Rest Up, Let it Rain

Monday

I was just heading to bed when I realized I had not written anything for today.  Well I got my rest today.  The noise from the rain, not thunder, woke me several times last night and again at 8 this morning.  I rolled over for a minute and all of a sudden it was 9:30.  I got up then and it continued to rain and rain until sometime in the afternoon.  We watched a lot of TV and I worked on entering the bills into the computer.

Bonnie left to take Alexus shopping, a plan that was made yesterday.  She was getting ready for the Rodeo this weekend.  Bonnie also had to pick up an RX and then went to Warsaw.  She wanted to go to the DMV but the line was too long.  So they went to Tractor Supply and WalMart.  While they were gone I mixed up some of the Salsa that we got at the Hershey RV show.

Very Good

Just add diced tomatoes and a scoop of this, hit it with the hand blender for a few seconds and you get great salsa.  I let it set a while and then sampled it, nice a spicy.  I also washed the towels and some of the whites this afternoon.

Bonnie got home well after 6 and made supper.  The rain did stop this afternoon.  We got 2.32 inches since midnight and we are now over 7 inches for the month.  Now I can head to bed.

Tuesday

Up early this morning and we headed for downtown and the mission again.  Pickup the girls, drop Alexus off, quick stop at Tim Hortons and then on to the mission.  We worked on stats and phone calls all day.  Right after lunch we went out side and Bonnie weeded the garden.

Pulling weeds

One of the guys gave her a hand

Tonight was family wing nite at the Valley Inn in Holland.  It is the last night in town for Bev, Jon Paho and Otis.  Tomorrow they head back to Reno.

At wing night

Almost dark when we got home.  I put on my jacket and loaded up the Ranger with the trash to take out to the road.  Thats done now its time for a bowl of ice cream for dessert.

Wednesday

A little warmer overnight but still nice and cool.  I don't think we have to go anywhere today.  So far it has been dry today but we have heard some thunder.  Speaking of hearing, I heard the hawk out back today and went out to the porch to take a look and there were two of them calling and flying back and forth between the trees, pretty cool to watch.

I went out a while later to exercise the HydroHot diesel burner in the coach a while later.  I let it cycle a couple times and ran the heating loops in the coach to make sure the check valves were letting the hot water flow.  We may just need the heat when we go up into Maine in September.  All worked great and no smoke or bad diesel smell.  I checked on the mouse traps, all three were tripped.  Two were licked clean of peanut butter, the third had caught another mouse.  Thats four for the year so far as far as I can remember.  I also put the main awning out again to dry.  I am not sure why is is collecting water so will have to take a look at it to see if I can tell why.  I brought the empty recycle bin in and Bonnie fixed some lunch in between loads of wash.

It rained off and on during the afternoon but not even enough to register on the rain gauge.  We got word that Bonnie's sister and family made it back to Reno safe and sound.  Nothing else notable to report.  So guess I will go ahead and post this.

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"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"

I hear Wedding Bells

Thursday

Nice and cool to sleep.  I woke up this morning with a sore shoulder and knees from the tumble I took yesterday.  I sat up and reached for the Bio Freeze, that stuff really works.  I put it on and never gave my sore shoulder another thought.  After breakfast and reading my email and blogs I headed out to the coach.  Bonnie spotted a hawk on the ground with some prey it had caught shortly after she got up. The big awning roller seems to collect a lot of water when just sitting.  I put it out and drained it.  I check the traps and caught another mouse.  I am hoping this soon ends.  I ran out and checked the mail and it had come.  Sometimes its early and sometimes its late, one never knows.

Bonnie game me a hair cut and then left early afternoon to go see her sister and help set up chairs for the wedding tomorrow.  Then she was headed to volunteer at the Rural Outreach Center.  She should be home from there soon.  I took it easy all day letting my knees and shoulder heal.

Bonnie got home before dark and we caught up and watched a little TV.

Friday

Today was all about family.  We left late morning to head over to Java Village.  Bonnie her sisters and parents were going to look at the apartment that her parents are planning to move into.  I stayed at her sisters house and visited with my nephew and his sons.  The girls all came home and we had a bit of lunch.  Then it was time to head down to her brothers for the wedding.

It was a beautiful day.  We call this area of the old farm the campground.  It was all fixed up real nice.  Brian put up a huge shelter, seems he has bought a portable saw mill and put it to good use.  The ceremony was up in whats called the cucumber field.

Ready to head up to the cucumber field

Here comes the bride

Pastor Norm officiated

Mom and Dad

Erynn and Steve exchange vows

Its official

Mr and Mrs Bean

After the wedding we headed back down the hill to the campground and enjoyed a catered meal by Charlie the Butcher.  It was very good.  Then lots of visiting and some fun with family.

In the photo booth

We made it home right at sunset.  Stand-by the reception is tomorrow.  Tonight lots of the out of town young folks are camping out on the grounds.

Saturday

We were not up real early this morning but we did get going and got around to leaving for day 2 of the wedding celebration.  Today was the reception over at the farm campground and the weather was perfect again.  There had been forecasts for rain but it was nice all day.  A lot of Steve and Erynn's friends were from out of town, actually all over the country.  So many of them had spent the night in tents, hammocks, on tables, in cars etc on the property.  I am told it was a quiet night and all were bedded down by midnight.  Today there were lots of games, hikes, fun on the rope swing, trips to the pirate ship etc.  Chiavetta's Chicken catered lunch at noon and it was delicious and perfect, with enough left over for supper.  We had a great time visiting and getting to know Steve's side of the family.  I must say this is the best time I have ever had at a wedding, except my own.  Many are staying again tonight and then heading back to their homes and jobs tomorrow.  We headed home after dark and are pretty tired so heading to bed as midnight fast approaches.

Bonnie her parents and siblings all but her brother Dean who was unable to attend

Sunday

Well its been a busy and fun weekend.  Today we were up and off to church.  The girls were driving themselves so we did not need to pick them up.  The church service was very good and it was good to be there.

Then a quick stop at the produce/flea market and then we beat feet home.  A couple of Bonnie's sisters were communing over for lunch and a visit.  We had the smoked turkey noodle soup.  It was very good.  Then we visited for a while and they headed home.  We watched the end of the Brickyard 400 NASCAR race and saw Jeff Gordan win there for the 5th time.

Looks like the weather will turn cooler tomorrow which is good it seems awful hot and humid here tonight.

Another great week and we are going to have to rest up from a wonderful weekend.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"

Yard work this week--Cut that Grass

Monday

I heard it rain a time or two overnight but the rain gauge does not show anything.  However so far for the month it shows 4.65in.  I am hoping to cut at least the front yard today as the grass is starting to get ahead of me.  Its not real sunny out but the front usually dries pretty good.  Thunderstorms are in the forecast for this afternoon.

I went out and cut the front yard, way to wet but I did keep going and finished it.  The afternoon thunderstorms never materialized so that will help the yard dry out.  The humidity has increased a lot and tomorrow is supposed to be even worse.  Thankfully we will be downtown.

I spent most of my non TV time today continuing to shred our old financial records.  I am down to my last two years of records.

I have been keeping the shredder busy

The only other thing I did today was check the mouse traps, no mice and tossed out some stuff from the garage that I no longer need.

Tuesday

We were up early this morning and on our way downtown to volunteer at Buffalo City Mission.  We kept busy all day and I am all caught up on statistics and scanning new volunteer applications into the database.  Bonnie also kept busy all day with files and later phone calls.  Hot day today the car thermometer showed 89 on the way home.  We had closed up the house in the cool of this morning and it was only 75 when we got home.  Tomorrow is to be a cooler day so that will be good.  However I think we are to get rain in the morning and I was hoping to cut the rest of the grass.  Oh well, mother nature wins again.

I fired up the Weber and we grilled some chicken breasts for supper.

Loving Grilling Again

They came out good but the seasoning I used turned black.  But they tasted good.

Ready to be eaten

After supper I attended a Go To Meeting session on line about RVillage, it lasted about an hour.  This is a new social site for RVers  www.rvillage.com   after  just a couple months we have over 9200 members.  If you are a camper check it out.  We watched a little TV the rest of the evening.


Wednesday

Bonnie was up and on her way to the mission again this morning, she was going to help in the clinic this afternoon.  I was up a while later and had breakfast while I read email.  I saved the blogs until later as I wanted to to get out and cut the grass.  It looked like the rain that was forecast could happen at anytime.

I jumped on the ranger and first stop was at the coach.  I needed to get the information off the new Wilson Sleek.  All cell phone boosters must now be registered with your carrier now per the FCC.  After I got that I went out and got the trash can.  I needed to read the electric meter to send in but it was surrounded by thorny rose bushes.  So back to the garage to get the pruning shears.  Then back to the bush.  While I began to cut it down to the ground I stepped on a slippery rock and ended up falling into the bush.  Ouch!.  I smashed my knee and a bunch of thorns stuck in me.  Yes there was a little blood but I seemed to be in one piece with nothing broke.  I was able to finish the cutting get a picture of the meter and head back on the ranger.

Got my reading

Not too much damage but it is sore

Still not raining so I jumped on the John Deere and while its still pretty wet in spots I was able to finish cutting what needed cut.  I put the mower away and headed in for lunch.  I did notice two fawns in the woods who keep an eye on me for quite a few passes while I cut the back yard.

The brown dot is two fawns

I was watching the noon news when the rain passed through and the cold front brought the cooler temperatures.

I decided to watch a movie this afternoon and chose Flyboys.  It was pretty good and I kept awake the  whole movie.  Then I watched some National Geographic on demand, I did get a nap or two in during that.

Bonnie made it home and fixed BBQ pork for supper, very good.  Elizabeth sent me some cookies and I had a nice glass of milk and a couple cookies for dessert.  Its nice and cool now so we plan to enjoy the rest of this evening and the low humidity.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"

Smokin

Thursday

Up this morning to another beautiful day.  I headed down to the post office to send a control board from my old Hydo Hot off to Canada to a club member that has a bad board in his coach.

Control Board

Not cheap to send stuff to Canada.  About 3 lbs and over $50 for 3-5 day service.  In contrast it would have been $12.75 to send it to the west coast here in the states.  Anyway its gone and I hope it fixes his problem.

Bonnie left to go shopping in East Aurora and I headed out to work in the coach.  I opened the awning to dry it out after all the rain.  Checked the mouse traps all empty and set.  I put the spare belt in with my spare filters and assembled the tools I needed.

Crimpers and strippers mostly

Todays project is to mount the tire monitoring systems repeater in the back closet.

Repeater and Antenna

I dropped the closet light to tap into the 12 volts I needed.

Quick and easy.

After I a couple quick crimps I had power, then put everything back together and used the double stick tape to mount the repeater and antenna.  I put the tools away and headed into the house.

Earlier today I had put the turkey into the smoker.  Time to give it a quick check.

Coming along nicely

Time for a quick nap and then shred some more records.

The nap was good.  Soon it was time to take the Turkey out of the smoker.

Looking Good and nice and juicy

Once we take it out we put it under a tent of foil.  The temperature will continue to rise 5 or 10 degrees plus the juices tend to go back into the center of the meat.

Under the foil tent for at least 30 minutes

Well the smell got to us and after 30 minutes we carved the Turkey.  Bonnie also had green beans and mashed potatoes to go with the Turkey.

It was very good and tasty

Now for the bonus.  Bonnie brought a small pork loin home when she went shopping today.  So we put that in the smoker.  I had smoked the turkey with Apple wood and when the turkey was done I smoked the pork with hickory for about 90 minutes.  The we let it slow cook for a couple hours.

The pork is looking good

It will now go into the crock pot over night.  It will be tender and tasty.  I cleaned up the smoker racks and Bonnie took care of the turkey,  They she surprised me with some cookies.  Now its time for some shut eye.

Friday

Its been nice sleeping with the window closed as the crows do not wake me up early in the morning.  Another great nights sleep.  Got up to the hickory smoke smell from the pork in the crock pot, looking forward to having that for a meal.  I was reading email and blogs when UPS brought our Wilson Sleek, it will be used to boost cellular signals in the vehicles.  Then FedEx brought some accessories for it.

This is the booster

Accessories

While I was opening up the boxes and connecting the booster Bonnie's parents pulled in for a quick visit.  Her mom went up to see Bonnie and I sat down next to the car to chat with her Dad.

87 years young.

Once they left I hooked up the booster in the Coach.  I was impressed that it increased the LTE signal by 21db.  Thats a huge increase.

Cradle

You just put the phone or hot spot in the cradle plug it in and thats it.  It is used mostly to boost data but if you use speaker phone or a bluetooth device you can use it for calls also.

Tonight starts 3 days of celebrating for our churches 25th anniversary.  We had a great time at church tonight and plan to go again tomorrow.  I think we are driving the shuttle van from the overflow parking.

Saturday

We were up this morning and soon on our way to church.  We had volunteered to drive the parking lot shuttle vans today.  It was raining as we headed into Elma.  I was surprised with how many folks were already there.  But it continued to rain all day.  We had a very good turn out but the cars never filled up the main lot so we did not have to drive all day long.  We had borrowed the vans from another church and we took them back around 4pm.  We had hot dogs and ice cream all day and then pulled pork and potato wedges for supper.

We had stages at  both ends of the tent and the bands alternated

Slides and bounce hoses for the kids and the Pastor is in the dunk tank.

Balloon hats

Another balloon hat

It continue to rain all day and the water started to drip on the sound board, but otherwise did not really halt the festivities.

One way to keep the sound board dry

Start of the juggling act

I think everyone had a great time and we are a good kind of tired.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a little better weather.

Sunday

It rained off and on through the night and it was raining when I woke up this morning.  Two hours later when we left for church the rain had stopped.  Today was the third day of our big 25 year anniversary celebration at church.  There were lots of remembrances in the form or speakers and videos.  The church presented the Pastor an engraved wooden box full of letters in envelopes from the church members, with the suggestion he sit and relax at home and read them.  Pastor Paul was the speaker today, he came all the way from India to be with us.  He and Pastor Pat have been friends for 25 years and will spend some time together this week.  After the service we had a picnic, no rain today.  We had so much to eat, many brought dishes to pass and so many desserts.  The main course was BBQ chicken that Ben and his crew started at 5am this morning.  Everything was delicious.  We came home stuffed and it was nap time.

Well its been a whirlwind weekend.  The temperatures and humidity are to climb this week and the grass already needs cut.  With the rain we had and the heat it will continue to grow fast, but it looks so nice and green out there.  Well time to get this posted.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"

Rain to Start the Week

Monday

I slept in a little late this morning, Bonnie was even up before me.  But I had a good nights sleep last night.  Humid this morning and we are to get thunderstorms.  Bonnie is washing the bedding today and then we will make the beds.  We have a little chipmunk that hangs around outside and even follows me into the garage sometimes.  Today is went racing down and hid under the coach.  Hope he does not get into it.  Last night we had a turkey at the edge of the woods with at least one little one.  It was almost dark so no picture.  UPS was here early and dropped off a box for Bonne.

Bonnie has been waiting for this.

Left over hamburger for lunch and coleslaw, it was very tasty.  I forgot to mention yesterday that we made plans for back to back camping trips.  One with HR Chapter 12 and then straight up to Golden Hill with the Rindo's again and we plan to pick peaches while up there.

Well it has not rained hard yet just enough to keep us from going out and doing anything.  Thats pretty much how the rest of the day went, it was a pretty boring day.  Now off to bed early as we go to the mission tomorrow so have to get up at 6am and Elizabeth just called and said she has no hot water, so need to look at that in the morning.

Tuesday

Thunderstorms and rain this morning when we woke up at 6am.  Still raining when we left at 7:15 but it was not raining by the time we drove the 7 miles to Elizabeth's.  I took a quick look at the hot water and it looks like she has a bad zone valve.  It is operating but not turning on the boiler.  So we headed out dropped off Alexus in East Aurora, then over to Tim Horton's and finally into Buffalo.  There was an accident on the 190 and that slowed us for a while but we made it safe and sound.  I spent the day catching up on statistics and Bonnie kept busy and made a bunch of phone calls.

At the end of the day we headed home but on the way the ladies decided we needed to stop at Tops for donuts and milk for Alexus.  Sixty bucks later we are on our way and we also have cookies and a turkey to smoke this week.  I have been wanting to smoke something for a while so that is good news.  The plumber says the part to fix the hot water should be in tomorrow and we are headed home.

I cut up some cardboard boxes and took out the trash.  I stopped to check the coach on the way to the house and found all three mouse traps tripped but only one of them had caught a mouse.  Hope it was the same mouse in the other two traps.  I set four traps and headed into the house for supper.  Bonnie saw a doe and her twin fawns out back tonight, too dark again for a picture.  UPS dropped off a package from Amazon for me.  It was a spare belt for the CAT engine in the coach, my first spare part that I ordered to take to Alaska with us.

Spare Belt for the CAT engine

It is cooling off rapidly here and should be good sleeping weather tonight.

Wednesday

Nice cool night for sleeping again and I slept like a rock, and woke well rested.  Bonnie wanted to spray the weeds and the forecast says not rain today.  However it was raining over at Bonnie's sisters, but we decided to go ahead a spray.

Killing weeds today

I took us a couple hours to go all around the yard and then clean up both sprayers.

Just waiting for the sun to dry it

I also started shredding old financial records last night.  So far I have two years done.  Once Bonnie came in we prepared the turkey and put a dry rub on it, wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator for the night.  Tomorrow it will go in the smoker for most of the day.  Now maybe a nap.

UPS was here again today thats 3 days in a row.  Just some things for Bonnie and some connectors for me so I can hook up the TPMS repeater in the back closet in the coach.  Bonnie made hamburgers and I grilled them outside.  I also got the smoker all set up so I am ready to put the Turkey on in the morning.  Thats about it for today no rain here all day and tomorrow is to be nice and sunny.  This the perfect summer weather that we all love.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"

Back Home Again---Where to next

Thursday

I slept in late this morning but have been pretty busy since then.  I did take time to catch up on email and blogs.  Bonnie slept late also and said she did not sleep that well.  I went outside first and opened up the new O-Grill.

The new grill

I came nicely packaged and no damage from shipping.

Good packaging and easy to unpack

All I had to do was unfold the legs, set the cast iron grill in place, attach the gas bottle and press the ignite button and it was working.

Ready to test.

It came with a nice storage bag and it is now stored in the coach ready for the next trip.  After that Bonnie came out and helped me pick up the rocks, stones and branches that had washed into the yard during the heavy rains.

Easy to see how high the water had been during the storm.

The square end shovel we used to scoop up the stones was really worn and so I took the grinder to it and squared it up before I put it away.

Before with a straight line drawn on the edge

The tool

Square and Straight now

After a bite of lunch I switched out the Dish Hopper receiver.  It took about 10 minutes of hooking it up and 60 minutes of waiting for it to download updated software and programing information.  It was nice that it remembered the settings from the old receiver and applied them as well as the timers that we have set up.  One call to Dish and it was authorized and working.  That just left the Joey receiver in the bedroom and we are back in business.

Bonnie is off to get a haircut and I am on my own for supper, looks like leftovers.  Nothing else to report today, we just watched TV this evening.  Another gorgeous Western NY summer day.

Friday

Bonnie was up early and left for her parents house to help with a porch sale.  Once I got up and read my emails I got dressed and headed for Attica.  I made a stop at the bank and then over to ACE Hardware.  I picked up the screws and nuts I needed to fix the two Strongback Chairs.  I also got an email from Ladd at Strongback and he told me they have made changes to the chairs to fix the problem of the rivets popping.

I picked up a sub for lunch at Praller's and 5 gals of gas for the mower.  After fixing the chairs and putting them back in the coach I jumped on the mower.  I cut out back and then the front yard.  Enough for today.  I filled up the fuel tank and put the mower away.

I heard a young hawk calling and then saw it take flight.  Looks like he is practicing his soaring technique.

Just a spot in the center under the cloud.

Zoomed in a little

Nap time once I got in the house and a little TV.  Bonnie was still gone at supper time so I fired up the Weber Grill again and made some Sahlen hot dogs for supper.

Done in no time at all

They were oh so good

Bonnie got home before dark and said they had a pretty good day.  Tomorrow they will do it all over again.  The new DISH receiver is working as it should and we will give it a work out tonight.



Saturday

Once again Bonnie was up early and headed over to her parents for the porch sale.  I got up and had a leisurely morning reading blogs and emails.  I wanted to finish cutting the grass this morning so I got dressed and headed out to do that.  Out front by the road I checked the 4 foot sluice pipe since we had had the heavy rains.  I found what I had been expecting and it looks like we dodged a bullet.  I have been worried about this since the tree trimmers for the power company had cut all the trees under the wires and left a lot of cuttings lay in the ditch.

I have already removed several branches that were blocking this.

If the pipe had been completely blocked it could have washed our driveway out.  I cleared out the rest of the trash and finished cutting the grass.  Now time to hit the rain locker and maybe a little nap.  We have a graduation party to attend later.

We had a nice time at the party and it was very nice.  Its nice to celebrate accomplishments.  She will be off to Roberts Wesleyan college in a little over a month.  Where has the summer gone.  We got home just before dark.  I am trying to get some updates started on my GPS units so they can download while I sleep.

Sunday

After 3 gorgeous sunny days we have rain this morning.  Not sure if it is to rain all day or not.  We are up and getting ready to head to church.

It has rained hard off and on all day today so we have stayed in the house and watched the NASCAR race from New Hampshire.  Nothing else planned for today so I guess I will go ahead and post this.

Its been another good and busy week.

Thanks For Checking In!

"Life is not a Race, find Joy in the Journey"