving dirt with the tractor. That hole to the left was a big stump.

Emily spent some time rearranging dirt too. Jake spent time laying in the cool dirt hoping he didn't get buried or jumped on.
Lauren and her mom Jessica sat on the swing and watched. You can see brother Rob's house on the left side of Lauren's head and our roofline on the right side behind Jessica's head. That is just the right distance, far enough for privacy, but close enough for these group projects.

That is all for now. Later!

Odd Visitor

We had a visitor show up this past weekend that we really never expected to see. She was rumored to have been traveling with the family of some friends, but she had disappeared a few years ago and no one knew to where she had disappeared.

Who is this mysterious visitor? Mrs. Buttersworth of course! Completly decked out in her vintage glass bottle and yellow metal cap.


This Sunday morning she showed up on the farm looking for the Anderson's at their last known address, which is the mobile home that we set up for Grandma and they borrowed while in between homes for a bit.

Now, there are several problems with how she managed to show up here. First of all, this is not their last permanent address, that was in another county. Second, how she got this particular address I have no idea since it is not a registered location with anyone except the electric company, 911 doesn't even know about it and there is no phone! Third, they only lived there for ... ok, it was more than a few days, but it wasn't permanent! The fourth and most obvious reason for why she showed up was because they are currently in the process of finishing (YEAH!) their move to Germany.

That fourth reason for why she came looking for them actually makes perfect sense. What right minded syrup bottle wouldn't want to move to Germany and be the travel icon for a fun family? How else would she manage to get there but by being packed in their luggage? If she did manage to get to the ocean and find a current that would allow her to travel to Europe, her glass bottle design would survive the float, but the metal cap would surely rust through causing her to sink to unknown depths! And then even if y some miracle she did make it, she would have to rely on the kindness of strangers in a strange land who may not appreciate her American icon status to actually deliver her to a place where she could find the Anderson's. How likely is that?

Well, she was completely disappointed that she missed them and is currently standing on a shelf considering ways of catching up with them, but since they fly tomorrow it doesn't look good. I have an idea that she will travel with us to the various places that we go for a while hoping to find the right connection. If she doesn't find a way to hitchhike over there before we go to visit Germany next summer we will make sure she comes along.

Until then - Mrs B. says Stay Sticky Sweet!

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.

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.