1 June 2020 Monday Another nice day. Another frenetic day. I had a long list of things that needed to be done. A run to the dump. A stop at Safeway. take the snow tires off the Land Rover and take them to the tire shop to have the summer tires put on the rims. The list goes on and on.

The first project was to jack up the Land Rover. I jacked up each corner of the Rover and removed the tire. Then I let it down on a concrete block. I guess we became rednecks for several hours. I was forced to take the tires off and take them in because the tire shop had some issue with the lug nuts. We had to buy new lug nuts last year because the same tire shop had a problem with the old lug nuts. Eight tires in the bed of ‘The Beast’ and off to the tire shop. They were busy so I had to wait for someone to unload the tires. I could have done it myself but they didn’t want me working while on their property. I think that the were afraid the old man might get hurt and sue them. When the tire were, finally, unloaded I was on to the next task.

Yesterday I checked the oil in the rear end of the tractor and found it to be about a quart low. This entailed continuing my trip into town to the local O’Reilly’s auto parts store for a gallon of gear oil. With the oil purchased, I decided to make the stop at Safeway to pick up the few items we needed. I got inside the the store and it was wall to wall people. It was then it occurred to me that it was the first of the month and all of the government checks had come in. With people cheek to jowl, it seemed prudent to put off the grocery shopping to another day. I still had a couple days of half&half for my coffee and everything else was just ‘wants’ not ‘needs’. Back at the ‘homestead’, I located my funnel and filled up the tractor rear end with the gear oil. Tractor serviced, I decided to move some dirt. Sheila, the dump truck, is blocking the other path around the house. She is sitting next to a pile of dirt. The dirt and the dump truck take up the entire front route. Summer keeps leaving her 4 wheeler in the other path around the house. Moving the dirt was supposed to be the easiest way to get from the garden area to the back of the house. The reason the dump truck can’t be moved is that the battery is in the travel trailer so that the slide outs and other things can be operated. Getting the battery in and out of the trailer is difficult. If I took it out to move the dump truck, I’d just have to wrestle it back into place in the trailer. I happened to look at my watch and it was already a quarter of four. The tire store was closing at five o’clock and I wanted the tires back on the Rover. I, also, had the truck bed full of stuff that needed to go to the dump. The stuff had to be removed from the truck before I could put all of the tires in it. I had to hurry. 15 miles to the dump 8 miles back to the tire store. I just made it.

Back home, AGAIN. I started to put the tires back on the Rover and revoke our redneck license by taking it off the concrete blocks. The tires had just come from the tire store and as I was putting them back on the Rover, I noticed that one of them had a nail in it. The nail was in it when they put the tire on the rim. I can’t figure out how they missed the nail through the tire. I could take it back to the tire store and complain but that would just result in them charging me another $20 to repair the tire. Somedays you can’t win for losing. I’ll just go into town in a day or two and buy a tire repair kit.

Summer arrived home at about 6 PM. By that time I had completed the tire installation. She wanted to take a walk around the property and do some more planning the new pond we’re about to have dug. Also she wanted to see if the geese had been laying their eggs in the tall grass near the big pond. No eggs to be found. They’re laying them somewhere. We’ll have to continue the search. When the new pond is dug, we’ll be fencing these errant egg laying critters in. Every fertile egg is worth around $12 when it hatches. We had five gosling and 10-12 calls for people seeking to buy them. There is a market for these Toulouse breed of geese. They’re gray and white and beautiful swimming and well adapted to the Alaskan climate.