Month: October 2022

This week was a pretty typical autumn week, with no major stories or events. In fact, most of the week was routine — projects included lawn and flower bed cleanup, grooming JoJo, and scanning a few more black-and-white negatives.

The biggest job of the week was a major lawn cleanup. Pam cut back the rest of the hostas and geranium plants in the flower beds and cut back the blackberry bushes in the garden. I used the lawn vac to clean up leaves around the garage, along fence lines, and under shrubs. Several runs with the John Deere LX 176 lawn mower and bagger system cleaned up the large areas of the lawn.

It is sad to see the empty flower beds. We enjoy the flowering plants all spring and summer and it’s always a big change to see them go in the fall.

Below is a photo of the south and east sides of the house as of October 29th.

Other “outside” chores included putting up the bird feeder, hanging the suet feeder, and putting a heated water dish in service for the squirrels. On the last, it took the squirrels a few days to figure out the new water arrangement but they soon adapted. (In the photo above you can just see the stand and water bowl at the base of the right-hand tree. The weather has not been cold enough to plug in the dish yet.)

It did not take the birds long to discover the feeder was back up and stocked. No cardinals yet, but we have seen junkos, sparrows, and a red-headed woodpecker at the feeder at various times. Along the same lines we hung the suet feeder and have seen nuthatches and a downy woodpecker use it in the last couple days.

I moved the big trailer into a winter storage position closer to the east end of the garage. While doing this I took a good look at the tires and calculated the trailer can handle up to 12,000 pounds. (Each tire is rated at 3,100 pounds and there are 4 of them.) Below are a couple photos of the tires, D-rings, and side marker lights. I would never use all of this capacity as the F-150 could not handle it, but the truck can handle the Ford 8N which weighs in at around 4,000 pounds.

On to inside projects. Pam now has to trim JoJo, as the groomer we had been using quit the business.

I scanned a few more black-and-white negatives; some of these are in this post’s Photo Gallery section. Other tasks completed included an oil and filter change for the RAV-4 and maintenance on power equipment. Inside the house I boxed in the vent pipe in the corner of the upstairs bathroom and added a patch to the floor in the same room, bringing that set up to the same level as the floor. (The patch was a result of the work we had done last year, moving the toilet away from the outside wall and re-plumbing the sink.)

It was a low-key week filled with routine and mundane tasks, but there was one other development that applied to me. I had previously reported that my broken front tooth had been extracted. This week my “social tooth” with its retainer was fitted by the dentist. Now when I go out in public I don’t display the gap of the missing tooth. Around the house I don’t wear it, hoping to speed the healing of the gum.

So much for medical news. Now on to the scanned images.

Photo Gallery

These photos were taken when we attended a military re-enactment in 1990 and features a squad of US army soldiers. I believe the time period depicted was the early 1800s. We were in Prairie du Chien at the Fur Trappers Rendezvous.

Normally I would leave it at that, but with Halloween coming up I decided to include a couple of “artsy” pumpkin photos.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

Dog grooming – ugh. I suspect JoJo will need to be “surface groomed” at least three times this winter to keep the Springer Spaniel coat under control. You can see I scissor-cut the dogs at present; I will likely buy a grooming razor next year to shave dogs for the summer. (Because, of course, Bru needs to be trimmed frequently as well as Jo.) I really miss our dog groomer from Colorado, Aunt Nan. She was excellent with the dogs and reasonably priced. Interestingly enough, Nan/Nancy sold her business and got out of dog grooming (similar to the local groomer). Too much work and not enough profit in dog grooming, I guess.

The yard at Heart House looks empty and sad. Or maybe I’m sad looking at the yard. Or maybe both. Once the holiday decorations are up next month, the porches at least will look colorful.

Oh well, the kittens keep me entertained. Hard to be gloomy when those little charmers are so active.

Happy Trails.

We had another busy week. Daughter Felicity and her companion Peter visited us for a few days. The new kittens continue settling in and began to play with Elmo. Squirrels have been drinking out of our birdbath. We took in an arts and craft show. Details of all are below.

Felicity and Peter were with us for a few days. Visiting from Tulsa, Oklahoma, this was their first trip to Heart House and we were glad see them. Much talking and eating ensued during the time they were here. It was good to catch up personally with happenings in their life and show them the house. Sister Becky joined us at Heart House on Thursday, to visit with her niece and enjoy the hospitality of the visit.

Pam and I had begun the week with a trip to an arts and antique fair. The event was smaller than in previous years and we didn’t buy much, although Pam came home with a tin sign to place in the kitchen. I was on the look out for kerosene lamps but did not find any this trip.

The new kittens, Stirling and Vienna, continue to get comfortable in their new digs. Elmo has begun playing with them and the kittens are getting used to the dogs (and dogs to kittens). A kitten priority is finding comfortable places to sleep; both are getting that down pat.

I am including a 1:56 video of the kittens and Elmo playing around the house. This footage is fairly typical of the activity (or sometimes lack of it) of the young and old cats. Not exciting, but typical.

The dogs have sleeping down to a science. Here are Blondie and Bru settled in for an afternoon nap.

I have a 36 second video of a black squirrel drinking our of our bird bath. This happens on a fairly regular basis, causing us to wonder where the squirrels were getting their water before we put up the birdbath last spring. We are considering putting up a heated dish for the squirrels to use during the winter and seeing if it gets any use.

Other mundane items accomplished include a major yard clean up. Pam has cut back many of the hostas and geraniums in various flower beds but has more to do. I have been using the lawn vac, with the new hose adapter, but have run into mechanical problems with the machine which has limited its run time. I need to have everything rectified this week as we are at the height of leaf season and really need to have the equipment in top operating condition. More lawn work is on tap for the upcoming week.

Photo Archive

Photos from 1975 showing our first home, a single-wide in a Menomonie, Wisconsin, mobile home park.

A fall shot from ’75

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

It’s pretty clear, when young folks visit, that our retired lifestyle has become fairly uninteresting. Felicity and Peter have jobs to discuss, they have hobbies to discuss, they have future plans to discuss. Himself and I talk about house renovations and various body ailments. (I remember wondering in my past years why oldsters talk about medical stuff so much. Now I know.)

Heart House stretches and flexes to accommodate company pretty well. It will certainly be more hospitable in this regard when the upstairs bathroom is fully renovated.

Happy Trails.

We had snow flakes in the air this week so I guess summer is over and we are well into fall. The week was a mixed bag of traveling, medical issues, and lawn clean up. There is also a new kitten video, so let’s get to it.

We’ll begin with the kittens. Tuesday they traveled to the vet and received their next set of shots. Both Stirling and Vienna traveled OK and were not traumatized by the visit. (The vet tech commented they were two of the best behaved kittens she had handled in quite some time.) Within minutes of returning home they were running and playing as if nothing had happened.

I tried to get more exciting “kitten video” but ended up with shots of the pair just exploring around the house. (Nothing very exciting in this video, but I include it due to popular demand for kitten videos.)

In medical news, Pam and I received the latest COVID-19 booster shots this week. Both of us had mild reactions, which we were expecting based on reactions to past shots. Sore arms primarily, but Pam had a few other side effects as well for a few days including tiredness and slight nausea. We are both OK now.

In dental news, I had my broken front tooth removed through oral surgery. Due to my high A1C levels, brought on by my treatment for prostate cancer, I could not get the implant post installed at the same time. I have a retainer that holds a fake tooth to fill the gap for now and will complete the implant process next spring. Getting old is not fun; everything breaks down.

I mentioned in my last post that I had brought our generator and fire pit home from Colorado. I did not say how. These items were trailered in the utility trailer I built 7 or 8 years ago. (Long-time readers of this blog may remember it.) The trailer is currently filled with leaves that I removed from the lawn this past week. To use the trailer in its new role I did some modifications, including removing the top level of the side boards and lining the bottom portions with a wire mesh material to keep leaves and other debris inside the trailer.

Speaking of trailers, I took the “big” trailer paperwork to the county seat and traded the South Dakota title for an Iowa title and plate. Cost of this included Iowa sales tax, $30.00, a title application fee of $25.00, and actual license plate and registration for another $30.00 bringing the total to $85.00. I also applied for and received a plate for the utility trailer, the first it has ever had. (In the past I used an Arizona “permanent” plate I had found in a ditch.) The cost of getting the D-rings ($50.00) welded to the big trailer, done when I was in Colorado, came to $100.00, about what I was expecting. I finished bolting on and wiring in the side marker lights ($25.00) so the big trailer is now street-legal and ready to be put to work. Investment to get to this point is about $820.00, a reasonable price for a tandem axle equipment trailer.

Pam continues to clean flower beds and cut back plants as they die, due to the below-freezing nights NE Iowa is experiencing. Both of us had been hoping for a mild autumn but it appears that is not to be. (Maybe we can hope for an Indian Summer?) We hate saying goodby to the plants and flowers that have been such a treat all summer.

The upcoming week promises to be active. Daughter Felicity and her companion Peter will be visiting us for a few days. Pam is preparing for their visit by locating and laundering additional bedding; she plans a thorough house cleaning before they arrive. (I help where I can but I don’t clean to Pam’s higher standards.) My contribution will be the grocery run early next week for additional supplies. Look for photos of this visit in the next post.

I have a few maintenance items to do, such as changing oil in the RAV-4 and working on my lawn chipper / vac which needs a new fuel pump. Winterizing the house will be an ongoing project which involves installing the window inserts and putting up windbreak tarps around the back door and dog run. The back door protection helps keep the cold west and north-west winds from hitting the door directly and we found it helped a great deal last year, the first year we had tried adding this wind screen protection.

I will note the passing of my cousin, Dennis Rohland, who passed away this past Wednesday. Dennis (one of two cousins by that name) was in his mid-’80s and had been ill for some time. I did not have a close relationship with him due to differences in age and distance, but he was a good guy.

Photo Archive

A couple more photos from the mid-’70s starts us off.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

I’ve been asked how I integrate new cats into the household so they all get along. Mainly I don’t stress about it, just give incoming cats their safe space(s) and correct confrontive behavior when it occurs. Cats can’t be trained in the way dogs can be trained, best not to even try. Having said that, I sure am enjoying the luxury of time to interact with these two kittens. (I love retirement in that regard.)

All the paint cans headed down to the basement this week. No reason to keep them in the laundry room or on the basement landing. Exterior painting is OVER for the year, and interior paint projects will not be attempted until 2023.

Happy trails.

It has been a couple weeks since my last post, a couple of busy weeks. I drove to Colorado to winterize the RV trailer and bring home two new cats for Pam. We have had visitors and fall colors are everywhere. Here are events of the last couple weeks.

Fall colors are present everywhere this time of year. While I was taking a package to a UPS drop-off in nearby Riceville I passed a greenhouse featuring mums of all colors. I enjoyed the riot of color.

I have been working on my “new” trailer, wiring in replacement side marker lights. During this work I discovered the trailer did have ramps stored under the deck. I was able to pull them out, grease the slides, and put them back under the trailer. While I feel like an idiot for missing these on my first inspection, having the ramps will save me a couple hundred dollars, plus time trying to find a set. The ramps are heavy duty and will certainly take the weight of the 8N tractor when I get ready to bring it home. A local shop welded on “D-ring” tie downs while I was in Colorado, giving me places to secure chains and straps for transporting large items.

My trip to Colorado was a success in that I took a few ATV rides and winterized The Box. Additionally, I brought home our portable generator and fire pit. Not only can we use these items here, particularly if we have a power failure, but this begins the process of bringing home items we would not sell with The Lot should we choose to go down that path.

Here are a few fall color photos from this Colorado trip.

The return trip from Colorado found me with two passengers, kittens Stirling and Vienna. Pam had adopted this pair from the Rifle Animal Shelter and good friend (+rescue kitten foster) Kathy Powers brought them to Fairplay. Kathy and I rendezvoused in Fairplay, where we made the transfer. Stirling is a male Siamese mix and Vienna is a female black shorthair. The two enjoyed an “adventure” drive across the Great Plains to NE Iowa. They behaved well while penned.

I put together a short (1:36) video of Stirling and Vienna beginning to play in their new home. So far they have settled in nicely, but still have to come to some accommodations with the dogs and senior cats KitKat and Elmo. I suspect Elmo will accept them sooner than KitKat, but we’ll have to wait and see how those interactions work out.

We had visitors this past week. Zach Hayes and his wife Sakura were married in Seattle earlier this year but due to a number of factors we couldn’t make the wedding. Zach and Sakura are making a “meet the family and friends” tour of the Midwest for those unable to be in the Pacific NW for the wedding. Heart House made the list for the Midwest tour, and they were able to stop in and visit us for a couple of hours.

As background – Zach is the son of Mary and Jeff Hayes. Mary was Pam’s best friend until Mary’s untimely death five years ago due to pancreatic cancer (the Mary Lynn of the annual memorial garden on this blog). Zach is Pam’s godchild. Over the years Pam and Zach have kept in touch by phone. (Jeff also visited us last year, representing the Hayes family.) We were looking forward to seeing Zach and meeting his new wife, and the afternoon did not disappoint. Young people have such busy and interesting lives.

With colder weather settling in summer tasks are drawing to a close. We don’t know if we will get any more painting done, for example. Fall tasks, including cleaning out the garden of vines and corn stalks, are next up on the to-do list. I will be mulching leaves and raking the lawn. Some tasks that need to be done yet include reglazing a couple windows in the house to seal gaps that are passing cold air into rooms. There are always many projects to keep us busy!

Photo Archive

From ’74 or ’75.

That’s it for now. Thanks for looking in!

Pam’s Penny

How lovely to have plenty of time to play and interact with the newly-arrived kittens! I fostered over 30 litters of kittens in my days working with rescue in Colorado. But, what with being employed and the intrusions of daily life, I never had the gift of time then to socialize babies I was planning to keep. Stirling (‘Ling) and Vienna (“V”) bring some much-needed youth into the household. And retirement makes it possible for me to enjoy their integration process. Nice.

Happy Trails.