Kentucky Derby

This is old news now but I wanted to share some photos from the Kentucky Derby. Since Laura & I went there to volunteer we were limited in our sight seeing opportunities. We had to go out of our way to see horses and then they were a ways off. However, we did get to see lots of hats! It was fun. Enjoy.

First, just to prove we were really there, here are some horses.

And now for some hats!

Lots going on - photos added

The length of time between the last entry and this is contributed to two reasons. One - lots has been happening. Two - I'm not using my computer and haven't downloaded photos to include. So, once I explain what all has been going on, check this entry again later for photos.

The last entry was on April 15th. Five days after that, Ben and Laura arrived. Yes, they left Las Vegas and have moved here! We expected to have them as guests for a few days until our renter vacated (the next day) and their possessions arrived (just 3 days later).

Plans changed dramatically when we finally had access to the rental and got a really good look. What we found was not a happy site. Let me start by saying that this little house is old. The wiring is what really scared us. We found the breaker box in one of only 3 upper kitchen cabinets. It was propped up in there with wires coming from the top of it, all taped up to wires coming from the top of the cabinet. The tape was roughly done and some wires were exposed. When we took into consideration the fact that outlets were in funky places and in funky heights, it made us quite uncomfortable about the safety of the wiring. Now, add to this fact that the kitchen looks about 75 years old (kitchen door hanging by one hinge, etc) and the floor plan is lousy... we decided to do a major overhaul. Here are some before pics.

Ben & Laura agreed to put up with us and stay in the guest room while we all went straight to work on this rental. In the last two weeks we have completely gutted the place. The kitchen and bath and all interior walls are gone. At this point I should explain that we found the house was originally even smaller than it is now. It was a little square concrete block structure with no plumbing and, I suspect, no electrical when it was built. The plumbing was added to the exterior and entered the house where it was needed. It did have windows so I do believe it was a dwelling originally. I have no idea when the wiring was added but it wasn't recent! The bedroom was added on at some point. So, when I say all interior walls are gone, that includes the original block wall. Many thanks to Ben for breaking that out!

So in the past two weeks, we have ripped out carpet, pad, sheet rock (or fiber board as the case may be), insulation (the older side has fluffy wool stuff - yuk)... everything! Larry and Ben replaced the ceiling rafters in the bedroom because the closet wall had been a weight bearing wall. Last night, the guys rented a concrete saw and cut a groove in the floor to add new plumbing in new places. You should have seen the cloud of dust coming from inside the house! Larry and Ben would say, you should have seen the dust in the house!!

This week-end Larry and Ben will install the new plumbing. Then, we have to have an electrical contractor do the wiring. Next we'll do something to level out the concrete slab floor, add partition walls for the bath and kitchen which will share one side of the building, sheetrock and tape, put in bathroom fixtures, kitchen cabinets, counters, sink, appliances, and paint.

All this work is done in our off hours. Larry continues to be out of town about 3 days a week, but works 5 days of course. Ben has been spending his days job shopping and Laura and I go to work. As a side note, Laura transferred to a new Starbucks here that opened about a week after their arrival. What timing!

While Ben and Larry do plumbing this week-end, Laura and I are working in another way. We're going to Louisville, KY to work in a Kentucky Derby merchandise booth. We're driving there today and working 12 hours tomorrow and coming home Sunday. We're doing this for a ministry called GO Ministries. Laura has a friend going to Dominican Republic / Haiti soon and is living in Louisville right now. GO Ministries will get $20,000 for manning the booth for this event. I have no idea if we'll see any horses but I know we'll see people. Apparently, people love to dress up for the races. I've been told of the fancy hats that I should expect to see. Like I said earlier - check back for photos. It should be fun!

Retaining walls steps are done

With working on the wall a couple hours here and a couple hours there, we've made good progress. The steps are in now and the wall is mostly done. The original plan was to make the entry to the walk much wider but the slope of the yard dictated where they had to go and how wide the could be. Even so, we rather like the result. This week I'll go get a ton or so of mulch and create the walk from the steps to the porch.

Much progress has been made on the garden too. Remember all those roots? Well... I have a confession to make. Now that the stump of the fig tree is out I've come to the conclusion that those giant roots did not come from the fig but from the stump of a big tree in the neighbor's yard. One of those roots went right under the fig, giving the impression that it was a fig tree root. That fig tree could have been gone weeks ago. The good news is all those roots needed to come out anyway if I was going to be able to garden worth a toot. I wasn't planning to bore you with the garden details but since I've gotten this far... yesterday, I brought in a load of compost and spread it across the garden. Thankfully, it started raining before I could turn in under because I was out of energy anyway. We got a much needed rain yesterday so it may be several days before it dries out enough to turn.

News

Three blog entries in one day. Is this a record?
There are two bits of news I would like to share.

One... Larry got a new job. He is now District Manager for an insurance company. His territory is the state of Tennessee. He'll be driving all over the state (in the company car) meeting with insurance agents, taking them to lunch and, in general, drumming up business. They give him a weekly budget and encourage him to use it to get to know the agents! You know... lunch, golf, sporting events. What a life.

Two... (and this is most exciting)... Ben and Laura are moving here!!!!!!!!!!!! They've been packing and planning for a few weeks now. This week, they're visiting friends and family in CA. In about a week, they will be leaving Las Vegas and arriving here about a week after that!! They're going to rent our little rental house in the beginning. Laura is being transferred to a brand new Starbucks here in town and Ben will be job shopping. Their house in Las Vegas is still for sale if you know anyone moving to Las Vegas. Don't laugh, apx. 5,000 people move there every month! (At least, I think that's still true.) If they knew any better, they'd move here instead!

A Rotten Retaining Wall

As you can see, the existing retaining wall along the driveway is in need of repair. The railroad ties are leaning away. What you can't see is one of them is visibly rotten.


Work has begun! We've taken all the railroad ties out and found many rotten ones. This job needed doing even more than we first realized!


Since we're pulling out the wall anyway, we've also decided to add a walkway to the front door. It's rather odd that there wasn't one before. Like Larry says, we live in the South and we out to be hospitable. What a house without a walk up to it?


Now. What materials do we use to rebuild the wall? Railroad ties? No way!! We talked about a concrete wall but didn't think that would be very attractive. We finally decided upon the landscape bricks that are so popular these days.


We have made progress. Larry has done most of the work; I help where I can, moving the truck up and down the driveway and bringing bricks to him for placement. He has shoveled two tons of rock from the bed of the pick-up to the wall.



The tallest part of the wall is done and we're just about to the point where the walkway will begin. We'll cut into the existing lawn and curve the brick into a broad approach and narrow it to match the width of the front steps - about 6' wide. If I don't get photos of the progress, I will at least show you the finished project... whenever it gets finished.

Dogwoods are in Bloom!!

Our friends from CA missed seeing the Dogwoods by about a week. What a shame. I've taken some photos of the tree outside our bedroom window over the span of a couple weeks. All 5 of our trees are white but there are pick ones around town too. Here are some photos.









Lots of our neighbors have them too. The drive up Greenleaf is so very pretty right now.

The Redbuds started blooming about the same time. Here's a good specimen I found a short distance from our house.





While these trees were blooming we were having daytime temperatures in the mid-80's. Those temperatures lasted about two weeks. Then, a few days ago it turned cold. Last night about 8:00, while Larry and I were cleaning up from the work on the retaining wall (that's another story) it started snowing!! It only lasted about 15 minutes but what a change. The plants got a shock with lows in the high 20's last night.

Spring has definitely sprung in Chattanooga.

Visitors! Some welcome and some not

It is quite possible that we've had more visitors in our 4 months here than in 4 years in Las Vegas. We love it!! Today, some "welcome" friends from Santa Rosa drove 2 hours from Nashville to visit with us for the afternoon. We meandered around the downtown area and then drove part-way up Lookout Mountain to see a view of the city. (Note - the "mountain" is probably all of 2000' high. I know our Western friends will appreciate that.)

Then, these welcome friends of ours helped us get rid of some unwelcome guests.

If you saw the post about toppling the gazebo then you may recall that it was being chewed up by Carpenter Bees. When we toppled the gazebo we left the base for another day. Larry started to demolish it over the week-end and discovered the Carpenter Bees were nesting in the base.

On Monday he tried spraying the wood with insecticide but it didn't slow them one bit. He bought wasp spray which worked, but only when he could actually spray the bee. These guys are really big bees and they fly very fast. He managed to kill two with the wasp spray but there were several more where they came from.

Then, Ken had a great idea for getting rid of these unwelcome guests. Burn them out! That seems pretty smart because it would kill any larvae and stop the cycle. Little did Ken know that Larry doesn't wait when he hears a good idea. While we were sight seeing, Larry went to the fire station to ask about permits. They said we needed a permit for a control burn but not for a campfire or to cook food. So, we had a really big campfire! You should have seen the size of those marshmellows! ;-)

Boy, did those bees get a surprise! Amazingly, some stayed quite a while before buzzing out of there. There was one bee in particular who just did not want to leave the area. It hung around for the longest time. Eventually, as it got dark it finally disappear. Our friends disappeared about this time too, going back to Nashville for a week of conference. Larry and I watched the glowing embers for a little while longer and then came inside, bringing the wasp spray and gloves in with us. But, the story doesn't stop there.

When Larry set the gloves down by the door to the garage he heard a loud buzzing sound. OH NO!! That stubborn bee had decided to bed down in Larry's glove and now it was in the house! Larry quickly stomped the gloves and silenced the buzz. This is what he found.

It looks like a bumblebee right? The only visual difference between them is Bumblebees have fuzzy abdomens and Carpenter Bees have smooth ones. This tummy is smooth. Bumblebees don't eat houses, Carpenter Bees do.

Little did I know... (a.k.a. Monster Fig)

Little did I know when I looked at that little fig tree what was hidden from view. This 4' high tree that volunteered to come up behind the shed was reported to be tough. The seller of our house said it was unstoppable. My garden book said fig trees get to be 15 - 30 ft tall and wide. It had to go. I've dug other things out by the roots before so after cutting back the twigs growing off the stump I took my shovel and started digging.

I followed one root over to the gravel where I knew it had grown into some hay bales that had been left to decompose. That went pretty well. A couple roots headed under the shed. I cut them off under the building.

Then, I follow another root that headed toward the neighbor's yard. It got bigger and bigger the further from the stump I dug. Then it split into three. Oddly though, it didn't split as it went away from the stump but rather toward the stump. It's as if the stump came from some mother tree somewhere - which makes a lot of sense - except there's no mother tree to be found. Rather than dig into the neighbor's yard we took an electric saw to the 3" root and cut it off at the property line. By then, I was six feet or so from the stump and had created quite a hole.

There were still more roots to dig out so I proceeded to dig. That was 3 days ago. I'm still digging. In the photo below you see about half of what I've dug. The stump I have referred to is way in the background. You can't even see it really. It's about 3' this side of the gravel.

What I found from this point on is even more amazing. More often than not, as I followed a root like this along thinking it would get smaller and I'd come to the end, I would find just the opposite. The more common experience is that it gets larger and goes deeper and probably crosses under another larger root. I suspect the really large root in the photo below is from a different tree that was on the neighbor's lot but had been chopped down. That stump is about 3 feet across so I know it was one huge tree. If I can get the fig root out from under it, I'll just cover up again. It's about 3' deep.

I'm now 25' or more, and around the corner, from that stump. They criss-cross all throughout the garden area. Some roots run just inches below the surface, others are deeper. Most of the shallow ones go deep at once point or another. After taking these photos, I continued to dig. The smaller root you see in these two final photos took a steep downward turn. By then, the sun was going down and I was getting tired. I wonder what I'll find tomorrow; assuming I can dig tomorrow. Possible thunderstorms are in the forecast.

Little did I know...

Timber!

Today, Larry and I got ambitious today and tore down the gazebo. It was wobbly to begin with and was being chewed up by some sort of bee (in the summer time) that bores holes.

Larry first took a circular saw to the upright 2x4's to free the roof and then he started pushing. He pushed and pushed. It wasn't until he removed some side supports that it finally came down. My cool camera has a rapid shoot feature so I got some action. It's too bad you can't watch it in quick succession because it looks pretty cool.

Oops

There are those who will get quite a kick out of this... (Rene' for one).

I spent an hour or two on this egg, only to break it when trying to seal it a new way. Usually, I take them outside and spray them but it was raining. So I sprayed sealer into a small zip-lock bag and rolled the egg around in the bag. It was working quite well until I tried to transfer it to the drying rack. That little booger was slick as snot on a door-knob. I hardly knew what happened! Crack! Oops. Oh well. Back to the drawing board.

We love visitors!

David swung by our house while on his way through with a delivery. It was great to see him for all of 10 minutes or so.

Unfortunately, Larry missed him as he was out of town at the time.








Our good friends, Carl & Karen spent the week-end with us recently. We had a lot of fun - going to lunch and then to the aquarium (someday I'll share photos from there). Later that night we went to a comedy dinner theater which was a lot of fun.

On Sunday we went for a lovely drive to through NE Georgia and visited Carl's parents. The week-end went by very fast.

We love having visitors. When are you coming? :-)

2/1/07 Snow Day

It's barely light enough outside to take a photo - at 7:45am. This is about the time of day it starts getting light here.

Oodles of school districts are closed. My employer is opening one hour later than usual. Snow is a big deal here! I like that. We don't have to deal with ice very often but we get the treat of snow from time to time. The temperatures are rising and it's suppose to rain later today so it won't last long.

Here are a couple more views.

Okay, so you think I'm too old to be making snowmen? Oh well. 50 still likes to have a little fun. Besides, snow is a novelty to me. Even after the snow turned to rain during the day, there was still enough wet snow after work to form a sorry looking snowman. This one was concocted on our deck which I believe was more wet than the snow on the lawn, however, this way it didn't have grass and dirt mixed with it. Ta da!

(If you ever want a better look at a photo you can double click on it and get a bigger version of it.)

Gatlinburg

We had heard that the lights that Gatlinburg puts up for Christmas were due to come down after this week-end so we high-tailed it up there this week-end. It's quite a tourist town and it's called the Gateway to the Great Smokey Mountains. We agreed to listen to a time share presentation in exchange for a $100 "gift".

We figured that would pay for a hotel room and food so we stayed.

This morning we woke to find it snowing!! Ordinarily I'm leery of snow but this wasn't sticking to the streets so I wasn't worried about driving in it. It turned out to be a light dusting.

We briefly set foot in the Great Smokey Mountains, enough to know we need to go back again - maybe in the Spring.

Company! - and more.

These posts have slowed way down... have you noticed? That's partly because it's Winter and partly because we've been busy settling down. There's so much to do!

However, we did have some fun recently when Ben and Laura came to visit. Laura flew in Thursday and Ben followed on Friday after he got off work. They spent a lot of time checking out the city and surrounding areas.

On Thursday afternoon, Laura and I got to toddle around town a bit. We went to the Art District and to the Chattanooga Choo Choo. Check out the photos. The time with them went all too quickly as they went home on Sunday but we look forward to the next time - whenever that is.

Our weather has been wonderful. We did have just a touch of a cold snap when the rest of the country had a huge touch of that same snap. We get frost every few days but Larry clears a spot in the garage for me so my ride is dry and warm. I love it!! Days have been in the 40's and 50's. Occasionally we get rain but we get blue sky in between - or at least patches of blue sky. So far, this is easy Winter weather.

Work is going well. My department worked a lot of overtime the first month but starting this week we're back to 40 hours a week. We're allowed to start work any where between 7:00 and 9:00. I've been starting at 7:00 lately so with a 30 minute lunch I can get of as early as 3:30!! I'm lovin' that too.

I'm currently reading books on lawn care and composting. That's something I haven't done since 2000! It feels good. I may even get my hands dirty this week-end, clearing out the remains of last year's garden.

Hey! The local scrap yard man gave me two more license plates for my collection. We had to get rid of the refridgerator and dishwasher so I traded them for two plates. Well, not exactly but that's more or less the end result. He did also give me $13.80 got the metal. So now I have Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Georgia!! I also found some people that want to trade plates so when we change ours from SD to TN perhaps I'll make some good trades. :-)

Our computers are finally up and running (as I'm sure you've guessed by now). If I don't email you first, then send me an email!

PS (I don't know why this is all smooshed together at the end. Hope you don't mind it being compressed.)

Getting Settled

Hello to y'all,

It's been a while since I've been in touch. The last couple weeks have been busy with moving and getting settled. Larry has been working very hard every day fixing things, organizing stuff, and all that goes with settling into a new residence.

We brought the RV to our property last week-end. It's sitting on the grass behind the rental house and - to tell you the truth - I haven't seen it since then. The windows in our house don't look that direction and I can't see it from the drive-way. It seems odd to me. Larry tells me it's still there. :-) We're going to sell it. In fact, Larry placed an ad in the Boat and RV Trader magazine for their next issue.

While Larry has been working so hard at getting settled, I've been spending about 9 - 11 hours a day at work. This is the busy season in payroll. We just finished preparing W-2's this week. I'm told that pretty soon we'll be going back to 8 hour days. We have what is called flex time, which means I can start my day anytime between 7:00 and 9:00 and go home accordingly. I can work a little more one day and a little less another. It's very nice.

We finally got connected to the internet via cable modem this week but our in-house computer system is still being worked out. Larry got our computers networked (if that's the right term). My "office" is the last to get settled so doing email has been a little inconvenient. That's okay though because I come home pretty tired.

Laura and Ben are coming in a few days!! They going to scope out our community and see if this is a logical place for them. We're quite excited about seeing them.

I'm still trying to talk my parents into coming. Dad's ready to move here but Mom doesn't want to budge. If you have any contact with them, feel free to encourage her.

So far, Winter has been easy. It seems to go back and forth from nights in the 50's to nights in the 30's, depending upon whether the skies are cloudy or clear. One day it was actually rainy and cold and someone said they saw snowflakes and someone else saw slush but I didn't see either.

Cindi sent me a license plate from Montana!! Larry had discouraged me from making the US license plate map (See previous blog for talk about the map.) out of real license plates... and he might still be the smartest one here... but I couldn't help but love getting the real plate in the mail. It's a great reminder of our travels (we have seen a lot of plates!!) For now, while building the 50 state collection, I'm thinking of using plates as a kitschy kind of wall art. So, I may renew my efforts to collect the 50 states. If you have the opportunity to get your hands on a license plate please think of me! You'll probably hear me talk about this more.

That about wraps up the last couple weeks. One of these days I'll get some photos going again.

Moving Day

Well... Escrow has finally closed and the move has begun. To tell the truth, the furniture that we bought for the house has been there for two weeks already. Over the last two days Larry has moved some of the bigger stuff.

Escrow closed Wednesday but the RV has still been home... up until this week-end. Starting tomorrow morning the kitchen gets moved, then the bedroom, then the rest. We've decided to leave the RV in the RV park for the rest of the pre-paid term (a couple more weeks) and move the old fashioned way - in our vehicles back and forth (rather than pull the RV to the house). It's much easier to keep the rig protected against the cold nights with it being plugged in and all.

It supposed to rain late in the day tomorrow so we'll get as much done as we can before the rains begin.

Give us a few weeks to get settled and then ya'll come see us now, ya hear?

New Job

Hi Everyone,

It's official. As of Wednesday, Dec 13th, I (Shirley) will be employed with one of the largest employers in Chattanooga: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee. This is the building that I'll be working in (it doesn't really lean). Right now the 4500 employees are housed in six different buildings. I understand they're building a new building somewhere nearby. I'm unclear whether it will house everyone or not. I'll learn more about that later.

My position is called "Kronos System Administrator" which means I'm in charge of the time and attendance system (called Kronos) for about 4500 employees.

I'm thrilled to get this job because the pay is very good and the benefits are excellent. I've never seen better. The payroll department has about six people in it and they use an in-house payroll system. They cross train so I'll learn a lot!