Watching the Mariners

Tonight is the Opening Game of the regular season for the Seattle Mariners. They are playing in Oakland against the Athletics.

One of the things I really like about having satellite TV with a waiver that allows us to get stations from both the East and West Coasts is that we can plan our evening so that we can watch some shows like Castle on the West Coast feed later tonight. We watched Dancing With the Stars early on the East Coast feed. Kind of the best of both worlds...

Except, it would be a whole lot better if the Direct TV guy had been able to install the new satellite receiver with a built-in recorder. Then we wouldn't have to worry about juggling times in order to make sure we get to watch everything we want...

This was an expensive day for us! We went over to the office and paid to stay another two weeks here. Unfortunately, you can now only stay for seven nights with the 50% Passport America discount. We were able to use the Good Sam 10% discount for the second week. We also paid the March electrical bill which was $91.

While we were at the headquarters building, we went to the Post Office and picked up the mail Daughter MM had sent. In the box was the bill from our accountant's office for doing the ranch taxes and the lovely package of personal property tax bills from the Adams County Treasurer (the county the ranch is located in). By the time I wrote checks for the accountant's office and the first 1/2 of the Property Taxes, we were feeling pretty poor. And to add insult to injury, the wheat price dropped over sixty cents per bushel today!

Paperwork

This had been one of those days where I spent a good share of my time just doing paperwork. It started with a call from our accountant who said he was emailing us a couple of forms that needed to be sent in to the feds. After we got those signed and ready to go, I scanned one of the W-2s and emailed it to the folks we're talking to about refinancing the RV.

Forry went to the post office to mail the letters and picked up a box of mail from Daughter MM. There were some forms in that box of mail that had to be signed and mailed back to the Farm Service Agency in Adams County. There was an invoice for dues that needed to have a check made out and gotten ready for the mail. Next there was a bunch of paperwork from the grain elevator that needed to be filled out (the elevator had been purchased by a new entity and we had to fill out new paperwork so that they could direct deposit checks for grain sales.).

By the time I got everything filled out and signed and ready to mail, the morning was long gone! I sorted through the rest of the mail MM sent, filed the ranch stuff and tossed a bunch of junk mail. Then I sat down and spent some time looking back at 2012 as my BlogToBook also came in the box of mail...

An Expensive Day!

It was a VERY expensive day today! I wrote a check to the Adams County Treasurer for the first 1/2 of the 2012 property taxes on the ranch. I wrote a check to the US Treasury for our 2011 income taxes. And then I wrote a check to Daughter Mary Mae for postage! MM hadn't added up her accounts for a while and we were definitely in the hole for postage. (I do try to make sure she's not having to pay up front to send our mail to us every couple of weeks, but...)

We drove over to the post office in Intercession City to send all three envelopes by Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation (that way we'll have proof of delivery). We went to that post office instead of the closer one in Loughman because we had seen a sign pointing towards a "Wildlife Viewing Area" when we were checking out the route to the airport a couple of days ago.

We saw a sign that said it was seven miles and said that it was a school environmental park. We drove that way through several miles of very nice new housing areas and three large schools. When we got there, the gate going in was closed with a sign that said it was "open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays!" You think that maybe they might have put the hours and days on some of the earlier signs?!

We did make a quick stop to gas up the Toad and to pick up milk and blueberries. I stuck a pork loin in the oven for supper and now we are switching the television between Dancing With the Stars and the Mariners/Texas Rangers game.

Fall in Kentucky

We didn't get as far north as Maine (and are sure glad we didn't with the nor'easter and snow forecast for this weekend!), but we have experienced some glorious color anyway this fall.  I took these pictures of the wooded hills during our drive yesterday.  It was an overcast, gloomy day.  I wonder how bright these colors would have been if the sun were out?

There were a great many trees and shrubs that were orange and red.  I can identify the sumacs, but I don't know any of the others...

The part of Kentucky we are in is very hilly.  The trees don't appear to be very ancient --

I took the next couple of pictures this evening here at the Yarwood Motor Home Park.  The sun was setting behind the trees to the west end of the park --

These trees have not yet turned color.  They looked almost eerie with the red behind them!

We weren't terribly ambitious today.  We went to the post office to pay our Adams County 1/2 taxes and picked up some Priority Mail boxes to send Sister Sherry's birthday present and the Halloween packages to the grand-kids.  We got those filled and addressed and took them back to the post office.  I fixed a small pork loin with a peach jam glaze and cut up the last of the butternut squash for dinner.