Category Archives: Property Maintenance

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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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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20240708-12_illness-dental-optical-Xfin

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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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20240704-07_Happy-BDay-USA_Aphelion_&_Mead

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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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20240701-03_Summer-ramps-up_A-hornets-nest

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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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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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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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20240616-31_the_2nd_half_of_May

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NOTE:  This is a long post which includes nine (9) photo(s) with caption(s).  Photos by me (Bruce) taken with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

THURSDAY 16 – FRIDAY 31 May 2024 — The 2nd Half of May

 

In addition to normal household and property chores, the second half of May saw more garage cleaning, barn/workshop organizing, and property maintaining.    It also saw a significant medical event (good), anniversaries, social time with neighbors, and an uptick in Boondockers Welcome (BdW) guests.  Highlights for various days follow:

 

Thursday 16 …

Linda sporting her eye guard on her right eye to protect it while it heals following cataract surgery.  The guard frame is flexible rubber and is taped onto her face.  The central shield is a harder plastic and is perforated, allowing for air to get to the eye and for some limited vision.  She was immediately able to see with that eye.  She’s holding an Edible Arrangements fruit bouquet sent by Nancy and Paul.

Linda had her first of two cataract surgeries today with Dr. Verkade at the Kellogg Eye Center (KEC) within the UofM Health (UofMH) Brighton Center for Specialty Care (BCSC).  First up was her right eye.  She has long been near-sighted in this eye and far-sighted in her left eye, so her brain is used to this difference.  In consultation with Dr. V, they agreed that she would get a near-vision replacement lens.  It took several hours between admission and discharge, but only about 10 – 15 minutes of that time was the actual surgery.  Other than some initial time in the waiting room, the rest of the time was taken up by pre-op and post-op procedures and personnel.

The facilities and staff at BCSC-KEI were first-rate, and the entire experience was calm and relatively stress-free.  Dr. V used eye drops rather than injections to do the final preparation for surgery.  Linda reported no pain at any time, and only minor discomfort during the procedure.  She had a perforated eye guard, but reported already being to see.  She was advised to “take it easy” for a week, but her only specific restrictions for the next seven (7) days were:  1) Not bending over, and 2) not lifting anything heavier than a gallon of water (~8.6 lbs.).  Both of those things can increase pressure in the eyes, which the doctor did not want.  She was also told of symptoms that would prompt a phone call to the clinic.  She had to keep the eye guard in place until her follow-up visit tomorrow, and wear it at night for the next week.  Obviously, she did not engage in any property maintenance for a while.  Her final follow-up visit would be approximately 30 days from today, after which she would have the same surgical procedure on her other/left (far-sighted) eye.

 

Friday 17 …

Linda had a (9:15 AM) follow-up visit with her ophthalmologist, Dr. V. at the KEI in the UofMH-BCSC.  Her eye was healing well and her vision tested well-enough for her to be able to read without glasses.  Needless to say, she was excited by this.  While the main reason for the surgery was clearer vision, Linda also hoped that it would result in better vision to the extent that she would not have to wear glasses, something that has been a part of her daily life since she was 7 years old.  Late in the afternoon Boondockers Welcome guest Connie G. arrived for a 4-night stay.

 

Saturday 18 …

Our daughter (Meghan) and her husband (Chris) celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary (2013).  Both of our children (now in their 40’s) made good life-partner matches which is a source of comfort and joy to us.

 

Sunday 19 and Monday 20 …

Nothing of note, apparently.

 

Tuesday 21 …

Today was a double-header:  Linda had brunch mid-morning with Diane and we had dinner with Kate at 6 PM.  We always dine with Kate in the Ypsilanti / Ann Arbor area.  Sometimes we meet her at the venue, but it’s become our standard practice to pick her up and return her home.  Her partner, Brian, sometimes joins us, but not this time.

 

Wednesday 22 …

Today was another property maintenance day for me.  Here are five (5) photos highlighting the work.

I just like this photo of our pink (&white) rhododendrons, framed buy nice conical evergreen tree and a stand of tall grass at the SW corner of the garage.  The grass is blocking a view of our Kohler whole-house generator, and the rhododendrons conceal the exterior compressor/condenser unit for the air-conditioning portion of our library HVAC system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have cut our honeysuckle bush, on the right in front of the window by the chimney, down to a reasonable size.  It was over six (6) feet tall and almost as wide, and completely blocked our view from this window, which is in our living room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The evergreen bushes at the east end of our main deck on the rear of the house eventually grow up above the cap-rail and block our view in the direction.  Every few years I cut them back down to the level of the cap-rail, and this was one of those years.  I also got in behind them and cut them back away from the deck railing, and removed the lowest branches to open up the space below them and make it easy in the future to clean out the bed and the area under the deck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another view of the evergreens around the east end of our main house deck.  Also visible is a 4” corrugated drain line.  Not visible is the 10-foot section of 1-1/4” plastic pipe the I attached to the discharge pipe for our sump pump and then slid the corrugated drain line over the end far enough to stay put during a discharge cycle.  For most of the time we have lived in this house, the sump pump discharge has flowed through a 4” corrugated drain line underground down into the valley and along the  (valley floor all the way to the march.  This worked well for many years, but more recently we developed numerous puddles along the valley floor that never dried up, even after a period of no rain.  (The gutters on the house also flow through underground drain lines to and along the valley floor.)  It finally dawned on me that there was probably a problem with the sump drainage, and that re-routing it out into the yard, away from the valley, might result in the valley drying out.  At that is exactly what happened.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The east end of our main deck, showing the evergreens trimmed down to the cap-rail height.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday 23 …

Linda had her 1-week follow-up phone visit at 4 PM with Dr. V in the KEI at UofMH BCSC.  Her eye continued to heal well and her brain was adjusting to the new lens.

We have a variety of plants, bushes, and trees in front of the east façade of the front of the house.  They were all there when we bought the house, and probably had been for quite a while.  They were planted too close to the wall, and probably too close together, and had now reached a size where it was difficult to clean around their bases and impossible to get behind them.  I worked my way along behind them, removing any dead branches, as well as some live ones, to create better access.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 24 …

BdW guest PhotoGuy1057 arrived for a 5-night stay.  He would be exhibiting/selling photographs at the juried arts fair being held at Kensington Metropark for the next few days.

 

Saturday 25 …

Our daughter and son-in-law recently closed on a house in a lakeside community—about half way between their current house—and ours and invited us over to see it.  She found that it was already wired for a portable emergency/backup generator and wanted me to look at the setup.  Here’s a photo of what is there:

The lake house emergency/backup connection panel.  I had never seen one like this.  I still need to research this in more detail, but I did quickly find references to this exact GenTran manual transfer switch panel in a Google search.

The connection point for the portable generator is lower right in the photo.  It is clearly a 4-pin twist-lock connector, so a 240/120 VAC single phase w/ ground setup (L1-L2-N-Gnd).  As such, it can power both 120VAC loads (L1-N-G and L2-N-) and 240VAC loads (L1-L2-G).  Because a 120VAC circuit requires a neutral (N) wire, it appears that each single switch also requires a neutral wire in order to return power to the generator, whereas a 240VAC load does not (but both hot wires have to routed through the GenTran box).

The labeling of the two power (Watt) meters at the lower left indicates that the three switches on the left (A, B, & C) are on one hot leg (say L1) and the three switches on the right (C, D, & E) are on the other hot leg (say L2).  These six (6) switches are, in fact, individual transfer switches.  With the switches in the DOWN position, as shown, incoming utility power is simply fed through the switch and back to the main panel and then on to the load.  Circuit protection is provided by the circuit breaker in the main panel which feeds the power to the GenTran.  With a switch in the UP position, however, the return wire to the main panel and load is connected to the portable generator.  As the circuit breaker in the main panel is no longer in the circuit, a separate push-to-reset “pop-out” circuit breaker is located above each switch and takes over the circuit protection function.  These circuit breakers are only active when the load is being powered by the portable generator.  (Obviously, sic, the wire and circuit breaker sizes have to be appropriate for the current rating of the load.)  Note also that the two middle switches (C & D) are tied together, so they are always in the same position.  This means they are powering a 240VAC load, probably the well-pump.  (There is a chart showing what each switch/breaker powers, but I did not photograph it.)  Note that the portable generator connector is NEVER connected to the utility power coming into the main panel.

What I found fascinating about this device is that each load has to be individually switched to the generator, which also means it is possible to provide power to any one or more (or all) of them from the generator even with the house still running on utility power.  Not that I think that would ever be a good idea, but the fundamental design of this box makes that possible.  If it was desired to do this, at a minimum the load would have to be OFF before switching it to the generator.

 

Sunday 26 …

We attended the Kensington Metropark art fair today, or perhaps it was tomorrow, but I did not make a note of which day it was.

 

Monday 27 … Memorial Day

We did not do anything special today.  It is not our family tradition to get-together on holidays such as this, or the 4th of July, or Labor Day.  We do gather on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Christmas Eve, but not on New Year’s Eve,  and the only “Hallmark Holidays” we celebrate are Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

 

Tuesday 28 …

I do not have any notes about what we might have done today, but based on this photo, we apparently had some interesting weather.

I like the clouds and the lighting in this photo of the valley in our backyard as seen from our main deck.  Tuesday was also grass-mowing day, so the lawn looked it’s best.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 29 …

Without much fanfare, we celebrated our 53rd wedding anniversary (1971) with dinner out at Ciao Amici’s in downtown Brighton.  This was our first visit to this local Italian restaurant.  We have generally heard good things about the place.  We knew that it was not particularly vegan-friendly, but decide to go anyway.  Linda selected something that was reasonably vegan-friendly, while I went a bit off-diet (vegetarian instead of vegan), but we both had meals that we rated as very good in a nice setting.  We dated for four (4) years before we got married, and were acquainted for three (3) years before that.  That means we have known each other for about 60 of our slightly more than 70 trips around the sun.

 

Thursday 30 …

Nothing of note today.

 

Friday 31 …

Linda met Diane at 9:30 AM for their weekly walk.  Boondockers Welcome (BdW) guest Wade S. arrived around 1 PM.  As always, I (Bruce) met him in the street and directed him into our guest site.  Linda prepared some food items for a gathering later in the day.  Just before 18:00, we walked down to Gary and Marta’s house for the get-together with our neighborhood friends (Gary & Marta, Mike & Gail, Rose & Jerry).  We always enjoy the company of these people.  We would welcome getting together more often but, even in retirement, we all continue to have busy lives.

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20240415-21_Spring-is-finally-here-3

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NOTE:  There are four (4) photos with captions in this post, taken by me (Bruce) with a Google Pixel 6 Pro.

 

MONDAY 15 – SUNDAY 21 April 2024 — The third week of April

 

Monday 15 … TAX DAY!

  • Nothing of note on our calendar for today. Personal tax returns needed to be postmarked by midnight, but Linda had already filed or delivered all of the returns that she prepared.

 

Tuesday 16 … A delivery, a project, and a guest.

  • … The towable lawn rake was delivered today by XPO. The truck had a lift-gate service and dolly, so the driver was able to unload it and move it into the garage.  ABIR, the shipping weight was about 180 lbs., so I was glad to have this service.
  • Delivery of the lawn rake meant that I now had a project assembling it and connecting it to the lawn tractor. I had previously moved the F-150 out of the garage to make room for all of this so I could work on it inside.
  • Our first Boondockers Welcome (BdW) guest, RamTam9, arrived today.
  • Linda met Diane at the Metropark for their weekly walk.

 

Wednesday 17 … The project continues; and a birthday.

  • … ABIR, I unpacked the lawn rake and did some preliminary assembly, but did not finish the job until the next day. I also needed (wanted) to get a properly sized bolt and lock-nut to secure it to the pin hitch on the lawn tractor.
  • Today was Nancy’s birthday. Happy birthday, Nancy!

 

 

Some of the components for the towable lawn rake.  (The furniture was eventually picked up by our local Habitat for Humanity ReStore.)

More lawn rake components.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The nuts and bolts of the lawn rake, literally.

 

Thursday 18 … Dinner with friends.

  • Our BdW guests left for their next destination.
  • We had dinner at John and Diane’s house and visited well into the evening.

 

The assembled lawn rake attached to the Cub Cadet lawn tractor, ready to clean up branches, twigs, and leaves around the property.  I do not recall when I actually used it for the first time, but it was relatively soon after this photo was taken on the 18th.

 

Friday 19 …

  • I think Linda started proofreading the backlog of blog post drafts, beginning with our AK-HI cruise. (I did not start uploading them to our WordPress site until she was well-along with this work as I wanted to post them in chronological order and wanted all of them ready to go for any given time period or event, such as this cruise.)
  • I continued to trim trees that were not part of the work done by Davey Tree Service
  • I arranged for Keith to do the first mowing of the property this year in early May.

 

Saturday 20 …Another BdW guest, and continued work on the property.

  • Our second Boondockers Welcome guest of the season arrived today; WildCoddieWamplers.
  • I suspect that we spent at least part of the day continuing with the tree trimming and yard clean up, but we do not tend to record things like that in our calendar.

 

Sunday 21 … Just another day at home.

  • Nothing of note on our calendar today. We might have been busy, or we might have relaxed, or we might have visited with our BdW guest, or all three, or none of these things, or something else entirely.  No idea.

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20240401-07_Spring-is-finally-here

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NOTE:  There are no photos for this post, but it is quite long.

 

MONDAY 01 – SUNDAY 07 April 2024 — Transitioning into Spring

 

Although the first day of Spring in 2024 was officially March 19th, here in SE lower Michigan, April is the month when winter really transitions into spring.  During the first full week of April, we were still having overnight low temperatures below freezing along with episodes of light snow.  But we also heard the “spring peepers” (frogs) start their evening mating chorus.  Indeed, spring is heralded as much by sights, sounds, and smells as it is by hours of sunlight and seasonal weather.

Notable among the sounds, along with the spring peepers, was the cacophony of gaggles of Canada Geese, the unmistakable calls of the Sandhill Crane, other bird song, and the loud drumming of distant woodpeckers, the latter suggesting that Pileated Woodpeckers were in the area.  Robins had already appeared in late March.  Plants started erupting from the ground, trees/bushes started to flower, and the grass started to grow, all sure signs of spring.  (Our property, however, was still too wet to mow, which is one of the challenges of spring in this part of Michigan.)

While we waited for warmer/drier weather, so we could work outside comfortably, and took care of several important tasks during the first week of the month.  Although a bit mundane, we broke down a large amount of corrugated cardboard packaging and recycled it; all of it accumulated from various things we have purchased over the last many months.

We have now lived “in the country” for over a decade, some 30 miles farther out from the downtown hub of the Detroit metropolitan area than our previous house.  During that time, we have maintained core medical, dental, optical, and veterinary services with the providers we have used for a long time; 48 years in the case of the Henry Ford Health System (HFHS) and almost as long for the others.  Those providers are now anywhere from 30 to 50 miles from our house, and getting to those locations has become ever more challenging for us because of traffic, road construction, and weather.  We have talked about finding closer, more convenient, providers for a while now but, absent a compelling reason to change, it’s always been easier to stick with what we have.  The travel distance/time/difficulty has finally become compelling.  The same is true of lawyers, financial advisors, car mechanics, house and property service providers, etc., of course  We purchased our current vehicles locally and have them serviced by those dealerships, about 4 miles from our house and property maintenance providers come to us.  We need to find an attorney in our area who specializes in estates, wills, trusts, and elder law, but have not gotten around to it yet.  Although not local, we are very satisfied with our financial advisors.  We mostly interact with them via e-mail, phone, and ZOOM calls, but make in-person appointments if we are going to be in the St. Louis, Missouri area.

Top of the list was my decision to change my (Bruce’s) primary care provider.  While I wanted a more convenient location I also wanted a more specialized focus.  I turned 72 this year, and although my health is generally good and I feel fine (most of the time), I am also realistic about being in my 8th decade and part way into my 73rd trip around the sun.  It seemed an appropriate time to move my care to a clinic with a specialized focus on the health issues of the elderly.  (I would have liked a setting that was also focused on men’s health and plant-based nutrition, but that proved to be a bridge to far.)

Yes, both of us are now considered “elderly.”  Indeed, we entered that category (broadly speaking) when we turned 65.  I might not be “old” yet (in my mind), but I plan to be someday, and want to be set up in advance with appropriate medical care.  After checking what was available from the HFHS and the University of Michigan Health System (UofMH), I decided to move to the Geriatric clinic at UofMH in Ann Arbor.  As a bonus, UofMH also has clinics for some specialty services in Brighton, the city closest to our home.

Early in the first week of April, I had my first appointment with my new doctor (Dr. N), and it was very interesting.  He is Nigerian, and did his medical training in London, England.  Besides getting acquainted, checking the usual things, ordering comprehensive blood tests, and modifying my blood pressure medication dosage, he examined strength, range of motion, and gait (motion and balance), this being a specific interest of his.

While I was there, the med-tech (MT-V) removed impacted/hardened wax from my left ear using a 50/50 solution of diluted hydrogen peroxide and warm water.  I had already had a “new patient” intake ZOOM call with a social worker (SW-S) the week before, but had a second, in-person, meeting with a social worker (SW-A) as the first part of my new patient office visit.  SW-A confirmed some of the things I had self-reported or told SW-S, but her main purpose in seeing me was to administer the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA).  (She did not identify it as such at the time, but Linda found it online afterwards and I confirmed that it was the exact set of questions and tasks administered to me.)  This is one of those assessments where you are not supposed to practice in advance, which might distort the results.  That would not be in my best interest anyway; what I want from such an assessment is an accurate evaluation of cognitive status.

Starting at age 65, a Medicare Annual Wellness Visit is supposed to include a cognitive assessment, but this is the first time I have had such an evaluation, and Linda has never had one.  I was slightly apprehensive at first—no one wants to have problems with a cognitive evaluation—but it was interesting and I apparently did okay.  More to the point, however, is that I really appreciated being evaluated to establish a baseline with my new doctor, and look forward to repeating this from time-to-time.  Indeed, the fact that the UofMH-Geriatric center includes social workers as integral team members is a big deal and underscored that I had made a good choice.  Mental decline is often a major health issue as people live through their 70’s, 80’s, and into their 90’s, and this decline can impact their physical, emotional, and social health as well.  Early detection means earlier treatment, including changes in lifestyle and living arrangements, with the possibility of better outcomes.

As long as we were dealing with medical arrangements, we checked out the UofM Kellogg Eye Institute (UM-KEI), a world-class center for eye health, that came highly recommended by a neighbor of ours who is a nurse.  The main Institute is in Ann Arbor, as is the case for all things UofM Medicine, but they have a satellite clinic in the UofMH specialty clinic closest to our house.  The specialty care facility is less than an eight-mile drive with no highways.  We made appointments for both of us to have routine vision/eye examinations in the second week of April and get new prescriptions for glasses.  Linda definitely needs new spectacles, and I probably do too.  The only downside to moving our eye care here is that they do not accept our EyeMed vision insurance.  We can submit bills for services to the insurance plan and get some reimbursement, but we will likely get our glasses at one of the local optical shops that accepts our insurance.  It’s just easier that way, and I think we get slightly better insurance coverage as well.

Linda has her ENT/audiology services through the Michigan Ear Institute, which is affiliated with Ascension/Providence, located in the northwest suburban part of the Detroit metropolitan area.  Although not as convenient, she really likes her doctor and audiologist, who did her Cochlear implant surgery and maintains her Cochlear and ReSound hearing aids, respectively.  I couldn’t remember the last time I had my hearing tested and thought it was probably time to do that.  UofMH also has an audiology clinic in the nearby specialty center, so I called to make an appointment.  Unlike the vision/eye exam, however, audiology requires a referral.  I messaged my new doctor and asked for one, but did not have a reply by the end of the week.

In terms of medical providers, we are still considering what to do about dentistry.  Our dentist’s office is 50 miles from our house and getting there takes over an hour on some combination of highways and surface streets.  It’s road construction season in Michigan.  This year is a dozy, and the next year or so will be just as bad.  All of the reasonable routes into Metro Detroit have major construction projects in process, and are usually chocked with traffic, so getting there is very inconvenient and frustrating.  But we have been treated by this clinic for almost 50 years; initially by our current dentist’s father, and now the son, who is the 3rd generation to have the practice.  It’s a good clinic in every way, and it’s hard to walk away from that, but it’s just not convenient for us anymore.  Unless we have some dental issue, we won’t have to go there again until early September for our bi-annual cleanings, so we have time to figure out what to do.  My guess is we will keep the September appointments and deal with changes next year.

Along the same lines, we have used the same veterinary clinic, near our previous home, for over 40 years.  That location is now 35 miles from where we live, with the same attendant road construction projects and traffic issues.  When we lost our last cat (Juniper) we decided we would not get another pet, which would have made the issue moot.  Cabela (the cat) had different ideas, however, and has effectively adopted us.  She originally belonged to the neighbors across the street before they moved and left her behind.  We know that she had two litters of kittens and was then spayed, and we know what veterinary clinic in our area was used for these services.  We will eventually need to get her examined and inoculated, and will probably use the same local clinic since they (should) have that history in the files.

In terms of non-medical things, we took a large load of corrugated cardboard and Styrofoam to our local recycling center.  It always feels good to get this stuff out of the house without throwing it in the trash.

Other tasks during the first week of the month included:

  • Taking the cover off of the outdoor furniture set and cleaning it (the cover). I also took all of the bird feeders down from their hangars in preparation for cleaning them and putting them back in service.  We have always suspected that the many birds who come to our yard are return visitors if they have survived the winter and the journey back.  One of the challenges this year will be where to put bird feed for the Mourning Doves.  They are ground feeders, which poses a dilemma now that Cabela has claimed our house and yard as her own.  She is a very skilled and determined huntress.
  • Getting the lawn tractor/mower ready to use. We have a lawn tractor (riding lawn mower), so one of my tasks over the first week of the month was putting it back in operational condition.  This specifically involved re-installing the battery.  The tractor lives in the shed during the winter, but the shed does not have electricity (yet).  As such, I bring the battery into the garage, which is heated and stays above freezing, and where I can attach it to a maintenance charger.
  • Linda wrapped up several tax returns and mailed them to the family members and friends who are out-of-state so they could sign them and mail them to the IRS. For family and friends in Michigan, she files most of them electronically, or delivers them in person.
  • Linda also continued to work on period and year-end accounting tasks for the bakery, where she retired as the controller a little over a decade ago. Like all accounting and tax-related work, January through April tend to be the busiest time of the year, but the period accounting work is steady and evenly distributed over the calendar year.  She also works on special projects, as needed.  Those are harder to plan for, but she works closely with the controller of the bakery (who was hired when Linda retired) and lets him know when we will be traveling.  She can do much of the period accounting work remotely, but year-end work is more difficult, and special projects can be a challenge depending on what they are.

Our lawn maintenance guy (Keith) texted me last month to let me know that he was ready to start mowing for the season whenever we were, but the yard soil is still very wet, and we are at least a few weeks away from having him start mowing.  Indeed, we had snow again late in the week; not much, but it was still moisture that ended up in the ground.  The snow seems to be alternating with rain, but no surprise there.  April is typically our rainiest month, but we can have ice storms as late as early May, and we have had years where Keith could not mow the west part of the property until sometime in June.  (That was before Phil installed a French drain in that part of the property, so Keith can now usually get started sometime in May.)

We have used Keith for all but our first year in this house.  He does a great job and does not ask for a contract or pre-paid amount for the season; we just pay him each time he mows.  He doesn’t mind if we occasionally have him skip a week, and will adjust his schedule and/or make an extra visit, if we ask and he is able to do so.  We don’t do that unless we have to, and skipping weeks usually corresponds to either very wet conditions, making the lawn un-mowable, or conditions when the grass is not growing very quickly, such as an extended summer dry spell or late in the season as fall gives way to winter.  The only reason we would ask for an extra mowing is if we had an important weekend gathering, wanted the grass cut on Friday so it looked nice, and I did not have time to do it myself.  Our usual day is Tuesday.

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NOTE:  This post contains 20 photos with captions and some narrative.  All photos were taken by me (Bruce) using a Google Pixel 6 Pro, except for the last one, which was taken by Linda with a Google Pixel 6.

 

March 2024 — Return to normal home life; tree pruning and house/home/family stuff

Upon returning from our Disney DREAM family cruise at the end of last month, we quickly settled back into the routine of normal home life.  Besides the usual chores of cooking, laundry, paying bills, and tending to the cat (Cabela), this included extensive work catching up on blog posts (which included processing a LOT of photographs), making and attending appointments (medical/dental, automotive), providing child care (Ann Arbor public schools were on spring break the last full week of the month), hosting or attending get-togethers with friends (walking, dinner, phone chats, and ZOOM), doing some travel planning (for the fall and next year), and a few special projects.

Special projects included the following:

  1. A chat with Phil Jarrell of Precision Grading to firm up trenching and grading work he will do for us this year, including a French Drain and sump drainage in the back yard.
  2. Taking delivery of the new furniture that we ordered last month for our recreation/TV room.
  3. Purchasing comprehensive travel insurance from Allianz.
  4. Getting CoVID-19 booster injections.
  5. Successfully booking a full-hookup site at Wilderness State Park (Michigan) for a couple of weeks this September.
  6. Meeting with Dan from Everlast Doors & More to firm up our options for new garage doors.
  7. I (Bruce) also signed up for the MyUofMHealth Portal and completed a new patient intake ZOOM meeting with a social worker in advance of my early April visit with my new primary care physician in the Geriatric clinic at UofM Health in Ann Arbor.

Most of the photos that follow, however, relate to one special project on March 11 and 12.  Not too long ago we contracted with Davey Tree Service (DTS) for “dormant season pruning.”  This term applies to the pruning of trees that must be done between late fall and early spring; in our case, mostly Oak, Ash, and Maple trees.  (Elm trees, and perhaps some other hardwood species, also require dormant season pruning, but we do not have any of those on our property.)  We do have a lot of Oak trees, however, and we still have some living Ash trees.

It doesn’t hurt to prune other trees during this same period of time, so we contracted to have DTS do some fairly extensive trimming, including the large grove of diverse trees in the northwest portion of the property.  This stand of trees had not been professionally pruned under our ownership of the property, and I doubt that previous owners ever hired anyone to do this work.  Over the years, I have done what I could removing deadwood with a pole saw or chainsaw, but these trees are large/tall and needed more serious attention, especially higher up where I cannot reach.  We did not have DTS prune most of the pine and fir trees, however, as they can be trimmed any time of year, and I can usually do that myself.

In addition to the debris from their own work, DTS cleaned up most of the brush piles that we had created around the property over the last many years.  I think we had 13 of them, and they disposed of at least eight (8), but it might have been 9 or 10.  That meant we did not have to cut them up, transport them to our “burn pile,” and set them ablaze.  Money well spent, in our opinion.

 

A boom truck positioned to work on the Oak trees near of east driveway entrance.  The small tracked vehicle, left-center, has claws on the front for picking up limbs, branches, and other related debris and moving it to the chipper/truck.

 

The chipper and truck in the east section of the pull-through driveway in front of the house.

 

Looking west at the boom truck positioned in the street just beyond (west of) our center driveway entrance.  Most of the large trees that are visible here are Oak trees.  The crew has set out orange safety cones around the truck as well as “Workers Ahead” signs.  DTS is a very safety conscious company that uses good equipment and knowledgeable, well-trained crew.

 

The tracked brush loader moving limbs and branches to the chipper, visible in the lower right corner of the frame.

 

A view of the bucket truck looking east.  As mention in a previous caption, DTS is very safety conscious.

 

The crew leader studies the Ash tree behind our house.  The central trunk above the large branches is dead.  It’s unattractive and not good for the tree, so it will be removed.  DTS cannot get its boom truck back here without damaging the yard, so the crew will climb the tree using climbing gear.  DTS’s technicians do NOT use spikes to climb trees, something we very much appreciate.

 

This is the Tulip tree behind our house.  (These are often called Tulip Poplars, but that is incorrect as they are not poplar trees).  Again, climbing gear was used to get up into the tree.  This tree had a lot of deadwood to be removed.  Unfortunately, the entire southern trunk (closest to the house) is dead.

 

A wider view of the back of our house and the work being done on some of the trees.  L-2-R:  Tulip tree, Mountain Hickory, and Ash.  Barely visible at the left edge of the frame is our Crimson King Norway Maple, which also got some deadwood removal and decorative pruning.

 

The Locust tree at the SE corner of our house.  This tree tends to put out lower branches that swoop down, posing a risk to someone (like me or Keith, our lawn care guy) hitting their head when operating a riding lawn mower.  DTS has very nicely trimmed it up.  Not visible in this photo are the power and phone lines that are just out of the frame at the top and relatively close to the tree.  Dave is not allowed to work on any limbs or branches within a certain distance (10’ I think) of the power lines.  Again, it’s a safety thing, and might be a power company requirement.

 

Our small stand of Black Walnut trees in the yard ENE of the NE corner of the house.  Barely visible just below the center of the frame is a pile of logs, the remnants of a Pear tree that was long dead.  We try not to remove dead trees that show signs of use by woodpeckers, squirrels or other critters looking for food or shelter, but at some point they have to come down.

 

The nicely pruned Crimson King Norway Maple.  This is a beautiful tree when it’s leafed out, but they grow prolifically, and in a somewhat tangled way.  As such, they require a lot of maintenance to keep them under control and attractive.  They are also not native to this part of Michigan, and are considered somewhat invasive.  I do as much of that as I can with this tree, but it was nice to have the DTS professionals have a go at it.

 

I just liked the composition and exposure of this photo.  It’s hard to provide a context for it, but basically this tree had a long, large limb that was rubbing on the trunk of a nearby pine tree and damaging the pine tree.  Removing the limb ensured the health of the affected pine tree, and opened up the area where the limb had been to allow light to get to other adjacent trees.

 

A portion of the stand of trees in the northwest part of our property.  The crew leader and the newest hire are discussing how to approach pruning the tree closest to them.

 

The crew leader (L) explaining to the new guy (R) how to prune this tree.  I walked over and ended up getting a lesson in how to properly prune a limb or large branch.  Basically, an enlarged area called a “collar” forms around the base of the limb and, ideally, the limb needs to be cut cleanly right at the collar without cutting into the collar, and without leaving any of the limb protruding.  ABIR, the tree produces four (4) different types of growth to heal the wound left by the removal of the limb, and pruning it in this way maximizes the tree’s ability to do that.  Even with hiring DTS, I still end doing a lot of pruning every year, so I was grateful to have this in-person lesson.

 

The boom-truck and the chipper/truck combination have moved just beyond the third/west driveway entrance (by the barn) to work on the trees on the north side of the road.  The trees on the left side of the road (and the grassy area leading up to our neighbor’s pole barn) are also part of our property.  This portion of the property also includes a stand of large Oak trees, but it was not part of the work order for this job.  Next year, probably, maybe, hopefully.

 

Another view of the trees in the northwest portion of the property, to the W and NW of the barn, showing the telltale signs of having been pruned.

 

A wider view of some of the trees in the northwest portion of the property.  Showing this entire area required a panorama, which I could not take as the DTS crew was moving around as they worked.

 

The new furniture for our recreation/TV room.  L-2-R:  Metal end table with metal lamp, 3-cushion sofa with two power loungers (one each end), metal end table with metal lamp, 2-cushion love seat with two power loungers, metal coffee table.  We purchased custom cut protective translucent matts from Linovent for the top surface of each of the three tables.  The matts feature beveled edges and appear to be a high-quality product.

 

A panoramic view of the new furniture in the recreation/TV room showing its relationship to the repositioned television set and associated equipment.  As a result of this rearrangement, both of us now have the same viewing angle and distance from the TV, with no glare from the lighting, and much more comfortable/adjustable furniture to sit on.  We really liked our old furniture, but it was over 30 years old, and we were ready for a change.  The old furniture was still serviceable, and will be donated to the local Habitat For Humanity ReStore, if they will take it, or somewhere else if they won’t.

 

Linda provided childcare for a week at the end of the month while the Ann Arbor Public Schools were on spring break.  She snapped this photo of Madeline (L) reading a book about dinosaurs to Sadie (R) at their house.  (Photo by Linda)

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