Taking advantage of another day of good weather, I went down the lane to the wood lot and resumed cutting off little trees at the ground and poisoning the stumps with Tordon. It's slow work, but I did make some progress. Even better, I've recovered enough to work down on the ground and get back up without it being a major struggle. I cleared little trees for a couple of hours in the morning, broke for a rest around noon, then came back for another couple of hours in the afternoon. I ended the afternoon with two more jobs. One was taking dried sox down off the line, bringing them into the house, and bringing in the pail of clothespins. The other was taking the garbage pail from the back porch out back and dumping the contents for the wild critters, rinsing the pail, and putting it in its place on the back porch.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
The day began with a visit to the hardware store for a foot and a half piece of ¼" ID plastic tubing. Why? The heater in my shop wasn't working. When that's happened before, I had to stick a piece of wire into a metal air tube to be sure it was clear. To do that I had to remove the plastic tube that was covering the metal one, and I wanted a new plastic one a few inches longer than the one I had. Did the clean-out work? Yep. I came back later and found that the heater was keeping the place at a steady 69º F. I'll be a happy camper if it will still do that when really cold weather arrives. Dinner for Saturday treat night was tostadas, with chopped onions mixed in the frijoles and jalapeño slices on top. The movie was Here. It's a picture with a different concept. It is set in the same location over two centuries, with stories of various residents who lived there at different times. An interesting feature for me was the technical achievement of aging. We first see Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as teenagers, and they age with the years until at the end we see them as old people. Many of the characters are not on screen long enough for the audience to care about them, but those two are shown enough to make their story interesting.
Sunday, November 3, 2024
Little by little, I'm getting back to normal, whatever that is. Today I got back to filing receipts. For years it has been my practice to keep computer files of expenses, As I enter each receipt in the file, I put it in an envelope labeled with its month and year. Today's assignment was last month, October. It took a long time to do a whole month at a time. It's easier when I made it a habit to keep the filing up to date every day or two. Letting it go for a week or more can make it more tiresome than I like. This morning I stepped on the scales and found my weight at 150 pounds. I prefer 140-145, so I need to cut back on the calories a little.
Monday, November 4, 2024
One more rainy day kept me indoors. Recent online posts by young drivers of Model T Fords have reminded me of that favorite activity, and at the same time reminded me that the remains of my 1915 runabout remain in northern Indiana. After my wreck a friend came to the scene and got the carcass, which has been sitting at his place ever since. I haven't seen it in person, but the pictures suggest it may be rebuilt or might supply important parts for another 1915. Whatever I do with it, I'll need a place to keep it. So today I started the big task of making room for it in my shop. That's a big job because the place is a mess. Some of the clutter only needs to be put away. Finding a place for everything will be the biggest challenge.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
The first job after breakfast was walking over to the city building to vote. That took me east to the cemetery and south to the next road, a total of less than a mile. It got me to thinking of all the generations of kids who walked a mile or two every day, getting to school and back home. It was just a part of the daily routine, a feature of life that wasn't considered a problem unless the weather made it so. If you know me you can guess how I voted, but a Facebook post by my cousin Lori reminds me: "How you treat someone that votes differently than you speaks volumes about your character." That tells me that the coming days and weeks will be a test of self control.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Weather has cooled enough that this week I lit the kitchen stove Monday evening to kick off the wood burning season, and tonight I had the first fire of the season in the fireplace. I took advantage of the fire to burn some trash, which I can do during wood burning season. Beginning in spring, trash burning has to be done in a burning barrel outside. Today I returned to the project of putting my shop back in order. I still need to figure out where to put a lot of the clutter in there. I'm giving up on the notion of ever getting everything here sorted out. When I'm gone the relatives will be faced with deciding what to do with everything, but I don't need to worry about that. While I'm still here I'll do some of the things I'm still able to do, and if I never get around to most of it, so be it.
Thursday, November 7, 2024
More wheel-spinning than progress today. The high-top winter slippers I've been using for years have reached the stage of falling apart where I should replace them. The local Walmart no longer sells footwear of any size larger than 10, and that won't do. I phoned the store in Ponca City and was told they have larger sizes. Looks like I have an errand in Oklahoma soon. While I'm down that way I'll see about stuff that I consider too expensive here. It doesn't hurt to hope. Part of today's activity was boxing old slides in the shop, and that got me thinking about copying slides. I did that on my old copier, but I'll have to make a new holder to fit the present machine. So I bought a sheet of black poster board to use for making that.
Friday, November 8, 2024
Today's time-eating activity was a bit of catching up on reading. Newspapers have been piling up, so I read two of them and did the puzzles. That and taking a nap killed a big chunk of the day. I never even got around to working on a slide holder for the copier. Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow.
Saturday, November 9, 2024
First up was a drive to Winfield to check out a couple of auctions. Neither one had anything that tempted me to stick around. Being out gave me a chance to get a little grocery shopping done on my way home. This afternoon I took advantage of the good weather for a little outdoor work. I got the chain saw and took down a couple of low hanging branches that were obstructing the road down to the wood lot. I used the clippers to trim off the small branches, and used the saw to start cutting up some fallen trees in the road. One of those trees has enough dead wood to make quite a bit of firewood. Getting it all cut, split, and put away won't be done in a day or two. Dinner for Saturday treat night was the buffet at Pizza Ranch, and tonight's movie was Heretic. Hugh Grant seems harmless at the start, but it doesn't take long for him to become a menacing figure. Excellent performances by Hugh Grant, Sophie Thatcher, and Chloe East make this show a good one.
Sunday, November 10, 2024
This was a big day. At least it felt bigger than most. My first job was getting the Suburban ready to go to work, which required a trip to town for a gallon of ATF. After filling the transmission I drove the vehicle to the front yard and left it in front of the dead truck. Next was clearing more small trees from the lane and the wood lot, and poisoning the stumps to keep them gone. I was able to spend a couple of hours doing that, and was pleased with how much I got done. A little after three Zack came to help me move the truck. We attached it to the Suburban with a chain, which was through a ten foot pipe to keep it from dragging on the ground. We spent over an hour dragging the truck to Topper Automotive Repair south of town. I drove the Suburban, mostly between 10 and 15 mph, and Zack steered the truck to keep it directly behind the Chevrolet. I had planned to make the move tomorrow, but that will be a work day for Zack and we decided to get it done today. I'm not planning to have the truck back in service right away, because it's likely to need some parts that will need to be shipped here. That's OK. Even if it takes a month, there will be some periods of decent weather during the winter when I'll be able to use it.
Monday, November 11, 2024
Today brought me another reminder of being being so old. The only hitch pin I could find was a little too wide to fit, so I went to TSC in search of one that would. All the alleged hitch pins they had were specially made to induce sticker shock. $15 or $25 for a hitch pin? Hell, no. I bought a $1.10 bolt to make one. That's the part that reminded me of being so old. A few years ago cutting the bolt to the right length and drilling a hole for the clip would have been simple. Today it took me well over an hour. Oh well. With a proper hitch pin I attached the little garden trailer to the Dixon mower and drove down to the wood lot and fetched a load of the wood I recently sawed. I stopped with the little trailer next to the splitter, and that's where my work on firewood ended for today. No matter how much I tried, the splitter refused to start. Maybe it will be more cooperative tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 12, 2024
Given the human talent for screwing up, it's amazing that anything works at all. Last February I had an ambulance ride from my brother's house to a local hospital. This summer I received an emailed bill from the ambulance company for $2442.70, with no indication of any adjustment to the original amount. This morning I phoned both my insurance company and the ambulance company, then both of them. The word from the insurance company was that my part of the bill should be $303, and the ambulance company had no record of anything other than the full $2442.70. After more than two hours of nonsense by telephone, the situation is that I will wait a week or two for the ambulance company to get their act together and notify me of a revised (corrected) bill. After that experience I went to a less aggravating activity. I got the splitter started, and did some firewood splitting, and put the wood where it belongs. I did put a tarp over the splitter, just in case the rain shown in the forecast for tonight actually happens.
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
This was going to be my day to take the saw down to the wood lot and cut firewood, but the chilly north wind told me this wasn't the day. The temperature would have been OK on a calm day, but today's wind was too much for me. The forecast says tomorrow will be better. We are now in wood-burning season, but not every evening calls for a fire. Yesterday was mild and I didn't need any evening fires. Tonight was a little more chilly, and that called for fires in the kitchen stove and the living room fireplace. In a week highs will be in the forties and we'll be on our way to winter.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
I should have taken advantage of the decent weather for some outside work, but I was inside all day and into the evening filing receipts. I completed two months and part of a third, and made a couple of phone calls to find out what I bought. Usually I can figure out what the product is, but occasionally that's such a mystery that I have to ask the store what the code on the receipt means. I've been pretty lax about keeping up with with the filing, and it will be better if I make it a habit to file each day's receipts within a day or two.
Friday, November 15, 2024
With the arrival of the wood-burning season comes a need for kindling. Dried out cedar branches are excellent for that, so this afternoon I went down to the wood lot and brought up several days' worth of branches and started a pile east of the house. I put a tarp over the pile to keep it dry, with bricks to keep the cover from blowing off. An indoor project this morning was putting prescribed pills into dispensers for the coming three weeks. That took a visit to the pharmacy to refill a couple of prescriptions. I won't need to deal with that again until December.
| Saturday, November 16, 2024 I've been neglecting my photography this
year, so today I got back to it. I have two sort
of working A-640 digital cameras, and this
afternoon I set out to determine which is more
usable. I took both of them down to the wood lot
and shot several views, each of them with both
cameras. The results tell me which one works
better. This picture of Shorty with a fallen
tree blocking the road was taken with the better
camera. It's in focus, while a similar shot with
the other camera is a little blurry. I've
started sawing up this log for firewood. There's
a lot more of it to cut up, and there are
several more fallen trees and branches
presenting other roadblocks. I expect I'll
continue working on this one a little at a time,
hauling the pieces to the splitter with the
Dixon mower and little garden trailer. Then,
when I have my truck home and working, I'll get
seriously busy clearing the entire road. I think
I have enough dead trees to keep me in firewood
until spring.
Sunday, November 17, 2024 Taking advantage of decent weather, I did more sawing on that roadblock in the picture. I cut enough to fill the little garden trailer, and left it on the ground near the splitter, with a tarp over it. |
 |
Monday, November 18, 2024
Today's main activity was a drive to Ponca City for a bit of shopping. At Lowe's I got a trash barrel for the shop. That was the successful part of the day. The waste of time was a stop at Walmart for footgear. Several years ago I got a pair of hi-top winter slippers which are now in the time-to-replace stage. I hoped the Ponca City store would have more of a selection than the "supercenter" here. Well, it does. But not so much more that I could find anything that would fit me. It seems that a direct replacement for what I need to replace is no longer considered worth making and selling. I forgot the rule which says that if you find a product that suits you, it's best to buy a lifetime supply because the next time you want it you wont find it.
Thursday, November 21, 2024
I'm skipping Tuesday and Wednesday because I considered them pretty boring. Today was more active. I drove up the the county seat and paid property taxes. I spent a big part of the day writing and mailing checks to pay bills. The worst was $2443.70 for an ambulance ride last February. That's additional to the $644 and change I already paid in April. The lesson is, if you need a ride to a hospital it's best to be taken by friends or family. During my trip to Winfield, I stopped at a real bank and bought $100 in $2 bills. I often use those for small purchases like movie tickets, and tips.
Friday, November 22, 2024
Two things took me off the place today. One was grocery shopping for a few things that were depleted or nearly so, and the other was a drive down to the gasino to fill up with "cheap" gas. That's in quotes because nothing is cheap anymore. That's especially true for my age group. I do not buy candy bars because I refuse to pay $1.50 or $2 for something I used to get for a nickel. Meanwhile I need to figure out how to open old files that were made with software I don't have on this computer. It can be infuriating when everything on a page suddenly disappears without warning.
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Saturday, November 23,
2024 Taking
advantage of mild weather (60º
at 2:00 PM) I got in a little
bit of outdoor activity before
the decent weather goes south.
The specific activity was
bringing kindling up to the
house. With the truck I would
have brought a lot more, but
without it my limit was two
trips, with a fifteen minute
rest during the second
one. Now that my age
starts with 8, that's how it
is.While I was down in the
wood lot I took another
picture of the road blocked by
fallen branches. Clearing the
road will be a project when I
get my truck back. For
Saturday treat night dinner
was at the Chinese buffet, and
this week's movie was Gladiator
II. With a cast and crew
of thousands, the setting of
ancient Rome was impressive,
and the budget of millions was
evident on the screen. But
despite all that, the story
didn't grab me.
Sunday, November 24, 2024 This was the last pleasant day for awhile, and I took the opportunity for some saw time. With the oil and gas filled, I started cutting up fallen trees and branches. The first hour was excellent, and ended when the saw ran out of gas. I rested for an hour, which seems to be my new normal, then came back and spent another hour at it. The last part of that job for today was filling a box with pieces of the right size for burning and bringing it up to the house. That will be available for tomorrow night, because tonight was mild enough for me to skip the evening fires. |
Monday, November 25, 2024
This was the first of many cold days to come. Actually it was milder than what's coming, not yet freezing. My project was cooking. I made cookies for later this week, when I join a crowd of relatives at Donna's for Thanksgiving. The recipe I used resulted in a dozen large peanut butter cookies, and nine more that were a little smaller. I'm not sure a total of 21 will be enough, so I think I'll need to repeat the exercise tomorrow.
Tuesday, November 26, 2024
And that's what I did. I cut back on cookie size this time, and the same amount of batter made almost three dozen. Assuming most of them are edible, I think I've made enough. Aside from the little bit of shopping I did, today's other notable activity was getting my truck. Donna took me down to the shop and I drove the truck home. Craig Topper fixed it so it will start and run, and fixed the brakes on three wheels. One of the rear wheels absolutely would not come off, so the line to that wheel is blocked off. Will brakes on three out of four wheels be enough? This is my yard truck for hauling firewood and tree trimmings. I don't plan to drive it on the public roads, so three-wheel brakes will be quite adequate for creeping around the yard.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Not much to report. We went to town to restock with frozen veggies and a quart of milk, and I brought in firewood for this evening and tomorrow. Now I'm getting a little apprehensive about how long I may have to wait to have a working splitter. I took it to a repair shop in town last week, so now I'm waiting for a call telling me it's fixed and I need to come get it. I have quite a bit of wood cut and waiting to be split. I don't want to resort to splitting wood by hand with wedges. I think that's too much physical work for me to handle now. I hate being so feeble that I can't do a lot of things I used to handle with no worries.
Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 2024
In 1863 Abraham Lincoln designated a day in November as a time for Americans to express their gratitude for the many blessings we enjoy. In the century and more since then the day has taken on the status of a feast day, featuring a few traditional foods plus whatever other delights people wish to include. Family gatherings are a Thanksgiving tradition, and that's how I spent the day at Donna's with many cousins and their families. The highlight for me was seeing the youngest members, one a little over a year old and the other just under a year. Both of them peg the adorable meter, and both seem to be pretty sharp individuals. I don't dare eat like today very often, but an occasional special day is OK for me.
Friday, November 29, 2024
The forecast shows a lot of days that will be too chilly for outside work, but today and today are supposed to have highs above 50º. So today I got started on an outdoor project for tomorrow. I laid out four 100-foot extension cords that will reach down the wood lot lane to where I want to trim some low-hanging branches to clear the road for my truck. I have an electric saw on a long, long handle that will allow it to reach branches too high for me to reach. When I can get the truck down there I'll cut up some fallen branches in stove size pieces, meaning they won't need to be split. It will be nice to have a few boxes of stove wood ready to burn.
Saturday, November 30, 2024
The day didn't quite live up to the forecast, with the high getting to about 50º, but there wasn't much wind and the sunshine felt good. With 400 feet of cord from the house down to the lane, I attacked the low-hanging branches with the pole saw. I managed to bring down two of them before I called it quits. Very slowly, my balance and strength are improving, but I'm not yet ready for bringing down more than a branch or two at a time. I used the clippers to trim off the twigs and small branches, which will go to the brush pile by the south road. I've been adding trimmings to that pile for years. Sometimes it gets up to five or six feet high, but over time the brush settles and decays into the ground. Saturday Treat Night dinner was the buffet at Pizza Ranch. They have a nice variety of pizza and other good stuff, and not getting enough to eat isn't a problem there. The movie was Bonhoeffer, the story of the pastor who spoke out against the Nazis and was executed for being involved in the plot to kill Hitler. There were no familiar names in the cast, but it was a quality production that held my attention.
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