Visiting Day

We headed out fairly early this morning to do some visiting.  Our first stop was to see Marie, we had a nice visit until her lunch time.  I had printed out some pictures of the kitchen and the last month of my blog for her, we had a good time showing her what we had done.  After we had lunch at the former Skippers, now Salzer Creek Fish and Burgers, we stopped by and saw our friend Bob.  Bob commented on yesterday's picture, his first thought when he saw it was "They ate the steaks!".  We had a nice relaxing time there and got to see his new Spitfire.

On the way home we stopped to pick up the mail and went the back way out of town so I could take a picture of this building.  The roof has been swaybacked for years, but this year's snow finally got to it.

UPS had delivered my early father's day gift from Vera today.  I unpacked it right away and gave it a try pruning the plum tree.  It works great, since you have to push both black buttons for it to start, there is not much chance of getting into the chain.  Normally the jaw would be closed, but I propped it open with the plug so the bar and chain showed.  Also the jaw grabs the limbs and branches and keeps them for jumping around, plus the jaws protect the tree.  I played a little with the IP Camera after I cleaned up my pile of debris.  I wanted to see how it did when mounted out at the shop.  It works pretty good, I got to see David come home.

Finally!

It was a good rainy day project, after 3 long session over the last few days, I finally got the IP Camera working.  This is a picture from it, it is sitting on the metal cabinet in the utility room.  Tomorrow, I will try it from the shop, it rained so much today, that I only made one trip outside to get some pop from the motor home.  I did the bills online this morning, so my whole day was spent right here by the computers with a bunch of trips into the kitchen to snag one of the Blueberry muffins Vera made, they are pretty good!  I hope you stayed dry today!

Just like I said!

Vera had bible study today, so I decided to defrost the freezer while she was gone as we were picking up the beef we bought from one of the ladies at church.  After I got it emptied, I went over to see Dianne and the twins while it defrosted.  I was taking some pictures of the girls and Dianne told them to pose together for me, they looked so darned cute.  After I left there, the ice had loosened, so I cleaned it out, restarted the freezer and put stuff back in it.  After Vera got home, we went over to Bolar's and picked up our meat.  Later while I was working in the shop, Vera came out and suggested we have steak for dinner.  The funny thing was, I had mentioned to Dianne, that we would probably have steak for dinner.

It was great tasting and tender, it looks like we will be enjoying dinners for a while!

Birthday Pizza

Barry showed up just before lunchtime so we could go out for my birthday pizza. We have been getting together for pizza on our birthdays ever since I retired.  We had a really nice visit down at Papa Pete's.

Later, Dianne, Ava and Harper came over to see Barry.  I had a good time playing with twins with some soft footballs we have.  Barry spent the afternoon and evening visiting around the neighborhood before he heads back to Arizona.  He hopes that he will have a chance to visit Bob and Cathy in the morning.

Got it Done!

This is the house after the mowing and pruning.

Yep, I got the Income Tax done 3 days earlier than last year.  After I finished, Vera heard the girls outside so I went over to visit.  I had been pushing Ava on the swing when Dianne mentioned it was snack time.  I unbuckled Ava and put her on the ground, right away she said "No Walk!", I said "What!", she said it again with a smile, so I picked her up and we headed after Dianne and Harper.  After a fun session over there, I came home and got the repeater for WiFi to the shop setup, now I have a good signal and 54 Mbps out there.  Flush with that success, I tried setting up an IP camera that I have.  That did not go well, why is it everything to do with computers fights you?  I did get the apps turned off on Facebook this evening, it was getting to the point where we could hardly find the regular posts.

Yard Work

Maybe spring is finally here, there are Easter Lilies blooming!  These are in the flower bed in front of my shop.  Today was an outside day, first I cleaned the pond and it's filters.  Then after lunch, I mowed and cleaned up the debris that had blown down along the driveway.  While I was mowing I noticed more flowers blooming, so I went out and took some pictures when I finished.

Just as I finished up at 5 o'clock, it started raining, talk about perfect timing!  Vera fixed a great tasting dinner, I may have eaten a little too much, because I got really sleepy afterwards.  After a short nap, I decided I better do something or I would be sleeping all evening, so I went to the shop and repaired the landing gear that broke yesterday.  It was a great day for working outside and I got lots done, chances are I will really sleep good tonight.  I texted Jackie, she has high hopes of getting out of the UW tomorrow, her BG has been great the last couple of days.  I also gave Pam a call and got an update on Evelyn.  Now I am off to watch Mythbusters.

Flying at Toledo

I had a great day of flying today at Toledo.  There was lots of sun, but there was also wind all day which kept it from getting very warm.  Luckily, I had dressed for it, the only place that felt cold was my neck, probably because of my hair cut last week.  The left landing gear fell out of my Mustang the second time I flew it, I ended up making a text book one wheel landing and did not hurt anything.  Need I say that I was pretty proud of myself.  By the time the day was over, I had made 16 flights.

No picture Friday!

We did lots of outside stuff today!  I pruned the apple tree by the pond, picked up a bunch of blown down fir limbs, and put up the bird house that the limb had broken during the snow.  We also put out our solar lights, flameless candles and the light Cathy got me for my birthday on the deck.  One of the lights is a converted bird feeder Vera bought from Bob at the family garage sale last summer.  While I was trimming the apple tree, the twins came to visit, they get a big kick out of the duck in the pond and the animal figurines around it.  I wasted the evening trying to program a wireless router, when I quit, I had figured out what I needed to do, but was finished for the evening.  Maybe some other evening I will attack it again.

UPS Today!

Did I mention there was no snow Wednesday?  Well it made up for it this morning, we had about 3 inches.  I burned the last of the debris from the kitchen project this morning, that took me about 3 hours!  Just after I finished, UPS showed up with the new keyboard, mouse and another P-51 kit.  After lunch, I installed some more software on the laptop, and did some work on an AT-6 that I am planning on taking to the next swap meet.  After dinner, Vera mentioned that Steve and Dianne were outside with the twins, so I headed out to see them.  When they went in the house because their hands were cold, I went to the shop to work on the AT-6 some more.  A few minutes later, Steve came in and asked if I could come over, as the twins thought I was coming in with them to play and were upset when I did not.  I played blocks with Harper, had a nice visit with Dianne and watched the girls play on the computer before I left.  This evening, I got the cowl on the AT-6 and finished up the monokote repairs, now I just have to hinge the control surfaces and it will be ready to sell.

New Laptop

Fedex showed up with my new Laptop before Vera went to bible study this morning.  It is new to me, but it is a refurbished one.  My old laptop has been locking up for a long time.  I spent all day installing software and getting it setup. By evening I was ready for a break, so I went to the shop and messed with planes for a while.  While I was out there I turned on the old laptop, after being on it for awhile, I noticed the fan was on all the time and making lots of noise!  After some checking, I found a cover by the fan that exposed the CPU heat sink, it was plugged up with dust and lint.  After cleaning it is running fine, I think the reason for the lockups was over heating!  Now I have two working laptops, I think the old one will stay in the shop and the new one will go to the flying field with me to download the telemetry from the planes as it is much lighter!

Another adventure

Every morning is an adventure, looking to see what it is doing outside, No Snow today!  This weather has caused us to stay home more lately, which is a good thing with the price of gas.  We did make a trip to Longview today for haircuts, lunch and some shopping.  We took the slow way, the Westside Hwy. going down and Pleasant Hill Rd. on the way home, nice relaxing drives.

I got the pin stripping on the Jet Ranger finished up tonight, I am really happy with the way it looks.

Snow Again!

It seems like every morning when I get up it is snowing, even when I sleep in and don't look until 9 AM.  I went over to see the girls this morning, they had just finished their bath and grandma was doing their hair.  They are having an Oreo snack, funny how quick they learn to twist Oreo's apart and eat the filling.  I had a great time playing with them!  I decided to paint the Jet Ranger this afternoon and spent several hours masking it off.  Some trim stripes tomorrow and it will be looking pretty good.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday

I did more work out in the shop today,  but on a trip in for lunch, I decided to put in this tip out tray under the kitchen sink.  It went pretty good once I got the panel loose.  Vera is happy with the stainless steel tray inside of it.

Sunday

Vera got a surprise when she looked out the window this morning!  This picture was taken just before she left for church.  I was a slow starter this morning, I puttered on the computer until just before Vera got home from church.  After lunch, I went out and did some more cleaning and sorting.  I also started the paint job on the helicopter, it is going to be red and white.  This evening I put in a few flights with my 17 gram "Vapor", it is designed for flying inside, so it has to be pretty calm outside before I can fly it.  I also got a flight with the little Aeronca Champ and shot some touch and goes on the driveway.

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

This is where I spent most of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  I did a little adjusting on the helicopter and got it all trimmed out.  The rest of the time I was cleaning and putting things away.  It is amazing the mess I created in two months working on the kitchen.

Boy did we have some rain on Thursday, it was great weather to be inside!

It Flies!

The strange weather continues, wind and rain yesterday, snow this morning, then some sunshine later in the day.  I worked on the helicopter most of the day and after dinner, I took it outside and put a short flight on it.  It still needs some adjustments, but was running pretty smoothly.

It looks a lot different than it did last week!

Sunday and Monday

I slept in until about 9 on Sunday.  Then I puttered on the computer or worked on the helicopter and P-51 the rest of the day.

Monday was really stormy, we lost power once, but just for a few seconds, long enough so I had to reset all the clocks again.  I worked on the helicopter and P-51 until it was time to leave for Centralia.  We were planning on going to visit Marie before having dinner and going to the Lewis County Radio Controller's meeting.  By the time we had gotten the mail in town, I decided that driving up there in the wind and rain would not be a lot of fun, so we decided to pick up something for dinner and stay home.  I made great headway on the helicopter this evening, doing lots of maintenance as I put it back together.

It is not hurt that bad!

When I started tearing the helicopter apart after the crash, I discovered it was not damaged too bad considering it fell about 50 feet.  The landing gear, fuselage side frames, canopy and the main gear were about the only things hurt.  All the electronics worked fine when I checked them out.  I remembered a Jet Ranger body up in the cupboard that I flew years ago, it had a set of side frames and landing gear on it, I had several spare gears, so I started transferring things to it today.  I also put up some more trim and finished Vera's second hanger, it was too big, so I ended up sawing it in half and refinishing the ends, now she has a second one to use somewhere.  While I was working on it, I felt hot, moist air coming around the dryer, the exhaust duct had come loose!  I had to move the washing machine out to get at it and found a scrap of wood that had worked it's way down beside the dryer and shifted it so the duct came apart.  This evening I did a little more work on the helicopter, worked on my new P-51B, painted the scaffold plank and took some pictures before coming in to do this.

Spring Cleaning!

We decided last night to do some spring cleaning on the yard today.  There were several blow downs between our place and Michelle's rental.  We got out the extension cords, electric chain saw, 4 wheeler and got started about 9 AM.  It went as planned for a change and we were done fairly early.  Since we had the time and weather was nice, we then took out a cascara tree that has been dropping berries and leaves on the deck.  It was three trees coming up from one stump, I cut the first one and it got hung up in the second one, I cut it and nothing happened as it was hooked into the third one.  I was about to get the 4 wheeler when Vera said, "cut the third one and they will all go down".  I did, and the whole bunch ended up right where we wanted them.  When we hauled that away to the compost pile, I saw this tree that had fallen this winter over the trail we had to use.

I saw it a month or so ago, but forgot about it.  After we finished all the cleanup, I decided to see if I could get it to come down.  First I pulled it off the stump, nothing happened, then I hooked the winch up about the middle of the tree with the 4 wheeler against a tree and tried to pull it out of the fork in that tree.  That did not work either, Vera thought we should try pulling it back at the base, so I moved the 4 wheeler down there.

After I got around the compost pile and Vera hooked the winch line to the tree, I was able to winch it towards me and we got the top out of the fork and it fell to the ground.

I got to use my birthday presents from yesterday, the Twist N' Stay Ties worked great for the big extension cord, I never had it secured before and it fought me every time I took it off the hanger.  My new gloves are really nice and comfortable.  It was our first big outdoor day this year, we had a great time and got lots done.

A great day of Flying!

Well, I did it again, I did not do the blog for a couple of days and now I have to remember what went on.  Wednesday I made a recycling run with the last of the kitchen project's cardboard, plus our normal recycling.  I did some cleanup in the shop and had a pretty relaxing day.  I finished up the hanger for Vera's gardening tools and got it installed.  It turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I also got my planes ready for the nice day that was forecast for Thursday.

They were right with their forecast, it was a great day!  I had Vera take some pictures of the helicopter and I during my first flight of the day.  Good thing too, as I crashed it on the second flight!  I had noticed the blades were not tracking, it turns out a screw had come loose and it fell out during the second flight.  I took one of my glow fuel powered airplanes with me today, the one I had been working on last weekend.  Now I remember why electrics are so nice, I got fuel on my hands and sprayed it on my shirt sleeve.  Then at the end of the day, I had to wash all the oil off the plane, but it was worth it, because the plane is a rocket!  I had previously gotten a 132 mph reading on the radar gun with it, today with the new prop, it seemed even faster.  Next time out we will have to clock it again.    We had a nice time today, there were 6 other flyers there, and everyone was in a great mood.  After we got home, Michelle and James stopped by with pizza and my birthday present.  We had a really nice visit with them, and got to hear all about their visit with Aunt Marie.  I hope you got out and enjoyed the sunshine today.

Fresh Bread

UPS showed up early today with our new shelves for two cabinets.  I hardly had to look at the directions after doing the others.

Vera made bread and cookies while I was putting them together.  While I was taking this picture I also took a couple of the bread and cookies, put them on Facebook and emailed them to Mik.  It was not long before Mik answered back that he would be here soon.

Shortly after the second batch of cookies were done, I was headed over to give some to Steve, Dianne and the twins when Mik pulled into the driveway.  He was on the way back from umpiring in Pullman, coming over White Pass when he got my emails and decided to stop for a cookie.  When he left, we loaded up a baggie of cookies and bread for him to take home.  After Mik left, I took the cookies over and watched the twins swing, every time I see them, it seems like they talk clearer.  I came up with a plan for some hooks for Vera to hang her gardening tools on.  I found an oak board just the right size in the shop, so I drilled it, epoxied in 6 inch dowels and got it stained.  Tomorrow I can give it a couple of coats of clear.  I did some cleanup in the shop this evening and almost got the Mustang done, I just have to put the muffler and cowl on.  The moon was really bright tonight, so I took a few pictures of it, after I got them on the computer, I was not happy with them!  A little later, I went out to try again and it was snowing and the deck was covered.  It will be interesting to see what this crazy weather brings.

Saturday and Sunday

Saturday

I spent the day doing some maintenance on my Voodoo Mustang, it started by me changing to a different prop so it would go faster.  I discovered a problem with the fuel tank.  I had to pull the engine to get the tank out to repair it, then I found the engine mounts needed a little work.  It wasn't too long before my thoughts of flying it Sunday were shot down.  I did some cleanup in the computer room after installing the printer.  I found an extra toner cartridge for the old printer during the cleanup, so I put it on the Longview Freecycle.  I had a response from a guy that wanted it in less than an hour.  I got my batteries for flying Sunday all charged up during the evening.  I forgot one set that was charging, only remembering them when I was in bed.  I had to get dressed and run out to the motor home and disconnect them.  They probably would have been OK, they were on a fully automatic charger, but I did not want to take a chance.

Sunday

I headed to Toledo about 9 this morning for some flying, it was supposed to get up to about 55 degrees, but I don't think it made it!  The sun played Peak a Boo with us all day.

My new Stinson flew great, I put three flights on it today and all it needed was a couple of clicks of trim.  I also flew my Sukhoi SU-29, F-15, F-4 and Lancair.  Counting me, there were 9 flyers out there today and my propane heater was a popular spot again.  It has been a life saver this year.

Two projects got done today!

I finally got the windshield installed on the Stinson, so it is ready for a test flight on Sunday!  I also got the new laser printer installed and setup on all the computers.  It is wireless, so it works great with the laptops.  One thing I did not get done with was a new wireless router I was trying to setup.  I need to hook it up to the Ethernet and that was a little more involved than I felt like doing today.  I took the old laser printer out to the shop and had a great time tearing it all apart to see how they work.  Funny how that works, it took up way more space in the garbage can in pieces than it would have assembled. 

Time for a break!

When Vera finished her walk, we headed to Lowe's for some pull out shelves for under the sink.  We found two that would work OK under the sink, but we will have to order the two drawer models for the other two places we want to use them.   After we got home, I started picking up all the tools and materials that were left over.  When I got them to the shop, I cleaned and put them all away.  I also put up the last kick board and after checking for leaks, I buttoned everything up.  Vera used some of her new space to make a real nice dinner.  I still have a little trim work to do and put in the new shelves when they show up, but I think a break is in order for a few days to do a little model building and flying.  Right now, Sunday's forecast is looking pretty good!