Never thought retirement would be like this

Meanderer said:
Life is better, at the Lake!:)
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Life is good at both places. I can't decide.:confused:

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Pappy, I needed a sign like that at one time---because of kudzu! Have a picture somewhere, but can't find it.:(

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Except for mowing front lawn, the only plan today is to spend some time removing old nails from lumber scraps.:) Why? Because I need to haul some junk off to the landfill as soon as I get a truck load's worth. Refuse to dump lumber with nails sticking out---they end up in your tires.

The landfill here is remodeling its drop off facility and I want to get out there before it's finished, because it's an adventure when you have to dodge the bulldozers. You have to be somewhat familiar with bulldozer driver's hand signals, or else you may end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Imagine this only much more congested. Wish there were music to go with this one.:(


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Switching gears back to the past again. Found more pictures.:rolleyes: Not very clear...{sigh}

This is out front of my very first apartment, in Raleigh, NC, 1971. These are pictures my parents took when they visited from Ohio.

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It was half a duplex. Don't remember the cat. Not mine. The other occupant was a single lady, who cooked blackeyed peas almost every day. Never heard of them before. The smell would drift from her back door around through mine when the weather was warm. The smell of blackeyed peas cooking still reminds me of that place.

The kitchen table dropped down from the wall, closet was a recess in the wall covered by a curtain, no AC, and one gas heat vent in the floor, which would melt your shoe soles if you stood on it very long.

My father always carried tools with him whenever he visited any relatives. My grandmother called him "the fixer" because he would always come and fix everything she complained about. He put a piece of gutter up over the front door later, to stop the rain from hitting you on the head when you went out.

This is a picture from April, 2012 (archived Google Streetview).

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What it looks like now. Oh well, probably time for a change.

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NancyNGA said:
Today was an unusual day. Nothing unusual happened.:)
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Going to have to add a citation here, because I just found almost the same thing today on a webpage. (Didn't copy it at the time, honest. :))

"The really unusual day would be one where nothing unusual happens…" - John D. Hand, The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
 
Meanderer said:
Shocking....and UNUSUAL punishment!
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:lol:

Doo-doo-doo-doo, doo-doo-doo-doo.....!

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There was a logical connection. I was searching today with keywords "unusual" and "coincidence," among others.

[My previous job involved writing technical reports. :p It's a habit.]
 
Yes I have, Nancy. Put a box full out for the garbage man, and somehow the box opened when he picked up the box. I had peanuts to hell and gone. Must have given my neighbors a good laugh seeing me chasing those stupid things all over the yard.
 
Another new neighbor today on the north side, in the pasture where the black & white steers were last year. He came running up the hill to see who I was, but still stayed far away. Aren't those awfully big ears for a horse? :confused: There is a man out there who used to breed mules as a hobby.

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Almost forgot about that tree across the road (post #1013). That's what I did this afternoon. Dead but not rotten and not hollow. A hard job this time with my baby saw.

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Rolled top 2 chunks over into a gully. It was easy with a prybar. All down hill.

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Road all clear now :):

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If they get much bigger than this one, I'll have to hire someone to do it. I'd be broke if I called someone every time a tree fell out there.:rolleyes:
 
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Most of the time this diary is not to be taken seriously. Today it is. (Falcon is not gonna like it. He will think I'm bragging.)

Decluttering a closet. Ran across this...

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A plastic firetruck 10" long. More like a utility truck for hauling firefighters, with seats in the back. First prize for a coloring contest in first grade. They forced everyone to compete and color right in class---the pressure was intense!

One prize for each grade, 1 through 6. A win in first grade meant you could stay within the lines. I was always good at staying within the lines. There were 308 in our graduating class, so how many ever that trickled down from was the competition.

The six of us got to ride on a real fire engine around the block, complete with siren, and our picture in the newspaper standing on the engine. I'd rather have the clipping from the paper. It would take up a lot less space. Apparently my parents didn't save that. Hmph!
 
Oh wow! I would have loved that fire truck as a kid. Makes you feel sorry for the winner, doesn't it?

I didn't know fire department coloring contests were still around.

Thanks for the video, Jim.
 
Spent some time rowing around the edge of the lake yesterday. This is a stump, not a rock, that has been under water for at least 40 years and is now near the surface. It's solid as a rock. Tiny fish were swimming around and within the cracks and crevices. Things like this are interesting to me. :rolleyes:

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I saw more little fish around the banks than I've ever seen out there before because of the grass. It appears to stop at a fairly precise water depth. Assume it will not spread if the water level is brought up to what it was originally because the old banks were pretty steep.

More grass shows here around the dock. The dock did not collapse. :) It gets dark too early now.:(

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I've been caught up with all the outside have-to-do jobs for over a week, but this trip reminded me of all the outside jobs that I probably should do.
 
This is what I really wanted at one time. They used to stock them at Walmart. Maybe a little TOO much exercise?

Pedal, pedal, pedal your boat!

 
Received an unexpected overnight FedEx package from the engineering company late this afternoon, with fairly detailed plans on the dam renovation. TWO COPIES of ten 2' x 3' pages clamped together with a heavy duty binding, like a book. You have to lay it out on the the bed to read it! As expected, first glance looks like over-kill.:rolleyes:

A few years ago I would have been in a tizzy about this project. Not now. At least not yet. I'm just here forcing myself to take a break before plowing through the details. Maybe another shot of Old Crow is called for first. :)

Finishing up this subject (9/14):

Looks like a lot of extra details in the report, which I will call CYA stuff, that I'll bet the contractor will ignore. I suspect he is only interested in how much pipe to buy, how deep to bury it, and where to locate it. The engineer recommended SCH 80 PVC. :confused: The main cost will be the pipe and fittings. How deep you bury the pipe across the top of the dam will determine the new lake level. Looks like he says 6' deep. Should probably try to see if that looks about right, next time I get over there. The only unpleasant part of this will be dealing with the neighbor downstream, but I'm not going to think about that now. If someone forced me to bet when this would get done, I'd bet rainy season, early 2017. A squeeze in job. Second choice would be the week before Christmas (also rainy season). ;)
 
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Out to the lake yesterday. Trimmed goat hooves. Decided to take ONE picture of the most unusual thing that day, and stop at that. It was looking bleak until I discovered some spit bugs.

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Haven't seen those in years. Reminds me I should resume discussions of insects and worms here.:D

But then, just before leaving, sitting on the back porch sipping coolaid, this comes sneaking up just below the driveway. I think this is the one that got stuck behind the fence when he still had spots. He can surely run and jump now.

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Actually the spit bugs are more unusual. There are so many deer out there this year, I see at least one almost every trip. Wonder if they won't start stealing alfalfa pellets and hay from the barn this winter. Deer season is October 22 - January 8th. Bow season a little earlier.
 
Meanderer said:
Nancy, how do the goats interact with the deer?
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Jim, that is a good question, and you have literally "opened a can of worms"... :)

I've never seen them mingle, and I've never seen a deer at the barn, but the deer would be long gone by the time you got near the goats or the barn. When deer are in the woods nearby, the goats will stand and watch them, but don't act particularly frightened, or vice versa. I suspect they mingle at times.
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 Now for the worms... (I could talk for hours on this, and probably already have here. :rolleyes:)

The problem with deer, if you have goats, is that deer carry a parasite that is devastating to goats---meningeal worm. The infection process is amazing, to me.

Deer leave droppings on the ground. Snails and slugs feed on the droppings and pick up the eggs of these worms. Goats eat leaves, acorns, grass, with slugs on them. This may sound like a 1 in a million chance of happening, but slugs are everywhere and we had one case when we first got our goats. Most goat owners in warm humid climates have.

Because goats are not their natural host, these worms seem to get confused and start randomly burrowing through the bodies of the goats, rather than stay in the intestines, like they would with deer. Eventually they will reach nerve tissue. Usually they hit the spine first and cause paralysis of the rear legs of the goats. Eventually they make their way to the brain.

If you're lucky the worms will burrow to the surface (skin) of the goat first, and cause extreme itching in small patches, which the goats will rub raw. That's how we detected it early in our case. Treatment is difficult and requires massive doses of wormer for several days.

Since the worms do not stay in the intestines of the goats, there is no way to detect them in fecal samples. You just have to use preventative wormings periodically if you have whitetail deer on your property. I just wormed ours preventatively yesterday because of this very thing.

More than you wanted to know, I'm sure.:eek:

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That is very interesting. What, besides the feed, would attract the deer enough to jump the fence? Does the problem lessen, during hunting season? (Or would the barn be a safe sanctuary?)
 

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