Monthly Archives: August 2024

20240801-04_A busy-start-to-August

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NOTE:  This is a moderate length post (for me).  It has two (2) photos with captions, both taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

THURSDAY 01 thru SUNDAY 04 August 2024 — Heat, rain, mosquitoes, and a busy week (BdW guests, laundry appliances, dogs, glasses, finances, and more) but no more yard work

 

Thursday 01 August … New glasses, a dead battery, more work tables, and Wild Turkeys in a tree

I got a text message yesterday that my new/remade tri-focal glasses were ready, so we made a trip to the Brighton SVS Vision Center to pick them up.  But not in the F-150.  When I tried to start it, the battery was completely dead.  It turned out that the headlight switch had been moved from the AUTO position to the Running Lights position, and left that way overnight.  Mea culpa, and I should have known, but I ignored the chime that continued when I turned off the engine last night and removed the key.  Dumb.  We took Linda’s car instead.

My new tri-focal glasses were correct this time, improving my distance vision just enough to make road signs at various distances sharper.  The reading and middle portions of the lenses were the same as before.  The optician made adjustments to the ear hooks and the nose pads until they sat correctly on my face with its slightly askew nose, which was broken many, many years ago.  I also had her look at my reading glasses.  I got the lenses there a month or so ago, but had them use an existing frame that I liked.  One of the ear covers had cracked and separated into two pieces.  She was able to heat them both up (left and right, one at a time) to remove them and replace them with new ones.  She also noticed that the nose pads were cracked and needed to be replaced, so she did that as well.  She then adjusted the ear hooks and nose pads so they sat correctly on my slightly crooked face.  No charge for the extra services.

Back home, we stopped at the barn and I retrieved a battery charger and a set of jumper cables.  The truck was in the garage.  The engine compartment is “tall”, so I placed the battery charger on the fold out platform of a 6 ft stepladder.  This allowed the battery cables to reach the battery in the engine compartment and the power cord to reach a nearby ceiling outlet.  I connected the cables, plugged in the power cord, and set the operating parameters:  AGM, 25 Amps.  The display quickly ramped up to 25.8 Amps and stayed there.  That was good news; some battery chargers will not work unless they detect at least some minimum voltage level from the battery.  I am hopeful that the battery will recover; it’s only a few years old had never been abused prior to this accidental discharge.

The bottom end of one of the Rockler Rock-Steady 32” legs with the adjustable foot installed, but not adjusted or tightened.

The Rock-Steady leg is a simple, but cleaver, design.  A flat sheet of steel is machined with various openings, both round and square, to allow other components to be attached, either with machine screws/bolts, or with carriage bolts.  The bottom end is partially slit at the mid-point to form two tabs, one slightly longer than the other.  The tabs are then bent 90 degrees, shorter one first and then the longer one.  The entire sheet is then folded along its midline, forming an angle iron, with the tabs overlapping.  The overlapping tabs are drilled to accept the adjustable feet, and the whole piece is then power-coated.

I changed into my work clothes and headed to the barn to assemble the last (for now) Rockler Rock-Steady Work Table.  I attached this one to the table along the south wall of the shop that was already attached to the Corner Table in the SE corner of the shop.  In this configuration, I will have a work surface along the south wall of the shop that is at least 20” deep and 144” (12’) long.  It will end just shy of the “protected” (no storage allowed) area in front of the shop/storeroom electrical sub-panel.  A picture will make this much clearer.

The workshop (in the barn) as seen from the entry door looking east.  The Corner Stand to the left (NE corner of the shop) has two Rock-Steady Work Stands attached.  The Corner Stand to the right (SE corner of the shop) also has two Rock-Steady Work Stands attached, plus a third Rock-Steady Work Stand along the wall on the right, which is attached to the one from the Corner Stand.

It was warm in the shop, even with a box fan running, so I got a bit sweaty and took a shower before dinner.  Having only had a muffin for breakfast, and skipping lunch, Linda made a large salad and we had an early dinner around 4 PM.

As we were eating, Linda noticed a lone Wild Turkey resting at the base on one of our large White Pine trees to the east of the valley for our walk-out basement door.  We thought that was odd, but it seemed to be okay.  As we were clearing the table, I saw a small turkey (jake) drop out of the tree, and then another one.  I called Linda over, and we watched the entire flock, including the other adult, drift down out of the tree.  So, it wasn’t a lone turkey after all; it was our usual flock of 10.  It was the second time this week that I had seen them in a tree, and the first for Linda.

 

Friday 02 August … Boondockers, bus chat, and financial chat

Rick (BdW PeachyTravel) was out this morning with their dog, Barkley, and we had a nice chat.  They pulled out before I left to meet Chuck S. at 11:30 AM for lunch at Leo’s Coney Island in S. Lyon.

Chuck and I had a lot to catch up on, and occupied a booth for three (3) hours!  The restaurant was busiest from noon to 1 PM, but had open seats the whole time there, and no one suggested we should move on.  It rained off and on while driving there, while we visited, and on the drive home.  By 5 PM we had a lot of standing water in the usual low spots around our property.

During the afternoon, I got a call from Kishen, one of our financial advisors at Stifel-Nicolaus.  We had a nice chat and made an investment decision.  We have been 100% satisfied with this company and the specific team of people we work with directly.  Sometime during the day, Linda also talked to Nan (of Paul & Nancy) regarding the cruise we are all taking in early December.

BdW guest Marcia B was supposed to arrive today for a 2-night stay, but cancelled last night.  It happens, and cancelations are never a problem for us as long as we know.  We are also RVers, and we understand that things can happen, even at the last minute, that change travel plans.

 

Saturday 03 August … A birthday and party planning

Today was our son’s 46th birthday (1978).  Linda wanted to have the family over to celebrate, but today was not convenient, so it was set up for tomorrow.   I do not recall what I did today, but it probably included a trip to Recycle Livingston to get rid of our household recyclables, doing laundry, and working at my desk.  The mosquitos have been very bad, so we have temporarily eschewed working on the property.  Linda spent a good part of the day preparing for the family get-together.  That included cleaning the house, a trip to the grocery store, and preparing food.  At some point, I brought chairs up from the basement and we put the expansion leaf in the dining room table.

 

Sunday 04 August …  A family gathering and a birthday celebration

Linda arranged a family gathering for today at our house to celebrate our son’s birthday.  Brendan was there (of course) with his daughters (Sadie and Madeline) and our daughter, Meghan, was there with her husband, Chris.  Brendan’s wife, Shawna, whose birthday was in 11 more days, had previously made plans to go out of town for a weekend with her girlfriends.  She was missed, but everyone still enjoyed themselves.  Our daughter made a vegan peanut-butter chocolate cake for dessert; vegan for us and peanut-butter/chocolate for her brother.  It was amazing.

When everyone had left, we just relaxed.  In the evening, we continued watching the NBC recap of the Paris 2024 Olympics.

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20240731_What-a-Day

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NOTE:  This is a long post with one (1) photo with caption, taken by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.

 

WEDNESDAY 31 July 2024 — Property maintenance, Laundry appliances, lunch out, and dogs

 

Keith arrived at 10 AM to mow the property.  We paid him, and then left for Big George’s Appliance Store in Ann Arbor.  Our daughter bought all her new kitchen appliances from Big George’s, and we bought our new refrigerator from them about a year ago.  It’s a great appliance store, with knowledgeable salespeople, and a range of products (all good quality) and prices (all the way up to very high end).  (They had an amazing French range.  It had 4 burners [2 gas and 2 electric] and two ovens.  It was made of steel and heavily insulated to retain heat.  It was on sale for $36,000 US.  List price was $65,000 US.  It would take a fork lift to move it, and you would have to build a kitchen around it, but it was magnificent.)  We admired the piece of kitchen sculpture, but were there to look for a new clothes washer and dryer for our laundry room.

In the last few months, I had seen some Youtube videos on heat-pump clothes dryers from technology channels that I trust (as much as I trust anything on Youtube), and I was intrigued by this “new” approach.  Why was I intrigued?  Well, you can get me out of engineering, but you can’t get the engineer out of me.  Also, because I am the one in our family who does most of the laundry, this decision would fall to me more than to Linda, although she always has the final vote (veto, same letters, different meaning) when it comes to the money.  But I also knew that it wasn’t really new; this technology has been used for years in Europe.

Heat-pump clothes dryers are much more energy efficient that resistive heating units, and easier on clothes as they operate at lower temperatures.  They are as much de-humidifiers as they are heaters.  Of particular interest to both of us, however, was that the heat-pump dryers are “ventless,” i.e., they do NOT take air from inside the house and vent it to the outside.  Any air that is vented outside the house has to be made up with fresh air from outside the building.  That air, in turn, has to be “conditioned” at most times of the year in our part of the country; heated in winter and cooled in summer.  Not having to do that makes heat-pump dryers even more efficient.  An added bonus to being ventless, is that we can move the dryer (and the washer) to the pantry in our kitchen if we ever need to.  The lower portion of the pantry is already prepared for a utility tub and washer, but does NOT have a standard (240V/30A) dryer receptacle or vent to the outside.  The pantry is on an inside wall, so venting to the outside would be more involved, and venting to the attic is a total non-starter.

I was specifically interested in the heat-pump dryers from Miele, a relatively higher-end German manufacturer, and their matching washing machines.  I also knew from watching Youtube videos about high-end boats and superyachts, that Miele was THE manufacturer of choice for many of the kitchen and laundry appliances.  Big Geroge’s had one pair on the floor for us to look at, which was all we needed as we just wanted to see them, put our hands on them, and discuss them with someone.  They turned out to be mid-range models (Washer: WF660 WCS TDos,  Dryer: TXI680WP Eco & Steam) that fit our needs and budget.  We ordered the pair, along with a drawer base for each unit, delivery and installation, and haul-away of our current, 20-year-old washer and dryer.  They also come with an excellent warranty.

The Miele units are “compact” in size, with load capacities of about half or less of the standard sizes made for the USA market.  That will alter somewhat the way I do laundry, but not much as I have recently found myself doing more frequent but smaller loads anyway.  They can be stacked, but I wanted them side-by-side.  As they are front-loading units, the drawer bases will get the doors about 14” higher, and give me someplace to store laundry supplies which, given Miele’s proprietary TwinDos system, will be different from what I have been using.  (Note:  we do not have to use the TwinDos system; the washer accepts standard liquid and powder laundry detergents and additives.)

Miele products are warehoused in Chicago, Illinois, so they should be delivered and installed in our laundry room within the next two-to-three weeks.  As a bonus, Miele had a $400 rebate on the pair, and our electric utility (DTE Energy) might also have a savings program for heat-pump dryers.

I suspect that the current dryer receptacle is a NEMA 14-30R, a 240/120 VAC, 30A, 4-prong device, but I have not verified that because the new heat-pump dryer will not use it anyway.  A 14-30R is supplied by four conductors:  2 “hot” wires (L1 and L2), 1 neutral wire (N), and a ground wire (G).  L1-to-L2 supplies 240VAC, while L1-to-N and L2-to-N provide 120VAC, but 180 degrees out of phase.  The ground (G) wire is a safety feature.

The NEMA 14-30R receptacle has been required by the NEC (National Electrical Code) since 1996.  Our house was built around 1976, however, so it’s possible it has the older (now obsolete) 10-30R receptacle, a 3-prong device that still supplies 240/120VAC, 30A power.  It would be supplied by three conductors: L1 (hot), L2 (hot) and G/N; a separate N conductor is not used, and the ground wire is also used as a Neutral conductor.  Ultimately, the N and G wires are always connected together (bonded) somewhere upstream in the system, but this configuration lacks the added safety of separate N and G conductors.

All of which is beside the point.  The Miele heat-pump dryers (and perhaps those from other manufacturers) operate on a 120VAC/20A circuit with GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter) protection.  Thus, I needed to do some minor re-wiring in the laundry room before the units are delivered as the installer will want to plug it in and verify that it works.  Not a big deal, but I had to get it done before the units show up.

Our main distribution panel is a 40 position Square D model, and all 40 positions have circuit breakers in them.  A couple of the breakers are not in use, but others are “double” (piggyback) breakers.  This is partly the result of changes in the wiring of the house over time and some of the existing circuit wires being too short to extend farther down into the panel box.  The National Electrical Code (NEC) calls for appliances, such as the washer and dryer, to be on separate, dedicated, circuits with GFCI protection due to the laundry room being a “wet” location.

There is already a 120VAC duplex receptacle in the laundry room that the current washing machine is plugged into, but:  1) I do not know at this writing if it is a 20A circuit;  2) I suspect it is on a circuit with other receptacles, and;  3) I strongly suspect that the circuit is NOT GFCI protected.  If the existing circuit for the washer is rated for 20A, I will probably install a GFCI duplex receptacle in place of the existing one, at least as a temporary, but safer, solution.  I will run a new/dedicated 20A circuit for the heat-pump dryer and install a duplex GFCI receptacle as I do not want to get involved in installing a GFCI circuit breaker in our already crowded main distribution panel.  I will comment on this further once the work is completed.

When we were done at Big George’s we drove to the Kerrytown part of Ann Arbor and found a place to park not too far from the Farmer’s Market.  The Farmer’s Market operates on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so the parking lot was not available today.  Our destination, however, was the Detroit Street Filling Station, and all-vegan restaurant on the other side of Detroit Street from the Market.  An all-vegan restaurant is a real treat for us; we are spoiled for choice as we can literally order anything on the menu.  We ordered a breaded/deep-fried oyster mushroom sandwich on a Hawaiian bun, and a Tempeh Reuben.  We cut them in half and shared them.  They were both good, but we agreed that the mushroom sandwich was something special.

On the way home, we stopped at the local Rural King store and bought two 40-pound bags each of whole corn, cracked corn, and oil sunflower seeds to feed the critters that frequent our property.  Back home, I called Chuck S., our friend and fellow Prevost H3-40 converted coach owner.  We had not chatted for a while, so we caught up briefly, but the main reason for my call was to set up a lunch get-together.  We occasionally go to dinner with he and Barbara, but when we need to “talk shop” it works better if it’s just the two of us.  We agreed on Friday, August 2, at Leo’s Coney Island in South Lyon.  I then went to my office to continue working on e-mails and blog posts.

Around 17:00 I heard Linda calling me from the basement stairs landing.  As I came up the stairs, I was “greeted” by two large Golden Retriever dogs staring in through the windows next to the front door.  They were panting heavily and when we opened the front door, they were ready to come in.  Cabela (the cat) was outside, but not knowing these dogs we did not let them in.  Instead, I went out and walked around the house to our middle deck.  They followed me willingly and, given that I was a stranger to them, were reasonably responsive to my “commands.”  They did not have collars or tags, but it was obvious they were someone’s pets.

It was hot outside and they were panting heavily.  Our heated water bowl was still outside (not plugged in, of course), so we filled it, and they drank it up.  They were obviously mates, and very comfortable around people, but then Golden Retrievers tend to be that way.  (We had one that lived to be 14-1/2 years old.)  Once they were watered and we got them to lie down in a shady spot on the deck, Linda started calling neighbors to see if they knew anything about these animals.

The two Golden Retriever dogs, quenching their thirst on a hot day.  Their owner, new to our neighborhood, eventually found her way to our house and “retrieved” them, adding an interesting twist to the name of the breed.

While Linda made phone calls, I drove to the dog park located just at the start of our street.  The owners were away, but the customers using the park assured me that no dogs had escaped from there.  I then went to the old brick farm house across the street from the dog park, as we had seen Golden Retrievers there on several occasions (along with a menagerie of other animals).  I talked to one of the workers, who was very nice, and it was quickly established that all of their dogs were accounted for.  While I was there, Linda called to let me know that the owner had shown up and claimed the dogs.  She was driving down our street looking for them and pulled into the driveway of our friends, Mike and Gail.  Fortunately, Gail knew that we had them, and sent the owner in our direction.

It turned out that she (and her family) had just bought and moved into one of the houses on the court.  Linda said she was pregnant, not very friendly, and just wanted to get her dogs and leave.  Well, alrighty then; welcome to the neighborhood, and you’re welcome.  We have absolutely no idea why the dogs chose our front porch as a place of refuge and possible assistance, but it was a good (lucky, fortuitous) choice on their part.

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20240729-30_Penultimate-July

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NOTE:  There is one (1) photo with caption in this post, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 29 thru TUESDAY 30 July 2024 — Heat, rain, mosquitoes, and a busy week (BdW guests)

 

Monday 29 July … An anniversary, more BdW guests, and more rain

Our good friends Paul and Nancy were married on this date in 1989.  We didn’t know them back then, but having eventually made their acquaintance (through RVillage), we wish we had.  Linda sent them best wishes for a Happy 35th wedding anniversary.

Our current BdW guests, Ted & Peg H., pulled out around 10:30 AM this morning, but not before taking the time to sit and chat with us a bit.  Other than a certain “pay it forward” spirit, we like being Boondockers Welcome (BdW) hosts because we get to meet fellow RVers traveling to/through our home area; we get to hear their stories, and share some of ours.  We also get BdW guest privileges in exchange for being hosts, but we have made very limited use of the program as guests since we joined.  We are also Harvest Host guest members, but have only used the program a few times.  We like both programs, but have found that host sites (that can accommodate us) are often not on our travel routes.

Four hours later, Dan & Marsha T. arrived in their Class A MH with a car in tow using a tow dolly.  I met them in the street and directed them into our guest RV site.  They were a repeat visitor, last here in 2020 at the beginning of the CoVID-19 pandemic.  They were only here for one night, but took the time to chat with us, which we appreciated and enjoyed.  We have not had a lot of repeat visitors, nor do we expect very many, but we have been hosting long enough that we are seeing a few of them.  We appreciate that folks liked their stays here, for whatever reason, enough to want to come back.

We have been watching the recap of the summer Olympics every night on NBC since the opening ceremony.  We have watched most of the Summer and Winter Olympics coverage since we were adolescents.  (According to Wikipedia, world-wide TV coverage began in 1956.)  It’s been a nice change from all of the shows we have been streaming.

Rain was in the forecast for this evening and overnight into tomorrow.  It started raining around 9 PM and was very heavy for quite a while.  I’m sure we got at least 2” of rain, but never saw an official measurement for our exact area.

 

Tuesday 30 July … 

Given the rain last night, there was no way Keith would be able to mow our property today.  We exchanged text messages, leaving open the possibility of him stopping by and checking the situation.  In case he decided to try mowing, I picked up some small branches that had come down in the storm and rearranged a few large branches that were over-hanging the firepit.  By early afternoon, however, he waived off on today and eventually texted that he would be here tomorrow.  The rain had pushed his schedule for the entire week back by one day.

While picking up sticks, I noticed that most of our resident Wild Turkeys (2 adults and eight jakes, as I think they are now too old and too big to be poults) were roosting in one of the Blue Spruce trees near our north property line, just NW of our firepit.  These recently pruned trees are now much more open in their lower portions, and cleared underneath, making it easier (possible?) for the Turkeys to fly up to these branches.  Or perhaps they have been doing this for a while now but we just could not see them.  Either way, we know that Wild Turkeys roost in trees at night (and on fences, roofs, and anything else they can get to, including the railing of our deck, our grill, and the roof of our house), but this was the first time we had seen this flock of two adults and eight young actually in a tree.

In-between other events, I worked on blog posts, and finally uploaded a few.  With as busy as we have been, I am doing well if I can even make notes about our activities and get those written up in at least a draft form in a timely manner.  And I have apologized repeatedly for constructing posts my memory long after the fact.  Selecting and processing photos, deciding where they go in posts, and then writing captions, all take additional time.  The actual uploading/publishing in WordPress is the least time-consuming part of the process, but it can’t happen until everything else is done, checked, and checked again.  This is not a complaint—if I didn’t want to do this I would stop—just a statement of fact.

BdW guests, Dan & Marsha T. left mid-late morning after a nice chat, and arriving BdW guest PeachyTravel (Rick & Vivian, and family) messaged me with an ETA for mid-afternoon.  They needed to stop and dump, which took extra time, and encountered heavy traffic enroute to us, which pushed their arrival to 3:30 PM.  They were schedule to stay four (4) nights, so needed to top up their fresh water tank.  I had them stop in front of the house (where the water spigot is located) and take care of that before proceeding into our guest site.

Given the hot, humid weather we have been experiencing we worked inside.  I worked at my desk, finalizing and uploading several blog posts, and Linda worked at her desk on bakery-related accounting tasks.

A view of the workshop (in the barn) looking east from near the entry door in the SW corner.  One of the two Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stands is in the SE corner of the shop, with 56” x 20” by 32” Work Stands attached as wings.  Another Work Stand (same size) will be attached to the one along the wall on the right (once I have all of the needed components).

Sometime during the day, UPS delivered the one remaining Rock-Steady Leg Set that I needed to assemble the last (for now) Work Stand.  It had been mis-routed from the 27 July delivery, but was eventually located and made its way here.  Rockler customer support was VERY helpful in resolving this, which I really appreciated.  I am certain that their C-S is based in the USA.  While talking to them, I also let them know about the bag of missing bolts (qty 32).  They forwarded that to their technical support team, and few days later they arrived.

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20240722-28_A-typical-week-plus

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NOTE:  This is a long post that includes four (4) photos with captions.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro unless otherwise indicated.  (Photo by Linda taken with a Google Pixel 6.)

 

MONDAY 22 thru SUNDAY 28 July 2024 — A busy BdW week and then some; laundry appliances, more yard work, and a gathering of neighbors

 

Monday 22 …  An anniversary, laundry appliances, and a new pair of glasses

The younger of Linda’s two older brothers (Ron) and his wife (Mary) were married on this date in 1995, so today they celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary.  They life near Hershey, Pennsylvania, so we do not see them as often as we would like.

While we were enjoying our coffee and using our iPads, our neighbor, Gail, stopped by to chat.  Linda had sent out invites to our neighborhood friends for a get-together on Sunday (28th) and Gail let us know that she and Mike would attend.

We worked fairly hard on our yard this past weekend, and were satisfied with what we accomplished, so we decided to give yard work a pass today.  We spent the mid-morning looking at laundry appliances online—washers and dryers—as our current ones seem to no longer be performing at their best.  We bought them almost exactly 20 years ago, and moved them from our previous home when we moved to our current location 9 years ago.

The dryer, in particular, seems to be under-performing, failing to get a load completely dry by the end of a cycle, even through it has a moisture sensor feature.  It also has an annoying (lack of a) feature, in that I cannot tell it to just run for a fixed amount of time at a set temperature.  The moisture sensor seems to always be in play.  This has been true since it was new, but perhaps it no longer senses moisture as well as it should.  The washer still works, but the tray that holds the detergent (softener, bleach, etc.) is sometimes full of water at the end of a cycle.  That was never the case until recently.  We could probably have them repaired, but newer/better technology is now available, especially as regards efficiency.

I have been intrigued for a while by heat-pump (ventless) dryers.  They claim to be 3 – 5 times more efficient than electric dryers, but I have not seen a comparison with gas dryers.  While all variety of home appliances seem to be moving away from natural gas (or propane) we have natural gas to our house, and use it for heating (space and water), cooking (including an outside grill), and for our whole-house generator.  Gas is, therefore, an option for us, but it has two downsides:  1) It would still be a vented dryer.  Even if the dryer is more efficient than an electric model, it still draws air from inside the building and vents it to the outside.  That air gets “made up” with air from outside the house—cold air in the winter and hot air in the summer—which puts an additional load on our HVAC systems;  2)  We might want to move the laundry from the basement to the main floor of the house someday.  Our pantry is already plumbed and wired for a laundry (water, drain, and power for a washing machine), but does NOT have a dryer-specific electrical receptacle and does NOT have a vent.

From prior research and recent reviews, the dryers of most interest to us are made by Miele.  It’ a premium brand, and the one most seen in high-end boats and yachts, both kitchens and laundries.  That means they are pricey, but because they are a European company, they also tend to be smaller than standard USA units, with approximately 1/2 the capacity.  While that might be considered a negative, it would allow them to fit easily in our kitchen pantry space, and adding a dedicated 120V/20A circuit for it would be relatively straight-forward.  I would need to do smaller loads more often, but I sort of do that already.  Not a deal-breaker in any event, but something to consider in making this decision.

For breakfast, we had a Just Egg scramble with plant-based sausage in it, served on a piece of toast, with half of a “cutie” orange and half of a banana on the side.  A right-sized, tasty meal.  After breakfast, Linda did the menu planning for the rest of the week and made a grocery list.  I suggested that before going to the supermarket we go to the SVS Vision Center in Brighton and have her order a new pair of glasses.

She selected a FLEXON frame (just as I did, but not the same one) with progressive lenses that darken with exposure to sunlight.  With the order placed (and paid for), we stopped at the Brighton Meijer’s for groceries.  The store is undergoing a major renovation, but parking was not a problem and it was easy to navigate the store and find what we wanted.  As part of the renovation, they are installing new upright refrigeration (and freezer) units; the ones with doors that open out.  We don’t know what else the renovation will involve, but we suspect it will be extensive.  Being in the heart of Brighton, this particular Meijer’s does a LOT of business

Once home, with the groceries put away, Linda went for a walk while I went to my desk to work on blog posts and clean up e-mails.

 

Tuesday 23 …  A Funeral

Earlier this month, our Friend, Diane’s, mother (Helen) had her 100th birthday.  She had a good, long life, living independently in an apartment until her late 90’s.  She was in a care facility not far away from Diane and John’s house, so they had a party for her at a facility nearby so she could attend.  Much of her very-extended family made it to the party, even those who had to travel some distance.  She passed away last week, and today was the funeral mass, celebration of life, and luncheon.  We were invited, and of course we attended.

Many years ago, when our children were still at home, John and Diane would host large family gatherings that included relatives from both of their families.  We lived nearby, and had become good friends, as had our children, and we were often invited to these gatherings.  Being from out-of-town, and not having any relatives or long-time friends in the area, we appreciated being included and always had a good time.  As a result, we met most of their siblings and their spouses and children.  We even got to know a few of their “clan” members.  With everyone’s children grown and off making their ways in the world, they no longer host these large gatherings, so we had not seen most of the people in attendance at the funeral for quite some time.  There was mutual recognition with the ones we had known best, and a chance to meet and chat with some that we had only heard about over the years.

 

Wednesday 24 …  A right, and a responsibility, and something unhinged

We recently received our mail-in ballots for the upcoming August primary elections.  We filled them out this morning and dropped them off at our Township office.  We have voted in almost every local, state, and federal election since we became eligible to vote.  I say “almost” as we might have missed a library or city council election somewhere along the way, but if so, it has been very few.  Indeed, we think that voting for the local library board is as important as voting for representatives, senators, governors, and presidents.  It is a right that is meaningless if it is not exercised, and we feel it is a responsibility of citizenship to do so.

Dan (Everlast Doors) stopped by mid-late afternoon to work on the garage doors.  I had discovered that one of the hinges on the smaller door was missing an attachment screw on its upper portion and that the other screw on that portion was not fully seated.  Since the doors are new, I did not want to take on the task of installing the missing screw, lest I not do it correctly.  While Dan was there, we discovered several more missing screws on the large door, and he installed them as well.  He checked both doors to make sure they would still open and close correctly, which they did.  Dan did a nice job with the installation, and has been quick to follow up on any issues, which have been few and minor.

During the evening, we watched the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics, officially The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, aka Paris 2024.

 

Thursday 25 …  Different day, same routine and chores

Linda met up with our daughter, Meghan, for a walk this morning.  There was nothing else on our calendar for today.  I failed to make any notes about what else happened today, although I suspect we worked in the yard.  Late in the afternoon, we got a text message that a pair of glasses was ready at SVS Vision Center in Brighton, but it didn’t say if they were for me or her (we both have pairs on order).

 

Friday 26 … 

BdW Members Patrick & Ruth W. left sometime during the morning and BdW members Ted & Peg H. (NatlParkEnthusiasts) arrived around 13:00.  As always, I met them in the street just before our first driveway entrance and directed them into our guest RV site.  We chatted briefly and then left them to setup while we ran errands.

We needed to pick up some things at Costco, so we stopped at SVS Vision Center on our way.  A sign on the door indicated they were closed today through Monday the 29th.  No further explanation offered, but none really needed either.

 

Saturday 27 …  Yard work, fire, and shop stands

Our fire circle (burn pit) with pieces of branches and twigs neatly piled, ready to serve as the center of our next yard detritus fire.

This photo was taken from inside the Rocker Work-Steady Corner Stand in the SE corner of the workshop (in the barn) looking north along the E wall through two of the Work Stands and into the Corner Stand in the NE corner of the workshop.

We had enough material in our burn pit to justify starting it on fire, but we prefer to do that on days when we can also work in the yard, either gathering up additional downed material or pruning dead branches from trees.  Well, today was one of those days, so we got to work sometime before mid-morning.

In the early afternoon, a UPS truck showed up and delivered 3 of the 4 Rockler Rock-Steady 32” 4-pack leg sets, still leaving me short one (1) set of legs.  Later in the afternoon, I decided to start assembling one of the two corner stand kits and opened the boxes of required parts.  To my dismay, the leg set I opened had two bags of nuts/washers (there should only have been one bag) but NO bag of bolt.  Thirty-two (32) bolts (size 5/16-18 x 3/4”) are required to attach a set of 4 legs to all of the upper and lower stringers.  I opened the other three leg sets and was relieved that they all contained the right parts.

 

Sunday 28 …  Chores, projects, and Friends/Neighbors

Error code and message on wired remote control for our smaller garage door.

When Linda left to go to the grocery store, the smaller garage door did not finish closing; it stopped, reversed direction to the fully open position, and displayed an error code/message on the wired remote by the door into our library “Excessive Closing Force Detected.”  I eventually texted Dan (Everlast Doors) to let him know.

Today was a partial laundry day, a partial shop work table assembly day, and a party preparation day.  They first two items were mine, the last one was mostly Linda’s.  The neighbors arrived around 6 PM.  Mike was not able to attend at the last minute, but Gail came anyway.  Linda had prepared some food (snack) items, and everyone brought sometime to add to the table, as well as their own beverages.  Marta and Gary were accompanied by Marta’s sister, and Rose and Jerry as came.  It’s a small circle of neighbors who are lively conversationalists, and we feel fortunate to have them as friends.  Everyone stayed until after it got dark.

A view of the east end of the workshop in the barn with a Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stand in the SE corner with two (2) 56” x 20” x 32” Work Stands attached to it.  None of the work stands have top surfaces, shelves, or drawers yet as I was still pondering configurations and materials.

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20240719-21_3-days_lots-of-stuff

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NOTE:  This is a longer post that contains one (1) photo with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

FRIDAY 19 thru SUNDAY 21 July 2024 — Vision, cruises, SW licenses, yard work, Boondockers, and a Buck Moon

 

Friday 19 … More vision, a cruise dream, and a software license

Yesterday was a hard day so today was an easier day, by comparison.  Linda had a 1 PM follow-up visit with Dr. V, her ophthalmologist at the KEC-BCSC.  She got an excellent report; both of her eyes are healing well.  Dr. V tested her vision and gave her a prescription for bi-focal glass lenses.  Linda can actually see fairly well now without glasses, both for reading and distance.  She is far-sighted in one eye and near-sighted in the other, and Dr. V inserted lenses that work with that difference.  But she still does not see quite well enough for extended work at her desk, staring at her laptop computer and working with our personal financial and travel records, or reams of accounting printouts from the bakery.  And while her distance vision is okay, the glasses will make it better, especially in her near-sighted eye.  This will allow here to see better while in a vehicle, whether driving or as a passenger helping to read road signs.

We got a brochure in the mail today from Oceania Cruise Line (OCL).  Oceania is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (NCL-H).  Having sailed twice on NCL, they know who we are and they know where we live.  OCL is a luxury cruise line featuring smaller ships than the ones we have been on (so far).  Their cruises are commensurately pricey, so not something we have seriously considered.  But just like the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs at Christmas (when we were kids), we went through the brochure to see what was on offer.  They offer a lot of cruises in the Far East, including Australia and New Zealand, the Caribbean, and the Mediterranean.  But the one that caught our eye departed from Buenos Aires (Argentina) and ended in Santiago de Chile (Chile) with a 2-day stop in Antarctica and a trip around Cape Horn through the Drake Passage.  The sailing dates were northern hemisphere winter, so southern hemisphere summer, when the Southern Ocean is not quite as fierce as it is in the southern winter.  And it was on sale for what seemed to be a relatively good price.  Setting foot on Antarctic continent is a true bucket list item for me, but it won’t happen in 2025 (we already have two big trips planned) and probably not in 2026 (when we plan to RV to Alaska).  The 2025 trips are set in stone (as much as any trip can be) but 2026 is still just an unplanned intent.

I have been using the QCAD software package for a few years now.  I made extensive use of it to design the barn, but I use it for other things as well.  The basic version is open source and free to download and use, but the professional version unlocks some important features and provides access to updated versions as they become available.  For $39 a year, having the professional version is a no-brainer for me.  My current license expires this coming Sunday, so I went ahead and renewed it tonight.  I always use PayPal for things like this, and it will be interesting to see how this hits my credit card.  I selected $USD on the website/store but the invoice came up in $EUR.  I don’t know if this was related to the worldwide CloudStrike/Windows outage, but the transaction completed successfully using PayPal.  While processing this transaction, I discovered that my password app on my phone would not allow me to log in with my fingerprint.  Humm; that was strange and annoying as this is how I usually open the app.  I got the password from one of our other devices and logged in that way.  In the app settings on my phone, the ability to biometrically authenticate (face scan or fingerprint) was turned OFF.  I did not turn it off, so it probably got reset as part of an update.  I really hate it when that happens.

Last, but not least, UPS delivered most of the Rockler Rock-Steady work stand components and kits.  I knew these weighed quit a bit as all the pieces are steel and the driver confirmed this immediately upon arrival.  I asked if would deliver them to the barn, and he was more than willing to do so.  I helped him unload everything and get it into the barn.  The delivery included two (2) Corner Stand kits (complete), and the following components for the five (5) 56” x 20” x32” Work Stands:  5 x 4-packs of 56” Stretchers, 5 x 4-packs of 20” Stretchers, 5 x 2-packs of 32” Center Supports, 5 x 4-packs of Stand Connectors, 10 x 2-packs of Drawer/Shelf Brackets, and 1 x 4-packs of 32” legs.  Missing from the delivery were 4 x 4-packs of 32” leg sets for the five (5) 56” x 20” x 32” Work Stands.  We checked the order on Rockler’s website and verified that they were still on backorder.  Also, that we had only been charged for the pieces that actually shipped.

 

Saturday 20 … More yard work

I knew the refill date on my blood pressure medication was coming up soon, so I logged into my online pharmacy to check.  I quickly discovered that they were going to automatically refill it, so nothing for me to do except wait for it to show up.

After coffee and breakfast, we got dressed to work in the yard.  I had previously added enough material to our firepit to justify lighting a fire, and we knew there were enough tree limbs on the ground in the west yard to keep us busy for a few hours.  Linda eventually turned her attention to weeding under the large stand of pine, and fir trees just NW of the house, which included cutting out saplings.  We worked from 10:00 to 13:00 and put our tools away.

A shower and some lunch and we were good as new.  I then settled in to work on blog posts and launder the bed linens while Linda made a new batch of her amazing granola.  Our middle grand-daughter was due back today from a two-week stint at the YMCA camp, but we did not get a chance to Facetime with her.  Dinner was the second go-around of the Mexican corn salad, and it was just as good as the first time.  After dinner we settled in to watch our usual Saturday evening TV programs on our local PBS station.

The “Buck Moon” about 8 hours before it’s precise occurrence.  This photo was taken a 10:20 PM, about 20 minutes after moonrise.  The view is southeast from the end of our first driveway, the only place on our property that afforded an unobstructed view of the orb, and I had to wait for the disk to be above the tree line of the properties southeast of us.  This is a long/night-mode handheld exposure that received more than my usual post-processing.  In particular, I tried to make the details on the surface of the moon at least a little bit visible, while also bringing out some details in the surrounding clouds and the trees along the bottom of the image.

I had noticed for the past week that the moon was near full.  A news headline popped up this morning about tonight being the “BUCK MOON,” the name given to the full moon in July.  Online research indicated that in North America the name is ancient and spiritual, and refers to the time of year that male deer start to grow their antlers.  The actual time of the Buck Moon was tomorrow morning, but we had an excellent view of the moon this evening, low in the southeast sky but above the trees.  The weather was clear and the moon appeared very large and very bright.

 

Sunday 21 … Another BdW guest arrives

The exact time for the “Buck Moon” was 6:17 AM EDT, but we did not see it this morning; I was up, but the weather was cloudy.  We also have trees in our yard, as do adjacent properties to the east and southeast, that obscure the eastern horizon, so we often cannot see a moonrise.

We continued our work on the property again today.  Linda pulled weeds while I cut down one of the four (4) “bushes” that grow in the northeast portion of our yard.  They are not attractive, consisting of a tangled mix of samplings, vines, and wild raspberries with plenty of thorns.  Even mowing the grass near them requires some care.

When we had a sufficient pile of material in the burn bit I started the fire.  I then switched my attention to the stand of large pine trees in the northeast corner of the property.  I removed limbs and branches that were already on the ground, and then cleared a path around the east side of the stand.  I then pruned a few of the lower/dead branches from the trunk of one of the trees.  I hadn’t planned on pruning today, but we needed more/larger wood for the fire, and these were easy to get to and relatively close to the fire pit (compared to material from the western portion of the property.)  We worked for about 3 hours and then called it quits.

BdW members Patrick & Ruth W. notified me around 17:30 that they would arrive at 20:30.  Our preferred arrival window is between 13:00 and 17:00, but later times are okay as long as we know.  Knowing they would not arrive for a while, we opened our BdW Hosting Profile in the HH-BW app and reviewed our information.  We confirmed that our profile does state a preferred arrival window of 1 – 5 PM.  As long as we were logged in, we made some minor edits to our information.  I tend to error on the side of TMI, the error being that the more words you use the less likely most people are to actually read and retain all of them.  Still, there are things guests need to know about our site and expectations.  Linda then prepared a dinner meal of mushroom root steak, corn, baked sweet potato, and a small green salad with plant-based “blue cheese” dressing.  Yum.

After dinner, we watched an episode of Agatha Christie’s Poirot on PBS at 19:00 and then the latest episode of Martijn Doolard on Youtube at 19:50, which filled the time until 20:30 rather nicely.  That meant we missed this week’s episode of Professor T (PBS) but we can stream that sometime this coming week.  Our guests arrived on our street right at their ETA and phoned me.  Linda came out with me and after I got them parked we had a brief welcoming chat before leaving them to make camp.  We returned to our Sunday evening PBS TV programs and watched Grantchester at 21:00 and DI Ray at 22:00, both of which appeared to be the concluding episodes for this season.  That might also be true of Professor T, but we won’t know until we watch it.

 

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20240717-18_Construction_&_Deconstruction

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NOTE:  This longer post does not have any photos.

 

WEDNESDAY 17 and THURSDAY 18 July 2024 — Dental, walking, mowing, and a global IT outage

 

Wednesday 17 … Highway construction, a motorcade, and dental deconstruction

I had an appointment late morning with our dentist to deal with the right rear-most, lower tooth that had lost its partial crown about two (2) weeks ago.  In all the time we have lived in Michigan (since 1976) I have never seen so much road construction as we have at the moment, so I left early to make sure I wasn’t late.  Major highways are being widened all over SE lower Michigan, and flex-lanes are being added or extended on the highways to run through our local community area.  The amount of equipment I passed today on I-96 was epic.  At one point there were 12 gravel haulers lined up nose-to-tail waiting their turn to dump their loads.  There were two concrete forming machines in operation, several very large cranes, and all sorts of excavators, cutters, rollers, concrete mixers.  My best guess was at least 50 pieces of heavy equipment, much of it specialized to road construction.  It was fascinating to see and, fortunately, there were no major traffic backups.

Close to the clinic, I headed west on Michigan Avenue to make the U-turn (Michigan left) back to the clinic.  I noticed a LOT of flashing emergency lights, and not long after pulling into the U-turn, a motorcade went by (westbound) probably headed to the Detroit (Wayne County) Metropolitan Airport.  I later learned that the motorcade was transporting Vice-President Kamal Harris following a speaking engagement in Detroit.

At the clinic, the dentist made an adjustment to one of my night-time bight guards and then got to work on my tooth.  He decided to remove some of the existing tooth to allow the new crown to be thicker on top (that’s were the old one failed) and to come down around the tooth closer to the gum line for a more secure fitment.  With the tooth prepared, he used the photo/laser scanning system to “map” the inside of my mouth on my right side.  The scans included the upper and lower teeth (mouth open) and the outside of the teeth in the closed position.  The new crown will be ceramic (Zirconia) and should be ready in about two weeks.

The dental assistant fitted a temporary crown, which was quite a procedure in its own right.  It will protect the tooth until I get the permanent crown, but I was advised to still chew on the left side and avoid hard, crunchy, and gooey/sticky foods.  Before leaving the clinic, I made an appointment for August 8th to have the new crown fitted.  The tooth is still “sensitive” when touched in certain ways, so I suspect the temporary crown does not completely protect the lower back side.

 

Thursday 18 … Walking, mowing, and seeing what’s behind you; and a major computer outage!

Linda met up with our daughter around 9:30 AM to walk a portion or the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail.  From the Michigan History Center (Michigan.gov):  “The Trail runs 33 miles between Hamburg Township in Livingston County (US-23 and M-36) and Blackman Township in Jackson County (near Stockbridge). Opened to the public in 1994 as the Lakelands Trail State Park, it is a popular destination for people looking to enjoy the outdoors. The trail is also a component of the Great Lake to Lakes Trails Route #1, which extends 275 miles from South Haven (Lake Michigan) to Port Huron (Lake Huron). Local philanthropist, Mike Levine, contributed extensive resources to transform the corridor into an improved trail. In 2018, the DNR changed the trail’s name to the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail State Park in recognition of Mike’s efforts.”

Our property was not completely dry after the rains last night, but I wanted to get the grass cut sooner rather than later so it had time to grow before next Tuesday when Keith would once again be here.  I had the lawn tractor out of the shed and ready to go by 10 PM.  I decided to set the mowing deck at its highest setting, so the grass would be long enough by next Tuesday to make it worth having Keith show up.  I decided to cut the grass on the west half of the property on a SE-NW diagonal and the grass on the east half of the property on a SW-NE diagonal.  On the west side, that meant I was cutting across the old furrows left over from when this property was part of farm (many, many years ago).  The lawn tractor does not have a suspension, so I got beat up today.  Keith usually mows on an E-W orientation, which makes for a smoother experience.  Both he and I have to deviate from that, of course, to go around trees, stumps, buildings, the firepit, and along the edges of driveway as well as stands of trees and bushes.  But that was the general idea for today.  I worked until 1600, with a 30-minute break for lunch around 12:30.  I was tired, but it felt good to have this done.

Linda got home around 1300 and had a bite of lunch.  She took her car to Serra Honda for a 14:30 appointment to have the glass portion of the driver-side rearview mirror replaced.  The labor was more than the part, but it required some special tools and knowledge to remove the old one without breaking plastic retaining tangs or the housing.  Besides, if the technician dropped the new mirror, it would be at the dealer’s expense, not ours.

Sometime during the day, or perhaps it was overnight last night, an update of the CrowdStrike security software was pushed to their clients with a bug in it that caused a world-wide outage of computers running the Windows operating system, including Windows Server and Windows Enterprise.  The event was well-covered in the media, so I don’t need to repeat it here.  We were not doing anything at the time that might have been impacted, so for us it was just an interesting and curious news story.  But for many people, especially those traveling, and for many (most?) of the really big corporations around the world, and even governments, it was a major disruptive event.

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20240715-21_Vision_&_Hearing

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NOTE:  This shorter post contains one (1) photo with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 15 and TUESDAY 16 July 2024 — Vision and Hearing

 

Monday 15 … Optical

By today, Linda was well on her way to recovery from her cold.  I was also a lot better, but definitely not fully recovered yet.  We had another fairly easy day, but I did test my new tri-focal glasses as well as my previous pair (from at least 8 years ago).  I was only interested in the distance portion of the lenses, as the reading and arm’s length prescriptions in my new glasses were fine.

My test setup consisted of a box of cat litter as a target; a white box with a solid blue panel, with white letters.  The large letters were ~ 3/4” high and the small letters were ~ 1/4” high.  I set the box on our patio table facing east so it was illuminated by the morning sun.  Beyond the box were bushes and trees at various distances, all well-illuminated.  I estimated the farthest trees to be about 130 feet beyond the target.  I secured the free end of my 100-foot tape measure at the front edge of the target and un-reeled it along the deck to the far east end, which turned out to be 70 feet.

The front panel of a box of Dr. Elsey’s Cat Litter served as the target for testing my new tri-focal glasses and comparing them to my old ones.  It was well lit with sunlight, and had both larger and smaller letters with good contrast, so it made a good target.

With Linda’s assistance, we noted how clearly I could see the letters on the target at increasing distances in 5-foot increments, starting at 5 feet from the target.  (Somewhere around 40 feet, we went to 10-foot increments up to 70 feet.)  We also noted how sharp things appeared beyond the target.  We did this first with my un-aided vision.  We then repeated this procedure with my new glasses, and then again with my old glasses.  What we found was that I could see the target fairly well without glasses out to about 45 feet, and that things farther away were less sharp, but not too blurry.  With my new glasses, everything was less sharp at every distance, getting worse with increasing distance.  With my old glasses, however, the target and everything beyond was sharper at every distance compared to my un-aided vision.

I had a return visit at 16:00 with our new optometrist at the Kellogg Eye Center (KEC) at the UofMH-BCSC.  I shared the results of my testing with the technician, and again with the optometrist.  The technician did not really seem interested in my test, re-checked my eyes, and then checked my new tri-focal glasses as well as my previous pair.  She basically told me my new glasses were fine.  Uh, no, they are not.

Fortunately, the optometrist listened carefully, took my concern seriously, and acknowledged what I needed my tri-focal glasses to do.  She re-tested my eyes and came up with a revised prescription.  She even took me to an outside window with a view of several signs in the parking lot at various and considerable distances.  She held up additional corrective lenses until I could see the signs clearly and then finalized a new prescription.  If my replacement lenses achieve the same clarity, I will be very satisfied.

Rain was in the forecast again for today and overnight, which probably meant our lawn care guy (Keith) would not be able to mow tomorrow.  Such are the vagaries of weather-dependent work.

 

Tuesday 16 … More optical, and an online Cochlear meeting

Well, it did indeed rain overnight, a lot.  We had standing water around the property and mowing the grass did not seem prudent.  Keith texted me around 8 AM to see what the situation was and we agreed that he would skip mowing our property this week.  Unfortunately for his, his makeup day is Monday, so if he cannot mow us on Tuesday (our regular day) it has to wait a week, or I have to do it.

Our Boondockers Welcome guests, Dave and Martha T., left around noon.  Their next stop was the Jellystone Family RV Resort in Frankenmuth, Michigan.  We will be there in early Fall.  When they had left, I headed to the SVS Vision Optical Center in Brighton with my new tri-focal glasses and my revised prescription.  The optician was very helpful and it did not take very long to return the glasses and get the new prescription ordered.  There will not be a charge for the replacement lenses as I was well within the 45 “no questions asked” return/adjust period.

Back home, Linda had a 4 PM online meeting with a representative from Cochlear.  There was another woman (client) in the meeting, and I sat in out of curiosity.  The meeting was conducted using Microsoft Teams, but Linda did not have to install anything on her laptop computer.  (I had to use MS Teams back in June 2022 just after we entered Canada.  I was randomly selected for a CoVID-19 test, and the test had to be monitored by someone online.  I used my iPad Pro, and had to install the MS Teams app.)  The reason for the meeting, was that Medicare covers the cost of replacing a Cochlear device every five (5) years and Linda was now eligible for a replacement.

Cochlear is always working to improve their products, and Linda was excited about getting the newest version of the external processor.  Cochlear handles the entire order and delivery process, coordinating with our BCBS Medicare Plus health insurance and with Linda’s audiologist.  The new processor will be shipped directly to our house, and will be pre-programmed with the current settings as last determined by the audiologist.  Linda had already uploaded a lot of information to Cochlear, and the purpose of the meeting was to finalize the details on what she wanted, including a choice of accessories.  Of no small importance, we learned that Linda does NOT have to return her current processor, but will retain it as a backup.

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20240713-14_HWD_BdW_SRF-HNC-RRR

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NOTE:  This is a long post, with four (4) captioned photos, all taken by me (Bruce) with Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

SATURDAY 13 and SUNDAY 14 July 2024 — hazardous guests and grand-children, oh my

 

Saturday 13 … Hazardous waste disposal, BdW guests, and SRF at HNC and RRR

Today was one of the Hazardous Waste Collection (drop-off) days for our county and we had a 10 AM appointment time.  We had not done anything to get ready before this morning, so we made a quick survey of the garage, under-sink cabinets, and the laundry room.  All we had were four (4) T8 fluorescent tubes.  The light fixture in our bedroom walk-in closet was flickering, so I removed the white translucent plastic cover and “discovered” four T8 fluorescent tubes in use there.  One of them was burned out, one was dim, one was flickering, and one was still okay.  I still had 10 tubes left from a contractor’s pack I bought some years ago, so we replaced all four of the closet tubes and added the old ones to the four we already had waiting to be recycled.  We taped the 8 tubes in a bundle for safer transport and put them in Linda’s car.  BTW:  The new tubes were still 32W but they were 4100K, a “whiter” color temperature than the 3000K tubes they replaced.  With the whiter color temperature, and all four tubes operating a full strength, the closet was now much brighter that in had been for some time.

We planned to pick grand-daughter Sadie up from her house today around 11 AM and take her to the Howell Nature Center and then to dinner, before spending the night at our house.  We had BdW guests (Martha & Dave T.) arriving today, however, so I messaged them to get an ETA.  They were planning to arrive between 12:00 and 12:30 (PM), so I remained at home while Linda took the fluorescent tubes to the Hazardous Waste Collection drop-off site.  She then went on to Ann Arbor to retrieve Sadie, but brought her back to our house where we moved her stuff into the house.

Our guests arrived around 12:30, having encountered the traffic slowdown on northbound US-23 between Ann Arbor and Brighton.  Sadie came out to help me get them settled in their site, and Linda joined us for some initial conversation.  Sadie got to go inside their motorhome, and we all go to meet one of their two cats, Noodles.  Noodles was similar in appearance to our Cabela, but larger, being male.  By this point it was 13:00, so we had a light lunch (PB&J with strawberry jam/preserves that we were gifted by a recent BdW guest).  We filled a couple of water bottles, and headed for the Howell Nature Center (HNC).

Sadie posses by The Wishing Tree by the welcome and clinic buildings of the Howell Nature Center.

The HNC is a rescue facility, not a zoo, and primarily cares for animals that are native to Michigan.  Most of the residents were injured and cannot be released back into the wild.  Occasionally, they have an animal that was someone’s “pet” when it should not have been.  The Nature Center has a clinic, and any animals they take in are guaranteed a home for the rest of their lives.  It’s possible that they might sometimes transfer animals to other facilities, but always to someplace that can/will care for them.

Sadie and Ama (Linda) with a broader view of The Wishing Tree and surrounding planted beds at the Howell Nature Center.

There is a paved Wildlife Trail that winds through pens and shelters where the animals live.  We had not been to the HNC since the start of the CoVID-19 pandemic, and were pleased to see that quite a few new shelters/pens had been built or were currently under construction.  At least one was a BSA Eagle Scout project and another was an effort by an entire Boy Scout troop.  Local business support for the Center is strong, which is essential and appreciated.

Sadie and Ama go hand-in-hand into the start of the Wildlife Trail at the Howell Nature Center.  The Center charges a modest entrance fee, but is primarily funder by sponsorships, gifts, and donations.  It’s a wonderful resource for area.

It was a warm summer day, and we were at the Nature Center in the afternoon, so many of the animals were tucked away trying to stay cool, or just resting because then tend to be diurnal (dawn and dusk) or nocturnal (night) creatures.  Some of the animals were species we regularly see in our own backyard (Sandhill Crane, Wild Turkey, groundhog/woodchuck, Opossum) or overhead (Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawk) but we saw a few that were more “exotic,” including:  a Bald Eagle, other Hawks (several kinds), Owls (Snowy, Barn, Screech), a Beaver, Ferrets, and a Bobcat (it had been someone’s “pet”).  The other part of the HNC is a children’s play area, with a giant “tree house” as it’s focal point.  Here’s a photo:

The sign for Camp Imagination at the Howell Nature Center.  Behind the sign is the massive “tree house.”  The central/enclosed area is a library and craft space, surrounded by a large deck.  There are several staircases, suspension bridges, and swings underneath, as well as other activities.

We got back to our house around 15:30 where Sadie played while I took a nap.  She let Linda know that she did not want to spend the night, so Linda checked with our son to make sure it was okay to bring her back later.  It was, of course, and he and Shawna had been able to put on their swim suits and take their inflatable boat to a nearby lake and enjoy some adult-only recreation while Sadie was with us.  Sadie gathered up all of her things and we headed to the local Red Robin Restaurant (RRR) in Brighton around 5:30 PM for dinner.  Sadie had a grilled cheese sandwich and potato chips, Linda had a lettuce-wrapped quinoa “burger” with broccoli, and I had a lettuce-wrapped “Impossible burger” with French fries.  It was an acceptable meal, with no preparation or cleanup required on our part.

From dinner, we headed to Ann Arbor.  We had Sadie home sometime before 7 PM, and visited for a short while before leaving.  I was obvious that the main reason she did not want to spend the night with us was that she had her mom and dad all to herself while her sister was away at camp.  We stopped at the Whole Foods Market near their house before returning home.  Even at this hour on a Saturday evening with relatively light traffic, the restriction of US-23 northbound to just one lane from Exit 53 on, caused traffic to slow down and bunch up.  We were back home in time to watch Midsummer Murders, one of our regular Saturday evening TV shows on our local PBS (WTVS) station.

 

Sunday 14 … Wild Turkeys, Sandhill Cranes, laundry, QCAD, travel documents, Masterpiece Mystery (PBS)

I was feeling much better by this morning.  Not 100%, but much better.  I was awake by 06:00, and got up around 06:20.  The Wild Turkeys (2 adults and 8 young) were already foraging around the base of the poles for the bird feeders, and a white-tailed deer was licking up corn nearby.  Ten (10) Canada Geese eventually showed up, as did our pair of Sandhill Cranes.

I quietly gathered up the laundry so as not to wake Linda and started a load of darks.  I then made my first cup of coffee, finished a multi-Sudoku game I started last night, and watched a few Youtube videos (vlogs).  Cabela was in and out frequently.  My morning exercise routine is repeatedly sitting down and getting up from the living room sofa to deal with the cat.

We had bagels for breakfast and then got dressed for the day.  I folded laundry before heading to my desk for the afternoon to copy and process photos from yesterday, and then work on blog posts.  But first I downloaded and installed the latest update (3.30.1) for the QCAD software.  Linda went for a walk around noon.  Upon her return, she spent some time organizing a travel binder.  With us booking cruises and tours up to 18 months in advance, and planning some RV adventures even farther out than that, it’s become essential that we (she) have (has) an organized way to keep track of the details and status information.

After dinner, we settled in to watch our Sunday evening Masterpiece Mystery shows on PBS.  The current lineup is:  Professor T, Grantchester, and DI Ray.  They are all British productions that are well done, and we enjoy them.

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NOTE:  This is a moderately lengthy post that contains one (1) photo with caption, taken by Linda with a Google Pixel 6.

 

MONDAY 08 thru FRIDAY 12 July 2024 — A busy week in the context of illness; dental and optical visits, and a rare broadband outage

 

Monday 08 … More yard work, new glasses, and illness

I got up today not feeling 100%.  I actually started coming down with something yesterday, including a mild sore throat (never a good thing) but shrugged it off to just being tired.  Linda and I had both been working hard on the property (weeds and trees); we were both tired and needed a rest.  Linda was also just getting over what she thought was a bad cold.

Our BdW guests (Mark & Kathy) left around mid-morning for their next destination at Burt Lake.  Mark had spent time there at an earlier point in his life and was looking forward to revisiting the area.  They said they enjoyed their brief stay and had a very quiet night.

I received a text message around 10:30 (AM) letting me know my new glasses were ready.  I decided to pick them up before getting to work on the yard.  This was a pair of tri-focals that I intended to use for driving, but the distance (upper) portion of the prescription made my distance vision much worse than my un-aided eyes.  Hummm.  The reading portion was the same as my reading glasses, and the intermediate portion (intended for the dashboard) seemed to be OK.  The optician said they would remake the lenses if needed (within 45 days) for no charge, but they would need a new/different prescription which I would have to obtain from my optometrist.  Ugh.  That meant trying to get an appointment with our OD at the UofMH KEC at the BCSC within the next 40 days.  Double ugh.

Back home, we got to work in the yard, making a pile of dead tree branches in our firepit and lighting it on fire.  I continued to prune dead limbs and branches from pine, fir, and spruce trees and Linda helped cut them up into sizes that fit our burn pit.

 

Tuesday 09 … a “crowning” achievement

When I got up this morning it was obvious that I was really sick.  My sore throat had worsened, and I was coughing up quite a bit of phlegm.  When this happens, the problem for me is that I cannot tell if the phlegm is the result of nasal drainage or is being produced in my lungs.  I wasn’t having any breathing difficulties or pain, other than the coughing itself, but the origin was still undetermined.  A trip to the clinic was probably in order, but I did not go, in part because I had a dental appointment this afternoon.  I called to let the clinic know I was symptomatic.  They said to come in anyway.

Because of the myriad road construction projects in our area, I left about 90 minutes ahead of my 2 PM dental appointment.  I arrived early, but not stressed.  Dr. G confirmed that a partial crown (or cap) had failed on my right lower rear molar.  The hole in the cap, however, was not the result of it having been drilled out in order to do a root canal procedure on that tooth.  Indeed, that tooth still had an intact root.  I was surprised to hear that, as I have not had any discomfort following the loss of the cap.  I will need a new crown, and the appointment to prepare the tooth will take 90 minutes, which their schedule did not allow for today.  I made an appointment to return on the 17th in the late morning and will have another appointment approximately three (3) weeks after that to get the crown installed.  So, all told, it will be approximately five (5) weeks from when the crown came off until the new one goes on.  I know these things take what they take, but that felt like a really long time.  No doubt the 1-week delay waiting for today’s appointment added to my sense of extended time.

There was a major Security and Bug-Fixing Update from Microsoft today, so we made sure our computers were up-to-date.  Over 140 security flaws across all MS products were patched and some other “bugs” squashed.

The weather had turned very warm by now, and with my continuing illness I was not up to working in the yard.  I used various OTC products to try and ease my “suffering,” including Acetaminophen, DayQuil, NyQuil, MucinexDM (for expectorant), and Unisom (to sleep).  Not all at the same time, of course.  MucinexDM and Unisom were my main “go-to” products.  It was probably around this time that we discussed what to have for dinner, and I suggested that soup would be an excellent choice for the next few days.  Linda was willing and able to accommodate that suggestion.

 

Wednesday 10 … Starve a fever, feed a cold

The day did NOT dawn bright.  Rain and wind started overnight and continued through the day, very heavy at times, as the remnants of Hurricane Beryl swept up from Texas and into the Great Lakes region.  (We later learned that we got about 3” of rain in 36 hours, but some areas around us got over 6” of the liquid sunshine.)

I called the UofMH KEC at their BCSC and was able to get an appointment with our optometrist (Dr. T) on Monday the 15th at 4 PM.  It was a relief to be able to get an appointment that soon.

The base for the Vitamix small capacity blending container.  The Vitamix imprint and part number are on the blade pointing to the right.  We had to fiddle with the lighting, and do some post-processing, to get the information to be legible in the photo.

I helped Linda get a photo of the base of the small vessel for her Vitamix.  Vitamix recalled this part, but needed a photo as proof that we actually had one.  They rejected the first photo she sent has it did not have the company logo and product number clearly visible, and the file was larger than 3 Mb.  Both pieces of information were on one of the cutting/chopping blades, and I had to orient the unit very carefully relative the very bright LED lamp on Linda’s desk in order to get the inscribed information to standout from the rest of the blade.  (The blades on metal, and highly reflective.)  The new photo was also less than 3 Mb so she submitted it.  She got a fairly quick reply that they new photo was acceptable!  Good job team!

Other that that, I rested most of the day, even to the point of taking at least one nap, which is unusual for me.

 

Thursday 11 … Picking up sticks

On lawn care guy (Keith) texted me around 8 AM to let me know he would be mowing today, and ask if I wanted him to do our property.  In spite of the large amount of recent rain, I said “yes,” but as late in the day as possible.  Linda met Diane at KMP at 9:30 AM for their weekly walk.  In spite of still not feeling well, I got dressed and picked up all (most) of the tree limbs and branches that had come down in the last 36 hours.  As long as I was up and out, and put out corn and refilled the bird feeders.

ABIR, Linda worked at her desk a bit.  If she’s not doing accounting work for the bakery, or tax returns for family and friends (late winter and early spring), she is doing routine accounting and finance tasks for us.

At some point during the day, we got another Boondockers Welcome stay request, this one for very late July into early August, which I approved.

 

Friday 12 … A rare loss of service

I was still feeling poorly today, albeit a bit better, but it was still basically a “do nothing” day for me.  ABIR, Linda took it fairly easy too.

Apparently, we lost our Xfinity/Comcast broadband service sometime around 5:30 PM.  Linda and I were not aware of this at the time as we were both doing things on our iPads that did not require us to be online.  I got a call form our neighbor (Mike G.) around 17:45 checking on whether we had our Internet connection.  I checked, and we did not.  I called him back to let him know.  While chatting, I mentioned that we had both been sick, and described my symptoms.  He suggested that we test for COVID-19.  Apparently a new strain with milder symptoms like mine has been circulating.  We both tested and both results were negative, but it was good to know for sure.

Mike checked to see when service might be restored.  He got 10:30 PM SUNDAY NIGHT as an answer and shared that information with us.  What?!!!  Linda checked, and got 10:30 PM tomorrow (Saturday) as an estimate; better, but still a long way’s off.  I eventually got a text message from Xfinity about the outage and signed up for updates.  Not long after, I got an update indicating that service should be restored by 10:40 PM THIS EVENING.  Well, that’s more like it.  Our service was actually restored sometime prior to that.  No indication of what had happened, there rarely if ever is, but it was good to have the service back.  While it was out we watched OTA TV programs on CBS.  These are shows that we used to watch every week but haven’t in quite a while.  We don’t miss them.

 

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NOTE:  This post contains one (1) photo with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

THURSDAY 04 thru SUNDAY 07 July 2024 — The USA has another birthday, celestial motion, & mead

 

Thursday 04 … Independence Day

We do not have a family tradition of getting together on the 4th of July for a meal or other activities, and we have never been inclined to buy and use fireworks on this, or any other occasion.  When we were younger we would, however, often attend large public fireworks displays.  But many people do gather on this holiday, and we have plenty of neighbors who indulge in fireworks, so we were not without a sense of festivity today.

If I understand dates correctly, the Declaration of Independence was unveiled publicly on this date in 1776.  Thus, the first anniversary of “Independence Day” was July 4th, 1777 and today was the 248th anniversary of this world-changing event.  I hadn’t really thought much about it, but July 4th, 2026 will be the 250th anniversary of the birth of the nation.  I presume there will be lavish celebrations that year.

As for what we did today?  I have no idea or, rather, I don’t have any helpful notes.  If I have to guess, I suspect we worked in the yard, but it’s also entirely possible that we just took the day off and relaxed.  It’s been known to happen.

 

Friday 05 …  Aphelion & Mead

Our new wine refrigerator with the racks pulled part way out.  The wall hanging is a hooked rug that I (Bruce) made sometime in the 1976-77 timeframe.  It was my own design, based on a pseudo-colored x-ray radio photograph of the Milky Way galaxy.  The photo was just of the central portion of what is portrayed in the rug.

Aphelion and mead don’t really have much to do with one another, other than the fact that they both happened today.  Aphelion is the point (in space and time) when the earth is the farthest away from the sun during its annual revolution.  This is a distance of 1.01 AU (astronomical units), approximately 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers.  (I think 1 AU is the average/mean distance of the earth from the sun.

Since the earth’s orbit is elliptical, rather than circular, there are only two points in the orbit where it  is1 AU from the sun.  The rest of the year it is slightly farther away or slightly closer.)   Most sources I checked seemed to indicate this occurred today, but some indicated that it actually occurred tomorrow.  It’s not so much important as it is interesting, at least to astronomy geeks.  Indeed, it’s the hottest time of the year in the northern hemisphere.  That’s because the distance from the sun has very little effect on our climate.  It’s the 23.5-degree axial-tilt of the earth relative to the plane of its orbit, and how that tilt is oriented to the sun throughout the year, that determines our seasons.

Today was the mead tasting at Schramm’s Mead in Ferndale.  We left early enough to have lunch before going to Meadery just ahead of our 1 PM tasting appointment.  The tasting was in a small room that could comfortably accommodate 6 – 8 tasters.  For our session, there were only three tasters, us and another woman.  We had asked for a guided tasting, so our host (Charles, I believe), told us a bit about each mead before and as we tasted it, with some discussion following each one, and comparisons to those previously sampled or tasted elsewhere sometime/someplace in the past.

All meads are made with honey as the main source of fermentable sugar, and Schramm’s has a wide range of products based on a careful and skillful selection and blending of both honeys and fruits.  The six we tasted today were, in order, Marionberry, Pacific Bramble +, Patty Fay, Apple Crisp, Leatherwood, and Sunflowers.  The first three are fruit meads, Patty Fay is made with ginger, while the last two are classic meads.  That is to say, they contain nothing but water and honey.  These are the meads in which the essential character of the honey is the sole determinant of the taste.

We had a bottle of Patty Fay at home, that I purchased when I visited the meadery some weeks ago to have lunch with Ken (the owner and namesake of the business), but we had not opened it yet, so all six of these meads were knew to us.  They were each different from one another, all interesting, and all very much to our taste; really fine examples of the art of mead-making.  We bought three (3) bottles, 1 each of Leatherwood, Sunflowers, and Heather.  Heather was not part of the tasting but was also a classic mead and was strongly suggested by our fellow taster, who was clearly a regular, and more experienced mead drinker (and customer) than us.  As best I recall, we were told it has a strong ginger presence that we would like, given how much we liked the Patty Fay.

 

Saturday 06 … Why we have desks

Linda had work she needed to do for the bakery, and spent the day at her desk, so I did the same (at my desk).  There’s always stuff to do at our desks, especially things that involve our computers rather than our tablets.  Besides, we both needed a break from yard work.

 

Sunday 07 … Off to camp (again), more yard work, and another BdW guest

Madeline took the bus back to Camp Algonquin today, this time for two back-to-back 1-week sessions.  I think that one of these sessions included some equestrian experiences.  She had already been to “horse camp” (locally) a summer or two ago, and was looking forward to getting back in the saddle.

I resumed my tree pruning work, but wasn’t feeling well.  I had a sore throat but no fever.  Still, after a few hours I was tired, not feeling the joy of the work, and called it quits for the day.

BdW guest Mark and Kathy L. arrived in the early evening for a 1-night stay.  It had been a long day for them, so Linda and I chatted with them briefly and let them settle in.  I mentioned that I wasn’t feeling well and kept my distance.

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NOTE:  This post contains two (2) photos with captions, both taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 01 thru WEDNESDAY 03 July 2024 — Summer ramps up and a hornet’s nest

 

Monday 01 … A sad note, and some unfortunate timing

We noticed a pair of adult Sandhill Cranes in the backyard today, without a colt.  While we couldn’t say for sure it was the same adults as before, it almost certain was, and they had lost their colt.  Very sad.  Of all the creatures that visit our property, we have a particular fascination with the Sandhill Cranes, and especially enjoy watching them raise a colt.

Linda met Diane in Ann Arbor for their annual birthday lunch and some light shopping.  I put on my work clothes and did some pruning of the pine and fir trees just west of the shed.

While eating dinner I got a “crunch” while eating something that wasn’t supposed to be crunchy.  It wasn’t Linda’s cooking; a partial crown (cap) had come loose from my right lower rear tooth.  I managed to retrieve it, along with a couple of small pieces, and put them in a plastic snack bag.  The cap had a hole in the center, but I could tell if the smaller pieces came from there.  I did not have any sensitivity, so I thought that the too might have had a root canal after the cap was installed, but that would be for our dentist to determine.  I call our dentist’s office, got their voice-mail, and left a message about my situation.

 

Tuesday 02 … Dental appointments and stinging insects

Our dentist’s office opens at 8 AM, so I waited until around 8:15 before calling.  The doctor was on vacation until Monday, and the first available appointment was Tuesday 9 July at 14:00.  I was advised to “chew carefully on the other side” until then, and avoid hard/crunchy foods.

The portion of the hornet nest that remained attached to the soffit of the garden shed.  A few hornets are still visible on and around the next.

After breakfast we got dressed to work in the yard, me pruning and Linda pulling weeds.  Before getting started on the actual work had to open up the shed and get the equipment and tools out.  I had opened the side doors, opened the overhead door (from inside), and was getting ready to put out the two ramps for the lawn tractor and trailer, when I heard the unmistakable buzzing sound.  I discovered a very large nest on the under side of the roof overhang at the end of our shed with the overhead door.  It was the sort of nest I associate with paper wasps.  (A later search of Google photos seemed to confirm this.)  Whatever they were, they noticed me too, and they did NOT like me being there.   They started to swam and one of them managed to sting me my right (face) cheek.  Ouch.

 

Part of the outer shell of the nest along with some of the inner honeycomb structure.  It appeared that the nest started with a smaller honeycomb structure, and additional/larger ones were added as the nest was enlarged.  Very impressive, but the hornets were very aggressive when disturbed, and we needed to be able to use our shed.

Clearly we were going to have to get rid of this nest.  Indeed, I eventually noticed several other small ones starting to form  in the same location.  We looked to see if we had any wasp / stinging insect spray, and found a can of Spectracide.

There was no hope of getting the lawn tractor and trailer out of the shed, but I was at least able get some of the tools out the side doors so we could work well away from this location.  With the tools out, I sprayed the next form about 15 feet away, and then quickly moved out of the area.  Not that I enjoyed killing these creatures, they just doing what paper wasps do, but they simply do NOT coexist with people.

We concentrated on the fir tree to the east of our fire pit.  I cut out enough of the lower branches that Linda could start weeding while I continued to work my way around and up the tree.  I cut quite a lot of material out of this tree, so Linda helped by using our pruners to trim off smaller branches and cut the larger ones into more manageable lengths.

 

Wednesday 03 … Happy Anniversary!

The most important thing about today is that it was the 13th (2011) wedding anniversary for our son and daughter-on-law.  I’m sure we called to congratulate them.  I don’t recall when we did that, but it was likely after dinner.

Most of our day consisted of continuing yard work.  But first, I sprayed the paper hornet nest for a 2nd time.  I then used one of our pole saws, almost fully extended, to try and knock the remaining part down from the soffit of the shed.  For being made of a  paper-like material, they are quite strong, especially in their attachment to a tree or building.  But I did manage to cut most of it off and have it fall to the ground and come apart.  Some of the wasps were still alive, so I used up the remaining spray on the pieces on the ground.  It made me sad to have to do this; these creatures are just doing what they evolved to do, and their nests are beautiful, fascinating creations.  But they are aggressive when disturbed and potentially dangerous, and we need access to our garden shed.

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NOTE:  This is a short post that includes one (1) photo with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 24 thru SUNDAY 30 June 2024 — Summer is here, BW guests, and a birthday brunch

 

Monday 24 …  Property maintenance

Nothing noted on our calendar.  Linda was still in Dexter cat-sitting.  I’m not sure what I did, but I might have spent part of the day pruning trees.  I microwaved something for dinner.

 

Tuesday 25 … Wet weather, inside work

We had heavy rain this morning, so I had Keith skip the mowing today.  It was unlikely that I worked outside, so it must have been an inside day.  That usually means I worked at my desk, either cleaning up e-mails, backing up files, working on blog posts.  I microwaved something for dinner, again.

 

Wednesday 26 … Another BdW guest arrives

Boondockers Welcome (BdW) guests Elizabeth G. and spouse arrived around 1 PM for a 1-night stay.  As usual, I met them in the street and got them situated in our guest site.  We visited briefly, and then I left them alone to set up their rig and do whatever else then needed to do.  Linda was still in Dexter cat-sitting, and I have no idea what I did the rest of the day other than microwave something for dinner.  I know it sounds like “Groundhog Day” all over again, but it really wasn’t that repetitious.  I had a nice selection of vegan microwaveable meals to choose from.

 

Thursday 27 … Medical follow-up, and a return home

Our BdW guests pulled out sometime before noon.  Meghan and Chris returned home from the trip to Las Vegas and were very happy to see their kitty cats. Linda had a 4 PM phone follow-up with UofMH KEC Ophthalmology, which she might have done from her car while driving home.

 

Friday 28 … Another BdW guest arrives

ABIR, we had an easy day of it today.  Linda had been away from the house for a week, and was ready to just settle back in to our normal routine.  BdW members Wjrdmr945 arrived mid-afternoon for a 2-night stay.

 

Saturday 29 … A Mead tasting opportunity

We received an e-mail from Schramm’s Mead announcing tasting opportunities at their meadery in Ferndale, Michigan.  Various dates were available with specific time slots for each.  A reservation and pre-payment were required.  I signed us up for Friday, July 5 at 1 PM.  The tasting included six (6) different meads for $25 per person.  Tasting of their very best (and rare) meads was available for considerable added cost, but we have had those meads, and were more interested in developing a broader understanding and appreciation of their range of products.

 

Sunday 30 … Happy Birthday Linda!!!

Our daughter invited everyone (us and her brother’s family) to The Lake House for brunch to celebrate Linda’s birthday.  She’s not bashful about her age, but I will leave the specifics for those who have a need to know.

Meghan made two different kinds of really excellent vegan French Toast, one using cinnamon raisin bread.  She also cooked up a batch of vegan sausage patties along with actual bacon.  There was (real) maple syrup (of course), plant-based as well as dairy butter, and a mixed fruit salad with CocoWhip (a vegan replacement for whipped cream).  Oh, my goodness, what a nice meal.

Brendan & Shawna gave Linda a bottle of white port.  They did not bring it home from Portugal (too difficult to transport) but they tasted quite a bit of port while they were there, and discovered white port as a result.

Sadie ended up at the beach playing in the water (just her lower legs, it was a cool day) and “digging a tunnel to China” in the beach sand.  Uncle Chris helped her with the tunnel.  All-in-all, we had a nice long visit with family.

We had not planned anything else for Linda’s birthday, but it didn’t seem right for her to have to fix dinner.  I had planned on cooking, so we decided to go to the local Olive Garden restaurant for dinner.  It was just okay, but we didn’t expect it to be outstanding, so we were not disappointed.

Back home, we had some of the white port.  It was very sweet, but quite good, and we both enjoyed it.

A view of the outside of the new garage doors.  It’s placed here because this is the date when I took the photograph.

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NOTE:  This is post includes three (3) photos with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

SATURDAY 22 and SUNDAY 23 June 2024 — A state finals, a trip (not us), cat sitting, and shop work stand assembly

 

Saturday 22 …  A state championship, a trip to Las Vegas (not us), cat sitting, shop cleaning, work stands

The NE corner of the shop room in the barn cleared out to make room for one of the two Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stands.  I ordered two of these, along with five (5) Work Stands, each 56” L x 20” D x 32” H.  The 20” depth matches the depth of the two “ends” of the Corner Stand so they can be connected together using special double-ended bolts with a space section in the middle.  I bought enough of these connectors to connect a table to each side of both corner units, plus a 5th table to end of one of the work tables.

Our daughter, Meghan, had been providing child-supervision and entertainment for her niece (Sadie) since Tuesday, but needed to hand those duties back to Linda as she had a state championship Quiz Bowl tournament this evening in the state capital city of Lansing.  Also, she and Chris were leaving tomorrow for a week in Las Vegas.  Linda would be away from our house for five (5) nights and a good portion of six (6) days, so she packed accordingly.  She left for Ann Arbor before mid-morning.

I was waiting for cooler weather to start working on the workshop in earnest, but this morning I at least began.  First up was cleaning up the shop, which had (not unexpectedly) become a disorganized storeroom as we continued to move things from the garage to the barn.  I had dug through tool boxes and storage boxes looking for things I needed for this or that task, with most of them not getting put back where they came from, so step one was to put tools back where they belong.  My toolboxes can be stacked, so once they were properly loaded, I could store them against a wall in the footprint of one case if needed; a very efficient use of space, but not so great if/when I next need a tool.  I already had a folding table (approx. 30” x 72”) set up in the center of the room.  I had a second folding table available, so I set it up next to the first one, long edges together, to provide a work surface for the tools and components I needed to assemble the Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stands, which were the only two pieces for which I had all of the necessary components.

The first Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stand assembled and placed in the NE corner of the shop room of the barn.  The legs have height adjustable feet, so the height of the assembled stand ended up being approximately 34 inches.  That will likely change slightly once all of the pieces are assembled and I square them up and level them to accept a work surface.

With the shop cleaned up (more or less) I moved all of the Rockler Rock-Steady work table components into the shop and began assembling one of the two corner stands.  These were the only two pieces for which I had all of the parts, at least I thought I did.  It came with good instructions, and was easy enough to assemble, until I realized they had shorted me 8 of the 5/16-18 3/4” bolts and matching 5/16 washers.  After a bite of dinner, I went to Rural King but the best I could do was 5/16-18 1” bolts and similar washers.  I had a feeling the 1” long bolts might be a problem, but hoped they would at least provide temporary securement until I could resolve the issue properly.

Madeline was due back from Camp Algonquin (YMCA) sometime tomorrow.  The current Camp session ended today, but Mads was spending the evening with her friend (and former neighbor), Marian, and Marian’s dad (Kip) at their family place in Cheboygan.   Mads mom and dad were also due back tomorrow from their 1-week trip to Portugal.  That was good timing, as Linda needed to be at Meghan and Chris’ house to take care of the cats while they were gone to Las Vegas.  Both of the cats (Min and Inches) have health issues, so Linda was there until Meghan and Chris returned later in the week.

 

Sunday 23 … Work shop stands and dinner together

The second Rockler Rock-Steady Corner Stand assembled and placed in the SE corner of the shop room in the barn.  I had a lot of tools and materials “stored” along all of these walls, so it was a bit of job to move all of that to other places.  Where possible, I moved things to the storeroom (above the shop) and tried to place it on shelves in some logical manner, at the very least grouping it with “like items” that were already there.  But some of it ended up along the walls of the RV bas, and some of it just ended up in the west and northwest part of the shop, or under the two folding work tables I set up in the middle of the room.

I continued working on the second Rockler Rock-Steady corner stand using the 5/16-18 1” bolts I bought last night, but I ended up not leaving them in the assembled product.  While assembling this stand I “remembered” (realized) that I had purchased the spacer kits that are used to connect the various Rock-Steady products together in larger configurations.  These spacers are cylinders, ~5/8” diameter by 5/8” long, with 5/16-18 3/4″ threaded studs on each end.  Each spacer replaces a corresponding bolt that came with each product, so two bolts in total.  That made original bolts available for me to use instead of the 1” long ones I had purchased.

Brendan and Shawna got home sometime in the early afternoon.  After a little time to visit and exchange information, Linda headed to Meghan and Chris’ house.  Mads was not home yet, so hearing about her week at camp would have to wait for another time.  I drove to Meghan’s house to meet Linda at 16:00 to have dinner.  We had salad and vegan pizza from Pizza House, courtesy of Chris.  The pizza was excellent, with light tomato-based pizza sauce and just the right amount (not too much) of non-dairy “cheese.”  (We later learned that Chris assembled this pizza himself, as the last time he also asked for “light” cheese but the cooks loaded it up, as they do for the regular pizzas on the menu.)  We hope he decides to add this offering to the menu, as it will open up another place for us to go for dinner and drinks with or friend, Kate.  There should be a market for this in Ann Arbor, but it has to have a net positive contribution to the bottom line.

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20240620-21_a-new-view_&_new-life

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NOTE:  There are no photos for this post.

 

THURSDAY 20 and FRIDAY 21 June 2024 — Summer Solstice, cataract surgery (part 2); baby Wild Turkeys, and a ZOOM call

 

Thursday 20 …  The Summer Solstice, and Cataract Surgery (Part 2)

As a child, up to my early teens, I was very interested in star-gazing and mythology, and I eventually in astronomy.  The winter and summer solstice and the spring and autumnal equinox have always garnered my attention when they come around each year.  While I don’t do anything out of the ordinary on those days, I do try to observe the location of the sunrise and sunset from wherever I happen to be.  I am also more aware of the balance of daylight and dark hours on each occasion.  And so it was today.

Linda had cataract surgery on her left eye scheduled for mid-afternoon, leaving the morning open to do other things.  She wasn’t allowed to eat after midnight, but was allowed to drink clear liquids (including black coffee) up until 10 AM this morning, so our morning started the same way it does most days, minus breakfast.  I eventually put on some work clothes, went to the barn, and did a more detailed reconciliation of the Rocker Rock-Steady work table components that were delivered yesterday against the shipping notifications I had received prior to that.  We have been dealing with the effects of a significant heat dome, and I wanted to get this done before mid-morning if possible.

Linda’s left eye was very near-sighted, so the doctor implanted a reading prescription lens.  She had surgery last month on her right eye, which was already far-sighted, and got a corresponding lens for that condition.  This is referred to as “mono vision,” I presume because each eye is adjusted for one (mono) thing.

We had to arrive at the UofMH Specialty Clinic in Brighton (BCSC) 90 minutes before her scheduled time.  Because there is major infrastructure construction (road and utilities) taking place between us and the clinic, we took our alternate route.  We ended up back tracking due to another construction closure we did not know about, but we still made it on time (just).  Not that it mattered; everything was running a bit late and it was 30-45 minutes before she was taken to a pre-op cubicle.  She waited there a while even after she was prepped, and I went to the small café in the building to have a quick/light lunch.

She was still in pre-op when I returned, but shortly thereafter they took her to one of the 10 operating rooms, and took me to a waiting room.  The actual operation took 10-15 minutes after which she was moved to a post-op/recovery cubicle and they fetched me to join her.  They kept her long enough to make sure there were no complications, went over her discharge instructions, and sent us on our way.  Like last time, the surgery went well, with no complications, and she could already see better, even with the perforated hard eye shield in place.

Her main restrictions for the next week were:  No bending over, no lifting anything heavier than a gallon of milk, and no rubbing her eye.  She had to wear her eye shield until her follow up visit tomorrow and  when sleeping for the next week.  I fixed dinner, with some guidance from Linda; we had a mixed greens salad, and I cooked onions and plant-based bratwurst.  It was all very tasty.

 

Friday 21 … Baby turkeys, a follow-up visit, and a ZOOM call

Linda’s follow-up appointment with Dr. V (ophthalmologist) was at 09:15, but before we left for the clinic, we spotted two wild turkeys in the back yard with 5 or 6 baby turkeys.  These were the first baby turkeys we have seen this season.

Knowing what traffic would be like, Linda scouted out yet another alternate route to the clinic and we left the house with plenty of time to spare.  After a quick check-in, she was called into the Kellogg Eye Center clinic to begin the follow-up visit.  The perforated eye shield was still in place so the technician removed it to check her vision.  Her right (distance vision) eye, which was operated on a month ago, tested 20-20.  Her left (near vision) eye, operated on yesterday, tested 20-40 uncovered, and 20-25 with the perforated shield in place.  Linda mentioned that Dr. V had implanted a near-vision lens, so the technician rechecked her vision at reading distance and said it was 20-20.  Linda has needed cataract surgery for a while just to have clearer vision, but she was also hoping that she would not need glasses after having both eyes done.  So far, it’s looking like she might get her wish, but she won’t know that until later in July when her eyes are more completely healed from the surgery.  She has worn glasses since she was 7-years-old, so “been there, done that” is how she feels about glasses.

We stopped at the local Panera after the appointment, which is very close to the clinic, for a light breakfast and some additional coffee.  We then headed to the Meijer’s store in Hartland, to pick up a few additional food items for me, as Linda will be in Ann Arbor for a week providing child supervision and entertainment for our two younger grand-daughters.  The Brighton Meijer’s is undergoing extensive renovation, with lots of large semi-trailers in the parking lot.  The Hartland location avoided that, and got us away from the major infrastructure working taking place along Grand River Avenue.

Linda set up a ZOOM call with Nancy (& Paul)for this evening at 5 PM EDT.  We each worked at our desks for part of the afternoon, had our ZOOM call (which we always enjoy), and then had dinner.

Tonight was also a “Strawberry Moon.” I had not heard of this before, so if I ever saw one, I wasn’t aware it.  It’s a rising of the full moon at its closest point of approach to the earth.  When visible (with clear weather), it is the largest it ever appears and is very red.  But it also coincides with the time of year when strawberries get harvested in the northern hemisphere.  Moonrise was late this evening, and we did have some clouds on the horizon, so we did not get to see the full effect of this phenomenon.  I am aware of, but not particularly bothered by, the fact that our opportunities to witness such things diminishes with each passing year.  It’s enough to know that these things happen with or without me as a witness.

 

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20240617-19_family-friends-projects

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NOTE:  This is a very short post that includes one (1) photo with caption, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 17 thru WEDNESDAY 19 June 2024 — Grand-daughters, friends, workshop tables

 

Monday 17 …  Supervising grand-daughters in Ann Arbor and meeting a friend

Linda went to Ann Arbor yesterday for three (3) nights to supervise (and entertain) the grand-daughters.  She arranged to have brunch with Kathi S. today.  Kathi is the mother of childhood friends of our children, and a friend of ours, who now resides in Ann Arbor.

 

Tuesday 18 …  More Ann Arbor & More Garage Doors

Both of the new garage doors are installed and in the open position.  Each one has a wireless exterior keypad.  The one for the smaller door is visible in the photo.

Linda wrapped up her initial 3-nights of child-supervision and entertainment, mostly for our 5-year-old grand-daughter (Sadie).  Our daughter, Meghan, took over from there.

While Sadie was at her day-camp (at Daycroft Montessori), Linda went to Meghan’s house to get detailed instructions on taking care of the cats while Meghan and Chris are away.  She returned to Ann Arbor to gather up a few things and did some light grocery shopping (Whole Foods Market) before returning home.  Meghan picked Sadie up from camp, and provided her supervision and entertainment until Saturday morning, when Linda relieved her.

Our friend, Kate, texted us today to see if we where available/interested for/in getting together tomorrow evening.  We were, but deferred making a decision about where to go until tomorrow morning.

Dan (Everlast Doors) texted to see if he could stop by late afternoon to continue working on the installation of the new garage doors.  He arrived around 16:30.

 

Wednesday 19 … A big delivery; dinner & coffee with Kate

After sharing suggestions back and forth with Kate, we all agreed to go to Bigalora Wood Fired Cucina in Ann Arbor for dinner.  They have non-dairy cheese available for their pizzas, so that worked for us.

I recently ordered numerous work table components from Rockler for the workshop in the barn.  Many of the items arrived today, but the remaining ones are on back-order, with estimated availability of July 28 (this year).  Everything was coming via UPS with a delivery window of noon-16:00.  Shortly after noon, the truck pulled in front of the house.;  I saw it come in, and dashed outside to ask the driver if he could unload at the barn, as that is where all of the pieces will be assembled and used.  He was more than willing to do that.  I met him down there and helped move the boxes from the door of the truck into the barn.  I did not, however, immediately verify if what I had received matched the shipping notifications I got from Rockler and UPS.

Linda booked our flights (DELTA) for our Thanksgiving trip to Florida to visit with Nancy and Paul.

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20240614-16_Friends_doors_Fathers-Day

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NOTE:  This is a long post that includes three (3) photos with captions.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

FRIDAY 14 thru SUNDAY 16 June 2024 — Friends, garage doors, & Father’s Day

 

Friday 14 … Friends come to visit and have dinner

I think we worked in the yard for the first part of the day, but stopped by 1 PM to get cleaned up.

A better view of the stand of smaller spruce, fir, and pine trees west of the firepit and NNW of our large stand of pines and firs.  All of these trees had branches with tips close to the ground and with area around the base thick with weeds, vines, and even saplings.

Around mid-afternoon, John and Diane arrived to visit and have dinner.  For dinner, Linda made tater tot casserole and for dessert, strawberry shortcake.  Yum.

 

Saturday 15 … Garage door work continues, dinner with our grand-daughters

Dan (Everlast Doors) was back this morning at 9 AM to continue working on the installation of the new garage doors.  Linda left for Ann Arbor to provide child-supervision to our grand-daughters while their mom and dad left on a trip to Lisbon, Portugal.

The tracks for the small garage door are installed and the panels have been fed in the tracks form the open end at the ceiling.  Each pair of adjacent panels are attached with three hinges; left edge, center, and right edge.  The center hinges are relatively visible in this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The “street view” of the new/small garage door.

I drove down late afternoon and took “the girls” to Olga’s for dinner.  Olga’s used to be a favorite of ours, but it was the first time the grand-daughters had been there, even though it is relatively close to their house.  Linda stayed at their house until the 18th, when she was relieved of duty by our daughter, who would take care of Sadie until the parents returned.

 

Sunday 16 … Father’s Day at the Lake House

Linda took Madeline to the pick-up point for her bus (motorcoach) ride to Camp Algonquin.  She and Sadie then proceeded to the Lake House to celebrate Father’s Day, where I met up with them along with Aunt Meghan and Uncle Chris.  Brendan and Shawna were not back from their trip to Portugal in time for this gathering.

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20240612-13_New-Life_ongoing-work

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NOTE:  This is a long post that includes three (3) photos with captions.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

WEDNESDAY 12 and THURSDAY 13 June 2024 — New life, ongoing work, & TV

 

Wednesday 12 — New Life; first sighting of a Sandhill Crane colt

We started our morning with coffee, as usual, but had breakfast a bit earlier than normal.  Our recycling center (Recycle Livingston) is only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays, weather permitting and excepting holiday weekends.  During breakfast, we received another Boondockers Welcome request, which I approved when we had finished our meal.  We then got dressed to work, and started by breaking down our accumulated corrugated cardboard and bundling it.  Linda repacked some our other recyclables and we then loaded everything into the F-150 and headed off to the recycling center.

Upon our return home, we planned to work some more in the yard; Linda pulling weeds and me pruning trees.  But that work was temporarily put on hold by something we spotted in the back yard, near the edge of the marsh at the NE corner of our property.

For many weeks now we had only seen one Sandhill Crane in our backyard.  Prior to that, for most of the spring, we had a pair of them visiting the yard to find food.  We suspected that the lone Crane was one or the other of the pair, but we didn’t know for sure.  Indeed, I (Bruce) saw them mate about a month ago, and it was not long after that when we started only seeing one.

This morning, we spotted both Cranes at the back of our yard and then quickly noticed that they had a very tiny colt with them.  This was our first sighting of a Sandhill Crane colt in our yard this season, although we have seen a few in the area, and they were much bigger than this little Crane.  It was small enough that we figured it to be no more than a week old.  Some quick research revealed that the gestation period for Sandhill Crane eggs is ~ 32 days, so that comported with what we had been observing vis-à-vis the adults visiting the yard one-at-a-time to feed.  We knew from previous research that Sandhill Cranes often lay two eggs, but only one colt is hatched or survives.  We have seen adult pairs with two colts in the area, but it is relatively rare.

Our research also revealed that the colts leave the nest, with their parents, of course, within a day of hatching.  The adults feed them initially, but they start picking up their own food fairly quickly.  This colt appeared to already be picking things up off of the ground, and the trio was in an area of the back yard where I threw corn, both whole and cracked, yesterday late afternoon.

We waited for the Cranes to go back into the marsh, at which point Linda opened the shed and got out her weeding tools.  She decided to work in front of the house so as not disturbed the Cranes.  For my part, I headed to my office and worked on a draft of the blog post for this week.  With so much going on, and still being somewhat behind on my blog posts, I wanted to capture the highlights of this week while they were still front-of-mind.

We recently finished the Nordic Murders TV series (German), Bodkin (Irish), ERIC (US, NYC in the 1980’s), and The Beach Boys documentary and started watching the Alleyn Mysteries.  The lead character, Rory Alleyn, is a Chief Inspector with Scotland Yard.  It is set in the late 40’s, post WWII, and was filmed in the mid-1990’s.  The look and style of the production was wonderfully dated, and very British.  We only had a few episodes left in the final season and searched around for something new to start.  To our pleasure, season 3 of COBRA was released late last month.  We enjoyed seasons 1 and 2, and the first episode of season 3 did not disappoint.  We are also watching The Acolyte, a new offering from the Disney Star Wars line.  It is being released one episode per week, so it will take a while to finish it.

Dan texted during the evening to see if he could stop by in the morning to continue working on the new garage door installations before heading to his day job.  7 AM turned out to be a mutually agreeable time, so I set an alarm for 06:30 to make sure I was up and dressed before his arrival.

 

Thursday 13 … Garage door installation and property maintenance continues

I got up at 6:30 AM, got dressed, turned on the coffee pot (it auto starts at 7 AM, but I didn’t want to wait), finished loading the dishwasher and started it, took my acid reducer pill (TMI?), and made a cup of coffee.  While I waited for Dan to arrive, I worked on a puzzle I started last night.  Linda was also up before 7 AM, got dressed, and made her first cup of coffee.  A fairly typical start to our day, except for getting up a bit earlier as determined by an alarm clock (on my phone).

A composite of 7 images of the portion of our yard immediately west of our firepit.  Note how the trees in the center of the frame, and farther back, have been trimmed up and cleared underneath.  Linda is working on the tree on the right.

Dan was here by 7:15 AM and got right to work.  He hoped to have the smaller garage door fully operational before he had to leave, but that did not quite happen.  Not a problem for us, but it meant at least one more visit for him.  He will, tentatively, be here again this upcoming Saturday morning.

Linda left around 8:15 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark at 9 AM for their weekly walk.  We are at the beginning of a heat wave, and they try to walk earlier if possible in such conditions.  Once Dan was packed up and on his way, I went out briefly to get a breakfast treat.  Back home, I started a load of laundry and enjoyed my treat while catching up on some Youtube videos.

Another composite of 5 images of the portion of our yard NNW of our firepit.  The line of trees from center to right in the frame are lined up approximately on an E-W line along a part of our north property line.

Breakfast done, and laundry purposefully sloshing around in the washing machine, I transferred gasoline from a 5-gallon can, for which I no longer have a spout, into one of my two 5-gallon plastic jugs (which do have pouring spouts) using a funnel.  That left me with the other plastic jug needing to be filled, so I headed out again to fill the fuel tank in the F-150 along with the 5-gallon jug.  That, in turn, required a trip to Meijer’s in Brighton, as they have a filling station which usually has very competitive prices, and Linda had processed a $0.50 off per gallon “M-Perk” using points she had accumulated doing our grocery shopping.  The discount is limited to 30 gallons.  The 5-gallon jug was empty and the F-150 was low enough on fuel that I needed very close to 30 gallons, so that worked out well.  Traffic heading into Brighton on Grand River Avenue was backed up for a mile due to ongoing construction, so I made a U-turn and took a longer, but unimpeded route.

The lawn tractor and the dump trailer full of our various trimming and weeding tools.  With the tools emptied out, I use this combo to haul material from around the property to the burn pile.  It’s parked in the share just NW or our large stand of pines and firs.

Back home, I rearranged a few things in the garage so we could, once again, get both vehicles inside.  With high temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80’s (F), and thunderstorms predicated for this evening, my preference was to have the vehicles inside.

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20240610-11_Prop-maint_new-garage-doors

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NOTE:  This is a long post that includes three (3) photos with captions.  Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 10 and TUESDAY 11 June 2024 — Property maintenance and new garage doors

 

Monday 10 … Property maintenance continues

As previously noted, we have been quite focused recently on property maintenance.  Our specific focus has been trimming branches from evergreen trees up high enough that we can clear the area underneath of weeds and saplings and so those areas can be mowed on a regular basis.  I (Bruce) am mostly doing the pruning and Linda is mostly doing the weed removal.  She does most of it by hand, but is also using an Ortho spray product that is designed for Poison Ivy, Poison Oak, Poison Sumac, etc.  We had a cool streak of weather, and were trying to take advantage of it.

As part of the tree work, we end up with a lot of limbs and brush, and the only practical way for us to dispose of it is to have a burn pile.  We wait until we have enough material to make it worth starting a fire, and have reason to believe we will generate enough additional material over the course of the day to make good use of it.  We had enough to make this worth doing, so a fire it was.

 

Tuesday 11 … Work begins on new garage doors

Today was an unusually busy day, that started with best wishes for our daughter’s 43rd birthday (1981).

I got a text message from Dan indicating that he could be here between 9 – 10 AM to start installing the new garage doors.  Outstanding!  That meant I had to get the vehicles out of the garage and then move anything that might be in his way.  We moved the vehicles in front of the barn and all of the stuff, and there was plenty, to the back of the garage.

We moved the vehicles in front of the barn because it was also grass-mowing day.  Keith would be showing up sometime late morning to do that, so I wanted to leave the driveway in front of the house open for his truck and trailer.

We had breakfast earlier than usual to get an early start on the yard work, which included another go at the burn pile.  We got all of the existing cuttings burned, and generated a lot of additional material, which also got burned.

The new top rails for the small garage door hanging from their ceiling supports.  The door panels are individually wrapped for shipping and sitting across a pair of sawhorses.  Dan (left edge of frame) is working on the right-side vertical guide rail.  The old Chamberlain chain drive operator is still attached to its ceiling supports.

Dan showed up at 10 AM and got right to work.  I checked in with him periodically, but tried not to take up too much of his time.  As it turned out, there were a few decisions to be made.  He started by removing the old doors, along with all of their associated hardware, including the Chamberlain motorized door operators.

He started the installation of the new door for the smaller (single vehicle) bay and then needed a consultation.  It’s an 8’ wide opening, but the door company (C.H.I./Nucor) had sent a door for a 9’ opening.  Ugh.  It turned out that the door they sent had the same size inset panel features that the 16’ door had.  If the door had been the correct size, the panels would not have been quite as wide but the reveal on either edge would match the reveal on the 16’ door.  We decided that we liked the panels being the same size and that the smaller reveal on the 8’ opening was acceptable.  This meant that Dan could go ahead and install the door rather than return it, reorder it, and wait as much as month (or more) for the new one.  It also meant that he did not have to re-install the old door.

The long door panels for the 16’ (2-car) garage bay.  Dan has a support system for his pickup truck that allows him to transport these long pieces.  Each panel is individually wrapped for shipping.

With that decision made, Dan did a partial installation of the tracks for the smaller door so he could put in the panels and have the opening sealed.  He then turned his attention to the larger door, with the objective of getting it fully installed and operational before he left for the day.  And he did!

As I mentioned, the doors are from C.H.I./Nucor.  They are nice looking and appear to be well made.  They are also 2” thick and insulated.  One of the reasons for this update/upgrade was to get better insulated doors that would seal better when closed.  I think these will accomplish that goal, but we won’t know that until winter.

More garage door parts.  The long black thing with the red top end is one of the counterbalance springs.  The boxes contain the LiftMaster (by Chamberlain) direct drive motor operator kits, which included the deadbolts, LED light fixtures, and the remotes, both wired and wireless.

One of the other things we did with the project was specify direct-drive motor operators rather than they usual ceiling mounting chain-drive mechanism.  The Liftmaster operators were very impressive, mounted on the front wall at one end of the spring shaft.  The system also features a remote-controlled deadbolt, mounted on the track below the operator about half way to the floor and hardwired back to it.  The deadbolt can be moved manually, if needed, and there is a pull cord on the bottom of the operator to release it.  The two things together allow the door to be unlocked and moved manually from inside the garage.

Each door has a wired controller.  Dan set those up side-by-side near the entrance door from the library, and just above the light switches for the shop lights.  One of their features is a temperature display.  Very nice!  He also wired up the safety beam, as the doors will not operate without them installed and aligned correctly.  Each operator also came with a ceiling light; a low-profile integrated LED fixture about 9” x 9”.  Interestingly, while the fixture has to be plugged in to a 120VAC receptacle, it is controlled wirelessly from the operator.  Dan indicated that he can add additional light fixtures if needed/wanted, but each fixture can only be paired with one operator.

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