At Home Today . . .

My 2010 Ford Explorer is getting a new front bumper today.  A deer decided to cross the road while I was fast approaching.  We collided.  She managed to break the plastic, perhaps fiberglass, front cover over the real bumper.  USAA generously paid for about half of it, I had to pay for the rest of it.  So the car is in the shop.

It is a dreary day, heavily overcast and cool to cold weather.  We had a drizzly rain for a while, not much accumulation like we need, but rain none-the-less.  We will take any we can get.  But it all makes for a nasty day, a great day to stay inside.

Not to fear, Judie, the wife, has her car so we are not house bound.  But its her car not my car and thus might go to places I would not go.  We share but you know, it is still her car.

I wait for the dealer to call.  I am sure it is tedious to remove the bumper (cover?) and reinstall a new one.  One of those jobs that takes time to do.  It is lunch time now so looks like it will take all day to get it done, maybe be ready tomorrow.  I just do not know what to expect.

Until then . . .

Old and New . . .

I received the Banner yesterday and saw in the Obituary column a name I would never have considered to be a candidate for the paper.  It was John Lieux.  I last saw John at our 50th high school reunion in New Roads in 2008.  I recall John as his jovial self and hale and hardy.  But I also recall his wife saying he had had a by pass operation.

It was distressing news to me  that he had passed away.  He was a contemporary.  We went to LSU together though we seldom met as he went his way and I mine.  My class mates are slipping away, one here and another there.

I posted a comment in the Obituary book at the Ourso Funeral Home in Gonzales, Louisiana.  There I saw a name I had not seen since my early days of LSU, Allen Bello.  Allen was one of my high school running buddies though he went to Poydras and I to St Josephs.  Ironically, both schools are closed though St Josephs Academy has morphed into Catholic High of Pointe Coupee, a different school plant and location but still in town.  There is no public high school in New Roads now days.

I looked up Allen noting a Lake Charles address.  Found his phone number so I called him.  We had a nice conversation going down memory lane.  We talked about the different class members we knew, had seen or communicated with. 

Allen told me since his mother died he did not visit New Roads much any more.  The connection was lost, the reason to return was gone.  I said we still went there three or four times a year.

It was a good nostalgia trip.

The Leak . . .

We had a bothersome leak in the irrigation system.  It is in the addition we put in in the rear of the back yard.  Our good friend and at that time, neighbor, got the materials for us.  He had been in the irrigation business and was the Secretary for the Texas Irrigation Contractors Association.  So he knows what he is doing.

Unfortunately the glue he got was no good.  And over time joint and after joint in that addition has come apart.  Of course, normal expansion and contraction adds to the problem but this glue was worthless.  So I find the leaks, and reseal using newer glue.  The new stuff works.

Well I dug up the spot and found the leak,  it had nothing to do with the bad glue.  I had to use some hose to make a joint.  The two pipes crossed at less than 90 degrees, more like 70 degrees and they do not make joints like that.  So I used two nipples that screw on to the PVC connections and pushed on the hose.  It was somewhat hard to do but I got it done.  That was five years ago.

The hose was leaking where it was pushed on the nipple.  The nipple had ridges to prevent that but it leaked anyway.  Once I found it, I went and got a hose clamp, the kind that have a band that is tightened by a screw mechanism.  I threaded that around the hose on the nipple and tightened it down with a screw driver.  The leak is fixed!

That area has been a bad spot.  I had to resort to slip joints because of the expansion/contraction going on.  It has no less than two of them installed.  And of course, it has the off angle joint in the same area.  Maybe it will hold up for awhile.

I had to wait for the weather to abate a little bit.  It got to 70 degrees plus yesterday.  It was not that warm at 10 AM but it was above 45 degrees when I started the digging.  I dug down enough to see where the leak would be.  Then I turned on the well.

I knew it would take a few minutes to develop the location, so went over and filled up the bird baths.  Well I had next to no pressure.  Went and check the well and another of my neighbors glue joints had quit.  I shut down the well, uncover the plumbing (got insulation over the pipe to keep it from freezing) and there it was- a complete separation of an elbow.  The opposite end of the elbow had been fixed a month before.  Got my blue glue, and a rag; dried off the joint and slapped on the glue.  Quickly pressed the joint together.

Turned on the well 20 or so minutes later, joint fixed, leaked fixed, and pressure up everywhere.

Ready for Spring - in more ways than one.  Weather person said while we did not have any record lows and a couple of record highs, we had twice as many days with freezing temperatures occurring over night.  So yes, it was a cold winter and now it is time for it to depart.

Gotta go spray the Peach trees.

Wet and Freezy . . .

Wet and freezy this AM, went out to get the paper and found the water droplets on the paper had turned to ice.  It was kinda crunchy.  But fortunately, the paper person had double bagged the paper so it was nice and dry.  That seems to make it more readable.

Put out the garbage too.  I generally open the garage door to take out the garbage bag but on days like today, I haul the bag out the front door.  Keeps the heat in the garage a little warmer. it is where I do my hobby work.  We never have much in the line of garbage to take out since we eat out most of the time.  So it is a large black bag about half full, so it is easy to carry out the front door.  I dump it on the curb and walk around, pick the paper and circle back to the front door via our walk way in the front.  Make a bit loop, very efficient, especially if it is really cold and really wet, like rain.  One trip does it all.

Get back inside where it is dry and warm, put my Eggo waffles in the toaster and get out the oleo to butter them up.  Pour a cup of coffee, sit at the counter, and read and eat my breakfast.  Does not take much to read the Fort Worth Sun Telegram.  It is a sorry newspaper.

Then I clean up, put away the toaster and get on the computer.  That is the beginning of my day.

Damn Deer . . .

Damn deer cost me $500 last night.  A doe charged out of the brush along Mikus Road on her way to the Roger Williams donkey park.  Well I call it the Donkey Park, it is the pasturage surrounding his mother's house just off Mikus Road.  The deer cross, hop the fence or otherwise go through it, traverse the property.  Sometimes the dally and feed along with donkeys or horses which ever is in the pasture along the road.  Looked like she was picking up speed to make a leap over the fence and could not stop and check for cars.  Dumb deer!

It was about 6:30 PM, getting dark, when the deer charged out in front of our SUV.  I could not avoid her, and hit her with the left front corner of the SUV.  She knocked the license plate holder and license plate off, and cracked the bumper cover (it appears to be fiber glass or plastic) by the grill and running light.  I am sure that is gonna cost a nice penny to replace; it appears to be one piece that stretches across the entire front end below the grill.  And of course we have $500 deductible insurance.

So the deer cost me $500 for starters.  We have them constantly in and around our yard.  We can not have flowers of any sort or garden plants like peppers, they eat all of them down to the ground.  We have a ground cover they generally leave alone and some ivy like plants they do not bother.  And they have yet to eat an Iris but all else is game.  They love to eat roses, pansies and anything green except for Rosemary.  Rosemary is okay but it is sort of a single color of grayish green, sort of blob.  Not much character to it.

I will take the car into Service King for a damage appraisal tomorrow.  Then I will set up a repair via Hooks Lincoln.  They use an outside fellow to do the work and he has worked on our cars before.  Does a great job.  May be use the local Ford dealer or Roger Williams Chrysler (Roger is now a Congressman from a district just south of Fort Worth).  I don't think it will matter to much, they are about the same.

This event happened about a mile from our house.  Probably the same a member of the same deer herd that harasses us all the time.    Well there is one less deer to worry about.

Gold Finches . . .

I first saw Gold Finches in Tucson, Arizona.  The wild bird store there had a huge sack suspended outside of the place of business and there must have been 30 or 40 Gold Finches feeding on it.  They would fly off as we approached to enter the store and were soon back on the sack so to speak when we went inside or just passed by.  Great advertisement.

This is my second year of suspending a Finch feeder out front in the oak tree outside of my den window.  And in the last couple of weeks I have seen the Finches working away at the feeder.  It has been suspended there for about two months, a bit early.   But they are on to it now.

The Finches have found the feeder and are eating away.  They are not golden yet, they have some yellow but sort of faded and are mostly brown.  As Spring approaches they will molt off their winter coats and their summer coats will be bright yellow, hence the name Gold Finches.

It is fun to watch them as they will feed upside down.  A lot of feeders provide short posts on top of the seed ports.  And thus only Finches will feed on them.  The feeder we have now has a steel mesh, with large enough gaps to allow the thistle seed to be plucked out.  So the Finches feed upside down or right side up, it does not matter to them.  They can grab on to the mesh and go to work.

I note that the feeder is already down about a third which means we are getting a lot of traffic.  We do not always see them and sometimes due to their winter coats you have study the feeder to see them.  And of course, they can feed anywhere and thus some of them are out of sight on the opposite side of the feeder.  The feeder is black and the thistle seed is about the same color, so it is a black tube suspended from a limb.

People often tie a bit of yellow ribbon on the feeder to attach the birds but I have found that is not the case.  The Finches seem to sense the seed and adapt to the feeder in record time.  Right now I see three of them on the feeder.

Nature at its best!