Sailing Hair Cut Time!!

Just a couple of weeks now until we leave for our St. Martin/Sint Maarten sailing trip!

My hair had gotten a bit long and I know from experience that 20 knots of wind all day long leads to a "puffy" hair-do. So, I decided to go short and carefree!

Here's the "before" - weird to do the timer on the camera and step over to take the photo - but no one was around to help.....


And here's the "after" - easy-squeezy to take care of. A little water and conditioner spritzed on and I'll be ready for the evening after a good day of sailing!

Gutters! How exciting!

We've been in our house 15 years now....and we're just now getting around to installing gutters. (I don't know why I always say "we" about these things - because you know it's mostly Duane doing the work!)

Here's the "before" shot. There is not a huge amount that needs gutters - and up until now, the rain just sluiced off onto the ground.


Duane cut to length and assembled the gutters in the hangar.


Then attached the hanging brackets to the house.


And voila! all done. Now we just need a big rain to test them out!!

Oops, Tiger Food!

This is a little sad tale....

Last night, Richard had a little oopsie on the driveway....a deer ran out in front of him....here is the minor damage to the car. Note the hair left on the moulding...




Warning....graphic content

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I left the gory part covered. Duane and Richard went back with the pickup last night to retrieve the remains lest they get nasty....the story has a good ending....




What do you do with a dead deer? Take it to the Tiger Rescue (formerly Carnivore Preservation Trust)!! They normally feed the big cats discarded chickens from the processing plants, but they welcomed the deer. They toted him to a walkin cooler for butchering later. To everything there is a purpose....

Just some pretty flowers!

Lots of beautiful flowers right now!! The weather has been pleasant and almost cool for this time of year. Some of the different colored Irises for Miranda! (I looked up the plural of Iris...)

Enjoy:

Next small remodel project - wallpaper removal!

The basement bathroom was in need of some attention.

It's been about 10 yrs since I thought it would be a good idea to install some wallpaper. It was pretty for about a year....then steam and age took it's toll. Not the greatest "before" photo, but you get the idea. It was a pretty, floral scene, matching the ceramic floor tile nicely.



Unfortunately, it was also peeling in spots and a little mildew had started to form....


I had never removed wallpaper before - it was obvious that you couldn't just rip it off! I purchased this little devil - you roll it around on the surface and it cuts little holes just in the paper, not in the wallboard.



You just rub it around all over the wall... kindof fun!


Then you squirt this "removal solution" on the paper, letting it soak for 15 minutes. The idea is that the solution gets into the holes you just made in the paper. After lots of spraying and soaking, the paper finally let's loose and peels away nicely.


There you have it - the first panel removed!!


After much hole-making, spraying and soaking - all the paper is now gone. I'll have to do some mildew removal and a little bit of spackling to make it all ready for some nice paint.

Tire and walkabout

Update on Richard's holey tire - here's the new one. It was delivered to the airport while he was working on the rescue squad. I laid the seats down and hauled it home - it barely fit in my little car!!



This morning, it was so pretty and sunny - I did a little walk-about in the springtime yard.

Pretty iris's - the beginning of my saga of the different colored iris blooms.

Always first, the purples. Multi-color - I think these are my favs:




Solid light purple:




The yellows and the whites are just budding now - here's a white one all dewy:



And I finally bought some rose food/pesticide/fungicide mixture this year. All the rose bushes are lovely and full of buds. Can't wait!!

Tree update

If you are a tree - fear the man - Duane....

More trees were felled over the weekend. There was a group of three big pines beside the house. Only one was spared.





After much brush-dragging and piling, these big babies were chained up and dragged to the ever-growing pile. Want to come pick up some free pulp-wood????

Flat tires X 2 !!!

You may have seen Richard's 4-Runner - with the silly huge tires....

He called Wednesday night - on his way home from his Paramedic class he had a flat on the interstate off-ramp. He doesn't carry a spare.....sigh....

So, we trudged up to Chapel Hill to help him at 10pm. There was a hole in the tread. Should be an easy fix, but the hole appeared to be really large, like he ran over something metal on the interstate.

Long story... we ended up running around trying to find tire plugs, first set blew out after about 5 miles, ran around to find more plugs (it's 1AM by this point!!), finally found a gas station open that had the plugs, and returned safely home at about 2:30AM. Ah, parenthood....





I know it doesn't look like much - but this is the INSIDE of the tire - this is a huge hole and is not repairable. Richard has ordered a very expensive replacement...


The next flat tire story starts with a little afternoon trip to Oriental to the annual spring boat show at our marina. We got permission from Cherry Point Approach to fly out thru the warning/restricted airspace to get a few photos of the marina. A beautiful day, a bit windy and bumpy.




We did go over to the boat to do a few chores (mainly remove the front a/c unit for repair...)


But when we flew back to New Bern, the landing roll-out was bbbbaaaaddd. The landing itself was fine, until the weight settled on the nose-wheel. The nose wheel was flat! Not good while travelling 60-70 mph!

There was someone behind us on approach - the controller instructed them to "go-around" because we couldn't get off the runway fast enough.

We decided just to power forward and taxi on to parking - because getting towed off an active runway with airline service is a complicated affair. We assumed the tire was ruined - and figured that we weren't doing too much damage continuing to taxi.


The maintenance shop was closed for the weekend, of course.... but luckily, the flight school there had access to the hangar and were friends with the mechanic. They sold us a new tire and tube - otherwise, we would have been stuck driving home - ugh - you know we wouldn't like that!!

Here's the plane tied down so the nose wheel was off the ground. Duane made quick work of the tire change. I KNEW I kept him around for some reason!!! (just kidding, of course!)


The flight home and landing was uneventful - we should be good to go for another 6 or 7 years on the nose tire!

Here's a shot of the old tire and tube - kinda pitiful....happy ending, though - could have run off the runway and made a real mess.

Driveway update

Duane is plugging away at the driveway/front yard makeover. Here's a view that may help you see where he's headed....

This shows where the drive used to be:




And this one loosely shows where it will be soon!


He's also taking down some trees that were really too close to the house...




Little hard to compare because the sun was setting....but the yard looks much brighter now!

This and That

We go thru a lot of flags at the airports - the flag poles are lighted and therefore we can leave the flags up 24 hours a day.

Luckily, I have the local Boy Scout Troop to properly dispose of them. I was cleaning the closet at the airport the other day and decided it was time to take them. No one was at the Scout Hut when I was passing by - so I left them on the doorstep. It was only a few hours until their regular meeting, so I'm sure they handled them properly.




Thought I'd update you on the Pittsboro Courthouse. They are starting to remove all the rubbish from inside the brick walls. I don't think they've pinned down the details, but they are planning to rebuild it using the existing brick walls. This is a view from a couple of blocks away - you can now see completely thru the building - and of course, the domed roof and clock tower are gone...it will be nice to see it back to normal. They appear to be working on it 24 hrs a day - illuminated by floodlights.

Quick mountain trip to see my sis

My sister and her family were home from North Dakota this week for a brief visit. I hopped in my car and drove up there at 5:30AM yesterday morning to make my day as long as I could.

First stop was Grandma Hall's in Swannanoa - Mom, Teresa and Denise all met me there. I stopped and got Starbucks for all of us (Starbucks Earl Grey Tea for Mom, as she doesn't drink coffee!)

Much chatting in Grandma's living room as we sipped our coffee.


Grandma is doing quite well!


A beautiful day - out to the porch for more chatting.




Don't tell Grandma Hall that I recorded her - she might not let me near her with a camera again!!! Here's a short discussion about "shrubbery"....




Then it was off to our normal Laughing Seed Restaurant lunch visit in downtown Asheville. Much vegan food was consumed. It was, as usual, quite yummy.


I always publish awkward photos of everyone else - so I guess I should do the same for myself....this looks bad - but I'm really just stuffing a yummy zucchini pot-sticker appetizer in my mouth.



Pretty view of downtown Asheville near Pack Square, I think.



Teresa and I had to go take a peek at the "house that exploded" a couple of weeks ago. It's very near Eddie and Trudi's house. We all remember it because it sat empty and forlorn for a while many years ago. Recently, it had been refurbished and was occupied - just a nice, large ranch house in a nice neighborhood. Wow, when they say leveled, they mean leveled!!!



Then it was back to Mom and Frank's for a "normal" dinner cookout/picnic. Notice a theme here - eat, relax, eat, relax....good food, fun and folks!


I think we look alot alike, don't you???



Frank snapping photos with Denise's camera.


Teresa and "Scout" playing on the golf cart.




Next was a toasty fire in the fire pit - roasting of marshmallows.....




What could be better - a fire, smores and a big glass of milk!!



Up at 5:45AM (ok, I slept in for an extra 15 minutes!) headed back home before sun-up....too short a visit!