Old Pictures and Smart Car

 

Dianne had texted me a week or two ago asking if I had any family pictures from the 50's and 60's.  I went through my scanned images and ended up with 523 pictures for her.  This picture is from 1962 of her with a snowman.

I also included this one of me on the Roller's horse.  My horse rides never ended good, maybe this is why!

This morning Vera noticed deer outside our bedroom window, I parted the blinds and took this picture.  There ended up being four of them together snacking their way through our yard.

James came up after his observing at the Castle Rock Middle school and brought me some more pellets.

I also had him help me put the dropped receiver and tow bars on the motor home.  They sure seemed to be heavier than last time I used them but James had no problem with them.

We also got the towing adapters put onto the Smart Car.  Our biggest issue was figuring out which key went to the different locks and hitch pins.

Tree Down

 

I got a text from Dianne asking when the tree fell.  I texted back what tree.  She came back with the big one.  It turned out that She and Steve had went for a walk and came across this tree that had blown down.  I never heard or felt it and neither did they.  As soon as I finished dinner I went for a walk to see it.  The root ball is located on the West side of our place.  We have had several days and nights that were pretty windy.

This picture is looking West along the tree towards the root ball.

Of course it managed to fall across three of our trails through the woods.  As I was talking about it tonight with Vera I remembered hearing what I thought was someone shooting one evening.

I have been working on getting the motor home ready for a trip, moving planes around and making a few changes.  I was sitting in the back part of my shop relaxing after the walk to check the tree and decided I hadn't taken a picture there for a long time.  The planes you can see completely are my Ford Trimotor and my P-51C.  I stopped over at Steve and Dianne's after checking out the downed tree and asked them if they wanted the wood, which they did.  James offered to come up and cut it up but I told him there was no big rush as we were going to be gone.

TREX and the snow is gone!

1-20-2024

The rotor head and swash plate took a long time to get ready to install.  I had to take every ball joint and screw apart and reassemble them with Loctite.  By the time I was finished screwing all the turnbuckles together my right shoulder was really sore.  I wised up on the last couple and used the cordless drill.

1-22-2024
 

I finished up installing the tail rotor servo and linkage tonight.  Then I stuck the canopy on to see how it looked.

1-23-2024

It is sure nice to finally have the snow gone and it has warmed up a little.  I was using a bag of pellets a day to keep the shop warm.  As I went out to lock the shop tonight I noticed the moon was showing so I stopped and took a picture of it and the shop.

James, Heli and old Photos

James stopped by after school was out today.  He is observing at the Castle Rock middle school this quarter.  It sounds like he is really enjoying it.  I got my 2023 Blog to print book today and James got to be the first person to look through it.  We had a nice visit talking about some of our past flying friends.

I haven't  posted much about it but I have been working on the TREX 500X all week.  Some of the parts look assembled when unpacked but they are just put together loosely so you can see where all the screws go.  The time consuming part is taking it all apart and then reassembling it while using Blue Loctite so they will not fall apart from the vibration when flying.

Vera has been making bread lately, this is some oat bread she made.  It was a great and made a nice lunch when buttered, topped with cheese and toasted in the oven.  This week she made wheat bread, it was both breakfast and lunch for me yesterday.

Here is a scan of an old family picture.  Left to right, Barry, Dad, Mom, Laury, Me, Pam with Cathy and Dianne in the front.  There are sure lots of good memories in these old pictures.

Freezing Rain

The weather forecast for several days has had a prediction of freezing rain today.  Last night the time it would start moved into the afternoon and then this morning it was changed to early evening for this area.  I had at 4:00 appointment at Kaiser so I decided to keep it.  Then I got a call from Kaiser wanting to know if I could come in at 2:40.  I didn't hesitate at all on that decision!  We left about 12:30, picked up the mail and went to 4 Corners for a load of pellets.  We took Pleasant Hill road on the way down and back, it was compact snow all the way.  I got a call from Barry but couldn't answer while driving.  We were forty minutes early at Kaiser so I called him and we had a nice visit.  My appointment went good and we headed to Arby's for dinner.  We unloaded the pellets as soon as we got home but I didn't lock the shop so I had to go out after the freezing rain started.

This is how it looked in front of the shop and it was slick!

It was the same as I came back to the house.

The house deck was a sheet of ice.  It never got over 28 degrees today and right now it is down to 26!

These KEEN ICETRAX are the only reason I was able to make it to the shop.  They have seven Tungsten Carbide spikes on each one.  They are fairly easy to slip on over my shoes and I never slipped once going to the shop.

Snow

 1-12-2024

I finally made it out to the shop this evening and started on the Cobra.  After studying the instructions the first step was adding the landing gear.  The shop was only 67 degrees so I called it a night after that.

1-13-2024

This is how it looked at 9:30 AM a little after it started snowing.

The snow came down pretty steady most of the day and we had about 5 inches before we went to bed.

1-14-2024

We gained about another inch over night and the temperature hovers around 20 degrees most of the time.

This is what the deck looks like today.  I did my measuring of the snow on the bench in this picture.

Vera wanted a picture of me with the snow showing behind me.  I didn't stay out there too long as it was really cold.

I made one trip to the shop today and worked on the helicopter.  It is built a little differently than the last one I did but I found a really good set of instructions online and printed them out.  I did manage to get one bearing mount in upside down but that was easy to correct at this stage in the build.  I filled the pellet stove before heading in for the night, it is using one bag a day in this weather.

This is how things look right now on our security cameras.

Catching up Again

 I intended to do a blog on Monday the 7th following up on the tree falling.  Then the ignitor in the shop pellet stove burned out.  Luckily I had spares so I was able to change it but after four hours of working on the stove I just kicked back for the rest of that day.

1-6-2024 

I heard the chainsaw so I walked over to where the tree had been fallen and found Gabe cutting it up.  Gabe, Des and Parker were working to cleanup things so Steve and Dianne wouldn't have so much to do.

Parker was using the tractor to haul logs over to the woodshed and the bigger limbs to the burn pile.

Des was hauling the smaller debris over to the burn pile.  It is sure nice having family to help with things.

Parker got the pile burning, I didn't think it would burn being wet but he kept after it and just about everything burned.

As I was heading in for the evening the sky looked nice so I got a picture with my phone.

1-7-2024

I had big plans for today of doing the blog but the ignitor took care of that.  It sure felt good to see it start after finishing the job.

1-8-2024

I have been working on the Elipstick and finally got it all finished.  Now I just have to wait for some nice weather to do a test flight.

We had high winds the other night and the power was off for a couple of hours.  Apparently the LEDs in my shop sign got hit by a surge and quit working.  I installed a set of LEDs James had given me.  They fit in much better than the ones I had before and are brighter.

1-9-2024

It started snowing about 9:45 tonight and they were great big flakes.

This is how it looked at 11:15.  Vera measured 2 3/4 inches of snow on the deck.

1-10-2024

This is how it looked at 6:49 this morning, we gain about another inch overnight.  I made one trip to the shop today, then I spent the rest of the day puttering on the computer.

1-11-2024

The forecast for this weekend looks like it will turn really cold with the  possibility of snow again on Saturday.  We made a trip to Safeway and got all stocked up with food for the next few day.  This evening I went out and cleaned off the bench where I had been building the Elipstick and  got out my next project.  In the box is an Align TREX 500X that I will be installing in the Cobra fuselage as I build it.

A Busy day in the Neighborhood

 

I was scanning our old negatives today and I came across this one of Dad and I with the shop in the background.  I was building the deck and he came up to check the progress.

I saw some cars parked out by the shop and when I checked there was a tree company getting ready to fall a tree for Steve and Dianne.  They had already fallen a couple for Gabe and Des so I walked down to where Steve, Dianne, Des and Rielee were working on cutting up the trees to see what was going on.  It turned out they were going to fall the tree to the left of the truck.

Once they were rigged up they offered to take the limbs off on the side of one tree that leans toward Steve and Dianne's house.

When they got done there was quite a mess that Steve and Dianne will be cleaning up.

As I headed back home I noticed Rielee unloading debris from the first two trees they fell onto the pile.

When they fell the big tree to the left of the truck it shook our house.  So I walked over again to look at things.  Dianne mentioned the noise had woken Hattie from her nap so I decided to walk over and visit.  I had a nice visit with Laury and got to visit with Dan when he came to pick up the girls.

This is the Happy Wednesday picture Laury sent me that really shows her two new teeth.

The First Flight of 2024

 

We went up to the Toledo field for our annual New Years day flying this morning.

I made my first flight of 2024 with this Hobby King P-51.  It is a good one to start the day with as it is made from EPP foam and is almost indestructible.

My second flight of the day was with the helicopter, I had a great time with it because of the wide open area to fly in.

Mike R. is launching Mike B.'s electric ducted fan F-14.  They were the only other members at the field today.  Our friend Horty stopped by and visited with us for a while.  It was pretty cold so I left after the three flights.  We stopped at Betty's Place in Toledo and got their halibut basket for lunch.  Then we went down to the South Lewis County Park to eat.  It was a great start to the new year.