More rain, long weekend project, pajama days

We got a total of five inches of rain since Friday night. Most of that fell overnight Friday; 4 inches. It is the most rain we have had in one night for a long time. It was an excess of our need, but welcome none-the-less. No rain Sunday. Thankfully. We needed time for the creeks to go down before we were rained on all day yesterday. In this part of Texas, we do not usually get an all-day rain. Not one as hard as it rained throughout the day yesterday. It was a steady, umbrella requiring rain from about 8 am until 4 pm. The total accumulation was just over one inch. Needless to say, our plants are loving the rainfall with brief periods of sun. It is a perfect combination of conditions for them to grow quickly. Rain continues to be in the forecast for almost every day the remainder of this week. We will adapt. There are some places that are amazingly soft. Mama sunk into one such place in the garden as we picked blackberries late yesterday evening. I mushed out the ground to fill the hole she left so it does not eventually harden in that shape.

Yesterday, Monday, was a holiday. Memorial Day. O tribute to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf. We owe those fallen and those who served - and are serving - a debt of gratitude that we cannot fully repay. Hopefully, we will consider precious the freedom they died to give us and once again become good stewards of those freedoms. It is difficult to see that happening as we struggle now for the right to live our lives, to work, to worship, to assemble, to go where we want and to visit with whomever we choose. Considering the freedom that was bought for us, it was poignant to consider how much we have surrendered for the promise of protection from a pathogen that was grossly over-hyped. I can only hope the truth will eventually come out. Whether you believe it or not is up to you, but we all deserve to hear the truth.

Observance of Memorial Day gave us a long weekend. I did what I typically do when I have an extra day off. I worked. This time creating an overhead space to store 4x8 sheets of plywood or Masonite in the shop. It is difficult to find an acceptable place for leftover pieces of full sheets of 4x8 material in the shop. I have had a large piece of ½ inch plywood in my way for a couple weeks now and it was starting to really bug me. Especially since the sheet was bowing badly. I had no reason to cut it into smaller pieces, so it lay on the floor of the shop curling up. Tripping me up to the point that it caused me to stumble and fall yesterday when I was not paying enough attention to where my feet were in relation to it. I had things pretty congested in my work area yesterday since it was raining and I could not set anything outside, but I could have (should have) moved the piece out of my way rather than stumble around it. Anyway, I finally got the overhead storage spot finished about 8 pm. I used the misshapen piece of ½ inch plywood as a base for the storage area so that is will be easier to slide in whatever is put overhead. There was little other use for it.

I had to buy a few pieces of lumber to complete the storage space, but it was minimal. Most everything I needed, I already had on hand. Loading those few boards in the truck soaked me thoroughly requiring me to change shirts once I got home from Lowe’s, but it allowed me to get the project completed. With the welding and metal cutting needed to support one end of the rack, it took me longer than I thought it would. I had to support one corner of the storage area from the trusses in the roof of the shop versus having a post in the middle of the shop to hold it up.  That required building and welding up the support, then welding it to the truss. All told, it was a fun project to complete. It will be immensely useful in the future.

Mama and Victoria spent the day inside. For Victoria, it was a pajama day. Mama changed only to go out to feed. Late in the day, they teamed up to work in the garage to sort through the stack of items we had accumulated in a corner of the garage. It took the two of them about an hour to get through all that was there. Many of the items were discarded. Some, I will burn over the next few days. Many I will take to the trash. It looks much better.

Other than the items that were removed from boxes and left lying about to be sorted further.