Pinewood Racer

It's race time again! The cub scouts are having their annual Pinewood Derby race in March which means it's time to start making the car. They give each boy a block of wood that has two holes drilled for the axles and that's it. The rest is up to them. So Wesley drew the design on his block of wood and went out to the shop with Sean and cut it. I've since learned to stay in the house because I "hover" too much. A little too afraid he's going to lose a finger on the band saw. Sean's good and lets him do everything. He got it cut out and sanded this weekend, so he'll paint it and put the wheels on it next weekend. Good job Wesley!

Woody

-Over Christmas break we had the not so fun experience of waking up each morning to a woodpecker pecking on the bedroom side of our house. For some reason he liked this one spot and each morning about 7 am decided he needed to peck on it. So I'd throw on my red polka dotted bathrobe and storm through the front door then run around the side of the house waving my hands like a complete lunatic. This would, of course, scare the living bejesus out of the poor woodpecker. He'd fly off and life would resume. Then at 7 am the next morning it would happen again. This went on for several days before I got onto Amazon and ordered a big plastic owl (with rotating bobble head) to attach to the fence to scare away the blasted woodpecker. Before the owl arrived on my doorstep the woodpecker moved on never to be seen again. So now I have a rather large plastic owl sitting on my dining room table. I'll be ready next time, you hear that Mr. Woodpecker?

Odds and Ends

There are all sorts of little things that I'd like to blog about but they were too little to have their own post, so here is a compilation.

-The kids like to randomly ask Sean to print something out of the 3D printer. It's about once every couple of months and this time they found a hulked out Minecraft Creeper off of thingiverse.com....because doesn't every kid need a hulked out creeper?

-So you know we have chickens. They used to be free range chickens until the neighbors dog figured out that they tasted good. We lost one (first one to be eaten by a predator in seven years) so they are now cooped up. I feel bad for them but that dog is sniffing around way too often for them to be out. Anyways, Greta is my egg collector. She'll run out each night and bring in the eggs. I decided to peek in the nest boxes the other day to discover she's been slacking on her job. We don't eat many eggs, maybe a dozen every 2-3 weeks, so it wasn't like I was noticing. I've decided to take over the egg collecting job and start donating them to the church's food pantry so they don't go to waste. Don't worry we threw out all of these eggs since we didn't know how old they were.

-Wesley did Acolyte training yesterday at the church. He learned how to be one of the kids that lights the candles during the service. This tradition was started back before electricity when churches were very dark. The acolyte was the person that brought light into the dark church and lit all the candles. I think he's pretty excited.

-I made sushi for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I've always liked sushi and was afraid I'd have to give it up once giving up meat. I can't eat the prepared stuff because they like to hide avocado in it which gives me a tummy ache. So after a little research and purchasing a few items I set out to make some. It was delicious (if I do say so myself). I always thought the rice in sushi was just white rice, but it's actually seasoned with rice vinegar, sugar and salt. I could just eat the sushi rice plain (and do often). Greta was eyeing me while I made it the other day and I mentioned to her that she used to like sushi when she was little. She was surprised and asked to try it, turns out she still likes it and she's a picky little eater. Greta now asks for it once a week and we pig out on veggie sushi together.

-It's been such a mild winter. A few weeks ago we were forecasted to have some bad ice storms. The state braced for power outages that never came. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as predicted. There was some ice but it lasted only a few hours before melting off. Ever since we've been enjoying some unseasonably high temperatures. 70+ degrees in February, I'll take it!

-No random post is complete without a picture of our derpy little dog sleeping upside down wearing his food dish as a hat. What a clown!

Boys and Their Toys

Sean has spent the last couple of weeks working on the truck. It's had quite a shudder when the brakes are applied and it was time to give it new brakes and tires. It got the works! New drum brakes on the back, new pads and calipers on the front, shocks and even a new master cylinder. It took a bit to bleed all the air out and Sean resorted to making a pressure bleeder which on the second try finally got all that air out. The brakes are back to feeling new again thanks to a very awesome and handy husband.

I do love that truck. I bought it new in 1998 and it's been with me through everything. I get a little sentimental about things and I don't plan on selling it anytime soon. But, it's not a very heavy duty truck. In fact, it's about as un-heavy duty as a truck can be. It's come in handy for light hauling and trailer trips to the dump and such but as for heavy stuff like moving milling machines and big round bales we've had to rent a bigger truck.

Since big round hay bales seem to be a yearly purchase we've been rethinking our truck needs. We need something with a heavy towing capacity and so the search for a new (to us) truck started. My Dad mentioned an auction that was coming up with quite a few trucks and we checked it out, putting in a low bid on one of the trucks. That low bid bought the truck. So now we are the owners of a 1999 F250 truck. It's a V10 with low miles for the year. It's got a 10,000 pound towing capacity that we are pretty excited about. I'm giddy about having a truck that will haul round bales with ease. And since I can't part with my original F150 we now have his and hers trucks.

The truck was a city truck and had decals that needed to be removed. I've never removed decals and after a quick YouTube video learned that a hair dryer, some fingernails and a little patience will remove it just fine.

In the same auction there were some CNC milling machines that caught the eye of Sean and my Dad. There were three they were interested in and one of the three went pretty high in price, so it was out. In the end Sean bought one and my Dad bought the other. Sean hauled them both home and has been tinkering with them in the shop. I'm pretty sure he's trying to collect as many milling machines as possible.

Trials

This past weekend my brother-in-law Blake called and said he wanted to bring the boys down to see a motorcycle trials event that was just a few miles from our house. I had absolutely no idea what a trial bike was. Actually even after going to this competition I'm still not quite sure what it was. It looked like a dirt bike without a seat. These guys went flying around a small course that was full of big rocks, tree limbs and steep slopes.

They had to maneuver over these obstacles without putting their feet down very often. It was interesting to see, definitely something I wouldn't have gone to my own. The kids enjoyed it, although they had more fun digging up rocks and treasures than watching the bikes.

This little lady had her own electric bike that she rode around. The boys were envious.