More Days, More Chores

Tuesday-Wednesday, July 26-27.  Tuesday afternoon, Joe returned from town with the mailbox tube and got it mounted, and I'm happy to report that both the mail and the newspaper are being delivered on the front porch every morning.

We have one piece of unfinished business on this mission, though.  When we bought the mailbox, we failed to notice that it did not include a flag (who knew even to check that out), so we still need to devise something to work as a flag.  We have a couple of different options going, so I'm sure Joe will get that taken care of today.

Tuesday evening we had dinner and cards again with Fred and Judy.  Another late night.  We really need to teach our Arizona friends how to play 5-handed euchre.  It's a lot of fun (we just need 3 friends). 

Wednesday morning, Lucille had the housekeeper coming, so Joe and I ran into for McDonalds for breakfast (and his soda), and back to Lowes for today's mission, which was to change out the wall plug behind the microwave because it keeps coming loose (which means the clock needs to be reset all the time).  This old house does not have any of the 3-hole wall sockets, so Joe bought one of those and replaced that socket -- he only got shocked once.  Another Mission Accomplished.  I stayed around until he got done in case I needed to call 911, but once he was safe, I took off for Princeton to visit my family cemetery, since my mother's birthday is next week.  Besides, I thought I could use a few hours of quiet.

I finally got a picture of the buses they have converted to field transportation here, to haul the workers back and forth from the packing sheds to the fields.  I've seen white ones, and a few that are still the yellow school bus color, but these happened to be blue.  You can see there's no air conditioning.

I passed one produce place on the highway where I counted 17 wagon loads of watermelons sitting there, and I think there were 7 semi trucks waiting to load.  They do things on a larger scale here than they did when Willie and Lucille farmed.  I drove around through some of the little towns I hung out in 50 years ago, then made a drive down to Decker Chapel to see it green with crops (mostly corn and beans) since I had last seen it extremely flooded.  I was on roads down there that I hadn't been on in several years, and in the back of my mind I kept thinking how I would tell Joe how to find me if I had some kind of car trouble, but fortunately I made it back safely.

My other accomplishment this week was getting the Butler Family Tree printed in larger type (thank you, Jim) and put into a notebook with dividers so Lucille can look through it as she tries to remember dates of when family members were born, married, or died -- a popular topic in this house.   This is an ongoing project, so if any of you in the Butler Family Tree have updates, please send them to my e-mail address, and I will add them (joewilma05@msn.com).  I can also e-mail you a copy of the latest version if you want, just send me your e-mail address. 

Lucille has a little sign on the back door telling people to come on in, so she doesn't have to come to the door.  Since her visitors often stop by and come in, just to find her napping, so they leave, I told her I was going to add "and wake me up" to the sign.

I fixed ham and beans for dinner (a family favorite) last night but Fred had a choking spell and they ended up going back home so we didn't get our card game.  Which meant that I got to watch "So You Think You Can Dance," which Bridgette got us (me) addicted to when we were in Florida. 

So now  it's Thursday morning.  We are meeting Cathy and Joe on Friday at noon at the casino (yeah) in French Lick, Indiana (I'm going to look for Larry Bird around town too), so today is our last day to accomplish anything.  Joe and Fred have ordered 10 lbs. of tomatoes from a neighbor (high school classmate), so they need to make that short trip this morning, and I don't know if Lucille has anything else on her mind that needs fixed, so we'll see what the day brings.   I need to do some housekeeping chores in our own little home-on-wheels, and get our laundry caught up, so I'm sure it will be a full day.  And since I'm the chief cook and bottle washer here, I have requested Bobe's Pizza for our last meal here -- part of the Vincennes tradition.