Hot and humid

June 16, 2007 (5:09am)
65º F, Humid and cloudy, South wind, 1 mph.

Good morning,

Hot, humid, and rain a-coming. Think this is the warmest start to a day this season. Probably will be more before the snow flies again. It feels like rain and that is what is forecast for today and the next couple days. We plan to go to Green Bay to pick up some things for up nort’. A couple of the items are fairly large items, like scaffolding. Hope the rain holds off until it is in the truck.

The celebration of Millie’s life was nice last night. About 40-50 family and friends were there and we had a good time sharing our experiences with Millie. There were tears and much laughter. I worked hard at also having some laughter, but it really wasn’t necessary. Millie was always laughing and smiling, so most of the shared stories were happy ones. I hoped my part helped some. She originally was from Illinois outside of Chicago, so will be buried there next to her husband.

Margriet spent most of the day baking bread and I spent a lot less time eating some of it. Really good again - of course. It really wasn’t the best day to bake, since it was so hot and humid, but we both like the results! Of course the hot weather also helped the bread to rise and it sure smelled like sourdough in here all day long - until the smell of baking bread over took it. Either way it was a good day of smells around here. Not only that, but she baked some country style ribs for supper. That ain’t a bad smell either. We had an excellent supper of homemade wheat bread and honey/mustard country ribs.

The washing machine also ran for most of the day. Lots of clothing and bedding to be cleaned and now is. When I left last time, I thought I left a pair of "good" jeans here to wear. Turned out they were a pair of work jeans and I didn’t notice it until the pair I wore down were in the washer. Ended up wearing the work jeans uptown to do some errands, &c. At least they were clean.

I did get caught up on some of the accumulated paperwork here, especially after sifting though the accumulated mail. AT&T’s bill was most humorous that arrived. Well, not really. Last month we got a notice that we were over a hundred dollar in arrears on the account. This month’s indicated we were well over a hundred dollars credit and they had not credited the check we sent in last month! We only paid the current month’s bill, but it wasn’t credited. As long as it is showing a credit, at least we will not get cut off. What a mess. If any Mom and Pop shop did something similar, they would be out of business in a hurry.

The fuel prices are dropping here. Lower than in Green Bay from what I can tell. $3.029/gallon yesterday uptown. The state apparently has done an investigation into the price and found that the wholesale price has increased by 6+% since last June, while the pump price has increased by34+%! There is a whole big snag of folks very grumpy about that report. Someone figured out that with the 6% increase, the price should not have been higher than $2.899/gallon this past year. Ouch! My pocketbook hurts! I grumpy too! I do hope something is done, but it probably will not refund any money back into my pocketbook.

So our schedule for today is to head to the big city before the rains start. Once home I need to finish the Bible study for Tuesday and a report to Council regarding the Assembly. Both of us will be at the meeting, so will be heading back up nort’ later than usual. Also need to get more packing done. Should be something we can do while it rains outside. There is a lot to box up yet. Probably will be taking a lot of heavy stuff up this time.

I am including a couple of pictures of the shop area. The first is of the storage bins I am taking apart to salvage the iron from. There are 24 large bins here and a bunch more in the lean-to. In total I have about 75 of them. I really don’t know what I will do with the bins, at least all of them. All are in need of sandblasting and paint. Some are in pretty tough shape. The space where they stand will become the machine area for the shop.

The second picture is of the workbench left behind. It too is made of a lot of iron. I will disassemble it and use the various pieces to make a bench with a metal top as it now has, but poorly put together and designed. The new bench will be taken out of the "cave" it is now in under the stairway and assembled on the left wall of the first picture. Also will put some windows in the left, west, wall too. Plan to use a lot less black paint as well. Don’t need to feel like I am in a cave.

Time to get a-going.

In Christ My Saviour,

Chris ><>