Tuesday and Catching Up

It was brought to my attention that I

was getting lazy about posting... lol.

And of course, my usual excuse...

I'm BUSY!

First... Kyle's house.

It's still in the first (or first and a half) stage.

He is working on insulation.

This insulation he bought is easier

and less expensive (or at least comparable)

than the traditional stud and batting,

but it still takes FOREVER.

He finally got it all cut out for around all his

windows, his door and his A/C unit.

There were 2 layers, first the layer that
fits in the groves of the corrugated walls,
then the solid piece that goes over the top.
The black stripes are the studs, the drywall
will be attached directly to the insulation.

The walls are all installed.

And now he is working on the ceiling.

If you look up at the roof, it looks like it has stripes.
The grey is the metal box, the white "stripes" are individual
strips of styrofoam insulation that had to be rounded on the ends
to fit in their slots and then glued in. They were held up
by the red neck's best friend - duct tape!

It still looks like a construction zone.
He has moved the kitchen to the other side
of the house temporarily while he works
on that side of the ceiling...

Each panel has to be glued and

then he has to brace it up using 2x4's.

He only has 4 of them.

And each one has to sit for 24 hours.

He did 8 panels last night.

He's doing 4 panels this morning.

He'll do 4 more this afternoon.

And hopefully the rest tonight...

(They have to cure for 24 hours, but 3 or 4 hours

seems to be enough to hold them up...)

Next comes running all the wires for 

his electricals.

He will have a ceiling fan,

a couple of lights in the bathroom,

the wiring for his A/C unit,

the wiring for his stove / fridge / hot water heater...

Did I tell you about his hot water heater?

It's not going to end up there,
it has a kitchen cabinet it will be hiding in.
But its helping hold up insulation.
And staying out of the way.

A week ago, Kyle and Rod went to Lowe's.
While there they were looking at hot water heaters.
This was is $350, marked down to $309.

While they were looking at it, an employee
happened by and they got to chatting.
He offered to lower it to $250.

In the course of more chatting, Rod told him
about the house Kyle is building and showed
him some pictures of the progress.

The guy said "My boss told me to make
a friend today. So I'm going to drop the price
for you tonight to $150!"
GREAT DEAL!

A few days later they were back at Lowe's.
They were looking at stoves.
Those are SO expensive!

Anyhow, while chatting with an employee,
they scored a GREAT deal on this
4 burner cooktop!
Even after buying another kitchen cabinet
to put it on top of, he was still several
hundred dollars ahead.
*And he'll never use an oven...
he'll have a toaster oven, which is honestly
all I ever use. Except for the Christmas / Thanksgiving
turkeys - and Kyle doesn't like turkey.
LOL

Anyhow.

It's coming along.
And this is his little helper (who eats styrofoam and isn't allowed
in the house unless I'm there to watch his mouth).
The dogs love to hang out there with him.

Meanwhile.

Saturday the guys worked on Kyle's transmission
on his new little Golf. They thought it would be a quick
30 minute thing, but 8 hours later it still has an issue.
So back burner for that... maybe he'll have time to mess
with it in September.

Sunday Rod and I rode with another High Council member
and a good friend, down to the Lake Placid Branch where
they were speaking. It's the first time I've gotten to
hear him speak since he was called!
High Council Sunday is the third Sunday each month
and I'm always teaching on the 3rd Sunday each month.
But with 4th of July this month, I pushed my schools
back a week.
He did a GREAT job - talked about ministering with a
pioneer day theme - talked about Rhoda Chase and some
of her trials, some of the other pioneers and their trials
and how looking out after each other was so important
and then brought it to today and helping each other after
the hurricanes last year and all the things we do each day.
It was a good talk and he seems to be getting more
comfortable speaking.

It was fun to visit the Branch. We had 9 women in RS.
Maybe 14 people in Gospel Doctrine.
And when Church started, there were only 12 people
in the chapel! (Folks showed up a little later, they have
quite a drive to get to this building - BIG news, they
just bought their own building in their little town
and should be meeting there in the next month or so...)

Yesterday Kyle and I took his truck and drove up
to the ranch to do the final walk through before they close today.

They have been getting lots of rain, so everything
is nice and green.
This is the cow trail down to the pond.
It's covered in "duck weed".

We drove the perimeter and checked all the fences,
got some more insight from the current manager,
and then left him at the hay barn and walked
around a little, scouting out where he wants
to put his house.

I didn't take any pictures of the cows, but there
are now 8 babies - she bought all 28 cows,
they were supposed to all be pregnant,
we'll see how many of them really are.

(This was not a well "documented" herd...
the folks were sort of - well there's a young bull out
here with them, so they are probably all bred...)

I imagine after Kyle gets the new cattle working
pens and chutes built anybody who hasn't had a baby
will be run through and preg tested to see who is
and who isn't... and then they'll think about doing
A/I on the rest who aren't.
They really want to have 20 babies so they can
sell them in 3 months and then buy more mamas.
Their goal is 50 cow/calf pairs.

Most of the property looks like this.
But the deep hole and surrounding woods
is my favorite part...

It's exactly 200 miles from the ranch to our house.
A 400 mile round trip, with 2+ hours visit to the property
and a nice little lunch at the town diner.
Made for a long day.

Today I'm doing laundry,
making Rod's breakfasts for the week,
that sort of thing...

So...
You are all caught up!