Oh My Head

We are finally getting some significant rain here.  They had just recently upped our water restrictions, so I'm told, to stage 2 due to the drought.  This is usually a wetter time of year with next month being the wettest month historically.  This wet weather did come with some pretty severe weather,  Twisters, 100 mph winds, hail and heavy rain.  We watched it approach from the West for a couple hours until we could tell the worst would pass to our South.  Then I was awakened by thunder at 3 AM.  It didn't last long and didn't keep me awake a significant time.  I checked on my weather app to see if anything was severe before I went back to sleep.

Today has seen several showers with the chance for more throughout the day.  We sure need it.  Glad I got the yard cut yesterday.  I didn't get to weed eat.  I will need to cut the grass again before I can weed eat it seems.  The weather will stay wet a couple days they say.  The grass will go nuts in that time.  

I was noticing some imperfections in our flooring in the main part of the house the other day.  I installed Pergo a few years back, maybe 15 years or so.  Started looking closer and some of it seems to be what I call delaminated underneath.  Sort of a bubbling of the wood.  Then I find that the joints are slightly raised in quite a few places, even becoming uneven in spots.  Only thing I can think of is that over time the shifting of the house has put stress on the joints.  I don't think there is a slab issue as I see no other tell tale signs, like cracked sheet rock.  

Not sure what we will do.  If we replace it, I am not the guy to do that this time.  The old flooring will have to be removed including some ceramic tile in the kitchen.  That is due to 'K' wanting it all to be the same type floor.  Then there would be the moving of all the furniture I can no longer do.  I have no idea if a contractor could relocate the furniture around his work or does it have to be removed completely.  Also the removal of the tile and the sanding the floor to remove the mortar etc.  It makes my head hurt thinking about it.  It doesn't bother 'K' at all.  It's not fun having a bit of an obsessive personality.  Obsessing about the painting I have been working is bad enough lol.

Happy Trails

Busy Today, Not Sure About the Rest of the Week

The day has started out looking busy.  I have already cooked breakfast and taken Snickers for his daily walk while 'K' preps for our errands.  We will head out to Costco and HEB (our grocery).  This is mostly to prepare for the Granddaughter coming Tuesday.  She will be here a couple nights as usual.  We are taking her since the people she lives with are getting their second shot of the chinaflu vaccine.  They got pretty ill last time and the one they have taken, they say the second dose is worse.  Us taking the baby is always a delight and it helps them not have to worry about her care when they are feeling bad.  

Her Dad, is also finishing up a Kickstarter Campaign for another issue of his comic book.  This is issue #5 and he has already met his goal.  There is one more issue to go.  The last 3 issues have funded very quickly as it seems to be gaining popularity.  The last two have funded entirely the first week of the month long campaign.  

I have been trimming the suckers on the oak trees the past few days.  I will probably continue in this method of just a little bit each day until they are all done.  It will take a long time to get so many done but it will save my neck from being overtaxed looking up the entire time.  It will also allow me to do a few other things during the day instead quitting for the day completely.  First on the agenda is to get the entire yard cut and weedeated (is that a word lol?).  Then some painting will be part of that.  However the weather this week may be wet.  

We returned to our home congregation yesterday.  It was good to see the brethren there.  I had trouble staying engaged with the sermon as my mind wandered quite a bit.  I have always had that trouble, I probably have some sort of attentions deficit thing.  'K' said she had the same issue.  This speaker takes some getting used to, you really have to pay attention as he gets pretty detailed.  We are taking it slow.  We most likely won't be there every time the doors are open like we did in the past but will certainly make the Sunday morning assembly.  We are hopeful and are trying to watch our attitude.

Happy Trails

Weather Is Wacky-Possible Changes

The weather here has been crazy.  Cold and windy, the wind just amplifies the cold.  I has been as low as the mid forties with 30 mph winds.  It has put a damper on the things I need to be working on, i.e. yard work, painting etc.  We did get out to a couple nurseries and Home Depot looking for plants to replace our dead ones.  Home Depot has been our main go to place.  Not this time, they were nearly bare with multiple tables completely empty.  That meant a trip to nurseries which are more spendy.  The first we went to was a new one the wife had been wanting to check out.  It was nice but they had none of the things we were looking for.  The next one was much larger and we found some of our search item.  But 3 plants for 100$ put a damper on looking any further.  Due to the blizzard we had everyone is out looking for new plants and places are very crowded.  The last place we went even had a police officer just standing around, apparently as security due to the crowds, which I have never seen before.

We have cleaned up a lot of the dead things and I have started trimming the suckers on the oak tree trunks.  That takes me a lot of time with so many trees.  I don't last long looking up into the trees with my arms above my head.  It take a toll on my neck really quickly.  And now the weather has just added to my laziness and gives me a reason to not got outside and get to work.  I also need to do regular maintenance of the yard.  Cutting the grass and weed eating (a lot) and cleaning up the oak tassels that are everywhere.  

By this weekend we should be fully covered by our vaccines.  Notice I didn't say immune.  I understand that this so called vaccine doesn't make us immune just will help us be less affected by the kungflu if we were to catch it.  Consequently we have decided to return to church services at our regular congregation.  We have been attending where our kids go for the past month or so.  We felt we should at least try to return there for a while before we make any permanent decisions about where we will attend.  This is a really hard thing for us.  We have been at this one congregation right at 15 years.  There are long time bonds there with people.  I won't go into why we may make a change.  There is not just one reason.  But it is something we are considering.  We pray about this constantly.

Happy Trails

And You Get....

 I got nothing...

Happy Trails

Late Again

I generally try to post every Monday at the least.  Well here it is Tuesday afternoon and I am just now getting to it.  Life gets in the way at times.  We just now get back from the grocery store.  We had to replenish a lot of long term things we have used up over the last pandemic months.  So we fed the economy at least.

We took a quick trip farther into the Hill Country to see if there were any wild flowers this year.  We missed going last year and maybe the year before too.  I didn't hold out much hope since we had the killer freeze apocalypse late in the winter.  It hit about the time a lot of wild flowers are just starting to set buds.  We didn't see many on the way up as we usually do.  But there were a few as we got farther north, not a lot but is was good.  

The thing we noticed most, that detracted from our pleasurable viewing, were the oak trees.  The Hill Country is just full of Live Oak trees and a lot of other strains of Oaks that I can't tell the difference.  We passed thousands that were dead.  I don't think I saw a single tree that didn't have broken limbs with a pile at the bottom of every tree.  That was snow and ice damage along with some strong winds.  I don't understand why so many seemed completely dead though.  None of mine suffered enough to kill them and there wasn't that great a temperature difference between here and there.  Now we do have a lot of that disease called Live Oak Decline.  It's a fungus that gets into the tree from a beetle.  It can kill a tree very quickly.  The Hill Country has seen a lot of it.  Yet nothing like we saw yesterday.  I just can't tell you how bad it was.  I didn't even think to take any pictures, but I may have some video from my dash cam.  It really put a damper on our trip and we headed home earlier than we had planned.  I may do a little more research and try and find out more.  

Happy Trails

My Intentions Were Good

I mentioned in my last post about being motivated to continue painting after finishing the chimney trim the other day.  I started gathering the things I needed to get started on the trim near at the edge of the roof all around the house.  As I walked outside I saw things falling from the skies.  Well it was actually the trees.  We have a lot of oak trees at our place.  We have somewhere between 40-50.  I don't know the exact numbers anymore as I have cut a few down that were causing issues.  

It's that time of year when all of those oak trees are sprouting new growth.  That means they are dropping their tassels and pollen.  Everywhere.  The bright yellow below is pollen.  Our cars look a lot different for a few weeks due to this stuff.

You can see a small pile of tassels on the roof.

The wind was blowing so hard and swirling around it formed a small pile.

Can you imagine having wet paint with all this junk in the air flying around?  Until the wind dies down or the tassels and pollen stop in about another week, or two I will be holding off painting.  Yeah, I remember I said I tend to look for reasons to not paint.  But that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Happy Trails

 

It's Been a Good Week and This One Is Starting Out Well

I hope y'all had a great Easter.  Both boys and their families came to the house.  We didn't cook.  Everyone just stopped on the way over and picked up what they wanted.  We were supposed to eat it together.  However one of them was running a bit late since they needed to go by their home after church and get their dog.  They wanted to introduce him to our Snickers.  Well that didn't go so well and we ate in shifts while others tried to get the dogs used to each other.  At first it looked like it might go well then 'Moose' snapped at Snickers.  Well Snickers has no back down in him even though he is only about 17 lbs and Moose is about 90 lbs.  Not sure this will ever work out.  When it seemed they were getting to tolerate each other one or the other would make a menacing move toward the other.  

I got up on the roof earlier this morning and finished painting  the chimney.  It's only the trim I needed to finish.  Don't look too close.  At least I got that out of the way and it has given me incentive to get more done.  And yes, I had to try and keep from stepping in coon/fox poop behind the chimney.  I have no idea why they do that but it's irritating.

I got my last Chinaflu shot on April 1.  No ill effects at all.  'K' and my Mom get theirs this week.  'K' will spend that night with Mom to see that she does OK and will get hers on the way home.  Then we hope to loose the reigns a bit and may start back to services at our church instead of our kids.  

We did get some great news last week.  Our oldest Granddaughter was baptized into Christ.  Her Dad got to do it.  What a great memory for him.  Our hearts are full at this new addition to the Kingdom of God.

Happy Trails