Log 11; Day 37; June 27, 2008; Heritage Harbor, Ottawa, IL

Log 11 Day 37

Friday, June 27, 2008

1:00 PM CDT

Location: Heritage Harbor, Ottawa, IL.

Weather: 82* hot and muggy...storms predicted

Here are a few words from Debbie...

Hey all you Landlubbers! Debbie here...just putting in my 2 cents. It’s raining right now and Bob has spent the morning watching the weather channel (with the sound down), tracking the storm cells on his computer, checking Looper blogs, and listening to channel 128 on Sirius (the NASCAR station)...……I’ve been reading. About 15 minutes ago, he decided since it was raining, it would be a good time to drive to Seneca to pick up some bilge cleaner and other misc. boating stuff and then maybe swing by to pick up the boat trailer that he had dropped off last week for repairs................I think I’ll read.

In Bob’s latest log (doesn’t he do a great job on those?) he covered a lot of events in his short note. We are indeed happy in retirement. There certainly is a lot of cleaning and organizing to do and there have been a few repairs that Bob is great about taking care of right away. But there's always cleaning and organizing at a house too...for some reason, on a boat is WAY more fun! And it's been great to spend this time in Ottawa (my home town) and visit with my family and our friends without having to watch the clock anticipating the long drive home. The Whaler has been a great bonus to our time here and Bob really did go fishing! He got a license and everything! And taking Zack out was a lot of fun for both of them. Watching them putt-putt out of the harbor I could just imagine the conversations they must be having. “Grandpa…do you think we’ll catch any fish?” “Well Zack…the thing about fishing is…” (Just like Barney Fife!)

Here are Bob and Zac heading off fishing

We had a great time at our nephew’s wedding…those guys sure know how to throw a party! It was good to get to the house in Chillicothe and make sure everything was in order (the roof didn't leak and the plumbing didn't burst). And as BK said, we were able to do a little work around the house. Oh yeah...about that outside yard work Bob mentioned...here's how it actually went.

When we got to the house, we found a lot of wasps inside and determined that they were coming in around the window air conditioner in the dining room. Bob decided to remove the unit, found an annoyingly large bush at the window, decided it needed to be cut back and “while I’m at it” he also figured he’d pull out some other annoying bushes (to make it easier to mow around), trim some shrubs, hit all the borders with the weed whacker and then spray the heck out of anything green that may have escaped the whacking (to make it easier to mow). He walked down to bro-in-law Terry’s house to borrow some clippers, spotted a Kubota tractor with a scoop, his eyes lit up and he asked Terry, "So how long are you going to have that tractor?”
Bottom line: He borrowed the tractor and pulled out those bushes, hauled out a bunch of limestone rocks and dumped them at the back of the house, then leveled out the place where the stones were. With the help of 2 bros-in-law, Terry & Les, (and with the tractor) he pulled down an old redbud tree and hauled it to the beach for burning later. This took multiple trips and the only path to the beach for the tractor was the road. So picture this…two guys stopping holding traffic back and one guy on a tractor dragging a tree down the middle of the road! Ah-h…life in a small town! Well – the lawn will definitely be easier to mow now!

Bob thinks he needs one of these!

Only in a small town can you get away with this.

Okay – the skies are clearing…I’d better get going. There might be a Whaler ride in my future and I need to get my gear ready.............I think I’ll bring my book.
I’ll chime in again soon. Hope all’s well with you and yours!-----

DK