Vincennes

Tuesday, July 26 - Well, we've been at Lucille's for a few days now.  Life in Vincennes is always an adventure.  Actually, life at Lucille's is always an adventure.  Friday we, of course, had some chores to take care of.  At the top of the list was getting Lucille set up with a "hardship mailbox" so she did not have to walk out to the road any more to get the mail.  First, we had to find where the post office had moved to, but we did find it, got the form, filled it out, completed the process, and got it all set up.  (Thank you, Nancy, we didn't even know there was such a thing as a "hardship mailbox.")  But buying the new mailbox was a real adventure.  We went to Lowe's and looked over their inventory.  Joe took one out of the box to check it out, and when we finally decided that was the right one, I told him there were a couple more on the shelf if he wanted to get one that was unopened (even though he was the one who opened the one he had).  Anyway, he tried to reach it but couldn't, and there happened to be a ladder right there in the aisle (I'm sure it was for "authorized personnel" only), so he tried to pull it over to the row.  He had to release the brake to drag it over, but when he stepped on the bottom step the brake wasn't all the way back down, so it made a loud "clang."  We were trying to be inconspicuous, but it got worse.  He pulled the other mailbox down off the shelf, and it immediately crashed to the floor (apparently someone else had already opened that box too).  This whole episode equaled my adventure here last year in Rural King when I tried out the swing and immediately crumpled to the floor.  Anyway, he starts to walk away, but we've left the ladder sitting across the entire aisle, so he went back to push it back in place. More noise.  By this time, a worker had rounded the corner and was coming to check out all the crashes in this aisle.  We guiltily sauntered off, mailbox under arm, and vacated the premised before they arrested us.

I'm happy to report now that the mailbox has been mounted on the front porch, and she has received her mail there for the last two days.  Mission One Accomplished.

Every trip to town involves several stops, but we finally headed back to the farm, with a stop at his counsin, Brad Wonning, to get Lucille one watermelon and one cantaloupe.  One of the main reason's Joe wanted to come back through here in the summertime was to see Knox County harvesting the melons, and we got a good look at this today.  Brad has quite an operation going here, and the process for getting cantaloupes ready for shipment has really evolved.  While picking them still seems to be as labor-intensive as always, Brad has implemented some procedures that requires less pitching and throwing than back in the old days.

(Brad is the one in the blue shirt).  The melons now have to go through a "wash," and he has installed a conveyor belt to accomplish that.  In addition, the wagon has a drop-down side that he cranks down so the melons can be rolled off onto the belt, instead of pitched. 

Although they may have eliminated some steps, others have been added.  Now, they have to place a sticker on each melon identifying the farm it came from.  (So if you see a Wonning melon, you'll know we've been there!). 

This probably isn't too interesting to some of my blog readers, but this brought back a lot of Joe's childhood memories, and he was fascinated by it all (and also very grateful that he left the farm at age 17).

They were also bringing in wagonloads of watermelons, so Brad took Joe over to pick one of those out for Lucille (and us). 

We finally left here (and it was hot, hot) and drove on to Lucille's, which is about one mile down the road.  We had been gone so long she thought we must have left the country.  Fred and Judy came out, and we had to run back into town for Bobe's Pizza for supper, then we started out card game.  We played until about midnight, but when we quit, we had to empty out the bathroom vanity and clean up the kitchen because a man was coming in the morning to install a new sink and faucet (and heaven forbid he find a messy kitchen).  I carried the drawers to the living room (although they probably did not need to come out), and Joe helped unload under the sink.  Joe did mention to his mother that she does not need to buy any more powder.  Ever.

Of course, no job is ever finished until Lucille puts her stamp of approval on it.

Finally, she dismissed us all, and we were allowed to go to bed.  It was probably 1:00 a.m. by now.

Saturday morning, her carpenter showed up, and the new sink is now installed and functional.  And it is a thing of beauty.

We took Lucille to town for lunch, then went for a drive through the country, checking out the melon fields. We drove down, around, and through Decker, then returned home.  I then took a nap, but Fred showed up so he and Joe went for a drive.  Judy had a music thing she was going to with her sister, so no card game tonight, but Mike and Rachelle and the kids stopped by about 9:00 p.m., so we got to visit with them for a while.

Sunday was church, then we went to town for Sunday dinner (where Joe spilled his full glass of tea all over the table, and Lucille and I barely escaped getting soaked).  We had a leisurely Sunday afternoon, and I think we all got naps.  It has been awfully hot here, and this afternoon we had a little thunderstorm which brought the temperature down, and gave these farmers some much needed rain.  We did play cards again that night, but Judy put a 10:00 p.m. curfew on us, so it was a fairly early night.

Monday it was back to projects.  The next mission was to get the newspaper delivered to the front porch as well, so we stopped by the newspaper office.  We had stopped here on Saturday but it was closed, but today we got the name of the person we need to talk to (he wasn't in, of course).    Then we went shopping for a remote control for her bedroom lamp.  That took 3 stops, but we found one, and Joe installed it Monday night (at midnight, after the card game).  Mission Accomplished.

My chores today included burning the trash, and I think it took me 13 matches to get it started.  Eric always remembers his assignment here when Lucille sent him to burn the trash with only one match.  That pressure about did him in, so I just took the whole box of matches with me. 

Tuesday we got the newspaper issue resolved and Joe went to town to get a tube from the newspaper office, and to get the oil changed in our car, and to get a haircut.  He got all that done, and came home and attached the newspaper tube to the handrail on the front porch.  Another Mission Accomplished.

There's no end of "missions" here, and we've got a couple more things underway, but for the time being, we are basking in a feeling of accomplishment.