I remember times before I retired, talking to people who had retired, and the various stories they told about being bored with retirement. They complained about not having enough to do, not knowing what to do, and some even finding a parttime job just to keep busy. Well it seems that Barb and I are not like that. We have so much going on, we will probably never run out of projects, and that’s just fine with us. Here is our latest update.

We built this workbench in our new building from wood we saved from the old carport. It’s about 18 feet long. The lower part on the right is where the drill press will sit. Yesterday, we got some used plywood from Mary and Jim and put the top on it.

After we screwed it down I routered the edges and then sanded the whole thing. It’s going to work out pretty well. The high part of the bench is 15 feet long, which gives us plenty of room to mount the vise, and the bench grinder, with plenty of space for working.

We moved all the shop tools in before that. It’s hard to believe we had all this crammed into the little yard shed!

These are just some of the bigger machines. We also have a bunch of handheld tools like, sanders, routers, grinders, circular saws, jig saws, drills, and on and on. We can’t wait until we can just walk into the shop and start building stuff. The electricians will be here in two days to do the job.

We also put some plywood down in the back porch. We’ve been making plans since moving here, to fix up the porch with a floor, walls, and ceiling. We’re going to insulate, and buy an air conditioner/heater for the room. It will be comfortable all year long.

The garden is looking great. We have tomato’s growing big already, and the beans and peas are coming along. We bought some bird netting because our neighbor told us that Mockingbirds, the Texas state bird, will eat tomatos. We’ll put up the netting after the yard work today.

We found this heavy planter at an estate sale and Barb filled it with Petunias.

A few months back we were wandering through Home Depot and found a couple Orchids that were in rough shape. They had them on sale for half price and they looked like they were about to die. So we nursed them back to health. We had no idea what the flowers were going to look like and were surprised when one of them bloomed pretty white and purple flowers. We’re hoping the other one has different flowers, but that one won’t bloom for quite a while yet. We have to wait to see.

We now have some Elephant Ears and Caladiums coming up. Barb planted them months ago, and we didn’t think they were going to grow, but here they are. All our plants and flowers are thriving. They seem to like it here in Texas, as do we. We feel like we’re thriving as well. So now we’re heading outside to do yardwork, lawn mowing, trimming, and all that. So long!