2026-07-07

Julie knew I would love this beverage from Jungle Jim’s!

It’s from their famous pickle barrels. 🤪
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Found this in Steve’s drafting tools

It’s an old slide rule used to calculate the factors in an equation for selecting air and hydraulic cylinders.  Pretty cool.
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Happy to have found my dad’s last watch again

I had bought it for him.  He was wearing it during his last days.  Andy had inherited it.  In going through some stuff he’d left at our house, I ran across it and added it back into my collection.  I changed the battery, and even found the original bracelet links for it fits nicely.  Just a simple Timex :) ❤️ That’s what he always wore.
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My receipt book is used up…

45 sales over the years.
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How dirty is your Jeep…?

I just happened to have this one little mud stalagmite growing on mine 😂
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2026-07-06

My presidential lunches

I was happy to discover that my lunch routine has presidential approval.  In fact, I think they’re modeling their diet after mine🤪

I don’t know if you noticed or not, but they are flipping the script on all the diet and health advice.  They’re figuring out that what they’ve been telling us for the last 60 or 70 years isn’t right.  They had it backwards.  We should be eating less carbs, more meats and proteins, basically turned the food pyramid upside down…


Splitting wood at the farm

They had some trees fall from the storms a few weeks ago, so we were tasked with splitting wood.  We need to fill all three sheds, so they have enough fuel for the boiler that heats the rec center all winter.  There was enough work to keep three of us busy, loading, splitting, and stacking… 

At the very left edge of the left picture, you can see the door into the horse barn (right under the Martin feeder).  In the picture on the right, you can see the gray side of the boiler.  This was our viewpoint when we were sitting and eating lunch.  I thought it was cool to see across the property from two different perspectives.  
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Itty Bitty doing her best pillow pose

There’s a black cat on the pillow behind her, but she thinks she makes a better one ;)



Father’s Day at Jungle Jim’s

After we hung out with the kids, Julie decided to take me to Jungle Jim’s to get me some green tomatoes so she could make me fried green tomatoes. It’s always fun and interesting to see what we can find there.  This trip we found MONSTER morels and brought them home.  We also found these little crab snacks, but decided we couldn’t quite bring ourselves to try them… Yes, that’s a bag full of mini dried crabs…! hahahahaha
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Father’s Day, memories, and the next generation…

As my kids and wife were treating me out for Father’s Day, and with going through some of our memories, it got me thinking about how much I value the relationship with my wife and kids.  I was chatting with one of John’s friends that was enjoying his first (in utero) Father’s Day too.  We’d all recently been to a Dragon’s game recently and it reminded me of my first Father’s Day where I caught this ball at Fifth Third Field.  Later, on another Father’s Day, Andy gave me this Babe Ruth Card.  It was a sweet gift since it was a sacrifice for him, but he knew I liked it and he could probably find another one…❣️

Anyhow, PSA, live a life that glorifies God, love your wife, treat your kids right, treat your parents right.  Help each other be the best they can be ❤️
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2026-07-05

All my rings out for service

With all my other rings out for service, I decided to bust out my high school ring.  It was fun to wear it again and remember Julie “stealing” it while I was dating Cheryl and then later wearing it as my girl during our early college dating life❣️
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I had to try these…

…they sounded good, but weren’t that impressive. 

Random mayfly on me during my workout in our backyard

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Do you draw blood during your workouts?

You might if you stop to pick berries along the way hahaha.
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Finding Julie’s baby shoe again…❤️

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