1 -10 October 2026 Rain!

 We finally got rain! seventy five days without rain! The poor cattle tank just off the back of our property, that all the animals use for water, was almost dry. The initial rain was pretty light but late in the morning of the second it poured down. Over all we got almost 4.5 inches in a 24 hour period. The plants are very happy! But that morning David woke up hearing something dripping. At first he thought it might be outside but finally decided it was hitting the ceiling directly above the bed. He raced up into the attic and found a small leak coming from around the kitchen vent. He crawled 

across the ceiling joists and stuck a pot under it to catch the water. We have only officially owned the house for 1 Day!!! When he called our builder, the builder answered with “well you calling can’t be good!”. We went around the attic and inside the house to make sure there were no more leaks. As David was standing on the back porch texting the builder, a drop came from the ceiling and landed on his phone. It was leaking above the back porch as well! They sent a roofing technician out that afternoon and he made some temporary patches to stop the leaks. It seems the leaks above the porch were due to the Masons building a work platform in order to brick in the chimney and they just nailed straight through the shingles and did not fix the holes when the pulled it off. They sent the same roofer out later in the week to make permanent repairs. He replaced 10 shingles. Of course it has not rained since. 

 

The rain brought the animals out. Keira chased some deer off the neighboring property. A few minutes later, a coyote stepped out of the tall grass at the back of the property and Keira took off after him before David could grab her. They disappeared over the hill in the back and David feared Keira was a goner. But a minute later, she came running back over the hill. An hour later, the coyote came back with a companion. David decided it was time to chase them off with a good 45caliber scare. 

 

Next things to do to the house are getting heaters installed in the shop and garage to make sure they water lines in them don’t freeze. Then we are going to get a whole house backup generator installed. We have lost power a couple of time in the six months we have been living there. Then we can get phase three of the landscaping put in (Between the house and shop) before the spring growing season. Leslie’s sister and niece (Cynthia and Sidney) came to visit for a night before they went over to visit Diane. We loaded up the Wanderer in preparation for our trip. Been a busy 10 days!

Fixing the roof

Our first Halloween Decorations

1 - 30 September 2026 Finally All Ours

 If you can believe it, it took our contractor 30 days with pestering by David to close out our account and send us the final billing. We went in on 30 September and gave them the final check. We started this process on 1 May 2025 with our initial deposit. Seventeen months. They told us it would be 6-8 months when we signed the contract! We are glad that journey is now over. We got phase two of the landscaping put in. That adds the landscaping around the trees out front and down the side and around the back of the house. About $14K. David did a lot of the bed preparation work by removing grass and weeds. He had to rent a sod cutter to clear the grass out of the beds around the trees since the grass was so firmly rooted, digging it out by hand was not an option. He then rented a Rototiller and tilled in composite and dried molasses into the beds to get them ready for planting. The landscapers added more composite on top and turned it in by hand, then planted, added the drip irrigation and mulched. It came out really nice. Give the plants a season to root out and they will grow like wildfire. The weather remained hot (2^nd highest number of days over 100) and dry (over 75 days without measurable rain). But our phase one plants are doing well. That is why we went with Texas native plants in all our landscaping. The two trees out 

front need a little more attention to keep them watered enough until they can grow their roots out. We got to put out our first Halloween Decorations. 

 

Leslie stared her job, orthopedic boot and all. She is working 15-20 hours a week and having fun with it. She saw her podiatrist who told her she is healing fine but that she would need to wear the boot for another 6 weeks. David worked a lot this month as well. The month flew by. Leslie made a couple of trips over to Dallas to see her Mom. Unfortunately, her condition is degrading. We are making plans to try to get the whole family together for Thanksgiving. This might be our last opportunity. 

 

Leslie got David a German Food cooking class for his Birthday. We had a fun time making Schnitzel, Fried Potatoes, Red cabbage and sponge cake in the class. David got the Wanderer ready to hit the road again with some final maintenance items. We are looking forward to hitting the road again!

German Feast at the cooking school.

Stock Tank Dried Out

Phase 2 tree bed

Phase 2 tree bed

Phase 2 side bed

Phase 2 back bed

1-30 August 2026 Finally Finished

 Our contractor finally finished the remaining items on our punch list (Connectors on the Ethernet cables for the TVs, three doors that were out of plumb and the wire conduit by the garage). We are just waiting for the final paperwork to be ready for signing. It’s been 14 months since we broke ground on 1 July 2025. So much for the six months they told us it would take. We have hung curtains in the master bedroom to complement the shutters. David had six tons of crushed granite gravel delivered. He then moved it by hand to the five feet against the house in the landscape beds around the side and back of the house to act as a fire break in case of a wildfire. He moved 4-7 wheelbarrow each morning before it got hot until it was all done. It has been over six weeks since our last rain with temperatures mostly over 100 degrees. As a result, the fields around us are very dry and ready to burn. There have been several wildfires started in Cresson, but the volunteer fire department has been able to put them out quickly. Then there is the huge wildfire 40 miles north of us that has been burning for over a week without getting contained. Our friends Anne and Bill joined us for dinner one night and were so impressed with Kierra, they wanted to take her home! Leslie has been making weekly visits to her mother in Dallas. Her sister Cynthia drove up from The Woodlands a couple of times this month to stay overnight with us before going over to visit with Diane. 

Leslie decided she needed to get out of the house so she interviewed for a job at a shop on the square in Granbury and was hired. She starts in early September. After getting home from her second interview, she rolled he right foot and broke a bone in her foot. As a result, she is back in an orthopedic boot on her right foot. 

16 - 30 July 2026 New Vehicle

 We continue to get unpacked and get our house in order. We got curtains that Leslie had in her apartment in downtown Fort Worth, hung in the dining room and they look great! After looking for several months, we bought an additional vehicle. We purchased a 2026 Bronco Sport at our local Ford dealer. We felt it offered a nice balance between on road performance around town and would hold up to the rigors of living in rural Texas. It fits within the wheel base of the Behemoth! Leslie is very happy to have a second vehicle. It gets almost three times the fuel milage of the Behemoth, burns much cheaper gas and has all the new safety features. Our friends Mona and Wade came over for lunch with their new dog, Leroy. Keirra and Leroy got along great and they had fun running around the house and yard playing. In the meantime, David has started preparing landscaping beds around the house in preparation for the fall planting season. The temperatures drive us to do any outside work before noon since after that it’s too hot for us. We continue to work with our contractor to get the remaining Punch List items finished. We also had some new critters visit our back porch! We walked out one evening and found a small Rat Snake and nearby a large wolf spider.  

Leslie in our New Bronco

Leroy and Kierra resting after playing

Rat Snake

Wold Spider

15 - 16 July 2026 end of our 9 State, 3300 mile loop.

 We headed for home weary from so many days of driving over the last six weeks. We stopped in Joplin on the way home and arrived back in Cresson around 4:30 on the 16^th. We were so happy to be home again! Kiera was very happy to be home and able to run around her yard! Be it ever so wonderful, there is no place like home!

13-14 July 2026 Visiting June

 On the 13^th we drove from Springfield to Indianapolis. I-70 in Indiana is still a horribly bumpy road. We stayed at the Drury hotel on the Northside. It’s the first time we have stayed at a Drury hotel. They did not charge us a pet fee! We had dinner with our friend June and caught up with her life since her move to Indianapolis last year. On the 14^th we finally had a chance to sleep in and catch up with ourselves. After lunch, we went down to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and toured the museum before joining June and her son Joel and daughter in-law Dee for dinner. After dinner we went back to June’s apartment to visit for awhile before heading back to the hotel. 

11-12 July 2026 Visiting our Nephew

 On the 11^th, we stopped by our Cousin Amy’s house and visited with her and Beth. She seemed to be doing better in her recovery form surgery. We continued on to Springfield Ohio and checked in to our hotel. We found a good Mexican food restaurant in downtown Springfield. In the morning, we drove to Jason and Michelle’s house in Wilmington and spent the day visiting with them and having a great Birthday dinner with them (Jason’s Birthday was only a couple of days later). It was great to catch up with them and hear about their upcoming move to Omaha.