25 October 2020 Sunday

Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday were beautiful, sunny days. I arose this morning to pizzling rain, and a cold wind out of the northwest. A raw, cold cutting wind that just cut right through three layers of shirts and sweaters like I was standing outside naked. This weather almost makes me look forward to snow. Went back into the house and got my lined rain jacket. That made things much better. We got mud, mud and more mud. Where we don’t have mud we have rocks. The temperature is a balmy 40 F. without the wind it would be tolerable and any activity would have you shedding a layer of outer clothing. We seem to never get rain in the summer when we need it for the gardens and to fill the duck ponds.

Funny, to me, I got a call from a polling operation. They were, obviously, push polling so I told them what they wanted to hear. Yep, I’m voting for Biden, Gross an all of the Democrats. At least, that’s what I told them. I usually hang up on the pollsters but I thought this might be fun. He asked the same questions about 4 different ways. His problem was that I am really good at taking tests. If you’ve ever taken a test for a job, you’ll remember that the often ask the same question several different ways. The test is designed to trip you up. Unless you can remember how you answered the last permutation of the question, you might answer the next version differently and cause you to not get the job. Anyway, he hung up fully certain that he’d just talked with a loyal Liberal Democrat. He was happy and I got to amuse myself for a few minutes.

We’ve been running a “garage sale” in the tent/greenhouse. Now that the bulb planting season is over we have no garden stuff to sell that can be planted in frozen ground. The ground has. been kind of crusty frozen for several of the past mornings. It thawed later in the day but this is the bellwether announcing that the hard as rock ground is not too far away.
The sale was pretty good Friday and Saturday but today has been a bust. Since there were no customers braving the rain, we started unloading storage containers out of the loft of the storage tent. 16×20 with an attic built in and slam full of stuff we no longer need or want. The only things in the tent that we really want and need are the new cabinets for the kitchen. The kitchen installation has been delayed and then delayed and then delayed some more. Summer and I are both sick of the half-assed kitchen we’ve been using. Not only that we’re living amongst neatly stacked boxes of hardwood flooring that cannot yet be installed. Both of these projects are held up by the need for the final leveling of the house. That grinding task is still a few days away. I’m still waiting for the new concrete footings to be fully set. I’ve been advised to allow them to set for, at least, three weeks because of the lower temperature since they were poured. In the mean time, we are just going to continue the sell off of our excess personal property for an additional week.

26 October 2020 Monday

Woke up at 6:00 AM to a deluge of water falling from the sky and the wind rip roaring around and shaking the house. Today, in spite of the rain and the wind, I’m doing a dump run this morning. After the dump run, I’m changing the truck over to my studded winter tires as it has been snowing in the passes on the way to Anchorage. Will be checking the front disc brake pads. I may need to replace the the brake pads and have the discs turned. We have put some 50,000 miles on these brakes. I’m fairly certain that I’m doing brake work today. I hate brake work but the local mechanics would charge well over $350 to do a job that will cost only about $100 for parts and paying for the discs to be turned. I understand ‘overhead’. However, for a job that would take them about an hour, I can’t bring myself to donate $250+ to their profit margin. It will end up taking me 3-4 hours because of having to wait for the discs to be turned. I guess I’m just a miserly old man.

Tomorrow I’m off to the big city of Anchorage. Anchorage is the stinky armpit, maybe crotch, of Alaska. It is a crime infested, vagrant filled Lib/Prog/Communist craphole. When in Anchorage, I only get out of my truck at the supply house and to pump fuel. I really don’t want to become an Anchorage crime statistic. The Mayor of Anchorage just had to resign for emulating Bill Clinton behavior. The reason for the trip is that Summer has merchandise, for her garden center business, that needs to be picked up. My trip will cost about $80 and the freight to have the stuff delivered would be about $200. I’ll drive the 430 mile round trip which will save $120. It takes about 4 hours to drive to Anchorage. The day will be close to 10 hours from home to home. I’ll be leaving before daylight and I have a real problem seeing at night. Cataract surgery is being scheduled. This will be a nice change and a good trip for Suzy and myself. She hasn’t been anywhere in several months and I think she gets bored at staying home. I know, for certain, that I do.

Well, I’m off to the dump. Y’all do your best to behave.