Joe's Notes

My desk was decorated over the weekend and this is what I came in to find waiting for me.

2008 late summer:
Last year I set out to make a area in my backyard into a small compacked garden area an area that can be maintained easier without a lot of work, one thing that I don't have a lot of and here is what it looked like. I just finished making the raised beds out of pressure treated 4 x 4 's and this year I am putting a coat of all weather stain on them.





2009 early summer:
I started off planting some of my favorite greens "Swiss Chard" and I love to thin it out when it is still young and steam it down and add vinegar to it and eat that way.




Pictured here is my Swiss Chard growing around my Tomato plants, by the time that the tomato's get to big the Swiss Chard will b done for the season and there will be enough room for the Tomato's.


Close up of the Swiss Chard.

Starting to steam it down.

After it is steamed.

Put the vinegar to it and enjoy.

Swiss Chard

Well we got Saturday morning and needed to run down to Dubois to Lowes and pick up some stuff for the house and the ponds, but of course we can't just drive straight down and back we cached our way down and back and the following are some places went and things we saw.Thanks for Jeeps when your geocaching in some way back areas.
They hide them in trees, which took us a half an hour to find.

It was great getting out in the woods on a cool morning and it warmed up as the day went on.
They come in all sizes and in this piture Jill has what they call a "micro" size and these ae sometimes the harder ones to find.
Sometimes they out in the open and we have to be stealthy so that you don't get it away to passer bys.
this is the symbol for stealth required.
Sometimes they are hanging on the backside of trees and you could just drive right by they and not even see them.

A view overlooking the city of Dubois.


Can you find the cache in this picture? (it is just to the right of my GPS)
Nice walk along some old railroad beds that hve been turned into rails to trials.
I like to find benchmarks as well, when we are out geocaching.
You never know where caches are going to show up.

Inside of stumps on the ground.
After a day of a caching we found 22 out of 24 and then on the next day we did another 8 out of 8
This does make for a fun day outside and seeing things that you would not have seen any other time.

We found this railroad tunnel some time ago and forgot where it was, but on Sunday Jill and I went Geocaching and we found it again and this time we walked through the tunnel and here are our pictures of the Caledonia Railroad Tunnel it was started in 1873 and was finished in 1876.

This is an Aeriel view of the tunnel, can you see it?

It is hard to see the date just above the key stone because some kids paint balled the date, but it reads 1873.

Lighting was not real good and I tried to lighten it up a little but I think I may have made it worse.

You really can see light at the end of the tunnel!

This is Jill coming out the other side of the tunnel, we always wanted to walk through a railroad tunnel and now we did.

the date just above the key stone, just think only 11 years after the end of the civil war and all those men that fought in the war looking for good hard work to do, most of these tunnels and viaducts (the stone work.) was done by Irish immigrants because they where good stone workers. Today you have mine boring equipment that would complete this in only 6 months.

Jill tied me up and placed me on the tracks, but no train came and she let me get up.