I'm back from OKC. My sister is better! She was sitting up and eating some and is mostly coherent so Mom sent me home. I got home to find that they have leveled the yard and built the forms for the concrete decking. The drains in the deck are set and the electrical work is finished. The green tags are in place – meaning that the work has been OKd by the inspector.

That red dirt you see is actually sand, probably from the Red River. It's very iron-rich sand. They were supposed to bring the concrete this morning but rain in Dallas has kept them away. It will be Tuesday before the deck gets done.

This morning after my walk I went to Lowe's and bought 250 fence pickets – 1×6's and 1×4's. The helpful folks at Lowe's loaded them into the pickup for me but then I unloaded them from the pickup when I got home. Steve would have done it but he's at work and I want to get as much as I can done today because we don't have a lot of time to work on the fence tomorrow. That meant me doing some manual labor which doesn't hurt me a bit.

I proceeded to cut the boards to the correct lengths with the miter saw. What a great power tool! I used the table saw to cut the 1×4's in half, lengthwise. As I was doing all this cutting I couldn't help but think that the saws were an awful lot like rotary cutters – except that you could cut your hand off with them. I was very careful.

Our garage smells like cedar.