6 Years Old!

When I was watering this morning, I misted the plants and then I noticed the water drops on this rose, it made for kind of a pretty picture.

Today was Ava and Harper's 6th birthday, Dianne invited us over for cake and ice cream.  The girls were really excited, there was lots of interest in Papa's lighting of the candles.

I think Harper missed on her first blow!

There was one present with both of their names on it and they cooperated pretty well opening it.

Do you think she likes it?  I don't hear high frequencies very well and I heard it, lots of decibels!

After the party they went out to do some scooter riding before their dad came to pick them up.  They posed very nicely for me.

Bark Nuggets

I have been wanting some bark for the flower beds, Vera's new glasses needed adjusting so we headed to Longview early to beat the heat.  Vera was in and out of Kaiser Optical in about 10 minutes, we were the only customers at Swanson's and we were back home by 10.  I saw 99 on the shop thermometer today, we spent the day inside until about 8 when we did a short section of the flower bed South of the house.

Tuesday and Wednesday

I was a slow starter on Tuesday after the busy weekend.  I finally decided to change the front tires on the lawnmower which were leaking.  While I was changing the second one our buck and doe came wandering by.  They were doing their normal sampling of the plants.

I had a call today from the son of a friend and coworker from the Fibre.  His dad is quite sick and they wanted to see the planes he had built go to someone who could use them.  There weren't any I wanted, but I offered to send the information to other club members and gave them a few suggestions what they should do with a couple of items.

On the way home, we had this view of Mt St Helens from the Oregon side of the river, there is not much snow on it now.

Baseball

I rode up to James' game with Mik and Michelle today.  It was a tough game, their best pitcher was out with a broken bone in his hand and they were lacking 3 or 4 other players so they ended up loosing 10 to 0 after 5 innings.

After the game, Mik, Michelle and I met Barry and Mona at the Three Magnets Brewing Co. for dinner.  Mik's cousin Dave, his wife and one of James' teammates Adam, his mom and sister also joined us.

We sat outside and had a great time visiting and telling stories.  James stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings with the team before heading home.

A great day of Flying!

I had a great time at the Fun Fly today.  I got two flights on the B-36.  I didn't get to fly the F-4, half way to the field this morning I remembered the air pump for the retracts was still in the shop from when I repaired the leak in the control valve Friday night.  There was a good turn out of members and lots of flying went on during the day.

State Championships

We went up to the American Legion Youth Baseball State Championships in Olympia for James' team's first game.  This is when they were introduced by the announcer, James is number 23.

 James played first for part of the game.  His friend Dalton is going to football camp and this is the only game he could play, so he played first most of the game.  It was an exciting game, they were down 2-0 for several innings, then they went up 3 to 2.  The other team scored in the 6th inning to tie it up at 3 all.  Neither team scored in the 7th inning, so the game went in to extra innings and James' team won 4 to 3 with a walk off single in the bottom of the 8th.  Boy were the boys happy!  We stopped and visited our friend Bob at the rehab center on the way home.  He was in a great mood and very pleased to see us.  They are getting his legs back into shape after the surgery and he has high hopes of heading home soon.

Test Flights

We headed down to the Goble field early this morning and I spent the first hour and a half getting it mowed for the club Fun Fly Sunday and so I could test fly the B-36 and F-4.

It is a big job getting the B-36 ready to go, lots of wiring to hookup.  I hadn't had it out for over a year, so there was a little head scratching going on trying to remember where things went!

I had installed new firmware in the Solo Shot 2 and I was anxious to see how it worked on the two test flights.  The B-36 video turned out good, the F-4 at 130 mph got ahead of it a few times.  I will have to edit it and put a link to it here some day.

The first takeoff is a kind of tense time, but the flight went great!

This is our friend Dave with his F-86 Sabre Jet, that is quite a contrast in sizes.

I got two flights on the F-4, the new batteries made it fly much better.  The second flight, I horsed it off the ground a little early and scared us all.  We spent most of the day there, after we got home, I did some work on the F-4 fixing a leak in the air retract system.

James is good help!

James came up to help me today, while I went to get the wood pellets, I had James load up some old rotten lumber and take it to the compost pile.

There is the winter's wood for my shop, I backed it over to the wood shed for James to unload.  I am sure I could not do it with my Achilles being sore.

 We use the mower ramps to walk up and down to unload.  I did it once a couple of years ago without them and it was no fun.

James is getting the stack started, he had fifty forty pound bags to unload.

James unloading the pellets, some times he was packing two at a time, something I never did.

While James was finishing the pellets, I got the Power Pruner out, mixed up some gas for it and warmed it up.  When James finished the pellets I had him prune the lower branches of the oak tree.  Then we loaded  the trimmings into the garden trailer and he hauled them to the compost pile.  I called in a pizza and we picked it up on the way to take the pallet back to Four Corners.  After lunch, he had to run home to do something for Michelle.  I spent the afternoon doing some rearranging in the motor home and repairing one access door latch.  The little doe was wandering around this evening sampling all the flowers, I am surprised at what she has acquired a  taste for.  I brought in the game camera tonight, it had 3800 pictures on it!  It seems I picked a bad spot where the wind moving the rose bushes was setting it off.

Flying

I spent most of Monday getting ready for flying today.  Vera and I were the only ones there for most of the day, another member Jim stopped by for a while and we had a nice visit with him.  I flew 13 times during the day, I did manage to ding one plane a little.  I was playing around shooting one wheel landings with the Super Cub and one got away from me, maybe it was because I oiled the squeaky wheels today.  One wing tip wrinkled, the vertical fin was broken and the firewall cracked.  I have been flying it for two years, so it is time for a check up while I make the repairs.

Hot again!

It was another day of loving the air conditioning!  95 on the shop thermometer today!  I got the F-4 wing down and tried the new batteries in it and they fit great.  Instead of 3 four cell batteries, I now have 2 six cell batteries which takes some weight out of the nose which is good because it was really nose heavy the first flights, the new batteries are also a half a pound lighter.  I also found the stabilizers were not aligned which was making it roll to the left.  Now I am looking forward to test flying it some time this week.  I had Pogo out again this evening and I landed it successfully on the tail 6 out of 7 times.  We found out that James' team lost their game today, so they will go to State in second place.

Going to State!

We stayed pretty close to the air conditioners today, I saw 96 on the one in the shop.  When I went out to fly Pogo, there was this little doe across the driveway.  It didn't seem to be scared of Vera or me, I talked to it for a few minutes before it wandered off to the back yard.

We found out this evening that James' team is going to the State Tournament, they have one more game tomorrow to see if they go as first or second.

You can't see me!

We made a trip down to Safeway this morning before it warmed up.  After we got home and unloaded, I did the watering, when I got to the back deck two butterflies were flying all around me as I watered.  It was kind of distracting, so I stopped and took some pictures with my phone.

I had never noticed them on this red flower before.  I did some wiring on one of the receivers for the quadcopter videos this afternoon and got it working so I have one now for when I fly from the shop porch.

This evening we barbecued some of the stuff we picked up.  Once when I had been in the house for a fresh pop and was coming back out, Vera told me to get the camera!  I didn't understand for a few seconds, then I spotted the little buck she wanted pictures of.  I got the camera, packed our pop cans out and took several pictures and it just kept eating.

Maybe it thought it was hidden under the cedar tree and we couldn't see it.  I went over to my chair, sat down and took more pictures, we talked, I turned the meat and it still kept eating.  It finally got scared off when it saw a dog.

This is a Rockbuster radio controlled car we had back in the 80s, Vera took the picture a couple of days ago when I was testing it.  Tonight I gave it to the neighbor boy along with another for spare parts.  I have some more parts and the manual for it that I am giving him also.  He was pretty tickled with it.

A week off!

I kind of took a week off from my blog.  We didn't do much over the weekend, we even ended up skipping church on Sunday.  Monday I wanted to find some shoes that were more comfortable.  I had checked online and there was a store in Olympia that handled the ones the doctor had recommended, that would work great because we could go see Barry and Mona, then on the way home we could see our friend Bob at the rehab facility.  The store didn't have the shoes I was interested in, so we went over to Barry and Mona's.  We had a nice visit there and went to lunch with them.  Barry told me that the Sports Authority had lots of shoes, so we went there after lunch.  Vera spotted the Nike's above just as I was giving up and they felt great, so I got a pair.  We went to Costco from there and then headed South.  Bob was in a good mood, but tired from his surgery so we didn't stay too long.

This is Monday evening after we got home, I wore the compression socks all day and they really helped the swelling around my Achilles.

The flowers are really enjoying the warm weather and the watering every morning.

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked on the F-4 and the Traxxas radio controlled truck.  New batteries had come for both of them and I wanted to check the fit.

This little buck was wandering all around the yard at dinner time Tuesday.  I had a heck of a time getting a picture of him, this is the best one I got!

This afternoon, we went to the Castle Rock Fair Parade so we could see the church kazoo marching band.

They ended up winning the Grand Prize, they were playing "When the Saints go marching in" as they went by us.

Pastor Pam is giving us a wave.

Flying the little Cessna 150

We went up to the Toledo flying field today, I have been anxiously waiting for a chance to try out the little Cessna 150 I got from Bob.  I put two flights on it and it flew great.  I kind of wondered how the little wheels in pants would handle the grass but I was able to take off and land with no problems plus I shot a few touch and goes with it.  It was cool enough when we first got there that I put on a sweat shirt, but it wasn't too long until that had to be taken off.  By 2 o'clock it was warming up pretty good so I put in one more flight with the Slow Stick testing the video transmitter and we headed home.  I got to talk to Bob after we got home, he came through the surgery fine and he was in great spirits and looking forward to getting home.

Flying the Cobra

This morning as I started watering, the butterfly flew by.  By the time I got the camera, it was gone, so I decided to carry the camera with me as I watered.  Sure enough, when I was out in the back yard here came two of them.  This is my best picture, they don't sit still long, plus they are territorial, if they got on the same bunch of flowers they stated chasing each other around.

 I spent the afternoon putting the transmission and motor assembly into the Cobra.  Vera took this picture of me just before the first flight.

It flies a lot different than the newer helicopters and it took me a little while to get used to it.  I started out with a six cell pack in it and it would just barely get off the ground.  I changed to an eight cell battery and it flew fine.  Now I just need a little more practice with it before seeing if I can get it in the motor home for a trip to the field.