Month: August 2023

Last week Heart House was visited by Pam’s younger brother Craig, and his wife Dianne. Heat indexes set new records, limiting our outdoor activities. Frito’s kittens are growing more active in their “cat condo.” Details below!

The highlight of the week was a visit from Pam’s brother Craig and his wife Dianne. Craig had helped us with the move from Colorado back in 2020 but had not been here since. Much has changed since then. Dianne hadn’t been here before so she received a lengthy tour of the house and grounds before we all sat down at the table and caught up with news and family activities. It was a good few hour visit.

From here, Craig and Dianne headed down to Greene to visit Becky and see her house for the first time. Becky reported that visit also went well and much talking and visiting was the order of the day.

Two photos to share. The first is Pam and Craig, brother and sister. The second is the four of us standing near the couple’s Mini Winnie camper.

The other news of the week was the heat. Several all-time records were set and it was the hottest week of the year. Activities were limited to inside tasks and projects. I learned how to add “chapters” to my YouTube videos and experimented with the code that plays videos in my posts. It turns out the same code can be put in my “regular” pages, such as the cat video page, and the videos will play in my Videos that way. This saves me from having to upload a copy of the video to my web server and makes creating “video play” pages much easier and faster. This is under-the-hood stuff but expanded my job skills when it comes to adding video to web pages. There is always something new to learn.

Frito’s kittens, AJ, Snickers, and Reese, are growing and playing more inside their cat condo. I made the 4:25 video showing them climbing, wrestling, and moving around to show their status as of this August.

In other news, Pam had her stitches removed at the Elma Clinic. That process seemed to go well; Pam still has a “shiner” around her eye and a droopy eyelid as a result of the surgery. Hopefully both will clear up in the next few weeks.

I picked up a small used generator (1,600 watt) to take to The Lot, hoping it will power the Honey Wagon kit I use to empty the trailer’s holding tanks. Last fall I brought the big (5,500 watt) generator home as a backup in case of a storm knocking out our power. Photo is from front page of the Owner’s Manual.

Acorns continue to fall from our trees, and I am in the process – once again – of raking the lawn to pick them up and get them to the dump trailer. There appears to be more acorns still in their “caps” and smaller in size this time around. Walking the yard can give one an uncomfortable feeling of not having sure footing until the acorns are removed.

A bit of work was done on the Ford 8N tractor, replacing the broken ballast resistor in the ignition circuit and installing a new carburetor. I hope to get the tractor running later today.

The F-150 and the RAV-4 both received oil and filter changes. Given the relatively few miles we put on them – about 5K last year on the F-150, for example – the next required change should be several months away.

That about wraps it up for this post. The upcoming week has a few things scheduled, including taking the kittens to the vet for their first wellness checks and shots, and Pam’s follow-up appointment at the clinic to make sure the facial incision is healing correctly. I will report on those activities in my next post.

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

Pam’s Penny

1948 was a freakin’ hot summer, setting all kinds of local record high temps. This past week towns and cities in NE Iowa and SE Minnesota broke most of the records set in 1948. Yippee. Temps near 100 and humidity in the 80% range felt like the tropics. (I am not a fan of the tropics.) For the first time I can remember, a ticker ran during the news on the TV screen identifying school hours shortened due to intense heat. Hopefully our “climate change moment” for the month has passed.

Happy Trails.

Some weeks are routine, even mundane. This past week was mostly one of those weeks. I have a few photos taken around the yard and of the equipment trailer. Nothing exciting there.

But for medical drama, I’ll begin with Pam’s surgery to remove a spot of skin cancer from her forehead. Done at the Gunderson Clinic in Onalaska (north of La Crosse) the 4 hour procedure went according to plan. Pam reports the pain can be handled with Tylenol and is not bad. However, the area above and below the left eye has turned purple. Pam won’t be making public appearances for a while.

Her 24 +/- stitches, mostly hidden in this photo under the Band-Aids, will be removed by the clinic in town next Wednesday. It’s anticipated it will take a couple weeks for the bruising to subside.

Other events were not nearly as interesting. For example, I had the fender brace on the equipment trailer welded and installed a new tail light. (This was the brace that broke on the return trip from Colorado earlier in the month.) The other light was replaced at the same time so both sides match.

I did some work on the Ford 8N tractor, but need parts to go any further. A ballast resistor, part of the ignition circuit, had died and needs to be replaced. After jumping around the broken part the tractor started but ran for only a minute or so.

Further investigation revealed carburetor problems. The needle and seat that allows fuel to enter the carb was continually stuck shut. A disassembly and cleaning did not help, so a repair kit will be in order. At least I know the tractor will start and run.

In anticipation of boiling hot temps predicted for the coming week, Pam decided to move Frito’s kittens into the house from the catio. Below, the brown kitten is Reese, and the other is Snickers. The single kitten is AJ, short for Almond Joy.

Acorn season has begun in the 100 year old oaks growing between the house and garage. It seems as if thousands of nuts, and their caps, are falling from our oak trees. Last year we saved one small bag of acorns as squirrel food, and it was well received by our local crew. This year we decided to expand the amount we harvested to extend the winter squirrel feeding season.

Acorns are still falling; we can hear them “pinging” off the house and garage as we do outside tasks, but the bulk seem to have hit the ground. The nuts and caps make walking around the lawn something of a challenge as they roll underneath our feet. Luckily, the riding lawn mower, with bagger, picks up most of the caps and some of the nuts, but it does leave a lot of nuts behind that need to be raked up and loaded into the dump trailer. This will be an ongoing task for the next several weeks.

Around the yard, sunflowers are beginning to bloom. The indian corn is tasseling out, the hollyhocks are generating seeds, and geraniums on the east side of the front porch are adding color to the yard. It’s high summer.

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

Pam’s Penny

It was a long drive (through parts of three states) to have my Mohs surgery on the facial lesion. What a lot of drama for a procedure that should be in the routine category. I asked my dermatology surgeon what is the deal with Mohs surgery; he said it’s an add-on specialty to the standard physician learning package. It’s been difficult for both local clinics (NE Iowa) and larger clinics (Gundersen Clinic) to hire personnel trained in the Mohs procedure. Fewer doctors trained, fewer clinics providing surgical appointment times.

My black eye is truly the biggest issue of the entire surgical event. Ugh. At least I enjoyed a large blackberry shake from Culver’s before the long drive home.

Happy Trails.

Here is a short post that contains two more videos and additional miscellaneous photos from my recent trip to our lot in Colorado.

One evening bad weather rolled in and delivered a hail storm. Here is what it sounded like and the aftermath as seen the following morning. Run time: 1:58.

The ground was white with hail, but all melted off during the day adding moisture to the grass and trees. The date was August 6th, 2023.

Pam had asked me to do a “lot walk-around” video as she has not been to the lot in the last few years, and I had been clearing dead trees and brush in this interval. The video is fairly long at 18:58 but does cover quite a bit of ground. Shot over two days, there is some overlap and different lighting – some evening, some daylight. The clip is as much for historical purposes as anything so we can remember all the effort and time we have put into this parcel since we bought The Lot in September of 2012.

The following photos all fall into the “miscellaneous” category.

This first photo shows some damage to my equipment trailer due to a very rough road leading from The Lot. I strapped the fender to the tractor and continued home to Iowa. The local repair shop will re-weld the broken fender bracket and replacement tail lights are on order.

This photo shows the location of buildings at the top of Boreas Pass in its heyday. Find the Log Section House near the top of the map and note a small building just to the right. Around this cabin is were Mountain Lorrie (Pam’s mother, Lorraine) requested her ashes to be dispersed after a trip to the pass with us in the late ’70s.

One can sometimes see strange things along a trail, including this bus that was partially buried and converted into a hunting (?) camp.

Eastern Colorado appears to be expanding the variety of crops being grown. These sunflowers along I-76 added a golden cast to the landscape.

I am including a photo for Craig who asked about the ATV fitting in the truck.

And, to round out this post, a couple photos of me along the trails. All were on National Forest lands and were pretty well marked. I used my Avenza map application, on my phone, to track my location along the way.

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

There has been quite a bit of activity since my last post. I took a trip to The Lot in Colorado, Pam and Becky attended a Nordic Fest, the catio kittens are getting more active, and a few medical notes are included in this post. Let’s get started!

Pam had encouraged me to take a trip to The Lot so I could spend my birthday in the high country. While I didn’t do much work ( I did pile some brush) most of the time was spent on ATV trips on trails west of Fairplay.

I will not bore readers with multitudinous details, but the trails were pleasant. Here are a few photos taken along the way.

During the trip I made a point to visit Boreas Pass, where Pam’s Mom’s ashes were scattered years ago. Here is what the place looks like this year.

One of my outings crossed paths with a small herd of antelope.

I sat out an evening hail storm in The Box, and rose to find the ground covered with hail the next morning.

All-in-all I had a pretty good trip.

I had taken my equipment trailer along with a plan to bring home the Ford 8N tractor. I had a few problems (broken fender brace and tail light) but managed to get the tractor loaded and returned to Iowa.

I returned home on a Tuesday and had my implant front tooth installed on Wednesday. No more do I need my “social tooth” which had filled the missing tooth gap (when I remembered to put it in). I am glad that process is over.

Pam will undergo minor surgery to remove a spot of basal cell carcinoma (a type of skin cancer) from her forehead next Wednesday. Becky will watch the cats and dogs as we travel to the La Crosse/Onalaska area for the day to have the procedure done. (Cat care includes feeding the growing kittens, who are now six weeks old and weaning away from mom. That little family is well and safely secured in the catio.)

Other events of the past few days…

I mowed the lawn, which had grown very little in my absence due to a lack of rain. We are getting some moisture today which should help relieve the dry conditions. Acorns are falling like shrapnel from the oak trees; on some parts of the lawn a person can literally roll along over the tops of acorns while walking. We are gathering a quantity of acorns this fall to feed the squirrels in January and February; this was very successful last year.

I visited another antique power show and wandered around for a few hours, taking in the sights and speaking to several of the exhibitors.

For any who may be interested, here is a 6:17 video of my visit to the show.

That about wraps it up. I have other videos from the trip but did not want to overload this post with them. Possibly they will make an appearance in future posts. (You have been warned!)

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

Pam’s Penny

The Decorah Nordic Fest is a fairly significant regional celebration. Sister Becky and I enjoyed this “real parade” one Saturday whilst Himself was in the high country. By real parade l mean: 1) at least one marching band, 2) floats showing intentional preparation, and 3) people in costume. Nordic Fest had it all, including one flatbed containing a men’s chorus (of various ages including high schoolers to retirees) whose music resounded superbly on the route. Very satisfying.

This is more what we expected our summers to be like in NE Iowa [before COVID hit] – attending various activities reflecting [each of] our interests, within comfortable driving distances from Elma. Even better if the activity in question is in a town with a Culver’s. Sweet.

Note to Deb: I’ll be happy to send you some Grandpa Ott seeds. I collect probably thousands from the morning glory vines in the fall. I have Tabitha’s address; I can send them there.

(Any others who ready the blog, if you’d be interested in some Grandpa Ott seeds, leave a comment.)

Happy Trails.