Nick Russell

Range Backstop Day 2

 Posted by at 12:30 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 212023
 

Yesterday Travis and I worked on the backstop for the shooting range for several hours and have pretty much got it completed. The first step was to put one more railroad tie on top of the front row of ties, then we used 2x4s and lag screws to secure all three stacks of ties together. As I said in a blog the other day, it’s not pretty, but it will definitely stop anything I’m going to shoot at it.

With that done, we took the front forks off the tractor and put on the bucket loader. The part I bought at Tractor Supply the other day to replace the adjuster arm for the three-point hitch did not work after all, so we couldn’t put the 400+ pound box blade on the back of the tractor for added stability. Which meant we knew we would besomewhat limited in how much dirt we could move with the bucket. But even so, Travis did a great job attacking a big pile of dirt that’s been sitting in the back pasture for years. It’s been there for so long that it was almost rock hard and took a lot of work to break up enough to move.

He could load up to three bucket loads of dirt into the back of the Kawasaki Mule, which helped the process move along quite a bit.

Once we had the Mule loaded, he would also take a bucket full of dirt with the tractor to the backstop and pile it up in front of the railroad ties. Then I would back the Mule up and we would use the dump bed to empty it.

It was a slow process, but we eventually had a big pile of dirt that would help stop any bullet before it got to the backstop. By the time we got done I think we had almost as much dirt on ourselves as we did in front of the backstop.

Since he did so much of the work, I thought it only fitting that Travis be the first to take a shot at the backstop. We put some empty soda cans in front of the dirt and he perforated them very nicely.

Even though I’m sure that what we have now is more than enough for safety’s sake, I still want to get a little more dirt piled up in front, and also in back, of the railroad ties. But I think I will wait until Tuscaloosa Tractor gets the part I need in for the three-point hitch so I can use the back blade to compact everything once all the dirt is moved. It’s been an interesting project, and now I’m looking forward to getting out there and burning up some ammo!

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of my friend Suzie O’Connell’s Starlight Magic, from her popular Northstar romance series. Can the magic of the stars heal a tormented soul? Single father Brodie Dunn aims to find out by putting his heart on the line. Recently widowed artist Celeste Dawson desperately needs a tranquil place where she can rebuild herself. Two months after her husband’s violent death her career is in jeopardy and she can’t engage in the art that was once her escape from the world. She hopes a trip to Northstar will help her find peace. There’s no place better for healing, especially after she meets her charming new neighbor, ski hill owner Brodie. He suspects Celeste is going to be trouble right from the start, but he can’t ignore the pain in her eyes. On the saddest night of his life, he made a promise under the stars to laugh instead of cry and to help any wounded heart he comes across. He’s sure that philosophy and maybe a little starlight magic will do wonders for Celeste…if his apparent inability to take anything seriously doesn’t drive her mad first. A tale of forgiveness and hope, Starlight Magic will grab you by the heart.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – When the past comes knocking, don’t answer. It has nothing new to tell you.

Four-Legged Compass

 Posted by at 12:57 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 202023
 

Some of you may think I spend my life writing mystery novels and playing on my tractor, but that’s far from the truth. I’m a multifaceted person who is interested in all kinds of things, believe it or not. I’m always finding some weird rabbit hole to go down when I’m browsing online, and sometimes I even work those kind of things into a story. I’m just not sure how to make this latest bit of trivia fit into a Big Lake book.

By now you’re all familiar with Alli, my Velcro German shepherd. I call her that because just like Velcro, from the day we brought her home in early June, she’s been stuck to my side. That’s a common trait of German shepherds. While they love and protect their entire family, both two legged and four legged, they always seem to hone in on one person who becomes pretty much the center of their world. I’m thrilled it’s me, though sometimes I do get tired of tripping over her every time I turn around, and I would really like to go to the bathroom all by myself someday.

As I said, German shepherds love all their family. Alli is particularly fond of Mai Lyn, one of Terry’s kittens. Well, I guess she’s almost a cat now, but she is still a mischievous little ball of fur. And even though Alli is a giant compared to her, they get along very well. Mai Lyn will lie on Terry’s lap or the footrest of her recliner and Alli will lick her face, hug her with her paw, and they will cuddle. How cute is that?

Speaking of going to the bathroom (yes I’m really going to talk about that this early in the morning), I don’t just have a dog. As it turns out, I also have a four-legged compass. I learned this in one of those rabbit holes I went down into the other day. According to an article on PBS NewsHour, a study published in the journal Frontiers in Zoology reveals that dogs seem to have some kind of built-in directional ability and use the Earth’s magnetic fields when they’re going potty. The article says not only that, but that dog’s do so on a north-south axis. According to the two-year study, involving 70 dogs made up of over 35 breeds, researchers found that given a choice, dogs preferred to “excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis, avoiding east-west altogether.” Of course, I had to watch Alli carefully for a few days to see it it’s true, and it seems to be. So there you go, you don’t need a GPS, just Fido.

In other news, for the first time in weeks Terry felt up to going to town yesterday, so that’s what we did, and got quite a bit accomplished. We stopped at Lowe’s and bought a couple of extra chairs for the deck, two pairs of work gloves for me because if I’m not losing them Alli is running off with them and eventually bringing them back, as well as a couple of other things. Then we went to Tuscaloosa Tractor and I ordered the adjuster arm I need for my tractor ‘s three-point hitch. Since it won’t be in until later in the week, I stopped Tractor Supply and picked up something else that might work for a while so Travis and I can work on the range backstop today. We also went to the Shrimp Basket for an early dinner, and then went to Publix to stock up on groceries for the next couple of weeks.

By the time we got home Terry was feeling rather tired from so much activity, so once the groceries were put away we relaxed in our recliners for the rest of the evening.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. We saw this on an SUV in Tuscaloosa yesterday. I guess if you don’t have a stick family to brag about, you just have to make do.

Thought For The Day – Some days, you’re the pigeon, some days you’re the statue. Just live with it.

Range Backstop Day 1

 Posted by at 12:30 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 192023
 

Our son Travis and I have been looking forward to getting the shooting range set up, and yesterday was the first day of working on the project. While some people just depend on the heavy woods around here to serve as a backstop, and we have hundreds of acres of forest behind our property, I have seen the damage a bullet can do too many times to take a chance that there might be somebody out wandering around enjoying Mother Nature and be injured. I wanted something that was safer and capable of stopping anything we might be shooting.

I had originally planned to erect the backstop at the back end of the barn road, but we discovered the ground there is just too unlevel, so instead we went up higher, in line with the rear of the barn. This won’t give me as much yardage as I had planned for, but it’s more than enough for handgun shooting, which I do a lot more of than with a rifle. Sometime down the road we may erect a second longer range backstop for rifles, but for now this will do the job.

A while back a friend dropped off a bunch of used railroad ties for the project, so we started the day by first pounding four metal T-posts into the ground to be on the back of the ties to help hold them in place. Then Travis got on the Kubota tractor, and using the forklift attachment, we began stacking the railroad ties two deep. He spent some time working as a forklift driver years ago and has a much better feel for it than I do and was able to put them exactly where we needed them.

As I said in yesterday’s blog, one of the adjuster arms for the three-point hitch seems to have gotten cross threaded, so I wasn’t able to leave the 400+ pound box blade on the rear of the tractor. I knew that would make it somewhat squirrelly when moving the ties because more of the weight would be on the front end, and we quickly found that out when the right side wheels came off the ground an inch or so. That was exciting! Travis quickly lowered the forks all the way down, lowering the center of gravity. After that we decided to just move one tie at a time, even though it would take longer.

Once we had several layers of ties stacked up, we took a couple of long 2x4s that were left over from the demolition of the rear part of the barn and attached them as uprights to the back of the ties with five inch lag screws. This will help to further reinforce the stack of ties.

We both expected the job to take much longer than it did, but within about four hours we had almost all of the ties in place. This gives us a backstop that is about six feet high and three ties deep, and each railroad tie averages eight or nine inches thick. As it turns out they are also not quite the same length, so the backstop is not quite as uniform as I had expected, but averages eight feet wide. It’s more than enough to stop any kind of bullet I will be shooting. When it’s completed I will also be adding sandpiles in front and back, as an added safety measure.

Travis and I both have other things to do today, but the plan is to get together on Wednesday to tighten things up and finish the job. I’m really looking forward to it, and I appreciate all of your help, Son. I always enjoy working on projects together with you.

About the time I got back taking Travis home, our friend Crystal Abrams was pulling in the driveway to drop off a bunch of freshly picked tomatoes, frozen sliced freshly picked okra, and freshly frozen garden peas. Thanks for the goodies, Crystal!

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. This is why I don’t get invited to the family reunions anymore.

Thought For The Day – Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?

Feeling Better

 Posted by at 12:25 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 182023
 

Thank you to everyone who has asked how Terry is feeling. After three weeks of being miserable, it seems the last round of meds is helping and she is feeling quite a bit better. She still gets fatigued easily and is fretting because she doesn’t have the energy to do everything she wants to get done, but she has not spiked a fever in over a week and says she doesn’t ache all over as she had been doing. I’ll admit this had us both scared, and we’re grateful for everyone’s prayers and positive thoughts.

She felt well enough the other day to model the new shirt I bought her. I think the world deserves to know what an amazing man she married. 😊

With Terry still being forced to take it easy, something she’s not very good at, I’ve been occupying my time with getting some small chores done around the property. Things like mowing the back pasture, extending the lengths of conduit we use to hold up the shade cover over Alli’s outside kennel, emptying and cleaning her little swimming pool in it and then refilling it, and such.

I spent some time working on my Kubota tractor yesterday. One of the adjuster arms for the three-point hitch seems to have gotten cross threaded and I tried to fix it. As it turned out, that job is above my pay grade. I think this one is going to require a trip to Tuscaloosa Tractor to get resolved. I called my buddy Jesse Bolton down in Florida and told him my life was a lot easier when he lived right across the street and was always happy to help me with things like that.

Today our son Travis is coming over and we are going to get started on building the backstop for the shooting range. This is a project we have both been looking forward to doing. I’ll have more on that in tomorrow’s blog.

Congratulations Butch Williams, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of my friend Ken Rossignol’s Murder USA. These stories of murders and of a few cases of attempted murder over 60 years include vivid descriptions of ghastly crimes not intended for the faint of heart or children. Many of these murders went unsolved for long periods, and some still have not been solved or had justice obtained for the victims. One case of a killer allowed out of a mental health facility after he killed two people on the East Coast allowed him to rape and murder 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Another serial killer wiped out an entire family in one night of terror and is believed to have killed dozens more. A task force that included 75 FBI agents and a dozen county and state police from two states found the killer who set the gold standard for serial killers. Then there are the stories of a rare case of an Amish murder-suicide and that of a Navy ensign who killed his estranged wife’s lover with a crossbow.

We had 21 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon! Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. Does anyone else see the irony here?

Thought For The Day – Don’t block all of your haters. Love a couple so they can report back to headquarters.

World’s Largest Killer Bee

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 172023
 

I’ve only been stung by bees a couple of times in my life but I don’t remember it as being a pleasant experience. So I’m sure being stung by a killer bee, or worse yet, a swarm of them, wouldn’t be much fun either.

So why does the little town of Hidalgo, Texas have a monument to killer bees? And not just a monument, but what it claims to be the World’s Largest Killer Bee? And it sits right in front of City Hall. If you asked the folks in Hidalgo, they would probably shrug their shoulders and ask, “why not?” After all, the first colony of Africanized killer bees was found near Hidalgo in October, 1990.

The whole thing started back in the 1950s, when South American scientists attempted to crossbreed African bees with the more common European honeybee. A handful of the African queen bees managed to escape and quickly began making bee babies with the local bees. The result was a hybrid species that has become infamous for the way they attack in swarms.

An individual Africanized bee is not all that dangerous. In fact, according to what I have read, their venom is actually less potent than that of the common European bee. The problem is that they are very territorial, and when anything threatens their hive, or even makes them believe there is a threat, they attack viciously. This could be something as simple as the sound of a car going by, or somebody straying too close to their hive. It’s not uncommon for their victims to be stung hundreds of times, and there have been hundreds of fatalities among both humans and animals.

The Africanized bees are also very mobile animals, continuously moving northward. Since that first colony was discovered near Hidalgo in 1990, they have been located in many areas of Texas, as well as Arizona, California, and Nevada.

But while other areas have done everything they can to minimize the damage from the bees, the good folks of Hidalgo seem to have welcomed them with open arms. Maybe they figured that if they treated them nice, the bees wouldn’t sting anybody. Kind of like those Native Americans who fed the Pilgrims so long ago. How did that work out? But maybe it worked for the good people of Hidalgo, since I cannot confirm or deny any attacks locally.

We saw a lot of “world’s largest” things in our travels around the country, everything from the World’s Largest Thermometer in Baker, California, to the World’s Largest Spinach Can in Alama, Arkansas. And let’s not forget the World’s Largest Peanut in Ashburn, Georgia, or the World’s Largest Clam in Long Beach, Washington, to name just a few. But none of those things could hurt you. Well, I guess they could if you are allergic to peanuts. But the World’s Largest Killer Bee? No, that’s the thing of nightmares.

But what the heck? If you are an RV snowbird spending the winter in the Rio Grande Valley and want to take a walk on the wild side, you might want to pay a visit to Hidalgo and check it out. After all, the town spent twenty grand on the darned thing. Somebody ought to go look at it! But keep your car’s windows up, just in case.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of my friend Ken Rossignol’s Murder USA. These stories of murders and of a few cases of attempted murder over 60 years include vivid descriptions of ghastly crimes not intended for the faint of heart or children. Many of these murders went unsolved for long periods, and some still have not been solved or had justice obtained for the victims. One case of a killer allowed out of a mental health facility after he killed two people on the East Coast allowed him to rape and murder 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Another serial killer wiped out an entire family in one night of terror and is believed to have killed dozens more. A task force that included 75 FBI agents and a dozen county and state police from two states found the killer who set the gold standard for serial killers. Then there are the stories of a rare case of an Amish murder-suicide and that of a Navy ensign who killed his estranged wife’s lover with a crossbow.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – It is easier to love humanity as a whole than on an individual basis.

Mr. Fixit

 Posted by at 12:30 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 162023
 

Yesterday morning started with a visit from a man named Wayne and his lady friend Anita, who came to pick up the old sheet metal from the barn roof and any other metal I had laying around to take to a recycler. They had a utility trailer, but were able to bend the long sheets of metal enough to get them all onto the back of it. Then they loaded up all of the barbed wire and a bunch of T-posts that had gotten too bent to reuse when I pulled them out of the ground. They were happy to have all of the metal and I was grateful to get rid of it and get the area cleaned up, so it was a win-win situation for everybody involved. I told Wayne I would give him a call if I had anything else like that that needed hauled away.

When I was a teenager in Toledo, Ohio, there was a small shop called Mr. Fixit, run by a little gnome of a man called Walter, who wore thick glasses, walked with a limp, and whose hands were gnarled and twisted by arthritis. But just as the name of his business proclaimed, Walter could fix anything. This was in an era when products weren’t built with planned obsolescence. If your vacuum cleaner or mixer or television broke, you didn’t throw it in the trash and run out to Best Buy to replace it. Instead, you took it to somebody like Walter and he tinkered around with whatever it was and got it running again.

My buddies and I liked hanging out with Walter because he knew every dirty joke in the world and gave us important advice like “don’t let the little head do the thinking for the big one.” He also told us that if a broken down old man like him could get up and go to work every day, so could we, and that nobody in the world owed us anything, so if we wanted something we had to work hard to get it. That advice echoed the words my father told me all the time.

I think I remember most of the jokes Walter told us back in the day, and though I’m not mechanically inclined, back then I had an interest in electronics and he and my shop teacher at Libbey High School, Jim Summers, taught me quite a bit. Enough that I used to earn some spending money picking up old TVs and radios and getting them working again and selling them. That knowledge has served me well over the years, including being able to completely wire our MCI bus conversion when we built it.

Even now it comes in handy occasionally. We had an outdoor electrical outlet that wasn’t working, mounted on the back of the garage on the old deck, and after Wayne and Anita left with the scrap metal, I decided to play Mr. Fixit. After turning off the breaker in the garage, the first step was to remove the waterproof cover and then unscrew the receptacle from the box.

Then I disconnected the wiring from it and replaced it with a new GFI receptacle.

After that it was a simple case of attaching the receptacle to the box and putting the cover back on. Easy peasy.

With that done I took on another project that was out of my very narrow area of expertise. In a blog titled Jamming In The Woods a few days ago, I reported that the Earthquake 33968 K32 wood chipper/shredder I ordered from Amazon back in July had gotten jammed when I was trying to clear up some of the broken limbs laying around the property. After doing some Google research and watching a couple of YouTube videos, I decided to see if I could do anything with it.

After removing the three screws that held an access plate on the back of the chipper, I was able to find several thick pieces of wood that had gotten through the blades without being broken down, and jammed everything up. Using a small pry bar and a bit of elbow grease I was able to work them loose with some difficulty and free things up. Then, when I turned on the switch and pulled the starter cord the chipper fired right up and worked fine again. If I wasn’t so lazy, I might be tempted to put up my own Mr. Fixit sign and see if I can make a buck now and then. Yeah, you’re right. That’s probably not a good idea. 😊

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of my friend Ken Rossignol’s Murder USA. These stories of murders and of a few cases of attempted murder over 60 years include vivid descriptions of ghastly crimes not intended for the faint of heart or children. Many of these murders went unsolved for long periods, and some still have not been solved or had justice obtained for the victims. One case of a killer allowed out of a mental health facility after he killed two people on the East Coast allowed him to rape and murder 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Another serial killer wiped out an entire family in one night of terror and is believed to have killed dozens more. A task force that included 75 FBI agents and a dozen county and state police from two states found the killer who set the gold standard for serial killers. Then there are the stories of a rare case of an Amish murder-suicide and that of a Navy ensign who killed his estranged wife’s lover with a crossbow.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. Tell me more about this gravy hot tub.

Thought For The Day – It’s simple, if it jiggles, it’s fat.

The Past Lives At Horne Creek Farm

 Posted by at 12:40 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 152023
 

You can step back into the past and experience the South’s rural heritage at Horne Creek Living Historical Farm in North Carolina.

Once the Hauser family farm, Horne Creek Farm is now a North Carolina State Historic Site, providing visitors a look at farm life in North Carolina’s northwestern Piedmont region in the early 1900s, when Thomas and Charlotte Hauser and their twelve children worked this prosperous 450 acre farm.

For thousands of years before the first European settlers arrived, the area was used as a camp and hunting grounds by the Indians. In 1779, John Horne was awarded a land grant to the property, but never developed it. The land went through several hands before John Hauser acquired it in 1830 and established a small family farm. With the help of his wife, seven children, and three slaves, Hauser cleared the land and prospered.

The Hauser family fell on hard times during the Civil War. The three oldest sons all served in the Confederate Army, and two of them died of disease by war’s end. The war brought financial ruin to much of the South, and the farm’s value dropped from $2,600 in 1860 to less than $1,000 by the time the war was over. With slavery over and only his son Thomas left to help with the farm, John Hauser had to work hard to recover, but he did so much faster than many of his neighbors. Within five years he was producing more crops than he had before the war started.

In 1875, Thomas Hauser married Charlotte Kreeger, and the young couple built the farmhouse that now stands at Horne Creek Farm. Eventually Thomas took over the farm’s operation and continued to prosper, through hard work and dedication.

The Hauser family is gone now, but their traditions and lifestyle live on through costumed interpreters who grow vegetables, wheat, corn, oats, and tobacco, plowing the fields with horses and mules, mending harnesses and fences, and demonstrating old time skills like chair caning and churning butter.

The site includes the Hauser family’s original two story farm house, a tobacco curing barn (below) , corn crib, and other outbuildings, along with cultivated fields, and a heritage apple orchard.

The family home is furnished with period items, including portraits of the Horne family hanging on the walls, and a quilt frame with an unfinished quilt, just waiting for the lady of the house to return and take up where she left off.

The kitchen holds an impressive wood cook stove, and the table is set for dinner.

The Hausers were a happy and loving family who made their own entertainment, as evidenced by the Parcheesi game on an end table, a stereoscopic viewer, and the handsome 1890 pump organ in the parlor.

It took a long time for modern conveniences like electricity to reach this isolated region, but the Hauser family still lived in comfort for their times. Outside, a milk well keeps eggs and milk cool even on hot summer days.

At different times during the year, visitors can watch the costumed interpreters performing routine farm chores as they were done in the old days, and even participate in events like corn shuckings and fall festivals.

The first stop at Horne Creek is the Visitor Center, where you can see examples of rural crafts and equipment, and browse a small gift display. The woman on duty during our visit was very friendly and eager to share information about the farm’s history.

Special events throughout the year focus on farm and domestic life of the early 1900s, such as sheep shearing, pie baking, corn shucking, ice cream socials, musical afternoons, children’s games, and plowing with draft animals. Hands-on activities are available spring, summer, and fall for scheduled groups. Guided tours are available upon request.

From the Visitor Center, a short path leads to the farm buildings, winding past orchards, a tobacco shed, and farm fields where mules work in harness. The quarter-mile long Horne Creek Nature Trail starts at the Visitor Center and passes through the historic area, past the family cemetery, along Horne Creek, and through a beautiful wooded ridge, returning to the Visitor Center parking lot. The cemetery is the final resting place of descendants of the Hauser family, and several unidentified graves are probably slaves.

The Visitor Center is wheelchair accessible from a gravel parking lot. The path to the farmhouse is accessible with wheelchair assistance or by van for groups. Gravel pathways access the farmhouse, and wheelchairs will need assistance. The house itself is preserved in its original state, and is not wheelchair accessible.

Horne Creek Living Historical Farm is open Tuesday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and is closed Sundays, Mondays, and most major holidays. The farm is located at 308 Horne Creek Farm Road, about six miles from Pinnacle, North Carolina.

From Interstate 74/U.S. 52, take the Pinnacle exit (129) and follow the signs southwest on Perch Road, approximately 3½ miles to Hauser Road. Turn right on Hauser Road, and go approximately 2½ miles. Horne Creek Living Historical Farm is on the left. The roads are narrow and winding through here, and large RVs would have difficulty. The parking lot at Horne Creek Farm will accommodate RVs if it is not very busy. Admission is free except during events sponsored by Horne Creek Farm’s support group, when a nominal fee is charged. Donations are accepted and appreciated. For more information on Horne Creek Farm, call (336) 325-2298 or visit the farm’s website at https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/horne-creek-farm

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of my friend Ken Rossignol’s Murder USA. These stories of murders anda few cases of attempted murder over 60 years include vivid descriptions of ghastly crimes not intended for the faint of heart or children. Many of these murders went unsolved for long periods, and some still have not been solved or had justice obtained for the victims. One case of a killer allowed out of a mental health facility after he killed two people on the East Coast allowed him to rape and murder 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Another serial killer wiped out an entire family in one night of terror and is believed to have killed dozens more. A task force that included 75 FBI agents and a dozen county and state police from two states found the killer who set the gold standard for serial killers. Then there are the stories of a rare case of an Amish murder-suicide and that of a Navy ensign who killed his estranged wife’s lover with a crossbow.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Middle age is when work is a lot less fun and fun is a lot more work.

Busted Their Butts

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 142023
 

Our son Travis and his wife Geli are two of the hardest working people around, there’s no question about that. They came over yesterday morning to help me load the pile of debris from the barn into the rented dumpster, and I think we all expected it to take a couple of days. But when they set to work, they are focused and get the job done. Within about four hours this big pile of twisted sheet metal roofing, old lumber, insulation, and whatever else was holding the back part of the barn together was gone.

And now it looks like this. I just have a few little pieces of insulation to pick up and throw away and it’s all done. Thanks Travis and Geli, you made this job so much easier than I expected.

One thing that helped is that someone wanted to take all of the sheet metal and any other metal we have around here to be recycled. So we set that all aside.

I also had a bunch of wire fencing lying around that they are also going to take. I would much rather see it recycled than go into a landfill.

I was also amazed that once we took the sheet metal and the wire out of the picture, everything fit into the dumpster, with room to spare. That’s okay because Travis has a couple of things at their place that he needs to get rid of. I’ll stop by there in the next couple of days and throw them in the back of the truck to bring over here and put in the dumpster.

While we were working on that, Donald Hann showed up to say hello. Donald and I have been Facebook friends for a long time, and at one time he also owned a bus conversion and did the RV thing like we did. Now, like us, he’s off the road and lives in Reform, about ten miles from here. Don has been very helpful in giving us advice about local businesses and other good information that has made our relocation to this area of Alabama easier. It was nice to put a face with a name, and hopefully we’ll get together now and then as time permits. Thanks for stopping by, Donald.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of my friend Ken Rossignol’s Murder USA. These stories of murders anda few cases of attempted murder over 60 years include vivid descriptions of ghastly crimes not intended for the faint of heart or children. Many of these murders went unsolved for long periods, and some still have not been solved or had justice obtained for the victims. One case of a killer allowed out of a mental health facility after he killed two people on the East Coast allowed him to rape and murder 3,000 miles away on the West Coast. Another serial killer wiped out an entire family in one night of terror and is believed to have killed dozens more. A task force that included 75 FBI agents and a dozen county and state police from two states found the killer who set the gold standard for serial killers. Then there are the stories of a rare case of an Amish murder-suicide and that of a Navy ensign who killed his estranged wife’s lover with a crossbow.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Have some patience, I’m screwing things up as fast as possible.

More Tests, More Meds, No Answers

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 132023
 

A couple of times in the last few days Terry has said she feels almost halfway human again, but then she seems to relapse. Monday night she had another fever and when it broke sometime in the middle of the night the sheets were wet from her sweating.

Tomorrow makes three weeks of this and we are obviously both very concerned. She had a follow up appointment at Pickens County Primary Care yesterday, then after going over what’s been done so far they ran a bunch of new blood tests, looking for everything from Lyme disease to Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, and a bunch of other maladies that I can’t even remember the names of. They also took a chest X-ray, which came back clear. They prescribed another round of even heavier antibiotics than she’s had before, along with some other meds. They said it could take two to three weeks to get all of the results of the tests back.

After a stop at CVS in Gordo to pick up her prescriptions we went next door to Subway and had sandwiches and got home a little before 4 PM. Soon after, Terry went to bed and slept for close to four hours, which is unheard of for her during the daytime. I checked in on her frequently while she was sleeping, but I figured rest was the best thing for her at this point. We’re keeping our fingers crossed and hoping for some news soon.

It had been pretty warm during the day but cooled down quite a bit in the afternoon, so while Terry was sleeping I spent a couple of hours trying to load some of the barn debris into the dumpster. It’s a hard job for one person to do, even with the help of the tractor. This morning Travis and Geli are coming over to give me a hand.

While we are doing that we need to be very careful for snakes. Our neighbors reported killing a huge rattlesnake at the end of their driveway, right across the street from our place, as well as a smaller one, in the last few days.

On another note, besides shedding a lot of hair, which all German shepherds do, every time Alli drank out of her big water bowl it made a mess. So I found an Upsky dog bowl on Amazon and ordered one of them. These are very cool because they have a floating centerpiece over the water, which eliminates the great majority of drips. An RVing friend of ours said that they use one in their motorhome and they never have any spills or messes even when driving down the highway.

It took Alli a few minutes to figure it out because she has to put her tongue down against the centerpiece to access the water, but after figuring that out it was easy for her. I’ve even seen Terry’s kittens drinking out of it with no problem.

It seems like we can never have enough knives around for different things we need to do, so at the same time I ordered the dog bowl, I also ordered a couple of DeWalt folding knives, one for the big toolbox in the garage and another for the smaller toolbox out in the barn. They are lightweight, super sharp and strong, and very affordable.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – At this point I’ve ordered so much from Amazon that I don’t even know what’s happening anymore. If UPS shows up with a llama tomorrow, it is what it is.

Gonna Need A Bigger Dumpster

 Posted by at 12:50 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 122023
 

Ever since I had Scott and Alan Banks from Banks Construction LLC tear down the back part of the barn last month, which was falling in and beyond repair, I have been waiting for it to cool down enough to get a dumpster out here to load all of the debris into to be hauled away. It’s a big pile consisting of old sheet metal roofing, wood, and foam insulation.

With the lower temperatures we had last week and the weatherman saying it looked like summer had given its last gasp, it seemed like it was time to order that dumpster from Bin There Dump That in Tuscaloosa. I asked to have the dumpster delivered yesterday morning, and it will be here a week before they pick it up. But when it was dropped off, I was dismayed to see how small it really is.

I have only myself to blame, because I ordered the largest size they have available, a 20 cubic yard dumpster. Their website clearly states that it is 11′ long, 8′ wide, and 6′ high. But somehow I misread that and thought it was 20 feet long. One look at it and one look at the size of the pile of material I have to get rid of told me I’m going to need a bigger dumpster. Or a second delivery of another one. Or maybe just a big bonfire. I haven’t decided which yet.

However it doesn’t matter right now because apparently the weatherman lied to me. It was 91 degrees here yesterday, with a heat index of 98. What happened to those 80s we had last week? I tried to do a little bit of work outside during the afternoon, but all I managed to do was drag all of the old deer fencing and a big tangled pile of barbed wire into the dumpster. By then I was drenched with sweat and knew it was time to stop.

The good news is that the temperatures really are supposed to drop down into the low to mid 80s by the end of the week. With any luck at all that will happen and I can get the dumpster loaded, then decide what the next step is going to be.

Since I couldn’t get much of anything accomplished outside, instead I wrote another chapter in my new John Lee Quarrels book, Jackpot. Once Terry proofreads it, I’ll have several chapters to send off to Judy and Roberta for them to proofread.

In the meantime, Terry seems to be fluctuating between feeling a little bit better one day and feeling miserable the next. We thought the heavy-duty regimen of antibiotics they had her on was doing some good, and a couple of days she said she almost felt human again. Then the high fever came back along with the overall body aches and fatigue.

We still haven’t heard from the rheumatologist that our primary care doctor was referring her to, and she has another appointment with the primary care this afternoon. We’re going to let them know that something needs to happen, the poor woman can’t go on like this forever.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – When you have a hammer in your hand everything around you starts looking like a nail.

Jamming In The Woods

 Posted by at 12:55 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 112023
 

Yesterday I decided to take a break from the dead grass problem and concentrate on clearing up some of the downed tree limbs around our property that resulted from a strong storm a couple of months ago.

This would be my first time using the Earthquake 33968 K32 wood chipper/shredder I ordered from Amazon back in July, except for a quick test run after we assembled it. The first thing I realized was that even thiugh it’s on wheels, the darn thing is heavy when you’re trying to pull it up even a slight hill. But I managed to get it in place with a little bit of effort and possibly a slight bit of cursing.

The downed wood around here ranges from actual trees to large and smaller branches. The wood chipper is supposed to be able to handle three inch branches without a problem, and you can feed it through a tube on the front or a hopper on top. I planned to shred up a bunch of the small branches to use as mulch, but first I loaded some of the big ones onto the little trailer I pull behind the Kawasaki Mule and took them back to a low spot on one of our perimeter roads that always seems to stay muddy after a rain.

My plan is to fill as much of it as I can with branches of various sizes and drive over them repeatedly with the Mule and tractor, eventually compacting them enough to fill in this problem area. I don’t know how well it will actually work, but it seems good in theory. I took a couple of loads of big branches back there and dumped them into the low spot, then drove over it repeatedly, compacting everything down to make room for more.

Of course, in the process I managed to step on another damned ant nest, so I had to take a break to run up to the house and have Terry put some alcohol on the bites and then cover them with cortisone cream.

Back at the wood chipper, I was able to get one bag full of chopped smaller branches. This is what they look like after going through the machine. After they are well dried they make an excellent mulch for gardens. I may mix some of those with the dead grass and let it set for a few months to see what I come up with.

But that’s going to take a while, because after I emptied the first bag of chips and started over again, the machine suddenly jammed up. I think I may have tried to feed a piece of wood into it that was too big, or it may have been some pine bark that I threw into the hopper. I’m not sure which. At any rate, it is completely jammed and I can’t pull the starter cord.

By then it was getting later in the afternoon and I was hot and tired, not to mention uncomfortable from the ant bites, so I called it a day and rolled the chipper back to the garage. I’m going to have to take it apart and see if I can get whatever is jamming it up out. It’s always something, isn’t it?

Congratulations Betty Graffis, winner of our drawing for an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

We had 44 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.  Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – The most important project you’ll ever work on is yourself.

Too Much Grass

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 102023
 

I know there are plenty of potheads would who would tell me there’s no such thing as having too much grass, but I’m not a pothead and that’s not the kind of grass I’m talking about. I am referring to all of the dried out mowed grass all over our pastures and yard. And trust me, there is way too much of it.

Part of the problem is that it was so hot for so long that was just too darned uncomfortable to get out and mow on a regular basis and we let it get away from us. So when I finally mowed, the grass littered the place in brown clumps as it dried out. The other part of the problem is that there is just so much grass!

I thought I would deal with the problem yesterday by putting the rake on the back of my Kubota tractor and trying to rake it all up. Fat lot of good that did me. I hit it pretty hard for about five hours and I don’t think I even made a dent in it, even though there are now big piles of grass toward the back end of the pasture and along the barn road. At one point it was getting so thick that it was actually stalling out the tractor trying to get through. Now the question is, what do I do with it? And all the rest of it still lying out there. Someone suggested getting a couple of goats, but I’ll pass on that. I’ve got an ex-wife I would almost rather see wandering around the back 40 than a goat. They are obnoxious animals that get into every kind of mess there is.

Our son suggested using them for composting, but there is so much that it would become a full time job just keeping up with the compost piles. With any luck, the deer who hang out here will help reduce the piles somewhat.

Or maybe I could find a few potheads and convince them it really is the kind of grass they are into. Hopefully they wouldn’t be any worse than the goats.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – My biggest fear of becoming a zombie is all the walking that I’d have to do.

Busy All Day

 Posted by at 1:27 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 092023
 

We were up and out the door by 7:30 yesterday morning, which anyone who knows us can tell you is way too early. But we had appointments scheduled at Northport Medical Center for a mammogram for Terry and for bone density tests for both of us. I guess that becomes necessary when you get old and frail. Or at least when the medical folks think you are old and frail.

My bone density test was quick and easy, and the tech told me that Terry would be next, because they had sent her for her mammogram first. However, that didn’t work out because they seemed to have lost her sign in paperwork or something and it was at least half an hour more before they figured things out and got her taken care of.

But eventually it was all sorted out and we left the Medical Center and went to a place called Gillis Jewelers to drop off the necklace Terry wears all the time because the clasp on the chain broke the other night. When we got that done, I wanted to check out a place called Guns and Ammo, one of the local gun shops. Not that I need anything, but because I may someday, and I want to know who has what.

The tech who did our bone density tests had told us to try City Cafe in old downtown Northport for a late breakfast or early lunch. It’s one of those places that is popular with all the locals, and there was a good crowd when we got there about 11 o’clock. We were able to snag a booth, but as it turned out, they stopped serving breakfast at 10, so we were late for that. Instead, Terry had catfish fingers and fried okra and I had a chicken breast. While the food was okay and the service excellent, it didn’t have the wow factor for either of us to make us want to go back in a hurry.

After we ate, we spent a while walking around the quaint old downtown, poking into some of the shops. This area definitely has an old timey small town feeling that is so different from busy McFarland Boulevard (US Highway 82), where most of the commercial businesses in Northport are located.

Back at home, I decided the grass needed to be cut before it turned into a jungle, so I started on the front and side yards with the Husqvarna riding mower. That is usually Terry’s area of responsibility, but the way she’s been feeling, there was no way she was up to something like that. In the process, I learned a lesson – when you are mowing watch where you were going. I was busy looking down at the grass as I worked on the front yard and went under a tree with a low limb and smacked myself right in the head. It’s a good thing that the mower’s seat has a backrest or it would have probably knocked me all the way off. As it was, I just scraped off a layer or two of epidermis and seriously bruised my ego.

Once I was done with the yard mowing, I got the tractor out of the barn and used the mid-mount mower on it to mow the pasture and up both sides of the barn road. There are no trees out there, so I wasn’t able to hurt myself again. 😊

By the time I finished that chore it was about 6:30 and time to knock off for the day. There is so much mowed grass piled up around that the place looks like a mess, and in some places it was so thick it was choking the tractor mower. Today I plan to put the rake on the back of the tractor and see if I can get some of that cleared up. I sure am glad it has cooled down enough to get some work done around here!

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

The Sad End Of Mattie Earp

 Posted by at 12:40 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 082023
 

On a lonely windswept hilltop a couple of miles east of Superior, Arizona, we came across the grave of one of the Old West’s more tragic figures, a scorned woman named Mattie Blaylock Earp.

Born Celia Ann Blaylock in Wisconsin in 1850, and raised on a farm in Iowa, accounts of the day describe Mattie as having “large bones and a fine face.” Farm life was apparently too boring for her, and some suspect she worked as a prostitute in Scott City, Kansas, and later in Dodge City. Mattie worked as a dance hall girl in Dodge City, among the wildest towns known to man. It was here that she met Wyatt Earp, one of the most romanticized figures in history.

Wyatt Earp was born in Monmouth, Illinois in 1848, and when he was twenty years old he moved to Lamar, Missouri where he met and married Urilla Sutherland, who died of typhoid soon after their marriage. Hollywood and popular fiction have painted Wyatt Earp as a straight shooting lawman who helped tame the Wild West, his heroic deeds culminating in the famous shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Arizona. He did indeed serve as an Assistant Marshall in Dodge City, where he earned his reputation as being quick with a six gun, and later was deputized by his brother Virgil, who was the Marshall of Tombstone, to give Wyatt some legitimacy in the upcoming confrontation with the Clantons, a faction the Earp brothers had a longstanding feud with.

What many overlook is the fact that for most of his life, Wyatt Earp supported himself as a petty criminal, bartender, gambler, and pimp. In 1871, the U.S. Court of the Western District of Arkansas at Fort Smith charged Earp with stealing horses on Indian lands. In 1874, court records report that Wyatt and his brother James operated a house of prostitution in Wichita, Kansas. Both were engaged in the same activity later in Dodge City, Tombstone, and Nome, Alaska.

Nobody knows for sure if Mattie was a prostitute when she and Wyatt first met, but given his known involvement in the shady side of commerce, there is no doubt that like most of the women associated with the Earp brothers, she worked off and on as a prostitute during their early years together.

In 1879, Wyatt and Mattie arrived in Tombstone, where Wyatt’s brothers and their wives had settled. Wyatt’s found work as a shotgun guard for Wells Fargo, and supplemented his income by gambling, and more than likely, pimping. Mattie and Wyatt are not believed to have ever been officially married, but by 1879 everyone accepted Mattie as Wyatt’s common law wife.

Mattie suffered from severe migraine headaches, and while in Tombstone she became addicted to laudanum, a commonly used pain killer of the day. About the same time, Wyatt began an affair with Josephine Marcus, whom he would later marry. Mattie had at least two heated public altercations with the interloper.

Soon after the gunfight at the OK Corral on October 26, 1881, Wyatt and Josephine left Tombstone, never to return. Demonstrating his ability to be a complete cad, Wyatt never even said goodbye to Mattie, who had shared his bed and life for years.

Deserted by the man she loved, brokenhearted, addicted to laudanum, and penniless, Mattie tried to make it on her own but there was little she knew how to do. Soon she was working as a prostitute again and she began a downhill slide. Mattie was older now and lacked the appeal of the younger girls. She moved to Colton, California for a time, then relocated to Globe, Arizona, where she was charged with prostitution. From Globe, Mattie drifted a few miles west to the small mining town of Pinal, near present day Superior, Arizona. It was here that Mattie would die of an overdose of laudanum, on July 3, 1888. Her death was ruled suicide. At the coroner’s inquest, a witness reported that Mattie had told him that Wyatt Earp had “wrecked” her life by deserting her and she didn’t want to live.

Mattie was buried in the small Pinal Cemetery, and within months the boomtown had gone bust, and soon faded back into the desert. Mattie’s grave was first marked with a headstone, but the stone was stolen by vandals. To protect the grave from further desecration, a railroad tie headstone was placed “near” the original grave honoring Mattie Earp, but the railroad tie does not mark the actual location, which is nearby but lost to time.

Mattie’s grave is located off U.S. Highway 60, west of Superior, Arizona. Turn north on Silver King Mine Road, which is about 1/10 mile west of milepost #225. The road is an unimproved dirt road but is suitable for a passenger car in dry weather. Follow the road past Harborlite Corporation and over a railroad track. At a Y in the road about .6 mile from Highway 60, stay to the left, and about 1.1 miles from Highway 60, watch for a Qwest Fiber Optic Cable metal post on the right side of the road. Continue about 90 feet and turn left. At a Y, another 90 to 100 feet, stay to the right, and at yet another Y, .5 mile from the Qwest post, at a wash area, stay left. The small cemetery and a scattering of headstones will be on your right. GPS coordinates for Mattie Earp’s grave are N33 17.298, W 111 08.070. The next time you’re in the area, stop and pay your respects to this tragic figure from the Old West.

Be sure to entrer our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.  Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Gossip dies when it hits a wise person’s ears.

Gearing Up For More

 Posted by at 1:06 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 072023
 

Much of yesterday was spent gearing up for more projects around the house and property. I started out with a call to a company called Bin There Dump That to arrange for a 20 yard dumpster to be dropped off next to the barn on Monday. The company will pick it up in a week, which should give me plenty of time to load up all of the debris left from taking the back end of the barn down, along with some other things that are piling up around here.

In the afternoon we drove into Northport and stopped at Lowe’s to purchase a Wagner FLEXiO 3500 paint sprayer, two gallons of Cabot Australian Timber Oil stain for the back deck we had built last month, a couple of gallons of paint for some interior rooms that Terry wants to get painted when she gets to feeling better, and some miscellaneous painting supplies. I also picked up some lag screws that will be used for my shooting range backstop, and some extra blades for my Dewalt reciprocating saw.

From there we went to Pastor’s Kitchen Mexican Restaurant for dinner. As always, the service and the food were excellent, and it gave Terry a nice break from having to cook. Then we made a stop at Pet Supermarket to pick up a few things, and finally Publix before heading home.

It was the first time Terry has been out in over a week, and by the time we got back she was pretty well tuckered out from all the activity. She is sure looking forward to getting over whatever’s wrong with her and getting her energy level back up to par. She has so much she wants to do, but just doesn’t have the pep for it right now. If you know Terry, you know that’s not sitting well with her. She’s always like the Energizer Bunny and keeps going and going.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Callie And Natalie’s Dutch Family History by Darlene Miller. When nine-year-old Callie and her five-year-old sister Natalie go to Pella, Iowa with their grandmother they wear period dresses as they learn about their fourth, fifth, and sixth great-grandparents, who arrived in Pella in 1847. Other true Dutch stories are about more great-grandparents who immigrated in the early 1900s. Enjoy their experiences as they see, hear, and taste “all things Dutch” as they travel through Pella.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening.  Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – We are all a little broken, but the last time I checked, broken crayons still color.

Elder Abuse?

 Posted by at 12:30 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 062023
 

I have no idea how it happened, but when Travis was here helping me tear down the stalls in the barn on Monday we stopped and went up to the house to get something cold to drink and Terry asked how I got a shiner on my eye. I honestly don’t know. Nothing hit me while we were taking things apart and as clumsy as I am, I don’t remember walking into anything. But there is definitely a big bruise there. If anybody asks me, I’m going to say I’m victim of elder abuse, I just don’t know who assaulted me. 😊

As most of you who read the blog know, Terry has been under the weather for a couple of weeks now. It seemed like she was rebounding a few days ago, but she’s back to having no energy and just feeling lethargic overall. Repeated labs have not shown her testing positive for COVID or the flu, but yesterday the doctor’s office did call and say she has a bacterial infection. They couldn’t specify what kind of infection it was, but they ordered another prescription for antibiotics. Hopefully it will get her feeling better soon.

Since Terry didn’t feel like going to town, I went into Northport yesterday to run a few errands, including stopping at Publix to pick up some milk and some other things we needed. I stopped at the CVS in Gordo on the way home to see if her prescription was ready, but it wasn’t and they said it would be about another half hour. It’s only about three miles from there to the house, and because it was over 90 degrees outside and I had milk and some other cold stuff from the grocery store in the van, I came home and dropped everything off, made a pit stop, and then went back to the pharmacy. Even so I had to wait another 15 minutes or so before the prescription was ready. Terry spells her full name Theresa with an H, and they had it spelled as Teresa on the prescription, which caused some confusion. But with that straightened out I picked up the prescription and headed back home.

Except for answering a bunch of emails, I didn’t get much else accomplished the rest of the day. Hopefully today I will be more productive.

It looks like we have a couple of more days in the 90s before things start to cool down just a bit. Not much, but I’ll take anything we can get at this point.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Unlike the brain, the stomach alerts you when it is empty.

Barn Project Part 2

 Posted by at 12:50 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 052023
 

As I wrote in a post titled Barn Project Part One last month, the front part of our barn was divided into three horse stalls and then an open bay in the center, with two freestanding rooms off to one side. That bay was crowded with implements for my Kubota tractor to the point where, once I pulled the tractor itself inside, there was no room to maneuver it or even walk around much.

Eventually I planned on gutting the complete interior of the barn, removing the horse stalls and those two rooms and making it one big open bay with plenty of room to do whatever I need to do. Yesterday our son Travis came over to help me take apart the stalls. I was hoping we could get the job done in one day, but as it turned out it was a piece of cake and went much more quickly than either of us expected.

Once we removed all the wood from the stalls, Travis used a Dewalt reciprocating saw to cut the bolts off from where they came out of the concrete floor to hold the bottom pieces of the stalls.

I was surprised at how much extra room just clearing out the stalls gave me.

We moved most of the implements into the newly cleared area, all stacked on pallets.

The only thing not on a pallet is the bush hog mower that connects to the rear of the tractor, since it’s too big to fit on pallets. Even so, I have a lot of room to move around on the tractor in the bay now. So much so that I’m really not sure I need to take apart those two freestanding rooms, although there’s no reason to keep them, either. I’ll see how things work out the way it’s arranged now before I make that final decision.

Because we finished the job so much quicker than expected and had some time to spare, we decided to start moving all of the railroad ties I had delivered a few months ago that were just dumped at the back end of the barn road. I’m going to use these to build the backstop for my shooting range, but before I can do that, I needed to get them up in the general area where it will be located.

In the months since they had been delivered a lot of weeds and vines had grown up over them, but with Travis driving the tractor and using the forklift blades, and me on the ground guiding him in, it was another easy peasy job. He doesn’t have much experience with the forklift, but it sure seems to come naturally to him, and again, in no time at all we had 30 railroad ties moved.

I honestly expected it would take more than a day just to take the stalls apart and get the implements moved where I wanted them, and another day to move the railroad ties. But in less than five hours we had everything done. Talk about teamwork! Thanks, Travis, I really appreciate all of your help.

We are supposed to have a couple more days in the low 90s, and then hopefully the temperatures will start dropping down a bit as we go into fall. I know everybody around here is eagerly waiting for that to happen.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – I never thought I would be the kind of person to wake up early in the morning and exercise, and I was right.

On To Another Project

 Posted by at 12:57 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 042023
 

I spent a couple of hours yesterday removing the shredded deer fence that didn’t stand up to the elements and pulling up the last of the T-posts from around the fruit trees. All but two of them came out fairly easily, but those two that didn’t were darned difficult!

It took a lot of pushing and pulling on the posts to loosen the ground around them before I could budge them with the tractor. Even then, one was in so tight that as I was pulling up on the bucket I felt the wheels of the tractor start to lift on one side. Nope, that’s not going to happen. I eased up on the bucket lever to reduce the stress on the chain, and once the tractor was stable, I got off and repositioned everything, before trying it again. That time it finally came out.

I put the tractor away when I was done and drove the Mule back to the house to put the chain on the shelf in the garage. I was standing at the bottom of the deck when all of a sudden both legs started burning like fire and I realized I had stepped into an ant hill. It really wasn’t an ant hill it, was just an open space in the grass with some holes in it where the ants were coming and going from their underground lair. Terry came out and hosed me off, the water getting rid of the nasty little critters, but not before they had done a good job of chewing up the lower halves of both legs. While I went inside to clean up she put some ant killer on the area. They are everywhere around here and it’s a constant battle trying to keep up with them.

After I took a shower to clean up and put a bunch of anti-itch cream on my bites, we had dinner. Terry made delicious Chicken Alfredo for me and a grilled chicken salad for herself. Talk about something that’s yummy for your tummy! 😊

With all the posts and deer fence down around the garden and fruit trees, it’s time to move on to a new project. Today Travis and I will start taking apart the stalls in the barn. We don’t need them since we never plan to have horses and I can definitely use the extra space. It’s supposed to start getting hot again this week, and hopefully we can get most of it done today.

Congratulations Don Steward, winner of our drawing for an  of audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon, the seventh book in my Big Lake mystery series. The story begins as the busy summer season is drawing to a close in the little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona and the locals are looking forward to a relaxing interlude before the first snowfall brings carloads of skiers to the high country. That all changes when a nearly nude woman rushes into a convenience store in the middle of the night begging for help. She tells Sheriff Jim Weber that her new husband has been murdered and she was taken captive by the mysterious killer, who seems to have disappeared into the thick forests of the White Mountains, touching off a manhunt for a phantom that cannot be found.

We had 38 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. When Ronnie Berquist sent me this picture my first thought was that must hurt!

Thought For The Day – To make a mistake is human, but to blame it on someone else, that’s even more human

More Tractor Time

 Posted by at 12:57 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 032023
 

Though our grass really needed it, I was disappointed that it rained all day Friday because I wanted to take advantage of the slightly cooler weather to get a lot of work done outside. But as it turns out, Mother Nature never consults with me ahead of time.

However, yesterday turned out to be a better day, and I spent several hours on the Kubota tractor pulling metal T-posts out from around the garden and the area on the other side of the barn road where we have our fruit trees planted. Early in the season we put up the posts and deer fencing, but now that the garden is done for the year I wanted to get them gone so it would be easier to mow.

I mentioned in a blog post last week that I found a nifty T-post puller plate on Amazon that really made the job easier. When I tried to pull the posts before I got it, I found it was a two person job, but with this little device it’s easy for one person.

Some of the posts were really stuck in the ground and I had to wiggle them back and forth quite a bit to loosen them up before I could pull him out with the tractor’s bucket and a chain. But I got it all done and eventually had a bucket load of posts to go drop off out of the way.

This is what the garden looked like earlier in the season, with the deer fence and posts around it.

And this is what it looked like yesterday after I got them out and ran the tractor’s mid-mount mower over part of the area. You can’t see them in this picture, but Terry’s raised garden beds are still where they were and won’t be moved.

I still have some more to do today to finish getting the rest of the posts and deer fence around the fruit trees out.

Before I close today, I have to pay tribute to the man I consider to be one of the greatest singer/songwriters this country ever produced. Jimmy Buffett passed peacefully at his home on Friday evening from skin cancer and lymphoma. His hit song Margaritaville was the anthem of generations of beach loving parrot heads who followed his music and his concerts. Some people say it was Jimmy Buffett who put Key West on the map, for better or worse. I’ve always been a huge fan of his music, which ranged from fun loving laid back beach songs to tunes about boats and airplanes, and sometimes somewhat melancholy songs like He Went to Paris and The Captain and the Kid, about his seafaring grandfather. In announcing his death, a spokesman said that he died surrounded by his family, his music, and his dogs. That’s not a bad way to go. Sail on, Jimmy. You definitely left your mark on the world.

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon, the seventh book in my Big Lake mystery series. The story begins as the busy summer season is drawing to a close in the little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona and the locals are looking forward to a relaxing interlude before the first snowfall brings carloads of skiers to the high country. That all changes when a nearly nude woman rushes into a convenience store in the middle of the night begging for help. She tells Sheriff Jim Weber that her new husband has been murdered and she was taken captive by the mysterious killer, who seems to have disappeared into the thick forests of the White Mountains, touching off a manhunt for a phantom that cannot be found.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. While I’m sure a welder’s torch would do the job, I’ve got to think there must be a better way to remove ink!

Thought For The Day – Wrinkles only go where the smiles have been. – Jimmy Buffett

Saturday Q&A

 Posted by at 12:45 am  Nick's Blog
Sep 022023
 

I’m back with more questions from blog readers about RVing, my writing activities, what’s happening in our lives since we hung up the keys, and all kinds of other things. While I try to answer all questions individually, I also share some here occasionally.

Q. In a blog last week you talked about carrying a gun to kill snakes on your property and I was sick to hear that. I always thought you were a good guy until then. Why would you want to kill an innocent animal that God put on this earth with a purpose? What’s wrong with live and let live?

A. As I wrote in that blog, I encountered two black snakes while mowing and let them go away. But yes, I will kill any venomous snakes I come across on our property. I don’t want one of us or any of our pets to get bitten. They are trespassers until they start paying their share of the mortgage and taxes.

Q. Are you going to stain your new deck to protect it from the weather? If so, what are you going to use and what color? I’m asking because we want to have a deck built at our place here in Arkansas.

A. Yes, getting the deck stained is on our to do list. I’m not sure what brand we will use. Our son-in-law recommended one he is familiar with, but I need to have him tell me again because I can’t find my note about it. We want to go with a natural color.

Q. You mentioned that you both got COVID booster shots and then Terry got sick. You don’t see any connection there? Do you not know how many people have died from that vaccine the liberals brainwashed you into taking?

A. Normally I don’t respond to comments with conspiracy theories, but just to let you know, Terry was sick before we got our booster shots. And while I don’t know what kind of wacko numbers of people were “killed” by the vaccine you believe, I do know that we lost several friends and family members to COVID, and I have friends and family members who worked in the medical field during the worst days of the pandemic. I have heard their horror stories of the thousands who died because they did not get the vaccine.

A. Why didn’t you have them spread the gravel when it was delivered instead of piling it up and then using your tractor? They could have done in minutes what took you two days.

A. It was leftover gravel from when we had the backyard re-sloped and French drains installed to help with drainage problems. The company that did that work ordered it delivered and piled so they could use it as they needed it. When I do order more, I will definitely have the driver spread it for me.

Q. I know some former RVers moved to Ecuador when they hung up the keys, and it seemed like they enjoyed living there. I am wondering if they are all still there, given the chaos and political violence going on there these days?

A. All of the people we know who moved to Ecuador have long since moved back to the United States.

Q. Nick, just wondered what your opinion is on regular people owning AK-47 like weapons?

A. An AK-47 or an AR-15 is just like an automobile or a chainsaw. It is not dangerous in and of itself. In responsible hands it is harmless, but in the hands of a fool or a madman it can cause havoc. I have had two AR-15s for many years and neither one has ever hurt anyone. They are semiautomatic rifles that can accept high-capacity magazines. A Ruger Mini-14 uses the same ammunition as an AR-15 and can also accept a 30-round magazine. But because it has a wooden stock instead of plastic, nobody talks about them. I have always said any law-abiding citizen should have the right to own any kind of firearm they want. I have also said that there are a hell of a lot of them that have no business with one.

Q. At one time when you were living in Florida you and Miss Terry talked about taking a cruise. Did you ever do that, and if so, where did you go and what cruise line did you use? It’s on my bucket list.

A. No, we never got around to taking a cruise. The high numbers of cruise ship passengers getting sick during the pandemic changed our minds about it back then, and now with pets it makes it hard to go away for very long.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an audiobook of Big Lake Honeymoon, the seventh book in my Big Lake mystery series. The story begins as the busy summer season is drawing to a close in the little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona and the locals are looking forward to a relaxing interlude before the first snowfall brings carloads of skiers to the high country. That all changes when a nearly nude woman rushes into a convenience store in the middle of the night begging for help. She tells Sheriff Jim Weber that her new husband has been murdered and she was taken captive by the mysterious killer, who seems to have disappeared into the thick forests of the White Mountains, touching off a manhunt for a phantom that cannot be found.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn this evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – Smile today, tomorrow could be worse.

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