On a bit of a roll.

I wanted to say,  "on a tear",   but that's a tricky word.  There were no tears (weeping) involved,  but it's the same word used to rip something in two.   Sometimes I feel bad (actually, "badly" but that doesn't sound right)  for those whose Mother Tongue is not English,  and who then have to try and figure it out.   That word "tear",  is not only a homonym,  but are heteronym. 

OK,  confused yet?   I knew it was a "homonym",  but didn't realise there were different types until I looked it up.   Isn't the internet wonderful? 

Well,  mostly.

Anyhoo,  I got it into my pea brain yesterday morning to do a little maintenance around the joint,  and started off by changing the oil in the stand-by generator.  It wasn't due for an oil change,  but I wasn't keen on the look of the oil,  and I have this thing about changing oil in a machine at least once a year anyway,  whether it needs it or not. 

You can see there that the oil looks kind of gross.  I even flushed some fresh oil through the thing,  just because I could.  Oil is cheap,  basically,  and I have damned near half a case of oil left over from when I used do oil changes on the motorhome.   And no,  it wasn't about the money.  Just the inconvenience of getting the thing out of storage,  taking it to some place that had a hoist that was capable of lifting the thing.  The final straw was when the dizzy...whatever at the counter forgot my appointment,  and well,  that kinda turned me off going back there.   Bought a creeper,  a case of oil at Costco,  and picked up filters at Napa.  And that was that.

But I digress.

Oh and by the way,  yes I unhooked the negative terminal of the battery.  If it were to randomly start up due to a power outage (really?)  that would be a definite "no bueno".

As I was in the mood,  I figured I'd do the lawn mower too.  And yes,  I know,  changing the oil in the fall is kinda dumb,  but it's been a while,  and....oil is cheap.

The blue mat is for my ageing knees.

What I have done in the case of each of these thingies is,  I write right next to the oil drain plug the size of the wrench I need.  A "Sharpie" works great.
The generator is 13mm,  the mower is 10.   So much easier than fumbling around.
I think I saw that tip way back when,  in the pre-internet days of "Popular Mechanics".  You could glean a certain amount of useful information to help you do your own stuff.  After having sifted through all the flotsam of course.

Kind of like the internet,  actually.  The flotsam part, I mean.


Now I just have to use up or drain the fuel in the mower and the weed whacker,  and that'll be it for the season.  I *might*  need to cut the grass one last time.  We'll see.

And....if the weather is anything like it is today for our trip to Buffalo on Monday to see the Bills game,  it's gonna kinda suck.

We're having some sort of apocalyptic rain and wind today,  and it ain't pleasant out there at all. 

Having a bitch of a time with grabbing a screen shot with this f**king Windows 10 that I have.  Crikey.   But here's what I got:

We'll see what Monday brings.

Thanks for stopping by.

Watching the "show".

Now that we're both "pensioners",  (love that term),  Travelling Companion and I like to sit in the living room in the morning with our coffees and watch the world go by.  There's the usual assortment of basketball bouncing boys on their way to school, mixed in with the dog walkers.  Dog poop picker uppers (we're watching you!)  and others.

Well,  this morning we had a special treat,  as one of our neighbours had a little "off leash"  incident with what will soon become yet another annoying dog in a long line of annoying dogs that they've had over the last 20 years or so.   Maybe longer.

Now,  the dog had a leash attached,  but of course,  didn't know enough to come when called.  Travelling Companion went so far as to say,  "That's a bad dog!".   But, as the dog is really just another pack animal,  and has no idea that the two lunk heads calling her are supposed to be the "alpha dogs",  she just figures it's play time. 

So,  just a "bad dog" in training.

I did have the camera at the ready,  but couldn't seem to capture the hilarity as the two idiots tried to coax, cajole,  threaten the dog to come to them.
And you know,  after having two previous idiot dogs,  you'd think they'd realise that they have no clue that they have no clue.
It's one of the latent human characteristics like,  talking down to someone.  Or,  being stupid and not knowing it.

There's a German expression that comes to mind.   Something about "knowing that you know nothing..."

Wer nichts weiß und weiß, dass er nichts weiß, weiß mehr als der, der nichts weiß und nicht weiß, dass er nichts weiß.

I'll let you look that one up.


Oh and,  in defence of the dog?  She's probably a sweetheart but,  to quote a gentleman I once met in Ludlow, New Brunswick,  "She ain't go no larnin'".    And yes,  if you draw a more or less straight line from The Appalachians on up into the Maritimes,  you get my drift.


Anyway,  life goes on here at the Ponderosa. 

Masts have been stepped.  Boats have been put up.   Leaves are getting raked (well,  blown really)  and gardens are getting ripped up.
T.C. and I have yet to plant some garlic for next year,  and that may happen today or tomorrow.   If you've never had home grown garlic,  you have no idea what you're missing.  See reference above.

I suppose I could relate a little bit about the "fridge saga".  Yes?

See,  back in August,  just before Travelling Companion was to go off to first Paris and then on to Kenya,   our "GE Profile"  fridge decided to take a little holiday as well.
On the plus side,  we did made some discoveries concerning mystery items that had been left in the freezer compartment,  and thankfully we have a full sized fridge downstairs.   And you know,  there had been talk of "getting rid" of that fridge,  but thankfully that never happened.   Plus,  right now it's full of bags of apples.   But I digress.

At the time,  especially  as T.C. was going away,  I figured I would just get by as I wasn't about to go fridge shopping in her absence.  Not prudent.

I brought in the small bar fridge that I have in my garage/shop,  which was handy enough for a few things like milk and cream for our coffee,  along with whatever else I could squeeze in.

Then of course,  after taking a gander on the internet,  somewhere I read that,  if you unplug the thing for 24 hours,  it might work again.  And it did!   For a time.

This time of course,  I had placed a thermometer inside,  as I was having some trust issues,  and sure enough,  along towards the first full week of September,  it started to fail again.  It had to go.


I'm just going to jump ahead here and point out that,  this is the new one:

It's got that whole "bottom freezer"  thing going on,  which is pretty cool.   However,  we do think it's a "stupid fridge".  It doesn't seem to have the room of the previous one,  and one of the drawers for cold cuts or whatever,  can only be accessed if you open BOTH DOORS! 
Right.  Stupid.

Oh and,  you'll notice that there are no doors on the cabinet above? 

*sigh*


This,  was essentially what I had to do to fit in a new fridge.

 You can see the old one sitting out there in the hallway.  Even though the fridge body is the same size,  the doors at the front,  and the hinges to which they are attached,  are a couple inches bigger/taller/whatever.

So ya,  that was "fun'.   I'm trying not to curse right about now. 

You're welcome.

The short story is,  we ordered the wrong size fridge since,  unbeknown to us,  the salesman didn't really know what the f**k he was talking about,  and it was only the delivery guy who pointed out that,  even with the doors removed,  the "LG"  that we wanted,  wouldn't make it through the doorway opening leading to the kitchen. "They don't include the stuff sticking out at the back in the dimensions".   Huh?
 I had to go back to the appliance place and purchase a "counter depth" fridge.  I think that's what it was called.

Now the good news was,  it was about five hundred bucks cheaper than the LG however,  we really wanted the LG.  Not another GE Profile.  *sigh*     The GEs are now made in China.  The LGs are still made in Korea.

No bueno.

We'll see if this one lasts as long as the previous one,  but I have my doubts.
  Oh,  and the other thing?   The new fridge was on back order.  We had Thanksgiving here,  with no fridge in the kitchen.  But hey,  it just means one has to be flexible.  Or something.

The appliance place had offered to send us a temporary fridge,  but we didn't really want that,  as then they'd have to take it away again of course. There's always the chance that something is going to get scratched or bumped. 
Nope,  we would just wait it out for the one that's going to stay.

Interestingly,  when T.C. asked if they would charge the fifty dollar delivery charge for the temporary fridge,  they said "no".  So that begged the question,  why did we get charged fifty dollars for a fridge that we didn't receive? 
Needless to say,  T.C. got our fifty bucks back.    Apparently it comes out of the commission of the stupid salesman.   I was quite content to hear that.



I think I had better stop now,  as I'm already on a rant about stupid people.

At some point I suppose I'll have to make some new doors for that cabinet and turf the old ones out.  Just not really looking forward to it is all.

Again,  *sigh*.

Thanks for moving your eyes back and forth.

Keep that stick on the ice.

And keep smiling.

Give peas a chance.

That one got a groan from Travelling Companion. 

See,  I had a hankering for a "hot turkey sandwich",  and I don't know about how you do this,   but I'm pretty sure it comes with peas.   If they're frozen peas,  that's fine.   She couldn't find the peas.   And that's not the way things usually go.  Typically,  I'm the one who can't fine things, but our little chest freezer is a wee bit on the full side lately,  especially with Thanksgiving and all.  Since well,  we didn't exactly eat all the stuff that had been prepared and frozen ahead of time,  "just in case".
Because,  even though just about everyone brought a dish,  we were without question,  going to starve to death.  (That's sarcastic font,  by the way.)

And by the way,  I started this last night,  but got interested in a thing about the Ringling Bros. on Public Television and didn't come back.

Of course,  as it was the first day after Thanksgiving,  there's always going to be turkey left over,  and I'm just about at the end of the line when it comes to turkey sandwiches and such.  I think that the "hot turkey sandwich" will be pretty much the end of it.   I'll try and polish off some tomorrow  today for lunch but then,   I'm out.

This year we decided to forgo the trip up to The Kawarthas for Thanksgiving,  as we were not able to find a decent place to stay (too crowded at my niece and nephew's place)  for a half decent price.  The one place that's not too far away is something like nine hundred bucks for the weekend and well,  the owners really need to do a little sprucing up on that place.  So,  when offered,  we had to decline.

Besides,  for a few years now after coming back from Europe,  we've been doing the Kawarthas thing,  which meant that Daughter Number Two and Hubby wouldn't be there,  as they have two dogs and a cat,  and are unable to be away for any length of time.  I have no opinion about that. I'm sure any one of their pet owning neighbours would be quite happy to look in on the pets/walk the dogs/whatever,  but there's some sort of "separation anxiety"  going on there.  I think.

So this year,  we had seventeen for dinner,  including both daughters and various other relations.  No pictures.  Well,  none for the internet at least.

There hasn't been too much else that's been overly excited since you last heard from me.   The sailing season is winding up.  We have one more "thing" this coming weekend called the "Die Hards",   and if it were to happen today,  for example,   we'd be wearing our shorts and sun block.   We're having a couple days of record setting heat here at The Ponderosa.   It's kinda crazy actually.  I know it can get warm in October,  but this is a wee bit nuts.

I don't mind.   But I refuse to put on the air conditioning.

Speaking of Daughter Number Two,  I pressed her into service to help with some grunt work on Friday,  as I had been wanting to split up all of the firewood that I ended up with after the two remaining ash trees were cut down.

So,  from this:

To this:

And no,  we didn't split by hand,  I rented a gas powered splitter from The Home Despot.  It was about 80 bucks (taxes in) for four hours.  Well worth it.

Similar to this:

I'm not entirely sure I'll live long enough to burn up all the firewood that has been produced,  but I'll give it a good try.   Some cold weather would be helpful.   Not that I'm wishing for winter or anything.  Just saying.

I mentioned Travelling Companion earlier.   Did I also mention she took a trip to Africa?

I'm not kidding.   First to Paris for an overnight,  then on to Nairobi,  where she and her sister went to a wedding.   Then a safari run by the Maasai Tribe
Then back to Paris and down to Lyon,  where the two of them stayed for 10 days with friends of her sister in a little place called Barberaz.
Anyhoo,  she was gone from August 14th until September 6th.   Had a wonderful time.
Glad to be home.  I soon realised that life on my own kinda sucked.  Especially at meal time.  "Cooking" for one is a challenge.  Note the quotation marks.


She was going to take a cab/limo home,  but I chose to pick her up at the airport.   Not for the faint of heart,  as their arrival or trip through the airport was somewhat delayed.   You might get onto the ground on time,  but if there's some other issue with baggage handling,  or customs or whatever,  you're still going to be late.   This time it was baggage.  I think.  I don't quite remember.
My arm was getting tired from holding onto the roses I had brought.

Hey,  some times I take pictures of "stuff",  and I have no idea what to do with them.  So there you go.

Now,  don't be fooled.  I normally don't do this sort of thing,  but it was a long trip,  and she likes flowers.  So what the hell.  A feller has to score a couple bonus points from time to time.
They lasted over a week.   And that whole "lasting" thing is the reason I typically don't buy flowers.  At least not roses.  They're expensive,  and they're gone in no time it seems.

Oh,  and by the way,  "Valentine's Day"?   Never.  Not even a box of chocolates.  We just don't go there.


I'm sure there were a few more things that happened,  but I suspect you're eyes are getting tired from moving back and forth,  so I'll pack it in for now.

Thanks for stopping by.


:)