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August 6, 2010

IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!

This has been a very relaxing week. All the grandkids have been here and gone, I got my house back in order and most of my projects completed. After we get back from our steam meet in Tacoma this weekend, I will get ready for the next batch of company that we are expecting. I hope I don't sound like I don't like having company, it is just the opposite, I love having people come stay with us but it is also nice to have a breather once in awhile.

One of my projects that I wanted to get done this summer was the unsightly brush between our place and Dave's sister's house next door. It's kind of at the back of the property but it still bugged me to look out and see the blackberries and other brush and grasses growing there. So on Saturday, I started hacking away on that eyesore. I got most of the "big" stuff cut down with my hand cutters, and then borrowed my sister-in-law's weedwacker that we had given her as a birthday present to go after some of the smaller stuff. I started weedwacking away and barely scratched the surface. I had Dave help me by clearing out all of the metal scraps, pieces of wood and other garbage that had collected in this area. I also uncovered a couple of snakes (one living inside a piece of corrugated pipe and another wrapped around a rusty old coil). They scared me as much as I scared them and I am sure they are living in a safer place by now. Anyway, on Sunday after breakfast, I started once more on my project, working for a couple more hours until I almost fainted from either the heat (it wasn't that hot) or lack of water. Anyway, I took the rest of the day off and recuperated. On Monday I finally finished up with the project. Dave got the Kubota out and leveled the big piles of dirt that the builders of his sister's garage had left up on that bank. That should make it easier for her to maintain from now on. It sure looks a lot better from my point of view. Once again, I neglected to get a "before" photo, but picture grass, weeds, Scotchbroom, blackberries, wood, metal, barrels and a pile of dirt in front of the building on the right.

I ran into Tillamook on Tuesday afternoon. I had an appointment to get my nails done and made sure I left in plenty of time because during the summer months or "tourist season" you need to add about ten minutes to your journey. Between the RV's and people slowing down to look at the scenery, it can really hold you up. It is especially slow going through some of these small towns as people are darting across the roads and you have to slow down to make sure you don't hit anyone. I ended up taking another way back home (Miami Foley Road) which wanders around the back way and is a little longer but I actually made it home faster.

I was so frustrated the other day as I was coming through Nehalem (another small town) where the highway turns right at a corner in the center of town. There is a "Right Turn Permitted Without Stopping" sign at the corner and it never fails that you will get behind some tourist who doesn't read the sign and stops. Traffic can back up a couple of blocks when everyone in line stops, even though they're all turning right! If one stops, they all stop! It is like a bunch of sheep. I usually end up honking my horn in frustration and this will either make them move or then pull off the road and let this "mad" woman pass them! It's not a good intersection and they really need to do something about it, but in the meantime - read the sign!

We are having a never-ending battle with the pigeons around here - and the pigeons are winning. They will swoop down and devour all of the birdseed out of my feeders in the blink of an eye. There are about forty of them and they can clean me out in no time. We end up going out and waving our hands around like idiots and hitting a piece of paper to shoo them away, but they always come back. Dave finally ended up putting some chicken wire around my one feeder that the Goldfinches use and that helped because the pigeons can't reach the food through the wire. But they still kill each other over the other feeders, so the battle goes on.

We are leaving today for a steam meet in Tacoma, Washington. Once a year, the Northwest Steam Society holds it's big meet somewhere here in the northwest. This year, we're at the Foss Waterway Seaport Museum in downtown Tacoma. We're not taking the Captain Bell this year. The steamer is just not running right and we've been to too many meets where Dave had to work on the boat all weekend instead of enjoying the get-together, so we just decided to leave it parked in the driveway. Dave spent a couple of days this week trying to get the boat running right, and he has been very frustrated that he can't make it work - I mean VERY frustrated. There is a fuel-flow problem and even though he has fuel in the line, he can't get it to flow into the burner. It's like it's defying the laws of physics and it's driving him crazy! He'll talk to a few fellow steamers at the meet this weekend and see if he can get some inspiration. We haven't even had the boat in the water this year, and it's already August. Hopefully, by this time next week we'll have taken care of that.