NOTE: There are two (2) photo(s) with captions in this post. Photos taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.
WEDNESDAY 01 – WEDNESDAY 15, 2024 — The first half of May
In the first week of May we continued to do some property maintenance work and started cleaning out the garage. The later mostly involved moving things to the barn. I tried to identify things for recycling, to no avail, but I did move some things to the trash, and set scrap wood aside for the next burn pile.
Linda walked with Diane on Wednesday the 1st and Tuesday the 7th. She also walked with our daughter (Meghan) on Thursday the 2nd, doing a portion of the Mike Levine Lakelands Trail State Park section of the Great Lake-to-Lake Trail near Pinckney, Michigan, meeting at a trailhead about half-way between their respective houses. On Sunday the 5th (Cinco de Mayo) we attended an afternoon performance of the Ann Arbor Youth Chorale (AAYC) at First Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan; our 11-year-old grand-daughter (Mads) is a member. On Monday the 6th an HVAC technician from Lakeside Services Co. serviced the air-conditioning portion of the HVAC unit for our library.
Mads in concert with the Ann Arbor Youth Chorale
In the second week of the month, we continued with our usual household chores as well as working on cleaning up the garage and trimming up the property. On Wednesday the 8th I changed the engine oil and filter on our Cub Cadet lawn tractor as well as the air filter. The air filter, which I bought at the local Tractor Supply Company store, turned out to be the wrong size, but I made it work while I ordered the correct one from Amazon.
On Thursday the 9th, the F-150 went in for preventative maintenance. I had the transmission drained/flushed, the (spin-on) filter replaced, and then refilled. They did not, however, drop the pan and replace the screen, as this was much more expensive and the service advisor said it wasn’t necessary at this time. That specific maintenance item will occur closer to 100,000 miles. I also had the front and rear differentials, and the transfer case, drained and refilled. The truck had approximately 53,000 miles on it, so these services were done ahead of schedule at my discretion, but given that we tow our trailer with it, I thought it best to have it done now. I was told a long time ago that the best, and yet cheapest, maintenance you can do on a vehicle is regular lube, oil, and filter (LOF) changes. The service advisor agreed with me, but then he wasn’t going to refuse to have the dealership do the work. 🙂
This photo of the oil filter on our Cub Cadet XT3 GSE Enduro Series lawn tractor indicates that I last changed the oil and filter about five (5) years ago when the tractor had ~70 hours of run time. (ABIR, Paul helped me with this, so he and Nancy must have been staying at our place in their motorhome at the time.) The tractor has not accumulated a lot of hours since we bought it because we have a lawn service to does most of the grass mowing.).
On Tuesday the 14th, Linda did her weekly walk with Diane and wrote a check to Everlast Doors for the deposit on new garage doors we had agreed to purchase a few weeks ago. These doors will be better insulated, look better, and work better than the existing ones, which may well be original to the house (mid-late 1970’s). One of the things I am looking forward to is having the wall-mounted lift operators at the end of the spring shafts rather than the ceiling-mounted, chain-drive system that is the norm for garage doors.
Steve and Karen arrived mid-afternoon to visit and have dinner. Linda and Karen are in regular contact via Words With Friends, and we try to get all four of us together several times a year. They also have a place in Florida (near Venice) and we have visited with them there, and even stayed with them on several occasions during the winter months.
On Wednesday the 15th , a technician from Schutz Heating & Cooling arrived around noon to service the heat-pump for the main floor of the house. They come twice a year; spring for the A-C function and fall for the heating function. Later in the afternoon we headed to John and Diane’s house in Farmington Hills to attend a satellite concert by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra at The Hawk Center, which is walking distance from their house (although they drove us there). The Hawk Center was formerly Harrison High School (the school symbol was a Hawk), where both of our children and both of their children attended/graduated (late last century).
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