Let there be Lights….

I installed my new gigahooter and we’re back on the net.

We have electricity! No more dragging extension cords to the candy shop next door. The lights arrived 2 weeks ago, and Phil and the electrician put them up last weekend. The electricity was turned on Tuesday and the lights were turned on today. A took some pictures today and caught John Morey (the electrician) installing an outlet. When the flash went off, he nearly jumped out of his skin. Funny thing about electricians, they’re kind of jumpy.

As I’ve mentioned earlier, all I really wanted to do was barbeque. Speaking of BBQ, I took delivery of my pit last Wednesday. It’s an Ole Hickory Pit made in Cape Girardeau, MO. I made a trip over to Concan, TX a few weeks ago to visit a man who already has one. I was sold after our talk and I feel like I’m cheating a little with this pit. It is wood burning and propane and has a cook and hold feature with revolving racks. It can be mounted inside, outside, or through the wall. Basically, you put in the wood, and the combustion chamber ignites the wood and smokes the meat for whatever time you set. The cook and hold feature is nice because you can set the timer and temperature and walk away. If the wood burns down too low, the propane burner will kick in to maintain whatever temperature you set for the allotted time. After the time is up, the unit will cool down to 160 deg. F and maintain that temperature until you’re ready to pull the succulent, mahogany colored, smoky, juicy meat from the pit.

Aside from that, we put up a lot of trim this week to finish out the walls and karners. Shelli and Luci have also started sealing the floor. The sealer is nice because it gives the floor a richer color and a little sheen. One thing I forgot to mention was the amount of gum chewing the American Legion members must have enjoyed. We must have scrapped 6,220 pieces of gum from the floor. I left one piece in honor of the LGC (Legion Gum Chewers), so when you come and visit Holy Smoke BBQ, you’ll have to see if you can find it.

Oh, also, Emmy found a tarantula out in the driveway. I kept my distance. She did not inherit that ‘fondness for spiders’ gene from me.

New Post…

About time huh? We had some more bad weather come through this week and lightning struck my gigahooter for my internet connection. I have a new one on order and should be here by Tuesday. In the mean time, I’ll make my ramblings short and sweet and then run to the carport with the laptop and pirate the wireless internet from my Brother-in-Law (75 yrds away) without the gigahooter to post.

Basically, we finished staining the floors, Shelli painted some more, we put up a lot of trim, installed some new doors on the front, Trey finished the A/C stands and the units are up, and all of my kitchen equipment arrived.

Here are a lot of pictures. Fell free to ask questions and I’ll get back to you next week, unless I feel like surfing the net from the carport. Not much of a chance without bug spray. Those suckers love to hover around computer screens.

We will not be serving BBQ this Memorial Day weekend, but July 4th looks pretty good.

Porches, Porches everywhere…

Everyone else in town has a porch, why can’t we? Last Saturday we brought Ray Ross and his crew back to install our porch and awning on the front. I’m amazed at how much it improved the curb appeal. Ray is the man in the picture with the long gray ponytail that you expect to see riding up on a Harley. He and his crew do good work and we’ve picked up a few Ray-isms. For instance, you need to mayzure a board before you cut it. When you do mayzure, be exact. Tell me in inches and then how many little marks. Karners are tricky. Tell me what the mayzurement is to the inside karner or the outside karner, but don’t forget if you have some little marks. We borrowed Ray’s framing nail gun a few weeks ago and it started hissing a week later. Trey called him and he diagnosed the problem over the phone. Turns out the gun had blowed a seal. Ray is a good guy and he was kind enough to finish out the stage walls very smooth so that Shelli can paint a murial. There have been many comments on painting ‘Muriel’.

We also have one bathroom complete except for the final decorating touches. There is a lady by the name of Judy who works part time at the candy shop next door who is quite grateful for this completion, as we’ve had to use that bathroom from the inception of this project. She tried to ban Trey from eating at Tony’s Tacos.

We started staining the floors this week and finished up with the cleaning and staining today. There’s a heckuva lot of floor!

Shelli is in her element...

Shelli came in last week to work some of her paint magic. It’s looking really good.

Putting up the siding, however, is dragging along like a gut-shot parakeet. As we reach the windows, we have to pull them out and re-frame them too. Phil dropped off 3 of the windows in Uvalde to have the glass replaced, re-glazed and cleaned up a little. They were supposed to be ready on Friday, not ready yet.

That reminds me. I think I’ve discovered a new time zone. We’re all familiar with Central time, Eastern time, Mountain time, Left Coast time, Standard, Daylight Savings…etc. Then there’s Camp Wood time. It extends through most of Mexico and across the border into the southern Texas Hill Country, and also covers portions of Alabama, Mississippi and New Mexico. Things run a little slower in the Camp Wood time zone and I can prove it. I have one clock in the house that runs a little fast. I reset it, but eventually it runs fast again. It is the only clock in the house that has not been sucked into the grips of the Camp Wood time zone.

That’s why our windows aren’t ready…Camp Wood time.

You may remember the story of Crazy Nail Guy. Phil was pulling some old siding from the N. side of the building and discovered someone had pounded their initials into the wood with nails. It must have been the work of Crazy Nail Guy. He’s still taunting us and I’m going to find a special place for that piece of wood. There is also an APB for someone with the initials E.H.
At least we have a reliable painter!

How Dry I am…

We had a few small leaks in the roof after the big storm, but nothing a little cold seal can’t fix. Cold seal is a latex adhesive, popular for fixing leaks on tin roofs. It comes in silver or white, and it helps cut down on the heat. We now have a white roof.

All of the sheet rock has been installed in the kitchen, stage and front entry. Most of it has been taped, bedded and textured. The main dining area and kitchen are much cooler now with sheet rock and insulation. We’re moving right along in that area.

Phil, Trey and I started installing the Hardie Board on the back of the building. We’re leaving the wood on the front, but the wood on the sides and back was just in too poor shape to keep. It’s going a little slower than I anticipated. You see, most buildings are framed with the studs on 16” center. That way, when you install a standard size (4x8) sheet of plywood, foam board, sheetrock or whatever, you have something to nail to on each side as well as 2 more studs in the middle. This building wasn’t built that way. I’m not familiar with building codes in the 1940’s in Camp Wood, but evidently they said some thing like;

Stud Installation
Section 16a 24b
“Studs shall be placed willy-nilly or wherever you want. However a measuring tape must be used to insure that they are unevenly spaced. If you don’t have a measuring tape, use a rock, a boot and a goat to space the studs. If a goat is not available, use another rock of different size.”

What’s slowing us down is that we have to install studs and nailer boards to give us something to nail to. Aside from that, it would go fairly quickly. We should be through with that next week.

Come Hail or High Water…

The thunder turned into rain, and then came the hail. I was about to leave the restaurant building Friday evening when Shelli called and said, “Greg is watching the radar and you better get home.” So, I stopped off at the deer processor guy on the way home to look at his walk in cooler he has for sale. The wind really picked up and the sky was looking greenish. The phone rang again and Shelli said, “Where are you now? Get home.” I stopped off at the Harmon’s before going home and the hail started. It wasn’t too bad. I helped Greg secure some blankets and comforters on their new truck and I headed home. As soon as I pulled under the carport, all ‘hail’ broke loose. I stayed under the carport.

I was very impressed with the golf ball size hail we were getting. Reminded me of Spring back home. Then came the tangerine to baseball size hail. That lasted for 15 minutes, and then back to golf ball/ marble size. Shelli would come out from the house and yell something at me and then go back in. I couldn’t hear a word she was saying because large hail on a tin roof is deafening. Then she came out and yelled some more and threw a golf ball in the yard. Err? I retreated back in the carport and took some pictures of the storm. All in all, I was stuck under the carport for nearly an hour.

When the hail slowed, I put a Tupperware container on my head and ran to the house. I asked Shelli what she was trying to tell me on the carport and she said she thought it would be fun if we played a little ‘find the golf ball in the hail storm’ game. That’s what I love about her! Finding a game.

After the storm receded, I headed back over to the Harmons and Greg and I went on damage assessment. It was fun to see a lot of the creeks that are normally dry flowing like a river. We headed to some places that we have always thought, “I wonder what this looks like after a big storm?” It was impressive. On the way back we met Shelli and she advised us we had no water and Trey needed help. We met Trey and Phil at the water pump, fixed a pipe and then I helped Trey put plastic on his windows.

Everyone suffered some sort of hail damage. Broken windows (Trey had 5), roof damage, dimpled cars and psychologically impaired pets. The claims adjuster will be out this week, but I don’t think he can help Trey’s dog. She’s okay physically, but she looks up a lot now.
I’ll have some restaurant related material on here later this week.

We Need an Ark...

Last week we finished the sheet rock in the main dining hall and Monday brought a flood. I was ready to head into town Monday morning but Trey came by and said ‘It’s raining, do you need anything from town?’ I was quite aware of the fact that it was raining but what he really meant was ‘The river crossing is probably washed out and you may be stuck here for a while’. We told him we could always use milk. I’m new to this area and I didn’t realize that heavy rain means you stay home. That’s crazy to a curb and gutter boy. They even sent the kids home early from school. You see, there is a lot of people like us around here who live a fair distance from a paved road and have to ford a few creeks before reaching their residence. Those creeks rise and you can’t get home. If the kids and teachers can’t get home, they have to spend the night together when they really didn’t want to spend the day together in the first place. Heavy rain = free time, but it was good because I was able to get my taxes done. I called Trey and asked him to get some coffee too.

Tuesday we went in and everyone on the sheet rock crew had a flood story. Ray said he let a sow pig go from a trap he had by the river because it just seemed cruel and unusual to leave it in the trap to drown. Personally, I think shooting the pig, dragging it to higher ground, gutting it and throwing it on the pit might seem unusual to some, but it’s certainly not cruel…it’s dinner!

As I mentioned earlier, we have a slope problem in the back as all of the dirt moves towards the building. We had pulled most of the old wood off the exterior in the back and as you can guess, we had a water situation inside the building. It just came right on in the walls. There were a few drip spots in the sheet rock, but we believe that may have been from the turbine vents on the roof. An emergency call was made to the dirt guy (since we haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks) and he came out and pulled some dirt from the walls and made a little improvement on the slope situation. A temporary fix, I guess he’ll be back to finish later.

We wrapped the cedar beams to protect them from the texture spray, put a door in the side, tore out a window and vacuumed up some water. Our Hardie Plank siding arrived yesterday, so we’ll start putting that up this week too. We’re expecting more rain tomorrow and Friday so Trey and I wrapped the turbine vents in plastic and we’ll see if things stay dry. The turbine vents will be removed soon.

I hear thunder.