Had two days off for Thanksgiving. I have now been out 20 days. I will have been out 25 on December 22nd. Lots of 14 hour days in that mess. The driving truck really does appear to be just like riding a bike. Once you learn how, you can always do it.

So where have I been?. Ohio and Pennsylvania, along with Illinois and west Virginia are getting top billing. Some New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina. Also some Virginia and Georgia. Missing Vivian. Some pain issues. But I am working again :-)

Here are just a few recent shots.

 Bought a new Rand McNally truckers gps. Is awesome. Of course, you never know where you will be doing laundry.
Then of course. Sometimes you need a good hot fudge sunday at the end of the day to go along with the reindeer you won out of the machine

All is well. I may have some great news when I get home. Keeping fingers crossed.

My tablet was not downloading pictures from emails. I generally use the phone to take pictures... Then just email them to myself. Suddenly, it is working again.

The return to work is a success after two weeks out in my own truck again. It appears to be much like riding a bike. Once you have done it, you never forget. This is my truck

Not brand new. New guys never get the new trucks. Like always... You can end up almost anywhere.

The first snow storm of the season found me driving into Chicago from Ft. Wayne, In. With a load of potato chips. Light loads are great for dry roads,but you want a heavier load for increased traction on wet and slick roads.
Certainly planning to move to Florida next summer. I have a sailboat that needs to be used. I want it where it can be taken out at any time. So it needs to be in a warm place.

I am still in orientation. My back is doing well. I have a couple more days of this before heading out with a road trainer for final brushing up of driving, electronic logs and company policies and procedures. Then back to Charlotte, N.C. for some testing. Then in a truck.

This is the truck I have been using to get my driving ironed out. I am a little rusty but after a couple hours...it is coming along.

 I am eating mostly salads now(for dinner) I use greek yogurt for dressing. I eat kashi cereal with almond milk for breakfast and while at orientation, I eat two chicken drumsticks and a side vegetable.

 I will continue eating this way on the truck. Likely eat less meat. Will also do my best to stay away from wheat and sugary, yummy things ;-)


I realized the first time I crawled back in a truck and fired it up...I love driving truck. I have missed it.

Vivian had her lazik procedure this week. It went well. Her eyes were -7.5 and -8 before the procedure(nearsighted, I never even knew it could be that bad) now they are 20/25. Just needs reading glasses now. I took a last picture of her in glasses just before she headed in

She could not wear her contacts for two weeks leading up to it.

We are just about done going to the beach most evenings to hunt for fossil shark teeth.

We have something over 1400 in a jar that we assumed would hold about 500 - 800 at most. If you look closely, you can see all the small pieces and tips of teeth. Sometimes it is all you find. We figured...a tooth is a tooth. Besides, it is something to do. The real fun was in going to the beach to enjoy the sunshine and sand.

In other news...

I return to driving truck this week. I drive up to Charlotte, NC. Oct. 19th for orientation. Will have come full circle. Will be driving all 48 states and Canada. Will likely be in California

Not intending to retire from trucking. It is a means to an end.

I have done some major cleaning in the garage. Do not have an afterwords picture but a beginning and "getting there"

 
 

Will be set up for drafting the panels for the nester dinghy on my days off.

 I am looking forward to this. I will also be building in the booth and installing new instruments. Next spring will see Mary Lee finished. The intentions are to get her back up to Chesapeke bay for a few months. Lots to see there. I was told by someone that he had been boating on the Chesapeke for 25 years and had not seen it all yet.

Then...at long last...it will be time to go south

Things are moving right along. I now have my South Carolina Class A license.

Have passed my physical. Have a job offer. Vivian is having that lasik surgery done shortly before I go. So off I go to drive truck again on October 19th. Nine and a half years to get to this point. There is a chance that I will have trouble....but I know all about troubles...not going to worry about it. I have been seriously hitting the gym. I am truly doing all that can be done.

Last post I mentioned making cream cheese. I made it. Yum!!!

Lots of hours for the two steps. But it was just waiting. Never required much effort.  It really was simple. Heat milk to 72°. Added the mesophilic quick set. Cover with towel. Let set on counter 15 hours. Pour in cheese cloth. Hang for about 12-14 hours(depends on how thick you want it) to let the whey drain out. Ready to eat. We like it on fruit or good grainy crackers. Even at 40° it still spreads easily on toast.

I will never eat store bought cream cheese again. I don't even want to know what they do to make that gelatinous mess. Was same way with tofu. I will never eat store bought again. It is as un-natural as the cream cheese you buy. Next is feta cheese. Not that I like feta cheese so much...but feta cheese will require the use of rennet and the extra steps that are similar to the steps for making cheddar. Then will make cheddar. Already learned quite a bit about the process just from the cream cheese.

Our baby dove took off a while back.

I got this picture a couple days before it left.

Getting anxious to get to work on Mary Lee. I will certainly be working on that nester dinghy....finally.

I do like wood work. Some of the necessary eqiuipment I will be buying is what is required to do the fancy laminated wood for marine applications. If you spray contact cement and laminate on a boat....it is doomed to fail. You use a type of epoxy. Bag it. Vacuum compress it for the required hours and it is permanent. The tools and equipment I will buy to do Mary Lee will allow me to do the same work on any boat or camper.

 These are a couple boats I want to build. The desire to build boats is overwhelming to me. I am absolutely setting myself up for this.

I love the looks of these boats. Top is a cedar lapstrake. Bottom is an Oughtred clinker built. But as much as I like those two. I want one of these

As a nester. It is an Oughtred design like sailing version above. But only 8 feet. I knew I needed to build this dinghy the instant I saw the picture. Its big brother above is also on my hit list. It will be nice to be set up to do these.

Of course...I have lots of projects planned. Going to work is sure going to make the s--t hit the fan :-)

It is official. I have a job offer from a trucking company. I can start any Tuesday. I say Tuesday because I have been away from trucking so long I have to take a refresher course.

It takes 3 to 6 months of recent experience (in last three years) and I literally can go to work for just about any trucking company in any state. Driving local or long haul. I am going to make this work around boating.

 It changes plans for being in Marathon this fall. I am contemplating working until the end of next June. Finishing up all the previously mentioned projects on Mary Lee during days off. Take Mary Lee back up to  Chesapeke bay for a month or so of exploring. Then take it to Florida for next winter. I could end up driving 3 months and then taking her south this winter or just heading south with her when my six months are up. Decisions,decisions??


Meanwhile. I am waiting on my butter muslin to arrive. The culture and rennet arrived. We also found raw milk.

I am making cheese very soon. I will do cream cheese first to get an idea how that works. Why? Everyone says that once you have tasted the home brew(so to speak) you will never buy store cheese again. It is true about tofu. I think that processed food is changed in the process just enough that once you get away from processed foods you will certainly be eating tastier and healthier foods.

The new things we are trying this week. Morning drinks with mata, cocoa powder and powdered wheat grass in soy milk.

Mata is supposed to be a mild stimulant that gives you the wake up without the caffeine. Amongst other things. Everybody has heard the benefits of cocoa powder by now. This is not sweetened, but the bitter has been removed.

I am sticking with the mostly vegetarian diet. Certainly not eating meat with even every other meal. I am back in the gym. Using powdered protein. Not wanting to burn off muscle.

Almost forgot. Vivian picked up a dehydrator. We are experimenting with that.
We are really eating some yummy foods. Along with the soups (and spatzel, that is now made with soymilk and rice flour) we are trying some new things and reliving some old. I saw these onions on a cooking show.

Sliced about an inch thick. Lightly carmelizedon both sides in a skillet. Then popped in the oven at 350° until done.
Tonight we had eggplant cooked the way my mom did it. The fried picture looks pretty dark but I have given up on the phones camera ever being accurate with colors :-)

Sliced, egged and coated with corn flakes. Seasoned and fried in olive oil. Naturally, we are eating a lot of vegetables and Vivian is the queen of salads.
 Hopefully I am making cream cheese tomorrow!!

I keep thinking that I have nothing to post. Suddenly I find the list of things to share has grown almost too much. So...once again....I should have posted sooner :-)

Over a decade ago, I started fasting to detox. Reading up on nutrition. Finding out what a person should be eating. I was still active but beginning to realize that I had been burning the candle at both ends. I finally ended up taking time off driving to get everything the way I wanted. I spent 3 months eating very healthy and riding bicycle as many miles a day as I could stand(fortunately, I do like riding). I was 203 pounds with no gut what-so-ever when I returned to work. A couple short months later I got hurt. Everything went on hold as I was slammed into survival mode.


Jump ahead almost 10 years and some of the things I was wanting to do back then are in motion.

I just finished a twenty day fast. Down a solid 25 pounds after eating was back to normal. Have cut out wheat. Cut out almost all dairy. Just some cheese and some cottage cheese. Eating much more vegetables. Much less meat. No hotdog or bologna type products. Cut way back on sugars and basic snacking. Sounds busy....but there is more. Much!!!


I taught Vivian how to sprout when we met. I had learned how during my winter stay in Thompson Falls, Montana.

I had also bought a soymilk machine in Montana. I made lots of soymilk. It also had settings for soup making. I just tried that setting a couple weeks ago. Have used rice, potatoes and onions as an alternative to a creamed soup made with dairy. Liked it. Old machine died. I bought a new one. A gourmet(brand name).

It works great!
So I ate my first tofu with Vivian. Miso soup. Pretty good. Still deciding about tofu. I think it is fine if not eaten every day. But...what is tofu made of? Soymilk. I decided it was time to teach myself that particular skill. It took two small batches to figure it out. Then I made 4 quarts of soymilk for a big batch.

It did look like a lot but the machine made the milk.
So finish heating to °180 without burning. Add coagulant. Let set 10 minutes or so. Put curds in cheescloth lined press. Mash water out.

And four quarts of milk makes a 9oz. brick. Now I see why they say,"once you have had fresh tofu you will not buy it again". Nothing but fresh soymilk and coagulant. It is way better. I will be perfecting the process.

Along with the soup making. I bought a spatzel maker.

I used to make egg noodles but it was way too time consuming and messy. Spatzel(like dumplings) is so much easier.

I made the first batch of spatzel with skim milk and general purpose flour like recommended. Turned out great!

Next batch was made with almond milk and rice flour. It was every bit as good. I followed my rule. Make it per directions the first time. Easier to trouble shoot that way.

Have made it a few times now. Much better than one would think!

Next on the agenda was fermenting vegetables. I first heard about this a long time ago. I could go into a big spew about the gut flora and the affects of all this food that is essencially dead due to modern food processing. the better bioavailable vitamins, etc. But I suspect if you really want to know, you will google it. Many people have written much on the subject.

So I decided to do saeurkraut first. I shredded my cabbage.

Sliced up some parsnips, turnips and onion to go with it. Made my brine.

Jarred it up. A day and a half later we tried a little bit. It was just a little tangy, but certainly fermenting. I plan to end up with about 12 quarts of different vegetables going at varying stages of ferment. We will eat about a half cup each at two different meals each day. Once you research it for yourself...you will wonder why you have not been doing it.

I finally got the cupboard doors made and hung in the garage. Can you remember when I built those cupboards?

Doors were needed.

 Have doors now. I will take them down a one at a time and paint white. Trust me....it is better that way.
   We have a lot of sorting to do. I can build more cupboards, but in the end, We really do have a bunch of stuff out there that is not being used.

We tried to discourage a dove from building a nest in the top flower box by the door.

We were unsuccessful. The dove laid her eggs there in the dirt. We thought she would go elsewhere when we chucked the partial nest twice.

Didn't take us seriously and laid the eggs in the dirt. Now we felt bad.
I had a picture of the two eggs. I think it was on the file I accidently deleted on the phone.

So anyways. I went out and found some fake green grass to put around the edge of the box. It gave the dove a little more privacy so we were not always scaring her off the nest. Then when the rains came. I felt bad about the bird and eggs laying in the wet dirt(remember I tossed a partial nest?). I built a roof.

One egg hatched.

You can just see the brown momma behind the little one.

I am sure I forgot some stuff. Went down to finish some things on Mary Lee last weekend. Forgot the keys. It is almost an hour and a half drive.

Last for this post. I have started applying for a trucking job again. I will likely have to wear a back brace, but I really do not care. I need to fill the coffers again and driving is something I can do anywhere. I can drive half the year and boat the other half. Besides that, I have plans that require my working if they are ever to come to fruition.