7 Dog Years Later

Well a year has gone by since Ol' Max posed for the top picture. The bottom picture was taken yesterday afternoon about 5 pm or so. Max looks no worse for wear, but he has certainly slowed down a lot since those purple flowers last bloomed. He still gets just as excited to go to the cabin, but it takes him a lot longer to run in than it used too. About a year ago I stopped letting him out at the first gate and started waiting till we got to the second gate, to cut down on the distance he'd have/get  to run and to keep him from having/getting to run up the steep hill-which incidentally is a lot steeper since the road washed out last summer. He also now needs a K9 "ramp assist" to get in the Tahoe or truck instead of just jumping up there like he did in his younger days (back when he was 10). I have to hold him back from jumping out until I get the ramp in place or I'm afraid he'd hurt his shoulder joints from the jar when his 105 pounds hits the ground all at once.
Since he recently turned 11, I decided to not let him in on any of this for fear he might think he's getting old and as a result start acting like it. So far, we've both managed to stave off anything that resembles that; at least anymore than we have to.
As for Old Max E. Pad....I'll keep you posted.

Cold Shower

Someone once said, "If you want to feel invigorated, take a cold shower." Wait a minute; wait a minute....that was me who said that. I'll keep you posted...

Drill Perspective

I dropped one of my 2 DeWalt 18volt cordless drills Thursday while climbing down off scaffolding inside the barn. It hit the concrete floor of the barn and as a result no longer works. I was danged upset because now I'll either have to buy a new one or use one of my electric drills. What an inconvenience! For the duration of the barn project I'll have an extension cord to drag around and trip over and we all know how annoying that can be, especially compared to the convenience of a cordless tool. I have two cordless drills so I can have one with a drill bit and one with a bit driver while working on a project and so I can leave one at the cabin and one at the house. Now, I'll either be inconvenienced by an extension cord or out a $100 or so to replace the drill. Very disappointing!

While I was sitting here this morning drinking coffee in the kitchen, my bride was watching TV while i-Padding. I overheard a news story about a bus wreck that occurred yesterday in Oklahoma. It was carrying a girls college softball team who were coming home from a game. 4 girls were killed.

It usually doesn't take anything that dramatic let alone that heart breaking to bring things back into perspective when I get out of focus. The families of those 4 young women have been shattered and are now forever changed. All of us with children or who have ever loved a child like she was your own, can only imagine what it might be like to receive the kind of phone call those families received yesterday. 

Today, I'll pray for those families-especially the parents. I am no longer concerned about the broken drill.  

Napa Beauty

~Napa Valley Beauty

Last year my bride of over 3 decades and I spent a few days in Napa Valley, although I couldn't tell you where we stayed, where we ate, or the names of most of the various places we visited. I know we stayed someplace in one of the several Napa Valley towns. I know we dined out 3 times a day and visited a few different wineries while there. We road on an old train and walked around the streets of several small towns in the area. And, we had a great time-that I do remember.

My bride is a different story when it comes to remembering detail. She can recall with clarity the specifics about all these places, including the names of most of the restaurants we visited and probably the names of the streets they occupied.  She has many virtues and one of them is a good memory for detail. It's one of several reasons I like her to go along when I go places. I also like to take her picture in front of cool buildings when I see them. I thought the building in the above picture was camera worthy, especially with my Sweet Baby in the foreground. The stone wall and the moss covered board fence that ran between the storefront and sidewalk added to the quality of this particular frame. I thought it was cool that her blouse and earrings went nicely with the flowers in the background-although to be forthcoming I'm sure I didn't even realize that at the time.

All I can take credit for here is for having an eye for what I thought would make a good picture and for actually having taken the picture with my Nikon D5500: or is it a D5000---I can't remember. When I get home tonight, I'm going to ask my bride. She'll not only know what model my camera is...she'll probably remember when and where I bought it.

How Many Barn Doors Does It Take....

A recent trip to Cabela's resulted in another entry on the project list. The barn needs a side entry door that's accessible from outside in the event the roll up door ever goes belly up. So far the roll up door has never failed to work, but it's probably just a matter of time. The double doors opposite the roll up door can only be opened from the inside, so with that in mind, it's time to add another door.

I thought this simple classic style would look nice with some heavy duty hinges and latch handle. I may have them made by the blacksmith at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. Our clients Rick and Jennifer from Rudy, Arkansas recently ordered several custom hand forged iron items from this particular blacksmith and I was surprised at how relatively inexpensive the various items were. It's also hard to beat handcrafted for character.
I'll try to remember to keep you posted...

~What looks like double barn doors is actually a roll up garage door

~These double doors can only be opened from the inside

.22 Opportunist

There's a group of individuals in the U.S. who for a couple of years now have been going from store to store on a daily basis buying up all the .22 shells. They're doing this at places like Walmart, Academy, Cabela's etc. They've figured out when the ammo shipments arrive and when the product will be put on the shelf. They'll then hang around the ammo case like a flock of vultures until the product is put on the shelf and bingo bongo, there go all the .22 shells! These clowns then turn around and put their newly acquired merchandise on various internet websites like Craigslist, Ebay and so on, at ridiculous markups (ridiculous in my opinion). I'm a believer in the free enterprise system, so I of course don't have a problem with someone making a profit. But pricing something at 8 or 10 times the cost seems over the top in my way of thinking. However, if people are naive enough the pay the price, I guess there's nothing to complain about.
Human beings are greedy by nature I suppose and nature must be saying "Git all ya' kin git while ya kin git it!". And that's just what these clowns are doing. I'll keep you posted....

New Covered Bridge

This is a nice little covered bridge I found myself driving over yesterday. It's located in Gravette, Arkansas at a place called Horton Farms. Horton Farms is a place folks rent out for various gatherings like weddings, anniversaries and other special events. I snapped this picture for the snot of it because I thought it was picture worthy. It's a relatively simple structure but the individuals who built it did a pretty good job, as well as the designer.

Hard to imagine some day it will likely have to be torn down. If the current and future proprietors do a good job of maintaining it, it could last for several generations or maybe longer. I probably won't be around to keep you posted on this, unless the owners do a poor job maintaining it and it falls down in the next 30 or 35 years. Although now that I think about it, we did have a great-great grandfather on our Dad's side who lived to be 105. Maybe I'll be able to keep an eye on things long enough to do a 50 year follow-up photo. If not, maybe our new grandson "Budder" will be able to keep you posted if the bridge ends up lasting 100 years or so. I'll put a bug in his ear when he's old enough to know what that means. In the meantime....

Firewood and Fireplaces

I've mentioned it before, but will say it again: I like fireplaces; especially on a bone chilling night. I begin looking forward to the fall and winter about the time we have our first day over 80 degrees in Arkansas. 65 is a perfect temperature for me, but as soon as it starts getting close to 80, I begin looking forward to colder days. I also enjoy smelling wood smoke as it rises out of the chimney and circulates around the neighborhood. It usually makes me want to go to the cabin and cut and split wood. For a wood man, you can't go no better!

Most folks complained about the record breaking cold spell we had in Arkansas and Missouri from about last November through March or so, but I liked it. I'm not sure I'd like to live where it's that cold year round, but when it's winter I want winter weather, not cool Spring weather. When it's summer, I like those out of the ordinary cool days we get now and then, like we've had several of this summer. But when it's supposed to be winter, I like hearing the weather gal say things like, "Record breaking cold temperatures expected over night---details after the break" and so on.

I'll keep you posted on upcoming fireplace and firewood related stories as we move into the Fall and Winter of 2014. Here's hoping it's going to be a dandy!

Dog Firewood

Dogwood trees get old and die before their time.  A dogwood tree that's much over 6 or 7" in diameter is by far the exception. There's an old tale that's floated around for years that Christ was crucified on a dogwood tree and as a result, dogwoods were condemned to die before they grew large enough to ever again be used as a cross for crucifixion. Turns out that's not true. The rumor was likely started by a Booger County, Arkansas guy named Zeb or Wiley.
If you're wondering what this picture has to do with dogwood trees dying young, that half moon shaped stick of firewood at the top of the stack and a little bit to the right was cut out of a dead dogwood tree. How do I now? Trust me.
In the meantime, I'll keep you posted on other wood and wood related developments. Ridiculous? You be the judge.

Duce or Two

My son-in-law is in the market for one of these. I found this one the other day on the way back from visiting with a log home client in Pittsburg, Kansas. I don't know too much about old military trucks, but Stinger tells me this particular rig is a Duce and a half. I thought it looked like it was mostly original, but what do I know.
We'll see where this goes. His wife (our daughter) may have an opinion on it. I'm guessing she's not a huge fan of military trucks, but then stranger things have happened. I'll keep you posted....

Deck Update and Stuff

Earlier this summer I mentioned I'd keep you posted regarding the little project of finishing the facia on the cabin's wrap-around deck. Well, I finally finished it the day before yesterday. No big deal, but like the food network does with tomatoes and cabbage, the key with deck work is to make cutting and fastening a few boards seem a lot more involved than it really is. That's what I tried to do here. 

Although the other 3 sides were trimmed in 1"x12" cedar, I decided to save some money and use cedar fence slats to finish off the east side. Not only was it about 1/3 the cost of the same material used from 1"x12"x10' kiln dried dimensional lumber, I thought it actually looked a little better. Dang it: I wish I'd a thought of that a long time ago! 

The barn project is coming along slowly but very nicely if I don't say so myself. Klietus came out the other day and helped while I was recovering from a danged Ol' hernia operation (the kind that involves your lower abdominal wall-not your nether regions). Dang it: am I going to get in trouble for sharing my personal health information? I can't remember if it's just other folks medical info we're not supposed to share, or also our own. I better check with the current administration to see if I'm breaking some of the many health and communication laws we seem to be accumulating here in the good O' US of A. I'm probably breaking one law or another....dang it!

I'll keep you posted on the barn and whether of not I hear from one of the health czars about posting the hernia info. If I was Jeff Boomhauer from King of the Hill, I'd be saying something like, "Danged O mmhabjib dinkity O midgflabbery dang-o bamanoid!"

Wine Cave

Overall I'm not huge on caves. A cave is a bad place to discover you're claustrophobic or maybe a good place to get bit by a critter. You rarely hear about anything good happening in a cave-kind of like a well. That said, if you've never been in a wine cave, you should give it a whirl, if you get the opportunity. A beer cave would be better in my opinion, but so far I haven't ran across one of those. Until then, the memory of this wine cave will have to do. I'll keep you posted.... 

Back To The Traffic

Note: This is somewhat of a rant, but my intentions are to assist in waking-up my handful of faithful readers to a very real danger that I believe most of us rarely, if ever, take into consideration.

After reading "the paper" this morning (The Paper: a daily publication printed on actual paper used as a method for keeping people informed of local as well as world wide happenings), it occurred to me that there's a group of people we should all be afraid of. It makes sense to be vigilant regarding potential low life dirt bags who are intent on doing you harm: they exist. We should be very concerned about the the Taliban, Isis, and the so-called "Islamic State extremist" and the very real potential of their reach into each of our personal worlds (if you don't believe these guys would gladly give their life to kill you and every member of your family, giving the opportunity, you're naive...in my not so humble opinion). As well, it makes sense to be on guard for the regular old every day rapist, murderers and sexual predators who don't necessarily affiliate with any particular religious organization. But, the people we should all be the most afraid of, are people who drive cars. Let me just give you 2 quick examples:

A few weeks ago, my neighbor Ray and I were standing at the very edge of our neighborhood street in front of our adjacent homes (and I mean the very edge-had we been any more at the edge of the street we would have been standing in my yard), and a car came driving by from behind me. I didn't hear the car and Ray didn't see it, until it literally brushed my shirt sleeve with it's side view mirror. The car didn't slow down and judging by their tail lights, the driver never even touched their brake pedal. The driver never looked up and apparently had no idea they nearly killed 2 regular guys. My guess (and I bet I'm right) is they didn't see us because they were busy with their handheld device: possibly checking face book, exchanging text messages or maybe shopping Amazon for a new handheld device. I exaggerate not when I say that Ray and I both came within no more than a few inches of dying that day. And the person who almost killed us both, was apparently oblivious to the entire occurrence.
As a note, how ironic would it have been that a purple heart Marine veteran of the Korean war, a retired firefighter, and multiple heart attack survivor (all the same guy) would have ended dying at the hands of a presumed text messaging car driver!

I thought about my recent brush with death this morning when I read a side-bar headline on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette about a guy who was arrested for driving "quickly and erratically" before running off the road and killing a man who was mowing his yard. Wade McElroy of Monticello, Mississippi was killed while mowing his yard, by a young man driving a motor vehicle. The paper didn't state why the man ran off the road (smart phone?), but regardless of the reason, it's probably safe to say the young man who killed Mr. McElroy, was likely preoccupied. Which brings me to the point of this post:

I am amazed at how often I see someone riding a bike, walking, jogging, pushing a baby stroller etc with their back to vehicular traffic. In many cases, these oncoming vehicles are no more than a few feet away from the naive pedestrian. When I see this (which is every single day of my life) I'm reminded how naive most of us are when it comes to trusting complete strangers. When you factor in the number of folks who are driving impaired due to alcohol or drugs, mental anguish and so on, the ridiculousness of our naiveté goes way up the scale of "redicularity". And what about the folks who are driving these multi-ton battering rams on wheels AT YOUR BACK while eating their breakfast, lunch or dinner, putting on their makeup or just admiring their sexy self in the rearview mirror. These mostly otherwise fine folks are accidents waiting to happen. I simply find this "back to the traffic" concept amazing!

Bottom line: A person with their back to the traffic who is killed by a text messaging driver of a motor vehicle, is no less dead than the poor souls who have recently been murdered by the various misguided lunatic Islamic groups. Please don't be a statistic. I'll keep you posted....



   

IPA-Just Say No!

 Yesterday was a great day to be outside if you live in the mid-southern part of the United States. My "little smoker" and I had lunch at a new pizza and beer place in Bentonville called Peddlers Pub. Afterward we met up with our daughter, son-in-law and pretty new grandson at the 21C Hotel. We then took a walk around the Bentonville square and down the trail to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. When you consider that people come here from all over the country and even the world to do what we did for essentially free, it's hard to go any better.

Sweet Baby snapped this shot of my raggedy old self as I ran a test pattern on a local micro brew on tap at Peddlers Pub. I'm not a fan of IPA's but our waiter shared that it was by far his favorite, so I gave one a whirl. That particular brew confirmed that I really don't like IPA's. To me, an IPA taste like real bitter grapefruit juice with some old raggedy left over beer poured in it. I've found that when it comes to beer, I can do better than that. I'll keep you posted....

Yea Morris!

 You can hardly do any better than a new grandchild! This little man is Morris and he's a dandy! I could go on for days, but in the interest of your time I'll leave it here for now. I'll keep you posted...

Pat's Old Feeder

Bird feeders improve their atmospheric contribution the longer they're out in the sun and the rain. This feeder belongs to my Mother-in-law and sits in the northwest corner of her/their back yard. The rust at the bottom, on the upright supports, and at the top add to the overall worth of this particular feeder, in my opinion.
With that in mind, the next time you're in the market for a bird feeder, look for a used one. You'll pay pennies on the dollar and it won't take 4 or 5 years for it to reach it's peak. Bird feeders: older is better. Regarding my Mother-in-law's backyard...I'll keep you posted.

George Update

Well, the "Summer of George" has ended. George headed off to school about 3 weeks ago and hasn't been heard from sense. Actually, I have confirmed he is alive and doing well and living on the Wash U campus in "The Lou". We had a good time while you were here Georgie Boy. We know you'll have a stellar career at "The W". Then it's off to the real world of alarm clocks, too many bills, and bad coffee. Here's to George!

Grandson of a Gun

Although this picture doesn't have anything directly to do with our "Brand New Grandson Morris", I was thinking about him the other day when his Daddy and I were target shooting off the cabin deck. I was thinking about all the fun times we're going to have out here over the coming years while he's busy growing up and becoming a very fine young lad.
I'll write more about him/that later, but at the suggestion of "That one Gal who lives down the street", I thought I would share the happy news of our family's most recent joyous addition: he's a Cracker Jack Jim Dandy! I'll of course keep you posted...

Chevy K5 Blazer

When I was 16 years old I met a guy named David Murphy. David and I both worked at the same place in our mutual home town. I'd watched David from a distance over the previous couple of years or so as he very cooly cruised around town in his red and white Chevy K5 Blazer; his cute little blond headed girl friend all snuggled up next to him like girlfriends used to do in the 1970's. David was a stout young lad who played on our local high school football team when I was in Jr. High. He was well liked: suffice to say David was one of the good guys. I didn't know it at the time, but my taste in vehicles was probably influenced by watching David drive around town in his K5.

Fast forward 38 years and I find myself nearly all grown up-at least according to my wife. For the past 12 years I've driven a Chevy Tahoe that I purchased new in 2002. The odometer now reads 267,000 and change and it still runs like a top on the original engine and transmission. After some under carriage work by Christian Brothers Automotive about a year ago, it also rides like it's nearly new. Prior to the '02, I owned a 1999 GMC Yukon (the same vehicle only with a GMC emblem) and before that a 1997 Chevy Tahoe. I've liked all these rigs substantially and will probably own more as time goes on.

After considering jeep ownership for nearly 40 years, I've decided that I'd really much rather have an  old Chevy K5 Blazer. I have declared myself officially in the market. After doing a bit of research I've been able to determine two things:
1) it's apparently a pretty small market
2) I like the model years 1969-1972.
Up through 1975 the Blazer, had a full-convertible top (like the one in this picture) as compared to the 1976 and newer Blazers which had only a half-convertible top; meaning the top was removable starting a few inches behind the driver/passenger seat. I like the full-convertibel look better but should have a better feel for exactly what I like best once I see a few of these old rigs in person.

I've received a little input on the subject from my cousin "Big D", who heads up the Tulsa Division of the Mid Missouri Volkart Family. His little/big brother "Duster Man" might also have a thought or two on the subject, as might their Dad-my former Uncle. The "Oldest Boy" might have an opinion too, but I think he knows more about females than old cars. I'm not really in the market for a new female, since the one I have still looks like new and runs even better than the day I got her.

Anyway, on the subject of old Chevy Blazers, I'm in no hurry. As a result, I don't plan on running out anytime soon to buy one. Besides, an old car is kind of like a good woman....I better stop there: I'll keep you posted.