How to haul a B-36

It was too rainy to walk this morning, so I kept working on the stands to hold the B-36 when we go to the flying field.  I thought the wing and fuselage might go in the storage compartment under the bed, but the center section of the wing is almost 6 feet long and 21 inches wide, so there was not room for two stands.  I think I can modify the wing stand to also hold the fuselage, but for now the fuselage will have to be carried in the bedroom.  While I was working, I heard helicopters coming, so I grabbed the camera out of the motor home and got ready.  It was 3 Chinooks flying fairly low, I hope it shows in the picture, the second one had the ramp down and two guys sitting there with their legs over the edge.  I did some work on Dick Evan's plane and it looks like it will be ready for this weekend.  The weather got better during the afternoon and we finally got our walk in when we went for the mail and groceries.  I tried out my headphones this evening, there is a transmitter that plugs into the TV, it sends the sound to wireless headphones so I can watch TV without disturbing Vera.

I added another picture that shows their feet better.

No walk Wednesday!

The title sounds like something I have heard from the twins, but we do not walk on Wednesday's because Vera has bible study.  I puttered on the computer until Barry called, then I met him at the bottom of the hill in the truck park to get my inspection scope back.  He said it worked great for finding the dead rat in the wall.  He was on the way to Walla Walla helping some friends move.  After a short visit, he was on the way again and I picked up the mail.  James' and my hearing protectors with radios in them were at the post office, so I got to go home and play with mine.  The new ones have digital tuning and are much clearer.  The twins were really happy to see me today, I was a reprieve from their naps.  I got to hear the latest lawn mower stories and watch the twins play.  They were sure sad when it was nap time, they were pulling their blankets behind them and sobbing.  When I got home, I worked on some stands for the B-36 so I could carry it in the motor home, while glue was drying, I worked on the the Jet Ranger and got it flying great!  When Vera got me for dinner, a sheriff pulled up and asked if we were 623, we told him it was the next driveway.  They had a burglary this morning, someone came in through an open door and stole their jewelry.   After dinner and during the second flight, I had Vera come out and take a few pictures.  Then I did a little more work on the stands before coming in to do this.

Spraying

After our walk this morning, I loaded up the mower and equipment to spray for weeds at the flying fields.  Our first stop was at the Cowlitz Valley RC Flyers field in Goble, two tanks of spray later, we were done and on the way back to Longview for something to eat.  Our first two choices did not have room to park the trailer, so we ended up at the Kelso Dairy Queen.  After a stop at home to refill the tanks with water, we headed up to Toledo to do that field.  No problems there either and two tanks full did the runway and parking area.  When we got home and I had unloaded, I mixed up one more tank of spray and did our lawn and Michelle's rental's lawn.  By the time I cleaned everything and put it away, I was pretty much done for the day and took a big fat nap.

Traeger Ribs are great!

I spent most of the day messing with the B-36, I got the radio programmed and saved it to the computer.  Then I tried programming the radio so I could run some of the motors at different speeds, that did not go well and I never did get it to work.  Michelle called and invited us down for dinner with them, she mentioned that Mik was cooking something on the Traeger, which turned out to be ribs.  They turned out great, in fact I went back for seconds!

Since we are busy on Michelle's birthday, we took her present with us, James is sitting under the blanket Vera knitted, reading the book I had printed of her blog.

 It wasn't long until Michelle and Vera had their Kindles out figuring out how to do something.  After dinner, we watched the Mariner's game and visited until it was time to head home.  I went out and did some more work on the B-36, making a wiring change and then trying to program the radio again to get the motors to run at different speeds.  It didn't work this time either, so I disabled the mixes and came in for the evening.

B-36

When Vera went to church, I went out and started putting the stripes on the wing that outline where people can walk on the real B-36.  Boy, was there lots of measuring and cutting of small pieces involved.  I also painted the first three spinners red.  By afternoon I was ready for a break and I was about half done.  I saw Dianne outside, so I wandered over and talked to her for a few minutes, on the way back I noticed the Rhodie's on the North side of my shop were finally all bloomed out, so I got the camera and took a bunch of pictures

After my break, I went back out and finished up the stripes and painted the last three spinners.  Then it was time to go in and relax the rest of the evening watching my recording of today's Indy 500.

Friday and Saturday

Friday

Friday morning, I went up to the Toledo field and helped mow.  When I got home and after lunch, I mowed our lawn.  Then I mixed up a couple of gallons of weed killer and sprayed.  I got a cable winch out and pulled the Rhodie that had fallen over back up part way, I will do some pruning and then pull it the rest of the way up after the blooms fall off.  I spent the evening getting ready to fly Saturday.

Saturday

I grabbed my cameras, stopped at Subway and took off for the LCRC field about 8 this morning.  There was no traffic on Barnes Drive or Jackson Hwy, so I putted along about 40 enjoying the ride.

One club member beat me to the field, he had been there since 6:30, but couldn't fly for an hour or more because of the fog.  By the time I was done visiting with him, other flyers started showing up.  It turned into a busy day of flying with 11 flyers there.  One of the guys had a smoke system on his biplane, in the afternoon against the blue sky, it really looked good.  After the flying was done, 4 of us sat together, had our dinner and hashed over the day.  It was a nice way to relax before heading home.

Well, that was not a fun job!

I noticed water on the shop bathroom floor a few days ago, while I was looking for the source of the water, I found a crack in the toilet base.  We picked up a new toilet Wednesday and I changed it this morning.  I made a trip over to see the twins when I took a break and they were in a great mood.  I even got a hug from Harper when I was leaving.  I finished up with the bathroom about Noon, I had the leftovers from the Red Lobster for lunch.  I spent the rest of the day putting on all the graphics except the two insignia that go on the nose, I am not happy with the paint there and plan on repainting.  I noticed today that I am going to have to trim some of the Rhodies, they are falling over from the weight of the leaves and blossoms.

48 years

We started our day of celebrating our 48th Wedding Anniversary with breakfast at the 49er.  Then it was back home to relax for awhile before going shopping.  We left to shop at about 2:00, our first stop was the post office and my graphics for the B-36 were there.  We had some things to pick up at Lowe's, so that was our next stop.

Then it was off to dinner at the Red Lobster, Vera had fish and chips, the fish was one piece the length of the plate.  I had the Shrimp Trio which was great and way more than I could eat, so I have a treat for later or tomorrow.  It has been a great 48 years, marrying Vera was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Wow, that was a lot of work!

There I was loading the pickup with chunks of wood, the kids got the 4-wheeler stuck but managed to get it out without my help.  I also loaded a hot chocolate machine, which I dropped and there was Nestle's Quick all over the place. Then we loaded the 4-wheeler on top of the wood and put a big long crooked piece of wood beside it and along the cab.  Tying it down was not going good when I woke up from that dream.

I worked on this little Space Walker that used to belong to my friend Dick Evans most of the day. I got all the servos installed and made several modifications to change it from gas to electric power.  I also did some clean up in the shop and found my hearing protectors and a hole punch that I have been looking for.   The funny thing is they were both in plain sight, just not where they normally are!

Computers

I spent most of the day on one computer or the other.   I did get my Brikenstocks sent back for exchange this morning.  After that, I got Vera's favorites and pictures transferred to the Samsung.  I ran a full scan on this computer and corrected a couple of problems.  I also used the Samsung to make a time lapse video of the picnic yesterday.  I had sat my GoPro on the dash taking a picture every 5 seconds.   The GoPro took 5400 pictures over a 2 hour period from 8:00 until 10:00.  I tried to make it into a video on this computer, but it kept running out of memory, so I had to use the Samsung, which worked great!   I had to go through two processes to convert the jpg's to a movie.  It took awhile, but I am happy with how it turned out.  I put the video on Vimeo, where you can watch it if you are interested.  Next, I want to do a day out one of our windows.

Here is the link to the video.  https://vimeo.com/42599454

A rainy picnic

We were up early and headed to the LCRC picnic.  We were not the first ones there, the president had already gotten in 4 flights.  He said it started raining just before we got there.  The airport weather forecast said there was a 69% chance of rain, they were right today.  It was supposed to drop to 29% at Noon, but that never happened.  We had a number of people from other clubs show up and decide not to stay.  We ended up with quite a few of our club members staying and flying all day.  I put in a couple of flights and did lots of visiting.  Since there was so many people there and lots of side dishes, we got the BBQ out and cooked some hamburgers and hot dogs even though we had rescheduled the picnic to next Saturday.  Barry and Mona stopped by to pick up my inspection scope.  We had a good time visiting with them, and one member had lots of questions for them about Arizona and Florida.  We went home about 3:00 and took it easy the rest of the day.

Baseball

James had a baseball tournament this weekend, so we were up bright and early for today's 9:00 game.  This is James getting his third hit of the game.  They won that game 10 to 9.  We ran home after the game and I did some motor home loading for the club picnic tomorrow.  We also stopped at the Post Office and my new Brikenstock sandals were there.  As soon as we got home, I tried them on and they turned out to be about an inch too long.  I went by their charts, but their idea of a 12 and everyone else's is sure different.  I will exchange them next week.

The second game today was at 1:30, this is James hitting a double.

Here he is sliding into second, this was a close game all the way, but they ended up losing 7 to 6.  We stopped at Fred Meyer after the game and picked up the food for the club picnic.  It took awhile, but I finally got everything loaded into the motor home.

Wouldn't you know it!

Yep, wouldn't you know it, the first thing this morning I found the missing piece for the motor home storage compartment door.  The one I made is working so good that I am leaving it in there.  The original will become the spare, if I can remember where it is next time I need one (it is in the cupboard above the motor home refrigerator if you ever hear of me looking for it).  It was my week to mow, so I loaded up the mower and then made a trip to see the twins.  I got them mixed up today and Ava's comment was "wrong girl", they were not wearing their normal colors!  They cracked us up with their dancing and falling down on purpose.

After a stop at Subway, we headed up to Toledo to mow.  I had made one pass when Leonard and Audrey showed up, while we were visiting with them, Bill and his wife showed up with a new sign for the field.

We all had to go over, to help and give advice, it looks great, the old one had been up for about 5 years and was pretty badly weathered.  Everyone took turns mowing and moving stuff around, so the job went quicker than normal.

When we were close to done, we took a break and everyone did some flying.  This is Leonard's Eagle coming in to do a touch and go.  By the time we quit flying and blew the dried grass off the field, we finally made it home about 7.  With the new mandrel and sharp blades, the mower worked great today.

Finally our Rhododendrons are blooming!

Finally our Rhododendrons have started blooming, this one is my favorite.  I worked on the drawer for the motor home most of the day, it is to the point where I can use it and see if any changes are needed.

Of course I managed to lose the piece that keeps the door centered in the frame.  I laid down and looked for it in the gravel, but no luck, so I went in and made a new one out of Teflon.  Once while I was waiting for some glue to dry, I put the new mandrel in the mower deck and put the deck back on the tractor.  It is sure a lot quieter now!  I was looking at the flowers when I finished and decided to take some pictures of them in the evening light.  The light certainly fades fast, I only had about 15 minutes before the shutter speed got too low for good pictures.

This one is on the North side of my shop, they are a little behind the others, but I found a couple of blooms to photograph.

Here already!

My mower parts came today, pretty good service, I ordered them at 11:30 Monday and they were at the Post Office this morning.  I have been planning on making a pull out drawer for the area under the bed in the motor home.  It is 8 feet deep, most of the time there is just stuff in the curb end as it is so hard to reach things in the back.  I did some measuring this morning and ran down to the lumber yard.  It went pretty good and it will not take long to finish tomorrow.  James had a baseball game at 6:00 and that was a good excuse to stop.

It was a close game, they were down 3 to 1, tied it up at 3 all, got the lead at 5 to 3, tied again at 5 all, but had a bad inning and lost 8 to 5.  Boy was it cold at Roy Morse Park, the wind never let up the whole game.  I went back to the car about half way through the game and got my down jacket (I am sure glad it was in there!) and took my stadium blanket to Vera.

Monday and Tuesday

Monday

We have started going down to the North end of the river walk, parking, and then walking down town to get the mail.  Today, my landing gear came, plus we stopped and picked up some 1/2 inch mesh to make a screen for dirt.  I mowed lawn today, all of a sudden the mower deck started making lots of noise, I stopped and tried to find the cause.  I did not find anything really obvious, so I kept on mowing.  After I finished, I went out and pulled the deck off, that is when I found the bad bearings in the left blade mandrel.  I checked at Sears and a new one was $74, I did a little checking and found a place in Oregon that had them for $19.95, so I ordered two.   I got some 2X4s out and made up a frame for the screen this afternoon since I couldn't do any more on the mower.

Tuesday

I puttered around home today, watering, sharpened the mower blades and brought in a few planes from the motor home.  Vera baked some rolls for lunch and we had French dip sandwiches, boy was it good!  James had a track meet against Huntington this afternoon at Kelso.  It was a great afternoon to sit and watch the kids.  James did the long jump, javelin and discus, it was the first time he has tried the discus and he got third. 

Mothers Day

My goal this morning was to get water flowing in the new pond.  I got the pond vacuum out and removed all the debris that had accumulated during the build.  After I refilled it, got the UV light installed and hooked up the pump, we were back in business!  As I was cleaning things up, Bev showed up to visit Vera.

Bev brought Vera a pretty bouquet of flowers and a card, they had a nice visit and I got a picture of them as Bev was leaving.  We were invited down to Mik, Michelle and James' for dinner, so we left home about 3:30. 

We spent the afternoon out on their deck enjoying the warm weather. Mik had made steak, chicken and asparagus on the Treager, so we had a delicious dinner. Michelle had gotten Vera Water Lilies for Mothers Day, so we planted them as soon as we got home.

This is how the pond looked this evening, we had saved the moss from the old installation and replanted it.  The silk flowers came with the water lilies and the new liner.  You can't see the real ones, because they are on the bottom, we can hardly wait to see them start growing.

Warm!

I sure slept last night, I was also a little sore this morning, so the first thing I did was put the heat pad on my back.  James had a 12:30 game today, so I just puttered around until it was time to leave.  We picked up the mail and dropped off a food donation for the Mail Carrier's Food Drive before heading over Delameter for the game.

There is one spot after the road becomes Woodside that has a great view of the mountains, today I had a camera, so we stopped in the middle of the road and took a bunch of pictures.

James pitched the first two innings, a combination of things caused them to be down 5 runs after two.  James played first after that and made some nice plays there.  After the game, we went home and enjoyed the air conditioning until it was time for James' flag football game.

James is making a great catch for a touch down, the defender was all over him.  It was a nice evening for watching football, his team won and we went to Dairy Queen for treats after the game with Mik, Michelle and James.

This is the sunset from Dairy Queen as we came out after our treats, I love those Blizzards!

Up the hill, under the power lines and down into the valley!

Yep, we followed the signs to a garage sale this morning.  We were on the way to Longview to get stone for the pond and we started seeing the signs.  The driveway kept forking into more driveways, I was beginning to wonder if I shouldn't have gone down this driveway as I was towing the trailer.  It turned out they had a nice big yard and plenty of room to turn around.  When we got to Longview, the first place hardly had any stone this year, they offered to order some, but I was interested in getting it today.  Our second choice didn't have any, but Swanson's had lots, so we picked out a cart load and headed home.

 This is how the pond looked after a second trip for stone, if we had gotten twice as much the first trip, it would have been about right.  It got pretty warm this afternoon, so we stopped and showered before James' game at Toutle.

This is James going after a foul ball, good reflexes as he caught it.  They had one bad inning and could not catch up.  It got pretty cool by the time the game was over.  For as nice as it had been all day, the heater sure felt good when I got in the Blazer.

What a fun day!

My day got off to a great start when I went over to see the twins.  The humming birds were really active at their feeder.  I went home and got my camera to see what kind of pictures I could get.

The twins were playing outside and ringing the doorbell, I answered it a couple of times to tease them, then they asked me to come watch them slide and later wanted me to push them on the swings.  Steve was pulling up fence posts around the garden and the girls were helping him.                                                                   

Harper went out in the tall grass where the garden used to be and it was just a couple of minutes until Ava was out there also.  I took a bunch of pictures today using the telephoto so Dianne could see how well they work, I am working on her to get a big lens camera.

After the girls were done swinging, Papa took them for a ride on the mower, they were loving that.  When I got home, we made a mail run and had lunch at BK, after we got home, I decided to work on the pond some more.

I made good headway today, I rototilled the area in front of the pond, contoured it and added the sand.  Tomorrow, we will get some flat stones and put then on the sand.   We have a butterfly and humming bird mix of flower seed that will go into the area I rototilled.  This evening I even found time to do a little airplane work, fixing the rudder on one, programming another to the repaired radio and then saving the files to the computer.

My Radio is Back!

I love this time of year, there is so much to take pictures of.  I took it pretty easy today, just light jobs.  I put a new movement in the ceramic clock for the deck, then I went over to see the twins.  While I was there, I saw a package get delivered at our house.  I couldn't stand it, I was headed home a few minutes later to see what it was.  My radio was back from being repaired, the main board was bad and they had replaced it.  The down side was, all the model memories had been lost.  I had saved some last year, so I had to put the hard drive back in our oldest computer and get it going to retrieve the files.  Once I got them on a jump drive and transferred to the laptop I was able to download them into the radio.  I recovered 9 but there are two planes that I had never saved.  I got one of those programmed this evening and the next time I have the B-36 out, I will do it.

Wow, I got a lot done today!

When I got home from taking James to school this morning, I started putting those new bulbs I bought yesterday in the kitchen.  It wasn't long until I ran into a problem, one fixture had a burned out ballast and the other one was leaking tar.  We ran to Bredfield's, picked up two new ones and the mail.  After I installed them and the rest of the bulbs, the kitchen looks pretty good with all the lights being the same color.

I was still feeling pretty ambitious, so I started changing out the lower liner in our small water feature.  I had found a bigger one at a garage sale last summer for $35.

After several tries, I finally got the hole big enough.  I needed some sand to put under and around it, so I hooked up the trailer and we headed for Swanson's.

I had told Vera about the pots Steve and Dianne got, she wanted to get a set also so Winco was our first stop.  I ended up picking out the three in the front of this picture.  I was looking for a UV light for the pond clarifier, I gave Home Depot a try on the way to Swanson's, but they did not have any in their pond supplies.  I did end up picking out all the flowers for the new pots and got a couple of bags of potting soil.  We picked up a half yard of sand at Swanson's and took the slow way home over Pleasant Hill Rd.  After potting the plants, I leveled up the bottom of the hole with sand and put the liner in.  I filled it part way with water and started putting the sand around it.  By the time I gave up, I was about 3/4 done.

Beautiful Flying Weather Today!

After I took James to school this morning, I asked Vera if she wanted to go flying,  she said "Yes" and away we went.  I got in a couple of flights testing the new digital elevator servo I put into the P-51.  The new servo really made the plane much easier to fly.  While we were there, a new Sani Can the club had ordered got delivered, so I helped the driver with it.  He mentioned people steal them, so I made sure it was bolted down before we left.  About 1 it started getting pretty warm, so we headed home.  I picked up James after track practice, he was hungry so we hit Dairy Queen on the way to his house to feed and water Meg and hang out until his batting practice.  While he was at batting practice, I ran to Home Depot and got some bulbs we needed and a new light fixture.  We ran Levi home after they watched a friend's game, made one more stop at James' before heading home via Burgerville.

Sunday

James and I both slept in this morning.  After a little Xbox and breakfast, James and Parker wanted to go for a 4 wheeler ride.

Parker went and got Auna to come along with us.  She drove with me behind her, James in the trailer and Parker on his 4 wheeler.  We went down to the bridge, up to the pipe line, down to the shooting range and back to the bridge again.  Parker had to leave, but Auna and James wanted to go to agate beach, so we headed down there.  Getting down there was no problem, getting out turned into a little challenge, we ended up stuck and had to winch out.  It turned out the narrow wheels on the trailer were sinking in and once the 4 wheeler started spinning, we were done.  Once we got it out, it was no problem as long as no one was in the trailer.  That meant I got to walk through the swampy area.  Auna and James did find some nice agates at the second spot.  After we went home and got cleaned up, it was time for Auna's birthday party.

 Auna was 12 today, Jillian helped her blow out the candles.  After some great cake and ice cream, it was time to head for James' flag football game.

James had a great day, throwing for 4 touch downs and one PAT, running for a touch down and playing some great defense.  They ended up winning 51 to nothing.  They were trying to let the other team score and they couldn't do it even then.  We went up to feed, water and walk Meg, James showered and changed before we got something to eat.  He decided on Panda Express, they have a new Angus steak dish that is really good.

Work Party

James and I headed for Toledo about 8 this morning, the first thing we did was stop at Subway for a breakfast sandwich for James and Subway sandwiches for lunch at the field.  The work party went really well, 13 members showed up to help, so no one had to do a lot of work.  It was cool out, James and I each flew one flight and we decided to leave because of the rain, which did not look like it was going to let up.  We called Bob Stedham to see if we could stop by for a visit and headed to his place.  We had a real nice time, he had not seen James for quite a while so it was fun getting caught up.  On the way home, we stopped by Horty's for a few minutes to drop off a video.  He was impressed with how much James had grown.  Once we got home, James did some visiting around the neighborhood and played some more Xbox with Parker.  They wanted to rent a movie, so I took them down to the rental place and they picked one out.  After they watched it, James did some of his home work.  He and I messed around with the Xbox until bedtime.  I have some pictures from today in the camera out in the motor home, I will add them later.

Busy Friday

The first order of business this morning was taking James to school at Cascade after he spent the night.  When I got home, I started getting things ready for the LCRC work party Saturday.  I charged batteries, loaded tools and materials into the motor home.  I headed back to get James a little early so I could watch his flag football practice.  I spent most of the time in the car as it was darn cold out there.

We picked up dinner for James on the way home and after he cleaned up, Parker and him settled in for some Xbox.