Environmental Work Day

Today was another stay at home day from work because the City of Jackson has really old water pipes and lax leadership with a poor maintenance record. That may be harsh, but so be it. That's the way I see it. Who needs water when you got good scotch?

So to make it a productive day, and because it was in the upper 40's we did some green projects around the house we have been wanting to do. For Christmas we bought a rain barrel. I put it together and rearranged the downspout by the chimney in the backyard. This barrel will hold about 50 gallons of free water that we can use for grill fire suppression and flower watering. I want to get another one put in the front courtyard to help dry up our front yard some. There are some places that stay wet that I want to get rid of. This barrel has an overflow drain that will pull the water away from the foundation and a garden hose connection to fill watering buckets. It also has mosquito mesh to keep little critters from developing in the water. It seems very well made. We got it at Northern Tool and Supply on sale for about $50.

We also installed a huge rain gauge on the fence in the backyard and did some repair work on the fence. It had a couple of warped boards that are now screwed on strait. Will and I also figured out how to change the headlight in the Blazer. It took us longer to go online and get the answer to how to do it easily than it did to actually change it. Ask.com came to the rescue again with the trick on how to get to the backside of the headlight assembly.

1135 work days to go. My master's course this semester is on data analysis. One of the text books is the excel bible. I was flipping through it and found out how to build a retirement clock and take out all of the holidays and weekends between now and my planned retirement day. Having this day off in the middle of the week unplanned gave me a good idea of what retirement will be like. I want you to know that I did get up from my nap to go with Donna to pick up the girls from dance. She said I didn't have to, but I'm glad I did.