We took the Chevelle out Saturday night and headed to Decorah for the night. There was an Iron Man Challenge at the Upper Iowa Speedway and the B-Mods were racing. I’m not sure what makes a B-Mod car, but I do know that they are faster and a lot louder than some of the other cars. The racing started at 7 and when we got there at 7:20 and the Grandstand was pretty much full. So we headed to the bleachers to sit and from what we can tell the bleachers might be a little bit more rowdy. Even though we saw a lot of mud and dust coming our way, we sure had a good time. It wasn’t too bad, but we did hold our hands over our beer so nothing would fly into it. Since the race I’ve been trying to find out why each feature race has something called a ‘Parade Lap’. What happens is that all the race cars go around the track and you have to stand. Then you wave at the racers and they wave back at you as they drive by. I tried to look it up on line how this tradition started but I couldn’t find out anything on it. It seems to me to be an odd thing to do but everyone sure knew about it and just exactly what to do.
Races in Decorah Saturday night
B-Mods during the 'Parade lap'
Our neighbor stopped in this morning after church and said that both him and a friend went to a vegetable auction that is held in our area this past week and bought way too much stuff. They bought something like 200 muskmelon, I don’t know how many peppers, watermelon, and a ton of other stuff. He said he was spending the day today driving around trying to get rid of it. I think that’s really funny. I also went to one of these auctions last year and I had so much stuff that I bought that not only was the whole back end of our 3/4 ton pickup full – but I also had the whole cab of the truck packed! I then had to spend the next couple of days trying to give it away. I would really like to go to another action but I know that I won’t be able to contain myself in what I’m going to buy so I’m staying away.
I needed help with a sign that we have to rehang on the barn. It was a sign that was painted by Daryl’s dad when they moved to the farm in the 40’s. Daryl said that he remembers it always hanging inside the barn, but we like it hung better outside where people can see it. I’ll have to put a couple of coats of varnish on it this time to preserve it. We had a couple of sheets of plywood nailed together in the basement that we used to put on the back of the sign. The plywood was something that Kyle used when he was little and he made a race track out of it. It was huge and when we took it apart, it worked really well for this project. I felt kind of bad taking it apart. He spent a lot of time gluing down rocks and fake grass, but I don’t think he’ll be missing it either. It sure beats buying more wood.
Daryl working on the barn sign
Ready to get fixed
I had a chance to spend a couple of hours today working in my scrapbook room. Daryl went to work for awhile and William took a nap, so the house was pretty quiet. I need to figure out what kind of a birthday cake I’m going to make tomorrow for our son Kyle. Even though he lives in Korea, today is his 25th birthday! We always skype with him on Monday night and when someone has a birthday, we light the candles and sing Happy Birthday as a family. Sounds kind of weird, but honestly it’s really kind of nice. I know that we can complain about the technology that is available now – but being able to talk and see Kyle in South Korea is comforting to me, and especially on his birthday!
Other things that I want to get done this week outside is to finish painting the machine shed, finish painting white on the diesel barrel and put it back on level ground, can some salsa, dehydrate more tomatoes, start painting the cattle shed, and also to complete the sign and have it hung up. A lot of these projects are just to finish them up so I don’t think they’ll be too bad. I hope to also get some other things added to this, but they’re not high on the project list at this time. Wish me luck and have a great week!