What was your day like?

[Edwin]

Red, my brother had a 1966 Chevy 1/2 ton pickup truck, and he love that old truck. He built a set of racks for it so that he could haul horses as he was into rodeoing, and he broke horses to ride as well! Some othem broke him also. He gave those horse racks to me for one of my birthdays when we were all pretty young! You can see a pictures of those racks by looking at some of my pictures here on the forum, of the snow, and I have an old red Ford pickup with those same racks on it. After all these years those are still good racks, and I can haul anything with them. I did haul our youngest daughter's horse with them about 8 months ago. The racks are built of angle iron, galvanized water pipe, steel solid rods, and plywood is bolted to that metal frame. My brother used it pickup truck to haul diesel fuel to the field, and he was kind of hard on that old truck. He took good care of things, but the job he needed to do was hard on any vehicle. In the place of the front bumper he welded large angle iron together for the front bumper. The back hitch bumper held up well until he rebuilt that old truck. He bought a trailer with a fifth wheel, not quite as large as the tractor truck trailers, but almost, although shorter. He rebuilt that old 1966 Chevy pickup until it was no longer recognized as what it used to be. He put a huge motor in it. Then he put two transmissions in line, so that he could use any combination of gears he wanted going down the road. He beefed up the springs until its ride was fairly stiff unless he has a load on it. He also put large truck size dual wheel on it as well. He used that old truck for a number of years that way until he quit farming and ranching, and then he went to driving Ford pickup trucks with diesel engines in them. Before that he drove a Datsun 1/4 ton pickup until a bull ramed it, and then that just about finished off that little truck. He is still driving Ford pickup trucks with diesel engines in them, and hauling goats and hay sometimes. He is retured, 76 years old, and just takes care of his chickens and goats, and that is about all he does. He told me that the cellar that he finished a year before I finished mine was too much work for him. He has been a very hard worker, but age is getting the best of him, and he damaged his body somewhat rodeoing, and breaking wild horses. But he putters around and keeps busy. He is in pretty good health except for his minor problems because of damage resulting from rodeoing and breaking wild horses.

[Edwin]

Red, we have several people down in the two towns at the bottom of our hill that get involved in the demonition durby. One is a motor mechanic that I take my car to when I don't know how to fix it, and the other is a guy who owns a bail bond business that people come to to post bail so that someone can get out of jail while waiting for a trial. They usually reduce those cars to the bare minimum, only leaving essentions in them for the durby. They wear protective head crash helmets, drive them in a fairly small arena where they can't get up enough speed to be really dangerous. The object it to crash into as many cars as possible so that your car is the only one left running, and then you win the demonition durby. I have seen them on television years ago when we watched TV, but I have never been to one of them to watch all the crashing that takes place. After the durby they rebuild those cars for the next event, unless they are beyond repair, then they will go buy a car, and rebuild it, reinforce it, so that they can go car crashing again! Its kind of a harmless sport, and I don't anyone gets hurt very badly very often.

[Edwin]

I have had a hard time the last couple of days anyway, not because of hard work, and I have worked hard, but because of insults from the past coming into the present. I'm not sure why life has to deal some of us such horrible things, but we have had troubles for several years now. Our daughter who lives here close to us, 600 feet away invited us to move here, so I bought a 28 foot by 46 foot home that was trashed, and I have been working on it ever since. It is now getting to be a fairly nice place to live. Carol is not in as much trouble with our daughter as I am. She can actually still go over there and visit, but I can't. I am not welcome there! I could write a 300 page book about it, but I will try to be brief by saying that most of my troubles with her is because I have helped our youngest daughter in various ways, and our daughter her hates our youngest daughter, so I got caught in the middle, and she says that she loves me, but she will not talk with me, doesn't want to see me, and I am not welcome at their house. A year ago I gave our youngest daughter a ride to get her daughter back, and this daughter here asked us to move away, but then she changed her mind, and told us we could stay. Then I stopped to discuss something about the cellar and water project with her, while she was turning hay bales over in the field that had gotten wet. She misunderstood something I said, and rather than discussing it with me, she just went crazing accusing me of being naughty, accusing me of threatening her, and then repeated her threat to make us move away. So later that evening I told her that when she was a "snot nose kid," I did not kick her out of our house. She said so many mean things to me, that I finally was driven to say that to her, and things have been bad since. She claims I really hurt her by saying that, but what does she think of all the mean things she said to me. Well, she doesn't want to have anything to do with me, because she says that she is afraid I will say something else mean to her. Her identical twin sister loves me, will hug and kiss me, and does kind things for me, but she thinks that I shouldn't have said that to her sister. It is really complicated and I am not going to continue to give more details because there would be no benefit. Carol takes my side in this, and she also thinks that our daughter is mean and controling, but she is more careful/more wise than I am, so now I am suffering. I have now built the backgound for what I am going to tell next.

[Edwin]

I don't think our daughter who lives near us tell lies on purpose, but what she does is that she thinks about a situation until she imagines something to be the truth, tells it, but really it is a lie. She said that she told me that she never wanted me to bring that dog, Scooby here where we live, but she never told me that. She said that it was okay as long as I would keep him in the back yard, so now she is not being truthful. She tried to get me to stop walking the dogs about two years ago, and she was just being mean and unkind. Finally I took the dogs a different route out to the County road to walk them because that is state property, and she can't tell me not to walk the dogs out there. She had the excuse that they were peeing on the snow banks going out to the mailbox, and that is terrible for a dog to pee on a country road, isn't it. I am being facisious. Anyway she told me she wanted me to keep them on the road going out to the county road so they would not tare up her field. So I did that, and it seemed like that went well from that time on, and I enjoyed walking on the county road more anyway. Last winter Scooby walked out of his yard over the drifted snow that was up over the fence. Our daughter didn't know that he got out, and I shoveled the snow away from the fence, and everything was fine. This winter the fence has been drifted under a number of times, and I have shoveled snow away from it every few days. Then our daughter came to realize that he was getting out, and she said some unkind things in regards to that. Not only did I have to work hard to get that snow away from the fence, but there were ugly insults from our daughter as well. I got really upset about the whole problem last night, and I said some things that I should not have said. With all this happening, I have to work hard and pray so that I will not feel hateful. Anyway yesterday after hearing her insults after shoveling all the snow away I strung another wire over the top of the other wire. I got cleaned the snow away, and had the fence high on both side, and then today about 12:30 I went to get the mail. When I was just about ready to head back to the house, there Scooby was right at the mailbox, and I could have died, because I thought I had it all taken care of. So I came back and did more wiring, wiring one wire to the one above it. Then after I had done more wiring I turned Scooby out in his yard and watched him. Now I don't think he will get out. The trouble is that our daughter her is just waiting for an excuse to be mean, and when Scooby gets out that is her excuse. Well, all I can say is that I have to work harder to see that he doesn't get out. Carol tells me that I need to talk with the Lord about it, and then put all my troubles with this daughter behind me, and let God deal with her. Then whatever she does she will have to answer to God for that, and God will see that she doesn't get by with the way she is treating me. The other thing is that I should not allow her to take my joy away from me, because life is too short to allow something like this to damage the joy in my life.

[Edwin]

When I walk out to the car in the morning I will take Scooby with Rand. We usually always take Rand with us, but we seldom take Scooby anywhere with us because he is such a huge dog, and his manners are not all that good. But I will be taking him, and he will stay with our youngest daughter until we get back from visiting our daughter who lives 3 hours away from us, and then maybe I can keep Scooby in his yard, and things will be better, I hope! In the spring I will be putting up a more sturdy fence, and then he will stay in his yard for sure. Our daughter who lives here last fall sent word to me through Carol, she won't speak to me, that she wants me to build a better fence so that I can put Rand in there when they have goats running out here near our place, so I will for sure be building that fence. I was planning to do that several years ago, but then I started having touble with this daughter here, and I decided I wouldn't do that, but now I will! LIke Carol said I need to talk with the Lord about it, and then put it all behind me, and let God deal with her, and He can. If I try, I will get myself into trouble, and I already have too much trouble!

[red]

I don't really mind having old car. If it is in good condition running and no problem of whatsoever then it is a good car to keep especially of good gas mileage and owned with no car payments or debts to pay for years.

Today is great day. God is good because He did miracle on one of the church member's friend who had heart attacked. During the service we offered prayer and at the end of service church member was happy to announce that his friend is stable. We were all happy praising God for hearing our prayer. I got teary eyed on that part. God is good all the time.

[Edwin]

I am happy to hear that about your church member's friend whom the Lord touched to be stable. Yes, God is good all the time.

I hate to get rid of old cars when they go bad. I have an old Chevy Van that doesn't have that many miles on it, but the motor is bad, barely run and I don't drive it. The transmission is not good either I don't think. We used it for a number of years, then it got so that it would run, so we left it parked. We drove it up here 5 years ago, and we just store things in it. We have a little sports type car that has a good motor and transmission, but the body is looking a little banged. It needs those rubber boots replaced in the front axels, axels replaced also, as that is what they recommend when the boots fail. I ruined the radiator fan by running the engine not knowing it was packed with snow. It would be easy to get that car running, but for now we don't need it. If we had two drivers needing to go places then it would be a great car, but for the time it just sits there with very little wrong with it. We have the Chrysler Van with is comperable to a Cadillac. It has age and lots of miles, but it is still doing well, and I am working on it, driving very carefully, and trying to get it to last. It is a very nice Van. It belonged to our kids and they were afraid they would ruin it on these roads. We didn't know we would live here then, and we took over their payments and paid it off, and now we have a very nice Van. I drive it really slow over rough roads so that I will not damage it, and I try to keep it in good repair so that it will last a long time. It is time to change the oil, and I hate to do that as miserably cold as it is, and we are not driving very much or making long trips, so it may be okay to wait until it is warmer to change the oil. I could change it any time though. I try to change the oil when I get home from driving it somewhere, and that way the engine is warm, and the oil will quickly all drain out, so there will not be any old dirty used oil hanging up in the engine. It is nice if you can have a car that runs well, and you don't have to make payments on.

[Edwin]

I am hearing things that leads me to believe that our youngest daughter's younger daughter may be returning to live with her mother. When that happens that will be wonderful for us because we will not longer be required to supervise the visits, and that means that we will be free once again to attend church every Sunday, and that will be a great blessing. Then our youngest daughter and her two daughters can come to church with us if they will, because after that their great uncle reporting on them will mean nothing. I don't think they should let that stop them from attending church, but for now it does, although Sunday before the older granddaughter was ready, willing, and wanting to go to church with us, but she had to wait at the house for a delivery of fire wood for their wood heating stove.

[Edwin]

Yesterday or Sunday I got up at 5 a.m. so that I would be on time, or ahead of time, rather than late. I was alone because of Carol staying down town with our youngest daughter after going to the spinning/knitting guild. After I got ready, shaving, showering, putting on clean clothes, and eating the oatmeal, raisins and milk that I made, I took Scooby and Rand down to the Van. We have to walk one quarter of a mile as long as we have so much snow. Driving down to town, Scooby licked my hand, tried to lick me in the face to tell me that he loved me, and stayed right at my arm all the way. He is a very loving doggie. Our youngest daughter put him in with her horse. Scooby and the horse are great friends and good company for each other. Scooby will stay there until spring comes when I will put up a better yard fence, and then I will bring him back home, and be very happy to have him here again!

We ate salads and pizza at pizza hut. We also went to several stores, and I looked at materials to build a better fence for Scooby. I will do that as soon as some snow melts off, and the frost goes out of the ground so that I can dig holes to set railroad ties, to attach the fence too. I am going to get number 4 wire pannels that are 4 feet tall and 12 feet long, and then I will get enough of them to go all the way around our yard. It will be a great improvement over what I have now which is wire that is too light and bends too easily. We would not have had so much trouble with Scooby getting out of the yard if it had not been for deep drifting snow over the top of the fence. The weight of the snow has bent the wires causing the fence not to be as secure. The new fence will definately be an improvement over what there is now!

Later in the afternoon/early evening, we went bowling. It was a lot of fun. I went one time when I was a in the 12th grade in high school. I went once when I was in Bible College. I went once with our kids who live here a few years ago, and now we have gone twice with our youngest daughter and her two daughters. Becasue of a horse accident many years ago, when I was 21 years old, my wrist is not really strong, so I bowl with my left hand, which works really great!

This morning we got some cat food for our daughter's new kitty, 2 pound of butter, 4 gallons of milk, 3 for us and one for our daughter, got 10 forty pound bags of pellets for our heating stove, and then we came home. I made 3 trips with 2 toboggans to pull in to the house what we were bringing home over the quarter of a mile of snow. At the end of that I have my exercise!

[Edwin]

Almost a month ago when we got water plumbed all through our house we connected our clothes washer, started it up, and it ran water all over the floor. Our son-in-law tipped it on its back, and pointed out to Carol that it was leaking/running water out of the drain pump! It was leaking/running water out of the bearing seal of the pump. We were carrying our clothes elsewhere to wash them, and that seemed to work okay until we started having to leave our car at the gate/mailbox, and after that it was a hassle to carry the clothes out that needed to be washed, and carry them back in after washing them. So I tipped the clothes washer on it back, and tried to take the pump off from underneath. I discovered that the pump was too close to the front of the washing housing for that to work. I also tried taking the motor off, but it didn't come off as easily as I thought it might. Then I did some research on the internet and learned the proper way to remove the water pump. So, I took it off, ordered one online from Amazon.com, and after a little more than a week it came in the mail. I put the new pump back on, connected the washer hoses, and then Carol ran a small load of clothes. When it got to the spin cycle the washing machine bounced and thumped, so the next day I decided to try to fix it. I was worried about what I would do to fix it, but it is almost a new washer given to us, so I figured there shouldn't be that mpuch wrong with it. I discovered that a triangular piece of metal got twisted, leaning the inner drum unsupported. After straightening that out it worked fine.