Stones

Vera went out this morning and arranged the stepping stones to form a path to the little deck by the pond.  As you can see from the view out our bedroom window, there were not enough to finish the job, so we headed down to Swanson's to get some more.

After we got the stones, I felt like a Blizzard, so we stopped at Dairy Queen and then went over to eat and watch the work on the new theater, it is going to be huge!

This is how it looked after we finished, I got the quad out and took a bunch of pictures.  It took two flights to get the pictures, I forgot to put the SD card in it for the first flight.

I got this little plane from the swap meet in McMinnville flying today and Vera got a picture of it.

While I was downloading the pictures from the quad, I remembered I wanted to rototil the flower bed one more time and plant the wild flower seeds before it rained.

 Yesterday we noticed the water lily had a flower just coming up through the surface, today, it was blooming.  Vera made a rhubarb pie today for the club picnic this weekend.  I finished up the day by getting all the tools put away, all ready for the weekend.

Almost done!

After our walk, it was back to work on the paver project.  The masonry cut off wheels work much better and make a much neater cut.

Vera was busy with the camera today, when I downloaded them she had taken 126 pictures.  Here I am filling the area where her little patio will be.

We had to make a run to Home Depot for more pavers, so we had lunch at Skipper's before heading home.  By the end of the day, we had all the pavers in place and had moved Vera's bench back.  I may have to get the quad out tomorrow and see if I can get an aerial shot.

I noticed my favorite rhododendron was in bloom, so Vera went over and took some pictures of it for me.  That is it for tonight, Vera is making Cocoa Mounds and they are starting to smell really good, I want to be there to lick the bowl!

More Paver work

It was a good thing Vera took a picture of her poppy in bloom this morning, because by evening it was looking pretty sad from the heat.  I got a new battery and installed it in the 4 wheeler this morning so I could haul some dirt to use for leveling the pavers.

I had to cut some pavers, I ended up using the grinder with a cut off wheel in it.  It worked, but was pretty slow.  I wore out my cut off wheel, so we made a run to Harbor Freight this evening and I found some for masonry.

For the last year, we have been dumping leaves and grass clippings on this flower bed.  I forgot to mention yesterday that I had run the rototiller over it.  I let it dry all day today and I went over it again this evening.

What a nice day to work outside!

We walked this morning, picked up sunflower seeds at 4 Corners, got the mail and sent off the camera for the quad.  When we got home, we started leveling part of the pavers we had put down.  We wanted to do the hard work before it got too warm.  It went pretty good, we were done and ready to quit by 11.  I wanted to thatch the lawn and let it dry before mowing, so that was next on the list.  Then I got the string trimmer out and did the edges before mowing.  Boy did I have to empty the bins on the mower a  bunch of times, to start, I had to empty them every time around!  It was a lot of work, but it is sure satisfying to look at when you get done.

A great day of flying!

We walked this morning, then I was able to sit out on the deck in the sunshine and enjoy breakfast.  I had gotten the mobile hanger out before we left for our walk and I had gotten it partly loaded, so it was not too long after breakfast when we headed for the field.

The first order of business at the field was to try the Dr1, it flew, but there is a problem with the speed control so I was not getting full power, plus it was out of trim and is not an easy plane to fly.  I got it on the ground in one piece and decided that was enough of it for the day.

We had a good turn out of flyers, I counted 10 of us out there today.  I think I flew 7 of my models today.  I flew the little quad once, it was blowing pretty good and before I knew it, it was across the road.  I did not think that I would get it back and I would be searching for it in the field, but I made it back to the runway just as the battery ran down, once was enough for it also.

Mother's Day

We went to church this morning, what a nice service for Mother's Day, plus we had sunshine.  They had flowers for all the ladies at the service and Fred had brought dahlias to give away.  After church, we went to the 49er for lunch, we timed it just right because right after we were seated, a line started forming.  We planted the flowers when we got home, and while we were out on the porch we discovered one solar light was broken.  I took it to the shop and discovered there was a leak letting rain into it.  It probably filled up during the winter and broke during one of our freezes.  I got it all super glued back together and added a reflector to the bottom, so it is brighter now since it is not losing light out the bottom.  This afternoon, Mik, Michelle and James showed up with this nice hanging basket for Vera.  We had a really enjoyable visit with them, and then we finished off the rhubarb pie, it was delicious!

After they left, I went out and got the game camera.  There were several good day time pictures of the coyote, plus some night ones.  There were also pictures of the cats, raccoon and neighborhood kids.  I flew the quad three times today, got it stuck in a tree once and tried it at sunset to see how the low light pictures were.  The video turned out pretty good, but the pictures were fairly dark.

Selfie!

My hard drive has been acting up lately, I had ordered a new 2 TB one to replace it, so when it shutdown on me this morning, I decided it was time.  I downloaded the cloning software and started it running, then I had several hours to do things while it ran.  I went to the shop and was doing some cleanup when I got a call from a church friend that wanted to bring their grandson by to see my planes, we arranged it for 1 PM.  That inspired me to do a little more cleanup of things I have been ignoring.  When they came I showed them around the shop and motor home, then I flew the ECO8 for them.  The grandson was six and has a helicopter at home that he said was about the size of my 400 size heli.

After they left, the cloning of the hard drive was not done, so I flew the quad while it finished up.  I put the new hard drive in and booted up the computer, everything worked great!  I decided to take some pictures with the quad outside, so I ended up using up two batteries.  I took this selfie when I was on the back deck.

Flying the quad gave me a chance to try out my new charger for the single cell batteries.  The Hitec will charge four at a time, it cycles through the battery voltage, current, charge rate for each cell as they charge, then it displays FULL when done.

Vera baked a rhubarb pie this afternoon, it smells great, I can hardly wait to try it this evening.