Good Lord!

I have seen the 25-year plan for Pacific. In 25 years there will be no Pacific; it will be at the bottom of a man-made recreational lake ringed with McMansions, and somebody will make big money. Historic flooding in 2015, then worse in 2017, twice drowned half the town's housing and businesses; in 2017, the water topped the railroad tracks for the first time. The town was now floodplain and there was no two ways about it. Some residents FEMA'd and some didn't. When we're weary some developer will propose a glamorous lake in place of the sleepy little town and grease some pockets and make it so. But my mind was elsewhere when today I saw the little white country church lifted on pallets way up in the air, and thought, "Good Lord!"

I know buildings get raised and moved, a task I can't even begin to comprehend, and here I could watch it happen by hopping out of my car and telling a worker how amazed I was, and could I take a photo.

"Is the church being raised because of the flooding?" I asked, above the roar of the Bobcat. (Here, "bobcat" is both noun and verb.)

"Just like we raised the other houses around here," he said, and for the first time I looked around and saw that more than half the houses on the street, formerly ground-level bungalows, were now poised on new, high, solid concrete foundations -- ten feet high? twelve feet? More? The doors in front and back were now accessed with handsome new wooden staircases that one could tie a rowboat to. Those folks were staying put, flood or no. And my heart was glad.

Boonville, MO

On a bus trip from Kansas City to St. Louis we (44 ladies, laughing art lovers who'd been touring museums in KC) stopped at the Love's gas station and quickshop in Boonville, where I'd never stopped before, about halfway across the state. I understand there was a Civil War battle in Boonville, and the Budweiser Clydesdales are stabled there, and there is a historic walking tour of Boonville's many attractions, but this, across the road from the Love's, is what caught my eye. The Love's was doing great business selling Wendy's burgers, Starbucks espresso in cans, and showers to those passing through, but across the road there are no more weekly specials for residents, whatever they might have bought here.

Old LaBarque Schoolhouse: Found!

Yes, the LaBarque Schoolhouse is still standing and it's being used as a garden-tool shed for the series of 1990s "I deserve an estate" type houses, on big rolling lawns, built around it. The painted words "LaBarque School" are very faintly visible above the door; so very faintly that the camera eye could not capture them for you, but trust me, in the sunlight, in person, they are there. This building stands near the intersection of Hwy FF and John McKeever Road, behind a fence and some trees which partially obscure it. I have lived here 10 years and never noticed it until someone told me where to look for the old schoolhouse.

A commentator on this blog said he has a 1906 photo of his mother at this school, so the structure must have been built before then, but my guess is that the building was rather new at that time. Also the stucco coating is recent; on a piece of wall where it is chipped away, you can see that the original building, or at least its foundation, is native stone.

New Rifle Range

Tore down the other -- its straw bales were soaked and moldy -- and chopped briars, baby cedars, and poison ivy down by hand to extend my meadow's rifle range by 12 feet, for a total of 100 feet, suggested shooting distance for .22s to minimize chance of ricochets. Forked the rotten straw over the weeds at the margins, hoping to put a damper on their regrowth. Bales of straw are expensive, $5 apiece, and really hard for me to carry -- so this time I brought home two rather than five. All bales are belted with twine around the middle, and this time I got smart and lay them on their sides so the binding wouldn't be cut by shots gone astray. I set the bales atop metal shelving that got fatigued and lay down and twisted itself until it was an inch or so high; this serves to raise the bottom bale a bit above the ground. The shelf was in the garage, as scrap.

Did this all by myself over about a week. Clearing twelve-plus feet of virgin brush and then mowing it was the sweatiest part.

The lower target is a "Dirty Bird" "splatter" target that makes hits easier to see at a distance of 100 feet. Note the bull's eye! The upper target is an "auto-reset" target, made of iron, cleverly designed, I bought from a store incongruously called Midwest Marine. The targets in a row, when hit, will fly backwards and upwards, sticking there until you hit the top target, which will release them all to the original position you see here. This target folds flat for storage, very cool.

Zion Oakfield United Church of Christ

I like country churches. This one dedicated in 1879. Note the outhouse at left. Quaint. Church located near what was once Glencoe, Missouri. Unincorporated Glencoe was absorbed by the town of Wildwood.

A Lesson in Warmth

The Divine cabin is well-built; it’s just that it’s 70 years old, with two tacked-on rooms built in 1969 and 1991 – and the doors are a bit warped, and the windows old, loose or off, or single-pane (no storm window). Spring, summer, and fall here are glorious, but I’ve always dreaded winter.

Until David came last week to winterize the place. Oh, I’d always done the plastic-over-windows stuff, but I still spent last winter straddling the electric heater just to keep warm – wearing hat, legwarmers and fingerless gloves. I’d stand there like that to do my reading, telling myself, You wanna live out here – you have to be tough.

Well, this prince among men caulked up the window frame that let winter winds whistle over my bed. And he did bunch of other stuff, like help me plastic the windows, and fixed my old furnace’s thermostat. There's a level inside filled with mercury called the heat anticipator. The level wasn’t level. Just a tap fixed it and corrected the whole system. Won’t be using so much propane.

I’d been shutting off rooms to keep warmth in some and cold in others, and David pointed out that because there’s only one air-return – located in the living room –I should open the interior doors to keep warmth circulating.

Then he weatherstripped the doors, some warped to the tune of half-inches and inches – “hellacious,” in David’s assessment. I could feel the difference right away.

He had to go shopping with his sister, so he left me the caulking gun to do some other, smaller jobs. Thank you, David, for your knowledge, advice, common sense, and skill – you should see how flawlessly he caulked! Thank you for the warm house!