Blueberries

It was a beautiful morning for a walk, good to have all four of us again.  When we got home, we pulled the netting off the blueberries and started picking.  Boy are they sweet, we sampled lots of them as we picked.  We froze three containers of them and saved out some for me to make blueberry milkshakes with.  I worked on the night flying plane this afternoon and had a pleasant surprise when Barry walked in.  He is pretty brave to negotiate that mess I have in the front room.  He was on his way to PDX for a flight to AZ.  We had a nice visit until he had to head for the airport.  I did a little cleaning in the front room of the shop and there hanging in plain sight was the stadium chair I couldn't find last week, that was a relief, we were sure it had gotten left at one of James' games.  The blueberry shake this evening sure tasted good!

It is done!

Tuesday

Not much to report , I walked, just Don and I today, both Vera and Pam were not feeling well.  I worked on a plane I am setting up for night flying, but before I knew it, it was time to head for my eye appointment.  Of course, they ended up dilating my eyes, so that put a damper on any kind of precision work for the rest of the day.  Afterwards, we ate lunch at Skipper's, stopped at Home Depot for the last two Envirotiles I needed and headed home via the West Side Hwy., a much cooler way home.  We picked one of the blueberry bushes tonight and I had a blueberry milkshake for my treat this evening, Yum!

Wednesday

Vera had bible study and a birthday lunch today.  I paid a couple of bills online and then about 10 UPS showed up with my Ultracote for making the markings on the Bronco.  I cut it to size and got the Stika cutter set up.  Ultracote has changed because it does not work well in the cutter now.  I checked the tracking and the vinyl I had ordered at the same time was available for pickup at the post office.  I made a quick run down for it, then cut the first sheet to size for the cutter and had lots better luck with it.  The vinyl has a permanent adhesive so it should work fine on the planes.  After making a couple of adjustments in the program I got the new batch of markings cut out and installed.  It doesn't look quite as plain now.

 When I got the watering done this afternoon, the motor home was shading the shop porch, so I decided to level and install the Envirotile I picked up yesterday.  I worked up a good sweat, that ground is sure hard for all the years of driving on it.  I got them pretty close to level, but I am going to wait and do a little more after things settle and before putting the clips on.

Vera was out taking pictures of some flowers today, this Moss
Rose must really like where she put it because it has at least doubled in size and has all kinds of blooms.

That is good enough!

I got the canopy glued to the frame today, you can see where I painted the canopy red to match the fuselage, the canopy used to be all black.  The nose cone matches much better after it's paint job.  I made up a seat and installed a pilot today also.  The only thing left is some markings, some came with the kit, but they were all wrong, so I attempted to make new ones, but I ran out of material.  I have it on order so some time next week it will have California Dept. of Forestry markings.  They use Bronco's for fire fighting, they turn on a smoke system and lead the water bombers in.  Once the markings are on, that will probably be all I do to this plane.  I brought my game camera in today, I had videos of deer, rabbits, coyote, myself spraying weeds, and from today, James and Parker headed for the creek with the 4 wheeler and trailer.  I also walked this morning, it was really nice outside.

A day of rest!

After a week of baseball, we were ready for a rest.  We even stayed home from church.  Aside from watering, I worked in the shop on the Bronco most of the day.  I finally figured out a canopy latch, the nose wheel used to be mounted on this former, the real plane has it much further back, so I moved it.  I made up this lever that pulls the canopy retaining wire back, it sticks out through the hole where the old nose gear was.  Winding the spring was probably the hardest part of this job, but it works great!

All Star Game

We rode down to the All Star game with Mik, Michelle, James and Dalton.  It was a good move on our part, because it was hot and our air conditioner doesn't work.  We spread the blanket under a tree behind the bleachers we were going to use and I laid down, it was sure peaceful looking up into the tree.

  This is Vera and Mik waiting for the game to start in the shade of the tree.

While we were waiting I saw a Cessna pulling a banner around, there must be a lot of drag from it, because the Cessna sounded like it was really working hard.

I am always amazed when James goes up and gets one like this, I shouldn't be, he does it all the time.  I know he got this one, because I was shooting 5 shot bursts and in the next picture you can see the ball in his glove.

This is James' buddy Dalton batting, they have played a lot of baseball together.

Cole was the other player from JH Kelly that was playing in the All Star game.  The game ended up a 2 to 2 tie, because they could not finish the last inning as it was time for the Championship game to start.  The whole group stopped at Billygan's Roadhouse restaurant for dinner after the game, there ended up being 12 of us around the table, lots of fun and good food.  Afterwards, we enjoyed the ride home in a car with AC!

Babe Ruth

The final day of the Babe Ruth pool play was today, JH Kelly did not have a chance to be in the final, so they played a lot of kids who had not gotten to play.  James did not play first today, but they put him in to pinch hit once.  He got a hit and went to first, the next batter walked, so he went to second where he is in the picture.

Then he stole third and slid in!  The inning ended without a hit, so that is as far as he got.  They lost the game, but James, Dalton and Cole will be playing in an All Star game tomorrow.  We made a Costco stop on the way home and had a great time walking every food isle.  I puttered with the Bronco a little this evening and put in one flight on the quad, that thing is so much fun at dusk.

The Princesses and the frog

The girls came over to see if I knew about Rielee's car wash poster.  I had already seen it, and we made arrangements to do it later.  Then they headed over to the pond, Rielee spotted a tadpole that had developed its legs and the twins had to go over and take a look, darn cute!

Later, they came over and wanted to know if they could wash it then, so I moved the Blazer over to Steve and Dianne's and went home to finish dinner.

When I came back, Dianne was helping, it seems the twins got pretty wet!

Ava came out in dry clothes and used a wash cloth to dry Harper's flip flops, then she hung it on the post to dry and gave me this look as she waited for Harper.

I paid Rielee and gave a couple of dollars to each of the girls, they packed them clear over to Laury's and back.

This evening Ava and Harper brought over warm donuts for us, I ate one before I thought of taking a picture.  Dianne had made them with coconut oil and they are really good.  I worked on the Bronco this afternoon and evening, I masked off the canopy and repainted part of it to match the color scheme on the body.  That looked so good that I took the nose cone off and painted it also, as the color did not match the covering on the body very well.  While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I started modifying my Mini Titian to a flybarless system, it will be interesting to see if it works.  I took most of the pictures today with my $4 Olympus SP-510UZ garage sale camera, it is 7 MP, 10 power zoom, it seems to work fine.  I put low discharge eneloop batteries in it and I put it in the motor home for those times when I forget my regular camera.

More rain and more baseball.

More rain today, so the 12:15 game in Vancouver was changed to 12:15 at Kelso, then it was changed to 5:00 at Kelso.  It was a good deal for us, not much of a drive.  James had to go up high to get this throw after a bunt by the batter.  They scored first, but then did not score again, and ended up losing 7 to 1.  I did get some changes made to the Bronco while waiting for the game.  I bushed the landing gear blocks by putting brass tubing in the holes, I added some down thrust, it climbs under power, got the magnets installed to hold the canopy on and trimmed the canopy to its final shape.

After the game we filled up with gas and headed home.  We settled in, watched American Ninja Warrior, Off Road Racing and Wipe Out the rest of the evening.

Rain and Baseball

Well, I did not have to water today, it rained pretty good.  James' 5:45 game in Vancouver was moved to Kelso's Rister Stadium at 5:00 because it was really raining down there.  This is James making a catch during a double play, they had several during this game.

If I remember right, James got an RBI with this hit.

I am really impressed by some of the catches he makes, he went way up for this one.  They played a good game, then ended up losing 7 to 6 on an overthrow to second in the bottom of the 7th inning.

Babe Ruth

We walked this morning, then I watered and puttered around home until it was time to head for Vancouver for the Babe Ruth 16 - 18 Regional Tournament.

At the start of the game they introduced all the players, this is just after they finished introducing JH Kelly.

This is James' part of a double play to end the inning.  There were just too many errors, so they lost 5 to 0.

James played good, and got one of the few hits they had.

I went out to lock up this evening and ended up flying the quad, those lights show up pretty good as it gets dark.

It isn't as close to the trees as it looks (I hope!), from where I was doing the flying it did not look close to anything.  It is darker than the picture shows, the camera did a good job of slowing down the shutter and opening up the lens.

No Luck!

We went to church this morning and then headed up to the flying field for the rest of the Fun Fly.  We got there in time for lunch, but it was lots colder than yesterday.  Most of the people were bundled up, had their stuff put away and were waiting for the drawing.  I got in a couple of flights before it was time for the drawing.

This is Jeff and Tina at the prize table, Jeff was the event organizer and he did a great job.  I thought that if I won anything, it would probably be the gas engine, since I have only had three in all of my modeling years and I fly all electric now, but I did not win anything!  After the drawing, I put in a bunch more flights, did some visiting and we headed home about 6, it was a good weekend.

Club Picnic

We got up to the flying field a little before 9 this morning, there were not too many people yet, so we picked out a place and got set up.  After a pilots meeting, the flying started.  It was windy all day, but I got in lots of flying!

I set up my table tent and it really helped keep the sun off me and the table.  The wind made for some interesting looking clouds, but it blew my table tent down.

Bob put on a nice show with his Yak 55 with smoke.  We were given cards for each flight, trying to make a good poker hand to win prizes with.  I ended up with two pair and won a tee shirt.  We visited, flew and had a good time until dark, then the night flying started.  I flew the quad, then the Slow Stick with glow wire on it.  Tom and another flyer from the Thurston County club had LED strip lights on their planes and it was really colorful and showed up great.  We had a good time watching them, it was the high light of the day.  Tom's friend offered me a chance to fly his plane and I really enjoyed it.  We finally headed home at 10:30.

Yard Sales!

Thursday, we had hit the few garage sales we could find around Castle Rock after our walk.  After the parade we saw some signs for sales today and I checked online to find some more.  We headed out to a 7 family one just up the road at 9 this morning.  A little over 3 hours later, we were home with our treasures, we had a great time!  I spent most of the rest of the day getting my planes and the motor home ready for the club fly-in, picnic and night flying tomorrow at Toledo.

Parade Day

We sat over by the fire hall to watch the parade, this is Parker driving Bob's tractor with the float on it.

This is how the float looked from the rear, of course, most of the kids were facing the other way.

So, I borrowed a picture from Dianne's blog where their faces showed.  It turns out we got first place in the private float division.

Since this is throw back Thursday, here is a picture of the last float we did in 2008.  Boy have the kids grown!

This pair of pirates really had nice outfits and sure looked the part.

This fire engine has been in every parade for as long as I can remember.  They give rides in it at different events in Castle Rock.

This Plymouth has been in the fair parade before, I found a picture of it in the 2010 parade.

When the parade was over, we went over to the fairgrounds, the first thing that caught our eye was the cross cut saw demonstration.

Then they had speed climbing, I believe the guy in the green shirt made it up to the red mark in 5.9 seconds.

That guy in the blue shirt was pretty good, he had quite a few throws in the center.

From there, we went looking for Michelle and our friend Coleen's kid's pigs.  Before we were done, we found the pigs, their daughter Christy, Coleen and Matt.

We went into the youth and adult crafts to find the entries by people we knew.  First, we ran into Pastor Pam and Don, there was Dianne and family looking at the twins and Rielee's awards.  Harper was the first to spot us and ran right over.

Ava came over and took me over so I could see her ribbon, then she went and got Vera.

As we were going out, I took a picture of this new feature, they made a paved path down the hill and had it landscaped nicely.

We are headed home after a big day!