Good Morning All. Cloudy and 60° here, the rain may over until tomorrow night and Sunday. I have somewhat lost track of how much has fallen, but there has been none since sunset last night but a tad over 6" in the last five days. That puts me at 8" for the YTD; our yearly average is 32" and May is usually our wettest month.
I noted that the cars going up and down the county road out front were slowing down quite a bit yesterday as they passed by. I knew that it was most likely due to the overfilled and poorly maintained drainage ditches spilling out over the road.
Water here is about 2.5" deep.
The narrow one in the distance is a dangerous one and is about 3.5" deep.
Our easement road wasn't much better and will have a new rut in it now.
Grocery/beer trek went well yesterday, no stock-outs and 98% mask compliance at Kroger. Only about 90% compliance at Home Depot where my wife got some painting supplies and I stocked up on pool chemicals for the upcoming season. Since making the switch to liquid chlorine (concentrated Clorox bleach), my maintenance costs are now about $60/yr versus the previous cost of about $250/yr. Too bad that the rain came while the cover was still on the pool, as that 6" would have amounted to over 1600 gallons to help top it off. In order to keep water out of the plastic filtering system during freezing weather, I have to lower the water level by about 3000 gallons each fall.
Got a sad phone call yesterday from my youngest brother, 10.5 years younger than me. He has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. It hasn't been fully explored, so we do not know the extent or severity yet. He is on a liquid diet right now and further tests are upcoming. He has never married so one of our sisters is accompanying him on his medical visits. He has had an involuntary speech impediment since birth, so she is along to help communicate. Other than the speech impediment, he is quite all right by himself. He has a college degree, works a full time job in finance and is a regular volunteer at our childhood church. Interesting fact is that except for a few years in a college dorm, he has lived his entire 58 years in the same house that we all grew up in. From what I read, that type of cancer is easily and successfully treated by surgery.
A couple of spicy breakfast burritos for me this morning Flo. And a bowl of spicy salsa to smooth the trip through the system.
Thanks for the likes and comments yesterday;
Rick, Guy, Karl, Tom O, Sherrel, Garry, Chad, Patrick, Tom, Justin, Gary, Hughie, Phil.
While the rest of the world turned, I did practically nothing out in the train shed yesterday. I did add more ground cover around the house, but it isn't worthy of a picture yet.
So for
Tom O's wife, here are a few more close-ups of the horse farm on that sliver of layout that I posted yesterday.
Karl/Mikey - After seeing the picture that
Karl posted yesterday, the house kit was definitely the Model Power kit. I made no alterations as that was early in my modeling career. Here is a close-up of the front showing the slot and tabs for any added stuff.
It got me to thinking that I also had one of the Walther's variations of the kit with a different base, different porches and an add-on annex to the side instead of the back. It was sold as a rooming house which is what I use it for.
Guy -
She's been bugging me for a new storm door and insulated entrance for a very long time. I've been holding off, as I don't see anything wrong with the existing doors.
I am a believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it". I just don't understand wives who believe otherwise, unless of course they don't have to do the work! I now own TWO new bathrooms when we really only needed to remodel one of them, just because! Both also have new vanities that are 4" taller than the old ones, thus making it harder for me to lean over to spit out the toothpaste! I spent a day re-configuring the drain pipe for one of them.
Campbell kits are eccentric at best. You have to fabricate a lot of stuff yourself, but I like the only one that I have.
Tom O - We have friends who raise and breed horses. They haven't made any money in over 20 years.
I dropped my student deferment after drawing a 264 in the lottery.
Sherrel - While I am not going to post a picture of it this morning, I paid 59¢ for identical bell peppers yesterday at Kroger.
Pitiful rainfall amounts, I pee more than that on the yard in a day.
George - I applaud your retirement decision. I planned on retiring earlier than I did, but the economic downturn in the early Obama years hurt my retirement savings by six figures, and I had to wait until 63.5 in 2015. Been enjoying it ever since. Actually since I took over self-management of my retirement account, it has gone up 25%.
Everybody have a great day. It's National Arbor Day. Go plant a tree. I planted twelve new ones about six weeks ago.