9 - 16 December, 2012 Snow, Car Wrecks and Radiator Repairs, Redneck Drive-Ins and more...

We finally got some snow. Not a lot but at least the ground is white like it should be in December.

Scott and Susan playing on the trampoline.

Scott shovelling snow.

The white stuff brought some bad side-effects too.  Our SIL had truck problems and during a test drive after changing the fuel filter he slid off the road on one of the hills we traverse on the way home.  I went to pull him out and I slid in the same place only I was stopped by his truck.  The Cherokee needed a few parts replaced but fortunately I had most of them on hand from another Cherokee we'd salvaged.  We'll have to straighten out his bumper but otherwise his truck is okay.

 

The same day another neighbor hit a tree on the same hill, breaking it off about three feet above the ground.  Did a bit of damage to his pickup also.

A beautiful sunrise photo taken from the yard at 10:11 am.

Susan playing Christmas songs on the piano.

Scott and I out with the sled.  The cat is following on the road behind us.

Scott looking over our snow covered Santa and plastic snowman.  He loves being outside even when the weather turns cold.

Susan pulling dried leaves off the thyme.  She grows a lot of her own spices and herbs.

We're back to melting snow for water (now that we have snow to melt!).

Our redneck drive-in theatre.

Our SIL works at a grocery store.  They threw out about twenty pounds of frozen hash brown potatoes so he brought them home to us.  Susan is in the process of dehydrating them for future use.  Also on the table are dehydrated onions about to be packed in a jar and the last of the thyme Susan is working on.

The SIL and daughter's Land Cruiser had a radiator leak.  One of the tubes had a split about three inches long so I cut out that section and soldered the tube ends shut.  Once we got that leak stopped we found out it had more tubes split deeper inside the radiator.  It's time for a new radiator.

My $60.00 pawn shop oxy/acet welder/cutting torch.

With the cold weather outside we've been doing more inside.  Susan is writing and editing books to publish on Kindle and in print.  Her book sales have slumped a bit in December but she's still selling around 3,000 books per month.  My kindle book is starting well averaging about two per day in the week it's been out.  I put together a print version today but it will be a couple of days before the proof is ready.  I wanted to do color photos but it triples the price so they'll be BW.

1-8 December, 2012 - New Book, Phone Problems, Little Boys

Any one want some rain?  We've had weeks of rain and cloudy weather.  We have nearly a thousand watts of solar panels yet the average daily charge rate has been around one amp per hour due to cloudy skies.  We've had one day in which the solar panels brought the batteries up to full charge.  Yesterday it finally cooled off enough that we got some snow (about three inches). 

The good thing is that I finished up a Kindle book and got it published online at Amazon Books.  The listed price is $3.99 and like the title says it's aimed for those who know very little about firearms. 

It's available at:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=the+gun+guide+for+people+who+know+nothing+about+firearms

 So far it's only available on the Kindle format. There will be a print version out very soon.

One thing that sets it apart is the photography.  I took a lot of time putting the photos together and setting them up.  One of my pet peeves are e-books with little tiny photos in them.  Most of mine take up an entire page and the writing is easy to read.

This is one after resizing but before labeling.

I shot most of them free hand but used the tripod on a few.  Susan snapped this when I wasn't looking!

Scott helped.

Scott's showing his youngest cousin some of his toys.  

We found a mini-trampoline for Scott at the thrift store.  The first time he did a flip over the bar he giggled then said, "oh-oh!"  Then he did it again. 

We had some of his bigger toys stored in the barn but he accompanied Susan out there a couple of days ago and discovered the stash.  Now it looks like a toddler's used vehicle lot in the cabin.  We're slowly getting them put back in the barn whenever he isn't watching.

The phone quit a couple of days ago.  I did some checking to see if it was our problem or the phone company's.  It was ours so I re-routed the phone cable going to the cabin and set the phone jack in a new location.  We put the kitchen counter in after the phone was installed.  The problem was that if water drips off the back corner of the counter top it hits the phone jack which corrodes the wires then the phone quits working.  I moved the jack to a safer location so hopefully that will be the last time we have to deal with that problem.

I set the portable phone base outside while I was re-routing the wires so we'd have phone service while I worked.  It's all finished now.

Other than that it's been business as usual for this time of year.   I've got a load of clothes soaking in the laundry tubs.  We still have meals to prepare, dishes to wash, wood to split and bring in every day and other chores to do.  We still have a few potatoes left to sort and store in the root cellar too.  Winters are our slack time so we get a lot of writing done.  I'm not running the trap line this year so we may be able to head for Nevada early next year...we hope!