Did I mention I had sand in my ear. Again.

It was time to rebuild the brake calipers for the truck. Step 1: Disassemble. 2: Blast. 3: Paint. 4: Replace o-ring and dust boot. 5: Install caliper on spindle

I have completed step 2.

I pulled my first ripe tomato from the garden today, the okra is being attacked by what appears to be Japanese beetles, and I have three grape sized cantaloupes. Also no more bunnies since the cabbage and broccoli were removed.

For the past couple of weeks I have been walking 3 miles in the morning, starting out usually around 6:00 AM. Like most exercise, if you do it enough, it makes you feel better and you get the desire to do more exercise, so ... I decided to get out the old dumb bells and start pumping some iron again. And man am I sore now. Really sore. All over. Every where. Places I had forgotten I had.

My goal is to keep with the program for 90 days. Then all bets are off.

I Have Sand In My Ears

Again! Monday morning I started the day with a walk. By 7:30 am I was in the driveway setting up the sandblaster to strip down a couple of brake drums and backing plates. Sandblasting is messy. Especially on a really hot day when the sand sticks to your sweaty skin. Too much information?

The drums and plates cleaned up nicely and looked awesome after the rust had all been removed. After putting away all the blasting gear, I got out the paint gun and sprayed the parts a nice semi-gloss black. Who in the world paints a brake drum?

The parts are now ready to be re-attached to the rear axle assembly. I had forgotten the backing plates needed to be installed before the axle went back into the differential. I guess I will be pulling the axle out again soon.

The next step will be to install the new brake lines. After that is done I can finally put the engine back on the chassis. OK, that is not entirely true. First I will need to do something with the transmission. It doesn't need to be rebuilt but at a minimum it does need to be cleaned up. I am considering painting it. I don't want to use the same ORANGE paint I used on the engine. I would like some contrast between the block and the transmission. I also don't want to use black. In the event of a leak, black paint makes locating the source difficult. I am considering either silver or gray. I will probably go with gray.

After washing my hair 5 times I think I have gotten all the sand out of it. I am still finding sand in my ears though. Sandblasting is messy.

The bunnies have disappeared from their nest. I know they were still there yesterday. They were less than a week old so I am assuming something (cat, bird, owl) carried them off.

First Fruits

Today was the first mini-harvest from the garden: a half dozen peppers (jalapeno and banana), a few small squash, and a couple of still mostly green tomatoes. The peppers were quite good. I haven't sampled the squash yet and I am waiting on the tomatoes to turn.

Hiking on Monte Sano

Friday AM I went for a hike on Monte Sano Mountain. Our (David M. and myself) destination was the cuts. This is a pretty cool site on the top of a ridge that is basically a split in a large rock. It is probably about 30 or 40 yards total in length including a decent cave.

It had rained a reasonable amount on Friday so the trails were fairly damp. Downright muddy in some spots.

Having not hiked this particular trail in 13 or 14 years I surprised myself to be able to find the destination without a map. The trek required making the correct turn at about 5 forks in the trail. Even more surprising was that I believe I accidentally took the shortest route. Amazing!

What is wrong with this picture?

I put the second coat of paint on the block today. As you should recall, this is the engine from my 1972 GMC pickup. They call this a Chevy Small Block (SBC). And I painted it Chevrolet orange.

Got it? GMC truck. Chevy Small Block. Chevrolet Orange. Yes the GMC's came with Chevrolet Small Block engines painted Chevrolet Orange. Does this strike you as odd as well?

Laugh Out Loud

The very same day I planted my garden, I spotted a rabbit in the back yard and put up a chicken wire fence around the garden to keep the bunnies out.

Today I noticed something new. A little hole covered with grass clippings and bunny fur. And inside the hole are three (or more) little gray bunnies. I didn't notice the bunny clutch on Saturday when I was trimming the grass around the garden so I suspect the bunnies are less than 3 days old.

Did I mention the nest is on the inside of the fence? {Cue Laughter}

OK, I have now re-routed the fence to place the bunnies back on the outside. I also battened down the fence in the spot where I suspect the momma bunny may have accessed the garden interior (and cabbage).

On a related note, my cabbage took on the appearance of Swiss cheese almost over night. By that I mean holey. Today I sprayed some pesticide on it and the okra. After spraying the cabbage, several worms crawled out into sight on each cabbage plant. After inspecting each plant and counting the worms, I gave up on the cabbage, pulled them all from the ground and tossed them into the woods so the bunnies could feast tonight. I had been needing to thin the garden in that area anyway to make room for the ever expanding squash and cucumber vines. I don't think I will be planting cabbage again.

I mentioned the okra was also sprayed. The okra has aphids. I didn't notice the aphids, but I did spot the ants which were apparently feasting on the aphids. Hopefully the pesticide will clear that up whole mess. Once the aphids are gone, the ants will leave too as they don't really care for okra - boiled or fried.

After cleaning the block again today with TSP, I finally got around to painting it. Only one major catastrophe occurred. While painting the bottom of the oil pan, I had the gun tipped over too far and the lid fell off. Orange paint went everywhere including the garage floor, my shoe, and my leg. Later I discovered some on my elbow as well.

The block looks good so far. It appears dry but I have resisted touching it. Tomorrow I will check it out and decide whether to apply another coat.

I used Eastwood engine paint, the high temperature ceramic stuff, in the factory orange color. It's looking pretty good so far.

This One Goes to Eleven

Yesterday was Jordan's Birthday. The big eleven. He missed the last day of school as we had previously made plans before they scheduled the makeup day.

I started his day with a couple of plate size pancakes smoothered in buter and syrup. His grandmother took him (and his seester) to lunch and a movie and then last night we had pizza and a chocolate chip cookie cake with chocolate icing. He got several cards in the mail and has requested a trip to Wal-Mart and Best Buy in order to acquire some new stuff. Perhaps we will make a run to Wally-World tomorrow.

He seems to be settling into eleven just fine. Only four mores years until he gets a drivers permit. Amazing.

Sipsey Adventure

J' and I went hiking in the Sipsey Wilderness this morning. We hiked a trail I am fairly familiar with as I have camped on it 4 times. J' let me blaze the trail on the way in so I would be the web catcher. We evaluated many campsites for future trips.

The Sipsey River was higher than I have ever seen it but still fairly low compared to the obvious water marks. I intended for us to cross at a fork in the river but alas the water was too deep today.

The color was off in most of the pictures I took today. It seems someone was playing with the camera recently and changed several settings including a color filter which caused an interesting effect on several shots.

In the first photo you see us at the trail head ready to begin our 2.5 hour hike. Looks like someone has been eating too many biscuits. The second photo is J' in the (very wet) cave, about to disappear around a corner. The squeeze through the cave seems to be getting tighter every year. Or perhaps someone has been eating too many biscuits.

Garden Update

The garden is rapidly progressing towards various stages of completion.

Squint and you can see two tommys.




For reasons I can't determine, the next two photos are being rotated 90 degrees. If I compensate for the rotation, it does not rotate them, yet they are still off due to the compensation. After fighting with the issue for a few minutes I decided the easiest way to fix the problem is for you the viewer to tilt your head sideways while viewing the next to pictures.

Look: two squash



And some cabbage and broccoli



You can straighten your head back now.

Patience

Today I prepped the GMC's engine for painting. I had already removed the water pump, fuel pump, alternator, dizzy, etc. I spent a few hours cleaning up the block and taping off the holes. I was about ready to paint when I decided to call it a day. Let's call this practicing a little patience rather than simply procrastinating.

I was ready to paint but knew I should probably clean/degrease the block one more time before painting. By putting off painting one day, I didn't rush the final block cleaning. I expect the final result will be much better because I didn't rush to get the engine painted.

Learning patience is so difficult, especially when you want it now!

Biscuits and Egg Rolls

When I was in high school, I worked at the golden arches for a couple years. During this time I worked a lot of weekend mornings making biscuits. No telling how many thousand biscuits I have made in my life.

Recently I decided I wanted to make some really good homemade biscuits. I have been hit by this desire before but have never found a recipe I really liked. Having recently eaten at Cracker Barrel I decided I would look up their recipe on the Internet. Their biscuits are usually pretty decent. After doing a little bit of reading online, I eventually decided the recipe I would try this time would be the one on the Lilly White bag of self rising flour: 2 cups of flour, 3/4 cup butter milk, and 1/4 cup Crisco. Simplicity. Some would say that using self rising flour is cheating. I would say to them, "don't ask me for a biscuit."

After making biscuits four days in a row, I would say I can now make a pretty decent homemade biscuit. I would eventually like to find a good recipe that does not use shortening. Perhaps I shouldn't mess with a good thing though. I still wish I had the recipe Mrs. Tice used.

What's next? I would like to learn to make a mean egg roll before the cabbage in the garden is ready. Anyone have a recipe they would like to recommend?

For the record, I like mustard and bacon on my biscuits. Mmmm.

I am working towards repainting the GMC's engine block. Currently it is black. It will be Chevrolet Hugger Orange when I am done. Before stripping down the engine for the paint job, I decided to turn it over. It hasn't been cranked in quite a while. How many years has it been? After charging the battery, I sprayed a little starter fluid in the carb, hooked the ignition wire to the battery and tapped the starter wire on the (+) battery post. The engine turned over and a few cylinders fired off. Sweet! Oh yeah, and flames came shooting out of the exhaust manifold.

Wouldn't this look nice in my driveway!

I have been obsessively checking the garden each day. Sometimes two or three times a day. On Friday I discovered I finally had a small tomatoes and squash. On Saturday the count was up to 6 tomatoes and 4 squash. Oh, joy.

I was glad to see the tomatoes coming in. My neighbor had announced a week before that he already had some golf ball sized tomatoes, but he had set his plants out two weeks ahead of me.

I am watching the okra closely as well. It seems too early for okra but I think I have spotted a few tiny pods. Maybe.

Alabama Jubilee

Yesterday J and I went to a car show at Alabama Jubilee in Decatur. The jubilee is an annual hot air balloon rally. Also included is the car show, a antique tractor show, and some other stuff that currently holds no interest for me. This event falls on the weekend Memorial day each year.

J agreed to the car show under a single condition. He wanted to take pictures of the cars. No problem. He did a great job with the camera and we came home with lots of good pictures.

While at the show, I saw a 1968 Corvette convertible, triple black, which was for sale. The price was reasonable as well. I have been thinking about it.

On Friday someone asked me "When do you graduate?". After thinking for a second, I said "Today I think". Turns out I was right.