Thoughts on bein' a teacher.

Well, here we go again. Starting year 7. First item of business at the faculty meeting: Anyone wanna take an early retirement package or do we have to lay off 4 teachers? It seems that our brilliant former superintendent overestimated the demand for this year. Not that he's around to have to clean up the mess.

Long story short, we start the year in the hole, again. Hoping I still have any type of budget to play with but we'll just have to see how it goes. At least I still have a job for the time being.

On the positive end. Its going to be a busy full year (thats a GOOD thing, right?!). Going to try a few new things, hoping to be able to get lots done with my (very large) new classes.  Several new teachers to meet and get to know.  Lots of old timers back at it still and I'll enjoy working with them for as long as possible.  We've got a PHENOMENAL administration/support team and great faculty. Onward and upward! Students arriving in 5, 4...

This Old House #3: Hidden Treasure.

So on top of this wicked awesome house, the people we bought it from left us some "hidden" treasures. I'll be throwing them in randomly to help keep this going a bit, especially as I start school tomorrow.

Here's the first hidden treasure. This giant armoire(?). No info, no markings, have no idea when it was brought in to the house, just that it looks fairly old but not ancient. I say that because I doubt a *really* old armoire would have had any type of glass, let alone a mirror this size...





There was some serious head scratching about how to move it... We wanted to put it in a different room. I noticed it was kinda shaky- when you open the door the whole thing shifts to the side. I got to looking an it turns out the whole thing breaks down into much smaller pieces rather easily. Loosen a couple of "nuts" on the top, and a couple more on the bottom, and viola.

The whole top pops off.





The sides could easily come off too, but this made it short enough to fit through the doorways.



Has some pretty cool carvings,



And dovetail fittings.



Has a wooden "lock box" inside behind the door, and then the drawers on the front. The lock box looks like it was added later but still has working skeleton key locks.

Any ideas on age or manufacturer?

John Deere Greene but a little bigger than normal!

So dorkpunch joins the major leagues...



This is a 1955 John Deere 60. It came with the house we bought and theoretically ran, but had been parked a year or two before and sat since. The nieces and nephews thought it was the best playground equipment in the world! The feller in the pic is who we largely have to blame for my engine addiction... He taught me everything I know over several summers spent working at his shop. He also has a thing for Deere's.





So I got it running, but... Watch the video. Right at the 33 second mark.



COVERED everything within about 20 feet in hydro fluid. Luckily all I needed was a shower, but I usually need those anyways so...

Don't have to worry about the rust getting any worse for a while either.



Took some doing, but it RUNS AND DRIVES! Had battery issues at first, then I couldn't get the clutch to disengage so I had to pop the cover off, loosen the 3 adjusting nuts almost all the way off, and let it smoke a bit. 10 lbs of crud and rust came out from under the cover. Blech. Got some air in that flat tire, figured out how the blinking shifter works, and viola!



And the first drive!





Took me 2 weeks of tinkering on it here and there for 5 minutes at a time between other projects.  Mostly because I had to sit and wait for the battery to charge, again.

It has a looonggg ways to go.  This poor thing has been used like you would expect a 60 year old tractor to be used.  The loader is terrifying, the cable pulleys are all about ready to pop off.  If that were to happen, the cable that sits right behind my head would suddenly and rapidly move forwards... Not pleasant to think about.  Hey!  One more thing to add to the list...

This Old House #2: History Lessons.

Okey dokey. Hows about a history lesson?

Like I said, the house was finished in 1903. Since then, it has (supposedly) been a home, apartments, a school, a museum, CONDEMNED, and then a home again. I'm hoping to dig up some more info on the history of the house from when it was built to about 1975, but from 1975 to present I have pretty darn good info. We are purchasing it from a daughter that inherited it from her mother I think somewhere between 1995/2000. The mom had bought it in 1976, supposedly saving it from being knocked down to make way for newer houses. So for the last 40 years it's belonged to the same family, but everyone around here STILL refers to it by the name of the original builders. Kinda funny.

Pic of the house supposedly from around the time it was finished in the early 1900's.



Couple more from between then to maybe the 60's?







And a pic when it was a musuem.



Here's where it gets fun. When mom bought it in 1976, she started this.



Which has these.









She has hand drawn maps for the yard, where she planted all the trees, drawings of each floor and then individual rooms detailing what she changed and how she went about doing it.







And she even has a bunch of pics from who knows when. Apparently, the house had been painted white at some point, and then sand blasted back to original brick. Don't know if she was the one who did the sandblasting or not. Notice the lack of the porch and the cupola? on the roof.



Porch is back, still no cupola.



This is the back of the house. Now there is a carport attached to the bump there, and lots and lots of trees.



There were also a couple of interior pics but nothing that really shows much of what was going on.






Now its our turn to start / continue the story!

This Old House: dorkpunch Edition.

Y'all thought I was dead, didn't ya?

So, not to jinx anything (knock on wood and all that) but it looks like we are set to close next week. We have been working towards purchasing this house for over a year.

A bit of back story: We've been looking to "upgrade" for a couple of years now. We knew our price range, we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted, but there was just nothing that fit the bill. We *love* our teensy little community. I got to thinking about an acquaintance who mentioned they were going to be retiring eventually. They have this gorgeous old house, that oddly enough I would see ever time I pulled out of our driveway- it was 2 blocks away at the end of the "T". I called him and one other acquaintance who also had a home a couple of blocks away the same day, explained our situation, and asked them to let me know if they were ever interested in selling. Well, we got a call back saying yes, they were planning on retiring in the next year or two anyways so why not come over and take a look at the house to see if its anything we might be interested in.

Lets just say its about as close to love at first sight as you can get. Both my wife and I (and the boys) *loved* it. The boys took a while to warm up to it but warm up they did! We worked out a deal giving them time to get retired and figure out what they wanted to do with life and also giving us time to sell our home and get our ducks in a row.

The best laid plans...

Didn't have any luck getting our house sold. Through a series of small miracles, we have been able to liquidate some assets (er... sawdust some timber?) and find renters for our house. So in the last 3 weeks, We've moved out, moved in, spent a week at Scout camp, unpacked, hauled more stuff, cleaned the old house, still working on a few other items over there that need attention, got the renters moved in, hauled more stuff, etc etc etc...

I'm pooped. School starts in a week and a half.

Anyways, without further ado- here's This Old House.













Some random specs:

Started being built 1897/98, and finished in 1903. Has had a very interesting and storied life, of which I hope to chronicle here. Sits on 1.3 acres, has a wicked awesome 30x60 shop and lots of space and one of the best parts- LOTS AND LOTS of BIG trees!

Wish us luck in getting all the i's dotted and t's crossed next week!

Craters of the Moon.

Got to help the youth do a practice hike out at Craters of the Moon yesterday.  Chose a perfect day- there was hardly any wind, nice cloud cover, and the temperatures were PERFECT.  Hike about 4.5 miles in on the Wilderness Trail to Echo Crater and then back out.

Can't remember the name of this hill, but I vividly remember hiking up it when I was maybe 12 and thinking I was going to die from the heat...  This is right near the entrance and as I recall has a great view of the entire area.




Walking, and walking, and walking...





Figured out how to take a panorama shot.


The end of the trail.  Had a break, a snack, and built a cairn.  Neat vesicles? in them there rocks!




Stopped at Buffalo Cave on the way back to play around for a bit.  Wish we had more time to explore!





And one last panorama.



Fun hike.  Very easy going, trail was super smooth and hardly any elevation change.  Glad it wasn't hot!!!  Will definitely have to get back out there to explore more some day.  Only 75 miles away and its taken me 6 years to get out there.