June 24/25 - days and days

I can't believe it. It's mid afternoon on the 25th and I am not sure that I remember what I did on the 24th ! Oh yes, now I remember, I was trying to blank it out -- lawn mowing.

Yes, I mowed that knee-high grass. Then I went to use the weed-wacker and it wouldn't start ... not only wouldn't it start, but it was leaking gas ... oh oh, the gas line was brittle and broken. I saved a piece, intending to check in town to see if I could find anything that would work.

Before that I did a couple of tax things. I double checked my estimated tax return for this year and prepped a quarterly payment, also printed out the declaration form required for foreign accounts (this is for the U.S. -- the foreign account is in Canada). I got both of those ready for the mail.

Showered and lunched, I headed outside to go into town and Jim was at the driveway talking to Sandy. He looked at the birch tree with me that has to come down (it's dead, other than one branch) and we looked at the weed wacker together. Well, it turned out that there was plenty of gas line inside the gas tank itself, coiled around, and by pulling some more out I could attach it to the intake nipple on the carburetor and vroom, it started up. However, I was ready to go to town and did so, picking up some groceries at the General Store, the mail and some minnows.

Back home, I headed out for another round of grass work, this time with the weed wacker. Dripping wet again (it's been in the upper 80's), I finished up and had my second shower.

Sandy, meanwhile was working in the garden. She's been doing that today too. I cannot give you a plant-by-plant report !

Looking for a cooler project, I worked on my bikes. I cleaned the Lynskey and put a new chain on the Litespeed (the Litespeed is the Hummer). We had trout for dinner and funny little potatoes -- fingerlings ? I forget what they're called.

Then I went fishing ... with no results. There are still black flies around, so I used the bug jacket. Abby came along and bit flies for the evening -- actually they weren't that bad.

This morning I debated as to whether or not I'd go biking ... and decided to leave it until tomorrow. I undertook an oil change on the 4-wheeler, heading into Arnstein -- Argyle Sports -- to pick up an oil filter and oil. The oil change itself didn't take long, and afterwards I took the bike (motorbike) and the trailer to the dump with a whole load of stuff.

Next I worked at Mom's lawnmower -- I call it Mom's lawnmower since it's the one that my Mom used to use. It has oversized rear wheels and is easier to use than the Honda that we brought up from Radnor. I'd fiddled with it a couple of times in the last while and couldn't get it to start. This time I pulled the spark plug -- sure enough it was sparking -- partly opened the gas float whatever and got a handful of gas, and then it started no problem. There must have been some water or perhaps the float was sticking. At any rate, I then did some mowing in the back 40 by the driveway ... got nice and sweaty again ... and now I'm in the basement watching the end of the trading day on the Canadian channel BNN but mostly just browsing with my laptop and cooling down.

So that's roughly another two days in the life ... it sure does fly by. I'm a bit a loose ends, wishing perhaps that I was doing the 600km "March to the Nuke" ride this weekend, but just as happy that I'm not. It's pretty bad when a 70 mile ride seems short.

Oh -- some more on biking -- I think that I'll install the Speedplay Frog mountain pedals on my Hummer just for a change of pace. By varying the shoes that I'm wearing, it will probably help this lingering numbness go away. It is almost gone, but I noticed on Tuesday when I was out that I got that hot-foot feeling again that needs to be avoided if I want the numbness to leave.

So ... I still have a few oil changes to do -- let's see ... generator, pressure washer, two lawn mowers ... I need to line them up and do them as a group. That's not easy with the generator, since it doesn't come out of the woodshed, but it's the concept of doing all these that I have to get moving on. I have to move the Bayliner and box trailer out of the barn, get at Jason's boat and the Muskoka chairs that are at the back of the barn.

Oh -- I also did another mini project this morning -- I removed and tightened the spring on the screen at the back door. Sandy's been complaining about it for some time. It wasn't retracting all the way, and like a blind, sometimes it would lock open. It took less time than I thought. There are also holes in the screen that need repair, but that ain't going to happen anytime soon.

That's all for now ... I'll save this and finish it off later.

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Ok, I decided to go ahead and try out / aka use / that oil change pump. I changed the oil in the two lawmowers, the power washer and the generator. It went fairly easily, using the battery clips on the pump hooked up to the 4-wheeler battery. I thought about it later, but it would have been easier to use the battery in the booster.

We had pork loin, zucchini and potatoes for dinner along with ... wait for this ... swiss chard from the garden. Sandy sauteed the swiss chard -- it was great. Ok, there were only 2-3 leaves each.

I'm in the basement watching TV again -- it's more comfortable on the couch and it's cooler down here. It's 78F upstairs and 73F down here. It's more humid upstairs; down here that big mother dehumidifier that I installed last year is doing it's job -- the hygrometer reads 35% down here.

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It's morning again. We had quite the thunderstorm overnight, with the "booms" loud enough to shake the house. My eyes were closed ... trying to sleep ... but I assume that there was an equally spectacular light show.

We got a little rain, but not much. We did, however, have a wet spot on the carpet by the fireplace -- the thunderstorm was so severe that Abby peed. She's never done that before. I got up in the waning moments of the storm and she'd moved into the den, which is unusual. She normally only comes in here if one of us is at the computer.

It was 3am at that point and I spent some time with baking soda and water soaking up and neutralizing the wet spot on the carpet. I took her into the basement with me at that point and we watched TV together ... well, that didn't last long ... I slept on the couch and she slept on the carpet down there.

Today I'll go for a ride. I should probably go for a ride tomorrow as well, since the prediction is for rain the ensuing 5 days. It has cooled off, the temperature now at 60F and going up to 70-something. That will make for a more comfortable bike ride than sub-90. I sure am particular about my riding temperature ! Having said that, I'll take hot over cold ... up to a point, I guess. I've never tried biking in really hot. Even when we were biking across the country, in the desert in May, I never experienced 100 degree temperatures -- or if I did then it was dry enough that I didn't notice.

Sandy's going into Sudbury today for a physio appointment. It is helping but has probably plateaued.

Oh -- I checked my minnows yesterday and they were all dead. Two dozen minnows, of which I had used one (and not caught anything) ... what a waste. I guess that they don't like all the pollen in the water. I'll give up on this for a bit or do some fishing with artificial bait / lures.

Enough already ...