Today's post is brought to you by the letters V and W

The letter "V" is for vacation. We've had several lately. We may have a chance of taking away our friend Kent's title of Dr. Vacation. It appears Google has taken away the ability to have a description for photos here so I'll do my best to let you know what you're looking at. It started in November when we went to Colorado to see my daughter Amy and her family for Thanksgiving. It was good to see them all, way too much food, lots of soccer in the backyard with the grandkids and a fun trip with them to the World of Wonders Science Museum near Denver.

We were back from Colorado for two whole days before leaving for Florida. My stepson and his wife recently purchased a vacation / retirement home on Siesta Key. They invited us to stay a week before the house went into the rental pool- an offer we just couldn't refuse! Our first stop was Destin to meet up with our friends from Atlanta, Mark and Tammy. We hadn't seen these two in a couple of years and we sure appreciated them driving down from Atlanta just to see us for one day and two nights. They are regulars in Destin so they were able to show us around but mostly we just ate and caught up.

We left Destin and had a one night "layover" in St Petersburg with our long lost friend Sharon. More on our time with her later. Shaun and Jennifer were just wrapping up a week at the house on Siesta Key when we got there. We hadn't expected to get to see them but it was a pleasant surprise to be able to spend all afternoon with them before they and their friends flew back to snowy Connecticut. We absolutely loved Siesta Key! The house is walking distance to town and the beach. We spent a fair bit of time at both places. We also drove back over to Sarasota now and then. If you are ever that way, you absolutely must eat at Owen's Fish Camp. Jennifer told us in order to get a table you need to be there around 4:30. Not truly believing that could be the case in the middle of the week, we went about 7:00 one evening. Jennifer was right. The trick is you go at 4:30 or 5:00 and put your name on the list and then go out back and have a drink and listen to live music. They'll call when your table is read. If you aren't ready to eat then, just tell them. Your spot on the list is still good. When you are ready to eat let them know and you'll get the next available table. Anyway, fantastic food and a great relaxed environment. This next part is a little bit out of chronological order but it'll be easier on us all this way. Mostly me. If you'll go way back in our blog, probably around September of 2015, you'll see that while we were in St Petersburg we got hooked on playing shuffleboard. It just didn't seem right to be that close and not go play again and we knew it might not be as much fun if we weren't playing with some of the same friends we made in St Pete. So here we are with our friends Nancy and Kelly back at the shuffleboard club, almost six years after last seeing them. A good time was had by all.

Back to Siesta Key. Something that became a mainstay for us while we were there was to walk down to the beach for the sunset. But not just for the sunset. The shortest path to the beach from the house took us to the beach at Patriot Pier at Sunset Point. Every evening at Sunset there is a flag ceremony there. There is a good man, Mike, that puts up an American flag every morning at 8:00. As the sun sets he will say a few words, giving thanks to all those men and women that have served in the United States Armed Forces. He asks all to remember the "United" part of the United States of America. After a moment of silence he plays on his portable stereo America the Beautiful, My Country Tis of Thee and The National Anthem. Before he started he would find a couple of volunteers to help lower and fold the flag. Now it's time for taps, just as the sun is setting into the Gulf of Mexico. This is where I come back to Sharon. We met Sharon when we were on the boat in the Bahamas. We spent a lot of time on their boat and they spent a lot of time on ours when we were sailing. Just like Nancy and Kelly, if you go way back in the blog you'll find pictures of Sharon.

It was great to reconnect with her again. Our last night on Siesta Key just so happened to be the day of the Army v Navy football game. Sharon spent 20 years in the Air Force but her kids both graduated from the Naval Academy and are serving in the Marine Corp. You'll see her in the video supporting her kid's alma mater. The older gentleman directing traffic on the flag folding is Ray. Ray is retired Army. There was some good natured ribbing going on over the football game. Our last morning on Siesta Key we went back to Patriot Pier. Susan and I were honored to help with the flag raising to the sound of reveille. Susan is raising the flag while I'm behind the Christmas tree, holding the flag so it won't touch the ground. You can't see me but it isn't about me. It's about the flag.

That covers it for Florida. We also went to South Padre Island for two weeks after Christmas. This post has already gotten way long so I'll just recap our time there as a bunch of walks on the beach, a tour of the King Ranch, a fair bit of pickleball and lots of seafood. We had a good time but we were glad to get back home too. So "W" is for work. Not much time for that. Our main accomplishment was hired out to a contractor. We had part of our back (really side) porch screened in. Now when the weather cooperates will be able to sleep with the french doors in our bedroom open and not get eaten alive by mosquitos.

Last but not least. The new resident at our place, Otto the Otter.

Take care! Brian and Susan

Today's post is brought to you by the letter U

U is for update. (Thanks Rich) Though I think it would be more appropriate to be by the letter F for Formula1 or R for racing. There are a couple of updates on stuff around the property. While I'm still working pretty much full time Susan has completed more stuff around the house. Here is a look at the walkway she put in from the driveway to the front porch. It looks great.

Last post I showed you the new chicken tractor we built. The previous one was not in any condition to be moved without a forklift so we left it where it was for a while. Our chickens get almost daily compost from our kitchen. Obviously amongst those scraps were some tomatoes. The volunteers include cherry, roma and dark star.

Last weekend Susan and I volunteered at the Formula1 race in Austin. We started volunteering there in 2017. We've been in "Hospitality" which consists of getting all the track marshalls to their posts in the morning and back in the evening as well as delivering drinks and lunch to them throughout the day. In 2019, due to acceptance of anyone that could fog a mirror, I was able to be a flag marshall for MotoGP. Try as I might I wasn't able to flag for Formula1. Even with my experience at MotoGP they wouldn't take me. Until this year. With COVID travel restrictions and who knows what other reasons,there were a lot of no shows. Thursday morning I was checking in the head flag marshall and mentioned I was hoping to flag. Thirty minutes later I was signed up and accepted. Once again, the ability to fog a mirror played to my advantage. It was a bit of a dream come true. It was a great experience, one I hope to repeat, and I met a bunch of neat people. Being assigned to post 1A gave me a great seat, though there is no sitting during the race, and a fair bit of action. Here are some pictures from last weekend. Susan and a co-volunteer Sharon

Turn 1A Crew including one from Azerbaijan and one from Brazil.

Fuad with his Azerbaijan flag. Tradition is for all to have a flag from their country, next year I'll know.

Here comes the fly by at the end of the National Anthem. As you can see, turn one is quite a bit higher than the front straight.

Sorry there aren't any pictures of the actual race, it was a bit busy out there. Attendance for the entire weekend was 400,000, an all time record in the history of F1. The Netflix series "Drive to Survive" undoubtedly played a factor in the attendance. Last but not least, tonight's dinner out of our pond.

Notice Susan's shirt. Go Braves! (I was threatened if I didn't say that) Brian

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "T"

Hi All, Rich M suggested this post should be brought to you by the letter T for Tardy, which I certainly am. Once again I've been working for a friend's company so a lot of the progress you're going to see was done by Susan. In order to have a chicken Tractor (notice the "T") that is easier to move around than the previous one we built a new one on a much better frame. We also improved on it so the feeder was integated and would hold more food. For some of the structure we used some wood from a tree we cut down and took to a local saw mill. Below is a picture of Susan using an ancient Japanese technique for perserving wood called Shou Sugi Ban (we learned about it on one of our favorite TV shows Homestead Rescue.) These pieces became the roof.

And a couple of pictures of the finished product...

We had some Trespassers from next door show up for a while.

Susan finished up our automatic Turkey waterer as well. Here's the rain catchment system on the Turkey Taj mahal.

And the waterer inside...

While I've been away at work Susan also put up the Tile for the backsplash in the kitchen

And put in the flagstone on the mudroom porch (sorry, can't come up with a T for this one.)

And last, an update on the Turkeys. We have two babies that are growing up nicely. Here they are with their Teacher, a chicken.

One of the adult Turkey hens has been sitting on a clutch of eggs for a couple of weeks. We're not sure how many eggs but it looks like a bunch. This last week the other hen started "helping out." We're calling them mothers, not sure if they identify as mothers but they haven't displayed any displeasure so far.

That's it for now. The letter T worked out pretty well. I noticed the last post was brought to us by the letter S. That means U is next. I have no idea how I'm going to work that in. Brian

Today's Post is also brought to you by the letter "S"

 Hi All,

It's time for another post focused on the letter "S". As I mentioned before, this time it is mostly about solar. We've finally done it! We're pretty much running our house off of solar power. It has been a long journey, starting back on July 5th of last year when we signed a contract with a company to install a solar system for us. Four months later they told us they wouldn't do what we wanted to do. So after much research we forged ahead with installing the system ourselves. With some help, of course, starting with Northern Arizona Wind and Sun who provided us with a great deal of consultation, sizing and the vast majority of all the pieces we needed. Grady Reeves and Amanda, after helping us build and install the solar water heater helped us dig holes in the ground and get the ground mount structure in place. Our friend Michael provided some expert welding, as well as help carrying the 80lb bags of concrete. The final step needed the help of our electrician, Jamie, who took care of getting the AC power to the house. Susan and I were not casual observers, we did a lot of the work but it would have been nearly impossible to do this without the help of others. Now for some pictures.

January 26 - Drilling holes for the ground mount structure

March 2 - Susan and I started putting the rails up for the solar panels

March 4 - The rails are up, as are the first two panels

March 16 - All 32 panels are up. Just how big is it? 42 feet wide

 

After getting all the panels up still had to trench and lay cable from the combiners to our "solar annex" and get the panels and batteries hooked up to the charger controller / inverter. 

The solar annex is an addition we built on the back of the well house.

 Here's what it looks like inside.

We still may have to do some tweaking, even potentially buying another battery, but we're up and running.

And just to prove there is never a dull moment around here and still going with the letter S...

The copperhead (sans head) we found by our back door as we came back from a walk

 

 

That's all for now. I didn't go into a lot of detail on the solar system but will do the best I can to answer any questions. Take care.

Brian

A Big Day for our feathered friends

 Hi All,

Yesterday was a big day for some of our fowl friends. A couple months back a friend loaned us his incubator so we thought we'd see if we could hatch some of the eggs our chickens have been laying. About a month ago seven out of the nine eggs hatched. Yesterday we moved those seven in with the adults. All is well!

The seven youngsters just before being released into the general population

Also yesterday, after approximately 28 days, three baby turkeys hatched. There are five more eggs in the incubator with two different "due dates". Getting turkeys to adulthood isn't as easy as with chickens but hopefully since we've had some luck in the past they'll all make it.

Our three new additions under a heat lamp

That's all for now.

Brian

Today's post is brought to you by the letter "S"

 Hi All!

This post is for Rich who has been texting me for a couple of weeks asking for an update. So here it is!

The first "S" topic is Solar, as in the passive solar water heater we constructed and installed with the help of our friend Grady. The idea is to have the sun heat a tank full of water that will then supply the electric water heater in our house. We often laugh when we hear or read about "hot water heaters". If it is hot water, why do you need to heat it? But now it seems we may actually have one. The bad news is since we installed the solar water heater, the sun hasn't shined so we haven't been able to see how much difference it makes.

We used the skid steer to lift the almost completed water heater on to the roof

In place and ready to go

The valves that allow us to bypass either of the two heaters if need be, like today

The other "S" topic is today's snow. The forecast for last night was for seven inches of the white stuff. I'd say they got it about right.

On the way back from watering the chickens and turkeys. Duncan

 is wondering why we've stopped.

Normally when it snows I feel like I need to hurry up and get some pictures before it melts. We're not supposed to be above freezing until Saturday so I have plenty of time.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for the next installment of "S is for Solar". Take care.

Brian

Turkey Taj Mahal

 Hi All,

First post in  a while. This one will be mostly about things other than the house. To start with we have ordered some grapevines we plan to plant this winter. Our California and French friends shouldn't get excited, in Texas about all you can grow are muscadine grapes which aren't all that good for wine.

Killing grass for where grape vines will go

Our other big project of late is the Turkey Taj Mahal. The story goes like this...  We decided to put in a solar well pump so as not to use our crack house tenant's electricity to pump water for the garden, orchard, vineyard and poultry. Because of all the trees around the well house we decided to put the solar panels out in the middle of the pasture, basically next to where the vineyard is to be planted. We quickly decided it made more sense to build a building and put the panels on the roof, that way we got another building for storage. But wait! How about we use the new building to house the turkeys? So now we need a concrete floor. We called our concrete guys and got a bid on a 8' x 10' concrete slab. Texted them on Saturday, called me back on Sunday, came out Monday to look it over. Before Adan and Adan Jr got here on Monday we staked out where we wanted the building. Man, 8 x 10 sure is small. Let's make it a bit bigger, how about 10' x 12'? Well, now we've gone from mixing bags of cement to getting a cement truck and we're going to pay for a whole load whether we use it or not. Now we're up to 12' x 14'. We told them to hurry up and get it done before we made it any bigger. Two days later, it was done. The concrete part anyway.

Slab poured

Three walls up

Starting to look like a building

It's done! Including rainwater catchment to water the turkeys

Took an evening off with friends to see the world famous Kilgore College Rangerettes perform at halftime of a Kilgore High School football game. It was very impressive!

And then there were six

That's all for now!

Take care.

Brian