Trike progress

The trike is coming along. There is still much to do but it is all detail work. Installing the transmission and brakes, adding elbow guards and a few attachment points for accessories are the next steps. The handle bars will also be raised from where they are in the picture. Hopefully I will have it to the riding stage for testing in a few weeks. Then it all comes apart for painting and the finishing touches.

Home again

We are home again, arriving about 7:30 PM last night. We traveled nearly 2800 miles and had no flats, accidents or other problems and for that we are thankful. There is a lot of road construction between here and there and plenty of opportunities for some kind of problem.

Our garden did well while we were gone except that the radishes were ready to pick and we will lose some of them. The weeds grew well and I will have a lot to do to get them all out. The grass went wild too and the yard needs mowing again.

Otherwise all is well and we will get caught up as soon as we can. It is good to be home.

North to Michigan

We are spending this week in Michigan, yesterday we had the funeral for my father-in-law who passed away last Sunday. He is walking the golden streets of heaven as I write this, possibly along side my dad who went home in 2002. I cherish every moment we had together as he was quite a friend to me. We spent many hours together when I was laid off in 1989 and was out of work for a while. He was a Winter Texan at the time and spent his winters in the Rio Grande Valley with his wife. He would come over to our house and work in the yard with me as we cleared the oleanders and palm trees and some other brush. We had great times and I appreciated his time with me very much. Those were trying times as I looked for a new job to continue my career and he helped me through it. He loved to stop at Dairy Queen for ice cream on Sunday night going home from church. We had many great times sitting around the table at DQ eating the ice cream and talking.

We were fortunate to have them in our home for two winters in 2007 and 2008. Those days were very enjoyable with evenings of games and conversation. I will never forget them.  

Build memories with your loved ones, spend the time it takes and then write them down for the future. Some day you will be glad you did.

Retirement fun

Have I mentioned how much fun it is to be retired. I stay as busy as I want to be around the house but have opportunities to do other things as well. So far I have no real deadlines of stuff that just has to be done by a certain time so I can relax and enjoy the time. For instance, on Friday I watched the space shuttle Atlantis launch into space and no matter how many times I watch it, there is still a sense of amazement that we can build something that will lift four and a half million pounds and accelerate it to 17,000 mph plus in about 8 minutes leaving it in orbit about the earth. Then it will rendevoux with another orbiting environment and dock for a few days before returning to earth. Folks, when I was born this stuff was science fiction. Dick Tracy had a wrist watch radio and a base on the moon and Flash Gordon rocketed through space to nab the bad  guys, but that was in the comics. No one really believed it!

But here we are, 1 flight away from the end of an era, and after that, years before more manned space flight can occur from American soil. We will be forced to rely on foreign entities to ferry our astronauts to the International Space Station and bring them safely home. We as a nation are likely to fall far behind in science and space exploration because of this delay.

Enough of that, I was talking about the joys of being retired, and I do thoroughly enjoy it. I will return later with more of this nonsense.

Singing with the Saints

In just an hour I will go to help host the Singing with the Saints program at Howard Payne University. This is the 7th annual program and this year we have 2 outstanding nationally known quartets. The Kingsmen and The Melody Boys will be the featured groups as well as a local group called The Solid Rock quartet. This program of Southern Gospel Music attracts fans from all over central Texas. This year it returns to Mims Auditorium on the campus of HPU. Mims has been in a long restoration process and is a beautiful place to hold this concert. We look forward to hearing some of the best gospel music anywhere.

Rattlesnake vs the Weed Eater

I have been away all week at our creek house. I spent the week on small tasks that I could do alone and enjoyed some time of fishing even though I didn't catch much. On Wednesday afternoon this little? incident occurred.


We have a lawn service that takes care of the lawn since we don't get down very often and it needs at least monthly care. The lawn was due for a trimming when I arrived and on Wednesday the crew showed up to do it. I was downstairs under the house and had just put some chicken on the grill when they showed up. They make quick work of it with a big lawnmower and weed eaters. The weed eater guy had gone around most of the house and was right in front of me when he hit a rattlesnake with the weed eater. The snake was in the surface roots of a tree that grows next to the house, he obviously blended right in and we didn't see him until the weed eater made contact. The snake was about 18 inches long. The weed eater guy kept the snake airborne for a few seconds and by the time he fell to the ground he was severely wounded. A hoe finished him off and the snake scare was over but it made me realize how careless I had been in an area where snakes abound. In the minutes preceeding the snake / weed eater confrontation, I had walked through the area where the snake was hit several times picking up stuff to make the lawn care easier. I had disconnected a water hose and dragged it across the very spot where the snake was hit even reaching down to dislodge the nozzle when it snagged on a tree root. I do not know if the snake was moving and wasn't there a few minutes before or how it got there. Needless to say but for the rest of the trip I was extremely cautious when I walked about or reached for anything, especially at night.

In the 1950's when I started going to the creek snakes were common and we learned quickly to watch for them. The area was sparseley populated then and we were invading what had always been their territory. Now there are a lot more people and few areas that will support them so they stay across the creek in the salt marshes where people rarely go. In the 8 years that we have owned the house, we have not seen a rattler and only one other snake at all. That one is another story that I will post here some time. The lawn crew said they see them frequently but this was a close encounter that they can do without. I agree wholeheartedly. I am not a fan of snakes and especially not those which are deadly poisonous.

So in the future I will be more alert and careful where I walk and what I reach for. The nearest medical facility to us down there is at least 30-35 miles away. We do have an ambulance at the fire station about 9 miles away but it is staffed by volunteers and would take some time to respond. Amazing as it is I only remember 1 house fire down there and I have not heard of anyone getting snake bit.