Every few months, the Tools crew has a lunch – pizza or sandwiches which is a nice time to socialize rather than just work. Yesterday it provided an opportunity for Craig to deliver the metal washing machine that he built. It was so fun to watch him demonstrate his creation to the group.
There is a project coming up for round tables with metal legs so we will find out how well it actually cleans the metal. He is pretty confident. Washing metal is the least favorite job. The next least favorite is ironing on the “wood grain” banding to make edges of plywood look like wood. One of the guys is hoping Craig will figure out a way to automate that next.
I was not able to weigh in last week because the scale at the condo needed a battery. When I weighted on Saturday, I had lost 3.5 pounds over 2 weeks. My appetite is definitely diminished. I am eating less and being pretty active so this rate of weight loss seems quite slow. Next week I start I double the current dose. I am curious to see what happens.
This is the dead hedge we built 2 weeks ago. It is a V-shape and extends in both directions beyond the picture. In the bottom right corner of the picture, there is a bit of red clay dirt that can be seen with a stick at the bottom edge. This is the bottom of the ravine that carries a significant amount of water from the pasture onto our property. As temporizing measures to slow the flow of water down we have filled the ravine with stones and pieces of telephone poles and sticks and stones. However the water just routes itself around the “stuff” meant to slow the flow of water and run across the property. Yesterday was our day to clean out the ravine, straighten it, shore up the downside edge with BIG stones to prevent rerouting. We want the water to stay in the ravine and dump into the wide area upslope from the dead hedge. We had a half an inch of rain early Monday morning and there was no standing water upslope from the dead hedge so that suggests we have not created a dam.
This is what we started with. Left is closest to the dead hedge, Middle photo is mid slope and right one is the entire length from the fence line with the pasture to the dead hedge at the bottom. It didn’t take as long to get the ravine emptied as I thought it would and Craig and Katie the Kioti made digging and straightening the ravine go pretty quickly.
The left photo is where we were at lunch break and the other two are at quitting time at sunset. A lot of work was done to move stones to create the down slope edge of the ravine, The ravine is shallow now but with the coming rain it will naturally deepen and as we see how the water flows we can decide how we need to further reinforce and define the ravine to keep water in the ravine running straight to the dead hedge without expansion of the ravine on the top or bottom side.
We are expecting .5 inches of rain on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 1.5 inches will give us some idea of how we are doing. We have continued to move fallen logs to fence lines and along grass edges in attempt to mitigate flow of water across the driveway. Everything we have done over the past year has helped BUT we have plenty of other mitigating retaining walls to build in the yard itself before we are done.
While I was in Nashville Thursday Craig was repairing the driveway by moving gravel from the bottom of the hill and spreading it across the parts that were washed out. The driveway was ready for compacting. Friday, he had to make an unexpected trip to Nashville VA because one of his hearing aids broke. I received instruction on staring the compactor before he left. I even took a picture of the red button that needs top be turned UP to help remind me. I proceeded to soak the gravel with water which took about 30 minutes and took a bio break to “fill and empty.”, I went to start the compacter, I pulled on the string dozen times and then called Craig. Of course, he immediately asked if I had turned the switch to ON, which I had forgotten. This is amusing and horrifying at the same time – especially since I had taken a photo of a crucial step I had been concerned I was likely to forget.
The good news is that I correctly recognized that I was likely to forget about the starter switch and took a photo. Now I just have to train myself to check my photos before I call for help.
With the switch turned to ON, it started right up.
We were up early and drove the 30 minutes north to Franklin KY where we get massages. We each got an hour massage and then headed to Nashville. We drove to James and Natalie’s so Natalie could drop us off at West End Avenue. The event was scheduled for 12-2 PM and was adjacent to the Earth Day celebration in Centennial Park. Protest lasted 2 hours. There were volunteers making sure that protesters did not block the ability to walk on the sidewalk or block driveway access to any businesses. Protesters extended about 5 blocks on each side. We walked up and down the sidewalk on both sides rather than just standing. From overheard conversations it seemed that many had NOT protested on April 5th and were very encouraged and surprised by the turn-out. There were more veterans this time. Protesters certainly skew to older persons but I think there may have been more late teens and twenty somethings this time. Craig’s sign is a crowd favorite and he probably had at least a hundred people ask if they could take his photo. He created a harness to support his sign and I found my leather tool belt worked great to support mine.
One of the biggest challenges to building momentum in a “red state” is that there are no congress or senator member office to help facilitate organization and communication. Staying abreast of protest opportunities takes A LOT of time. The Mobilize website which I joined prior to the election is a good aggregator of activities across the country. However work of mouth is hugely important. We found out about Friday protests outside Marsha Blackburn office in Nashville and Thursday protests at Nashville Social Security office.
The next big protest will be a May Day Protest. In Nashville from 9 AM- 10 PM at the Capital where there is lots of room. It should allow those that cannot take the day off will have an opportunity to join and have their voices heard. As luck would have it, May 1st is the day of my Social Security telephone meeting at 215 PM so I will need to carry my compute with me so I can take a break for the call.
We were exhausted when we got home. Participating in democracy takes energy.
Last Wednesday we started helping James and Natalie renovate their deck. We knew it had solid support underneath but the floor, railing and stairs needed work. Initial thought was that it might just need to all be replaced but after a good power washing it was clear that much of the wood of the deck was good. Craig thought the railing could be repaired and not replaced. One of the stringers supporting the stairs needed to be replaced and we felt it best to just replace the steps rather than spend the time sanding them. After 3 days of work between rain showers the steps were replaced, all of the floor boards that needed to be replaced were done and the railing was intact.
Saturday Craig and I drove to Spartanburg (5.5 hour drive) to see a new musical written by a friend for the Sunday matinee. It was a beautiful drive and on Saturday midafternoon there was no slow down on I-40 where the road is being rebuilt that washed away with last Falls hurricane, For about 5 miles, it is a 2 lane interstate at 35mph. Trip was short and sweet but it was good to see friends.
Monday Craig and James worked on the finishing touches to the railing while I nursed a neck spasm. I was able to get a chiropractic adjustment that morning and was just not quite fully “with it” the rest of the day. I went to get a mammogram in the late afternoon and stopped at Home Depot (across the street from the Breast Center). When I came out of Home Depot, I couldn’t get the car door to unlock and convinced myself I lost the fob in Home Depot. So I retraced by steps but it was no where to be found so I walked across the street to get my mammogram. Craig had his phone on silence so he did not get my call or text about the lost fob. After the mammogram, I called Natalie so she could let Craig know if my dilemma and while I was talking to her I did another look in my bag for the fob and “there it was”. I blame my muddled thinking on the muscle relaxant I had taken that morning. There is only one fob for Craig’s car so crisis was averted.
Tuesday I went to Tools, worked out with my trainer and got ready for the Robertson County Democratic Committee Reorganization Meeting which happens every 2 years. I put my name forward to be Committee Representative for District 3 of Robertson County and was “elected”. 49 people showed up for the meeting which was a much larger number than they have had in a very long time. There are 24 representatives from the Districts and the goal is to have one male and one female from each of the districts.
I like working on things that seem impossible and working to get Democrats elected in a county that went 80% for Trump is a suitable challenge. It is very engaged group of people with good age diversity and I look forward to trying to “do something” besides carry protest signs.
Now we are back to drainage and driveway management at the Garden before we move on to building the retainer wall for deck expansion and hot tub installation.
The last storm on Saturday occurred during the daylight so we were able to walk around and identify the highest priority areas that messes up our driveway. The terrace/retaining wall we built last year helped tremendously on the west side. Even the stick barrier I created a few weeks ago made a difference. The main problem now is from the northeast corner, We started attacking it on Monday.
We identified the areas we needed to slow down the downhill flow of water and Craig found old tree trunks while I was prepping fallen branches to use in the dead hedge. The trunks were positioned using tree trunks to hold them in place. It was hard to find a trunk that would fill the gully pictured on the right below so I filled the area under the trunk with stones.
After dark Craig kept working to drag a long tree trunk into position along the fence between the Magic Forest and our property – extending the work we did in this area last fall. I am not sure how he saw what he was doing but this long trunk was in place this morning. The trunk did not fit snugly to the ground so Craig spent several hours today digging out the ground so the trunk would be a “water tight” barrier to the flow of water. We need the water to drain into a ravine that ends just upslope from to the log barrier/dead hedge I continued to work on today.
Before I do any more work on the dead hedge, we need another heavy rain so we can see how this works. We have much more work to do but I was pleasantly surprised that we got this much accomplished over 2 days.
A week after I started the second dose of Wegovy (.5mg) I lost an additional .5 pounds (a half pound). A very slow start indeed. It is a bit embarrassing to admit that until just this minute I had not actually looked up what the dosing schedule is. From what my doctor said, I thought it was just 2 doses. But there are actually 5 different doses – .25, .5, 1, 1.7 and 2.4mg. I am sure she assumed I would be reading up on it myself. I have a tendency to not want to be over informed at the beginning because I understand everyone’s experience is different and I want to see what MY experience is a before I read too much.
My interest in food has lessoned. I am eating about 1/2 to 2/3 what I used to which makes the lack of weight loss hard to understand. I feel like I might be losing some fat by the way my body feels. This week I did notice some signs of constipation which for my system is a good thing and a key motivating factor for starting this program to begin with.
I had a very low energy week last week which Craig is concerned is bordering on depression and may be related to the Wegovy but I am pretty clear that I was being lazy – recovering from the AZ trip. In addition, the horrible weather made it easy. I did get my CV updated for my “baby” consulting gig and my tax documents sent off so there was some indoor productivity.
We got at least 5 inches of rain over the 4 days of rain and had the opportunity to study the flow of water draining across the property to assist in our plans for our landscaping efforts. All of the work we have done thus far has helped. Our driveway remains drivable with much of the gravel down at the bottom making it recoverable to help build it back up again. We are going to be building Dead Hedges https://tpsreports.farm/blog/on-dead-hedges-drainage-and-erosion-control to help slow down the flow of water in key areas. This is a structured way of using the sticks I am already picking up and am no longer burning.
We had no idea what to expect at the Nashville Hands Off protest. No one we knew was planning on attending or had even heard about it so we were prepared to be disappointed. We hoped to be there 30 minutes early because there is not a lot of parking at or near Centennial Park. We arrived at noon, the posted protest start time, and drove by the protest site on the way to the parking area. We were relieved to see a few hundred people there. As we drove through the park there were LOTS of protesters heading to the protest. We made up our own parking space in the opposite corner of the park and Craig began attracting attention as soon as we started our 20 minute walk to the protest. By the time we got there there were well over a thousand and the crowd kept growing. There were a lot of creative signs and the crowd was ready to be engaged.
The crowd was organized in a circle around the speakers/organizers with megaphones so it was hard to hear. There were chants but overall it did not appear to be well-organized, unfortunately. A woman told me she came at 1130 and there were about 30 people, mostly older and she was expecting the worst.
Come to find out, the organizers sent out a cancellation notice at 1040 AM after a site visit revealed soggy ground and “ponding”. That, combined with predictions of severe weather and tornado warning during the protest hours led to the cancellation. At that time we were well into final preparations and did not check email. Even if we had seen the notice, I suspect we would have gone anyway because the forecast had been updated to show the rain was not due to start until after the protest ended at 3 PM. Hopefully the organizers had a plan for a better PA system and a longer program had there not been the aborted cancellation.
Screenshot
Craig and his sign attracted a LOT of attention. He even made the Tennessean photo gallery – although his sign didn’t – presumably because of the word Asshole on it.
We had the best quality signs and they will serve us well for many protests to come. After a LOT of people started approaching Craig to thank him for his service and his sign, I started hanging back so he could be more approachable and I could get some pics.
After the speeches ended about 130ish, some crowd members kept the chants going for a while and then many gathered along adjacent West End Avenue. There was more honking of support than dissent but to be fair, many of those honking were protesters on their way home. We stayed on the street until 3 PM. By that time most of the protesters had dispersed.
It was a GREAT day and we look forward to the next country wide protest on April 19.
Tamara Unleashed 