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.
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