The weeks news. A little gardening, some repairs, and what do we do for fun?
It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain. My little slice of heaven in the great northwest.
It’s Mother’s Day today, so I made the lovely wife breakfast this morning. Now, she is getting ready to do some planting since we picked up some soil, tomato plants, and strawberry plants, in town yesterday when we went after water. The lovely wife then spent the afternoon pulling out, and cleaning, all the pots of varying sizes.
Our water trailer broke down this past week, metal fatigue caused the tongue to crack, making the trailer unsafe to tow any longer. So, I removed the axle and tongue, making what was left light enough, and small enough, to set in the bed of the pickup. My son pulled the 12-volt pump out of the old camper sitting on the lower lot and I rigged it up to hook to the truck battery and attach to the water trailer. Now, we just fill the water barrel in the back of the truck, back the truck up close to the cabin, and pump the water into the barrel in the bathroom. Later, I think I will run a permanent pipe from the outside to the barrel, so all we have to do is attach the hose outside and turn on the pump. But for now, the hose will work, besides, I have way too many things to get done before next winter.
We have a couple thinking of returning to the mountain. Anyone who has read my first book will know who I am talking about. Ernest T and Sherylee are back. It turns out they didn’t stay in Chile after all. (They only stayed for a month, because they couldn’t find any place that would rent them a home that allowed a dog.) They have been moving around the country since they returned from the southern hemisphere. Even though they sold their cabin up here to a relative, they are planning to move back in once again. Not sure how long that will last before Sherylee is sick of it. She hates winters up here and was more than ready to leave a few years ago, vowing never to return. I guess the cabin is pretty much trashed inside. The last relatives who stayed there left things quite the mess, and years of critters moving in has left everything else in a sad state of disrepair. Ernest T will have to replace all of the insulation and plumbing, as the pipes weren’t drained and are now all busted from winter freezing. I am sure the well pump is shot as well, but that’s not my problem.
Our old 4-wheeler, which broke down during the winter, was towed home shortly after we got the pickup in. Friday, I got it running again, only to find the fuel pump had started leaking bad enough that the machine couldn’t stay running, and would stall when put in gear. I have a new pump ordered and should have it fixed by next weekend.
Someone asked me what we do for fun up here, because I never write about fun things, only projects and such. While projects can bring their own satisfaction, and fun, we do have fun doing other things. I write, the lovely wife crochets or sews, and we both read pretty much anything we can get our hands on. We have quite a large collection of books here, and it grows all the time, especially if we happen to wander into a used book store. Soon, I will have to build another cabin to hold all of our books if we continue. We have gone to the nearby lake a time or two, but we really just enjoy relaxing at home, away from the rat race. In these times, with COVID 19 haunting the country, we are content to stay home more often.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
