11 March 2011

In July of 2009 Emily and I decided to have someone do a total restoration on our 64 Chevrolet Impala Super Sport Convertible. I had planned to do it myself but came to the point where I had to admit that I was no longer up to doing it all myself. We found a guy that we were convinced would do the kind of quality work that we desired. He is only about 15 minutes from where we live. He moved here several years ago from California where he had been in the auto body repair business for many years.

For those who don't remember (or in some cases never knew), Emily and I bought the car new about three months after we were married. We wore it out once and did a cosmetic restoration before wearing it out a second time. We parked it in the shed where it stayed from about 1992 until we pulled it out in 2009. The good times and approximately 230,000 miles are still fresh in our minds. We want to enjoy the car again like we did when it was new. While we realize that you can't go back, we intend to do the next best thing.

The restoration process has been going on now for about 21 months and we hope for it to be completed by summer. I will try to provide details and photos of the process during the next several posts.




Here are a few photos of the car in it's latest stage. These were taken on March 11, 2011:

February 27, 2011

Wow, it's been a long time since the last post. I will have to get organized and try to condense the period between May 2009 and now, just to have a somewhat complete chronology. After I have a chance to review the last postings so that I won't repeat, I will convey as much as I can remember.

Monday May 4, 2009

In the last two weeks we have received about 3 inches of rain. It is still pretty wet but the garden should do good as soon as the sun comes out and it drys a little. We picked English peas on Saturday and got two quart bags. We ate one bag on Sunday and they were really good. Here are a few pictures of the garden:

April 18, 2009

It's been about a year since the last post here so I thought that I would post a few words just to make sure that I still can. I will get organized soon and post a few pictures to update the last year.

We have been at Grandview for about 16 months now without traveling any. We are enjoying our time here catching up on a lot of things.

We have a pretty good garden going. Got some rain the last couple of days that has helped a lot. I will try to post some pictures tomorrow. We have English Peas, onions, Sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, collard greens, Blue Lake Beans, Pinto Beans, Purple-hull peas, Crowder peas, Cream peas, Okra, Squash, Zucchini, Cucumbers, beets carrots, potatoes and lettuce. Everything looks pretty good. We had to put a hot wire around it to keep the rabbits out.

May 22, 2008

Carly and Dominick and The Zebra Strings went to Branson last week and played at The Pressleys, The Haygoods and The Dick Clark shows. Emily and I went with Drew, Rebecca and Caitlyn and enjoyed watching the kids and the shows. We left on Wednesday morning and came back on Sunday. Saturday night we went to The Shepherd Of The Hills outdoor drama. We had seats down front and really enjoyed the play.

April 25, 2008

On Wednesday night we had a bad storm come through our area. There was high wind and blinding rain with a small amount of hail. About 7:30 pm the electricity went out. Rebecca and Drew had gone to Burleson a little earlier and had a difficult time getting home because of the hard rain. Emily called Rachel to see how they were doing and Rachel said that they still had electricity. Since our power comes off the same line as Rachels down in the woods, I figured that our problem must be local. Sure enough, when I got a flashlight and went outside to survey the situation I found that the ceder tree west of our trailer had blown down and fallen across the power line to our houses. The line had been pulled loose from the transformer. Several other trees were also down and one had fallen across the line that runs to our trailer, the water well and the shop.

Rebecca and the girls made it okay getting ready for school and Emily and I had to go to Fort Worth for my follow up at my doctor's. Drew got out and cut the tree off of the power line. We used our neighbor's portable welder to provide power to three refrigerators and two freezers all day Thursday so we didn't lose any food. The electric people came late yesterday and replaced the transformer and re-attached the lines. Drew and I still had to re-connect the lines to the well and our trailer. Since all of the poles were broken down, we just left the line temporarily laying on the ground. We will have to put in new poles and hook up the shop later. We are thinking about going ahead and burying the wires.

My checkup was good. The doctor said that I was progressing normally but would have to continue doing nothing for nine more days and then I would be able to do whatever I wanted (just in case my doctor is reading this, I should point out that I just supervised Drew's work on the wires).

Here are a few more pictures of some of the damage.

April 14, 2008

As Sheryl reminded me this morning, it's been a month since I last posted. It's been a busy month. Emily is having a lot of dental work done and I had my prostrate surgery last Thursday. I spent three days at Huguley Hospital and came home on Saturday. The surgery went fine and they found an unexpected kidney stone in the bladder and removed that. I can't do anything for a couple of weeks which will be hard. I feel good however.

We got the tractor about 98% finished before I went to the hospital. We don't have any real good pictures yet but will post some soon. I will post a couple today. It is a little dirty since we had to mow the front pasture.