Snow, Doe, Don't Know.

While we are relatively unaffected by snow in our area, the same cannot be said of areas west and northwest of us. We are close to the NY state line, so a lot of the New York state weather is closer to us than Erie. These areas generally see 'lake effect' snow being on the eastern shore of Lake Erie. Once the lake freezes over, it won't be such a big issue. 

There were a lot of news stories coming out of Erie today, what with two feet of snow on the ground and the snow is still falling with another foot possible on Sunday. 

Here, however, it was quiet. Not a lot of snow, but enough to cover the ground. 

Tim hunted today, and he wound up getting two doe, which was unexpected. It also meant that he needed help dragging them out. I received a text from him. His texts are succinct and often short on details. I got word that he needed help. I went down, expecting that we'd be working in the heated garage. I knew it wouldn't be hot, but I did expect that I wouldn't need to bundle up in layers because I wouldn't be outside. Silly me. I was outside. Tim needed help dragging. I nearly froze to death in the wind, but we got it done, two of them on the truck and back to the garage. By then it was dark, so we got done what we could, but we'll have to go back tomorrow morning to finish up.

Still. Two doe. And big ones, too. We're lucky for that. 

We came home and it took me forever to warm up. I was bundled up in layers with a cat stretched across me. Tim stretched out on his couch, lounging in shorts and an open shirt, taking a well deserved break. I don't get it. I'm still cold. 

Here's something that I will throw out for you to ponder. 

What do you think of 'concierge medicine'?

There is a orthopedic surgeon who is part of a very successful practice. If you go to him, he will do you surgery. If you want special care and attention, you are offered the option of paying $5000 fee. This allows you to pick your surgery date. It gives you the ability to get in touch with his practice 24 hours a day. It provides you with an ice water pump to keep the joint cooled as it heals. He has a big party, renting out a tent during one of the summer events in Erie, which allows his patients to have a big picnic while listening to live music from the summer event. He also does podcasts, featuring videos from surgery and interviews with patients. It is called 'Hey, Saw-bones: My Story. My Passion'. 

A woman who paid the $5000 says that it is no different from buying a car. You can have a vehicle that takes you from point A to point B, but if you want a car with all the bells and whistles, you're going to pay for it. She believes this is the wave of the future. 

I'm curious what you think. 

'Twas the night before first day...

 Well, the good news is that we did not get the dreadful amounts of snow called for. So. It was cold, and it did snow, but not even enough to warrant getting the shovel out. 

Tim went to Grand Valley, where the new house is, and where the kittens are, and where he is hunting. He turned up the heat a bit inside the house, and he turned the heat on for the kittens out in the garage, because it was cold today and supposed to get even colder tonight. He shot his gun in preparation for first day. He's quite excited about this. 

I stayed home and made a half batch of bread. I'm trying to find a new recipe that I like, and that always involves a bit of trial and error. I also made a batch of soup. I had some partial bags of different beans from last winter and wanted to use them up. I used some of the ham left over from Thanksgiving. so I tossed that in the crock pot, chopped of onion, celery, and carrot, added some garlic and thyme, and just let those beans simmer all day while I played with bread dough. 

The soup turned out great, and it hit the spot on this cold day. The bread was better than the bread that I made Wednesday, but not great. 'Needs Improvement' as the old report cards would say. 

I did get my hair cut, and what a relief that was. My locks would never be called luxurious, not by any means. What it WOULD be called is straggly and shaggy, and with no shape. So having it shorter, and styled, means that I can wash it, blow dry it, and style it, and have the comfort of knowing that it will look half way decent for a few hours. 

Tim has been busy, busy, busy. This is the night before first day. He sharpened his field knives. He charged up his electric socks. This year, we added an heated vest for him as well, because he has noticed that he feels the cold a lot more keenly than he did years ago. It is supposed to be in the 20s tomorrow, and if there is any wind at all, he'll be miserable up in his tree stand. He has tried out the vest, and is much pleased with it. He can slip his hands inside his coat if he needs to warm his hands. 

His things are laid out, and he is in bed already, because he plans on being up and in the woods by 5:30. This means he will have to leave the house no later than 5. 

Since I have no such plans, I held up my part of the deal. I made two tunafish sandwiches on wheat bread, sliced some cheddar cheese for him. I added a box of coconut breakfast bars and he bought two bags of funsize candy bars to toss in. He also has a container of soup and a roll to take along, so that if he gets his deer, he can warm up in the house with a hot bowl of something before skinning it in the garage...which does now have heat, so I guess he'll be okay. 

I did tell him to call me if he got something, and I could drive down, but he told me that there was nothing really for me to do. He's able to drag out his own deer this year, unlike last year, when he needed me to come drag it for him because he was fresh out of surgery.

Thanksgiving

 

Winter Storm Warning issued November 28 at 7:34PM EST until November 30 at 7:00AM EST by NWS State College PA

* WHAT...Heavy lake effect snow expected. Total snow accumulations between 2 and 7 inches with locally higher amounts over northern and western Warren County. * WHERE...Warren County. * WHEN...From 4 AM Friday to 7 AM EST Saturday. * IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. The hazardous conditions could impact the Friday morning and evening commutes and holiday travel. * ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Gusty west winds will also cause snow to drift and repeatedly cover untreated roads even when snow is not falling.

Severity
Severe

Certainty
Likely

Urgency
Expected

Published
November 28th, 2024 07:34:00 pm EST

Effective
November 28th, 2024 07:34:00 pm EST

Expires
November 29th, 2024 10:00:00 am EST

The news is filled with breathless warnings about the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad snow storm we are expecting. The last I knew, they were calling for 9-12 inches. At the Thanksgiving, my niece pulled out her phone. Much to my surprise, her weather was calling for 2-3 feet. I'm not sure where that report came from. 

I've been keeping an eye on this storm for the most trivial of reasons. I have a hair cut tomorrow afternoon. Now, bear in mind that I had my last hair cut in June, just before my stylist took the summer off for a hip replacement. She returned in the fall and had quite a backlog of people. I made this appointment a couple weeks ago, and tomorrow was the earliest that she could get me in. 

And...so...I'm just hoping the this weather hype is mostly hype. 

Thanksgiving was nice. As the saying goes, many hands make light work. I made my cranberry sauce last night. I got up this morning and baked a chocolate cake and frosted it. I had time to relax before popping the ham in. About an hour before we left the house, the corn casserole went in on the bottom rack. A lot easier than doing the whole meal yourself. 

It was a nice time. A little sad because some of them were there to bury their mother tomorrow. But everyone talked and it was fun to listen to them. Saturday is the first day of rifle season for deer, and so phones were being passed around to show the monster bucks. The youngest great nieces and nephews ran around playing well together. The oldest are grown. How on earth has this happened? 

After we got home, there was an e-mail from another niece who was not there. She's expecting a baby in May. 

The circle of life, isn't it? 

So that was Thanksgiving, and I am thankful. 

I will even more thankful if I can get that haircut. 

I hope that everyone had a nice day, no matter whether this was an ordinary day, or a celebration for you. 

Thanksgiving

 Well, blogger is being a pain in my butt today. It would not let me sign in this morning, for whatever reason, and so my comments are anonymous. I tried several times to make a post tonight. When I clicked on 'sign in', nothing happened. 

Now, suddenly, I can make a post. 

Today was a quiet day. Tim worked on the heating for the cats, and I burned trash. Then I got the idea to start gathering up various bits of construction debris and start getting rid of the clutter around the house. It was a pleasant way to spend the morning. 

Tim needed to run to Lowe's this morning for some fittings. Something we've discussed is the fact that 25% tariffs will be levied against China, Canada and Mexico and supposedly those will take effect his first day in office. That's going to lead to some pretty high prices. We had discussed the fact that we probably should pick up our dishwasher for the new house. I kind of had my heart set on one, because I haven't had one for nearly 30 years. I don't need one. I am aware of that, but I did want one. 

Tim came back from his run to Lowe's, and said, "I bought you a stove." I was a little surprised, because I'd bought a used stove for $300. It had a convection oven, which I was pretty sure that I'd like. Tim explained that this stove had been marked down from $1100 to $600 because it had a small dent in the side. It was a top of the line stove, with 5 burners, and a convection oven. The oven can be used for air frying and dehydrating, and it was a large capacity oven. Plus it matched the refrigerator we bought last spring (also a scratch and dent markdown). And the dishwasher he picked out. 

I was a little stupefied. I said, 'but...we have a stove.' He said, "We'll put that one in the rehab." 

And that was that. The new appliances are nice. We put them into place and it will be a nice kitchen. All we are waiting on is the Amish made sink base, and we will have all the components for the kitchen. We still do need to pick up the flooring, but the good news is that we have agreed on what we want, and that feels like half the battle right there. 

Another interesting thing is that someone is interested in buying our house, the one we live in right now. That was unexpected. He owns the apartment building next to ours, and has an eye on turning our house back into a duplex. The original owner had done that when her husband died. She made the second and third floors a separate living space for tenants. She lived on the first floor. After she died, a young couple bought the house and restored it back to a single family dwelling. 

Tim said in a musing way, "Well...if he bought it, we would save quite a bit of time on getting it market ready. If he wants to turn it back into a duplex, he would want to do the renovating." Which sounds very fine to me. I may not have mentioned it, but I am heartily sick of fixing up houses. 

So we hauled the appliances to the new house. I fed the cats while Tim hooked up their furnace. It was a pleasant morning, warm, no wind, and so I started a fire outside to burn the trash and then collected a lot of construction debris and got that burnt as well. 

So. It was a productive day, and that felt nice. 

In just a few minutes, it will be Thanksgiving. For all the uncertainty about the future, I can tell you that I still have blessings to count, and I'm trying to be very mindful of that. 

We celebrate Thanksgiving with my brother-in-law's family. The celebration has grown so big that it is held at their church, in the rec hall. There will be two turkeys. Three hams to build a feast around. We are taking one ham, corn casserole, cranberry sauce with orange and ginger, and a chocolate cake.  It is always a good time. 

It will start snowing at some point tomorrow. We're in the midst of that blue splotch. That's snow. The interesting thing is that the interactive radar shows the storm moving, but the blue patch stays right over us. We have snow in the forecast every day for a week and by the time that this finally passes, we are expected to have 9-12 inches on the ground. 

Happy Thanksgiving, America. 

A Story Of A Car.

 Some of you might remember that at the beginning of summer, Tim purchased a new to him Suburu Outback to replace our other car which had developed transmission problems. A couple weeks later, I was headed to my son's house to baby sit my granddaughters for the weekend while their parents went to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers. 

(side note: I do not believe that my granddaughters' parents see nearly enough weekend concerts. I had fun. They had fun. The girls had fun...there really was not a downside.)

Anyway, Tim insisted that I drive the new car because he thought (for whatever reason) that it was more roadworthy that my own trusty car, which had never given me a hint of problems. I finally gave in, because the man will push. 

In the end, it was a lucky thing because I got a call. A fellow from Pittsburgh had run the red light. William was in the car and gasped, "Grandpa!" as Tim was pulling into the intersection. He slammed on the brakes, but the front end of my car was neatly ripped off. Tim was so calm that I didn't believe him, initially, but I could hear William gabbling in the background. He was very excited and picked up a piece of my broken car as a souvenir. 

It was witnessed, and there was no doubt that the other guy (who was driving his brother's car) was at fault, but still it took like a month to get it all sorted. They totaled out my car. It's a 16 year old car, and based on its bluebook value, getting it repaired would cost more than it was worth. We received a check, but Tim is a mechanic, among his many other talents. He bought the car from the insurance company for $400, and went right to work. RockAuto had all the parts he needed and so for less than $1000, he had everything he needed, and he began to patiently put the car together again. 

The end result: 

It needed a special inspection to be declared sound enough to be driven on the road again, and we had quite a bit going on, so that kind of got put off for a while but we dropped it off last week. It passed. We jumped through the necessary hoops and today after a flurry of mad dashes, we made it back to the inspection station with all the necessary paperwork they needed to put the new sticker on it, about 15 minutes the place closed for Thanksgiving. 

I have my familiar, trusty car back and it is road ready, so that was exciting. 

Also exciting was that while Tim was running an errand this morning, he dropped me off at a thrift store. I found a puzzle for our Amish Christmas, and a book of horses to go with little David's Breyer horse. That baby adores horses. I also saw this:

Isn't that the most adorable thing? The tiny pink polka dots, the appliqued roses and ballet shoes. It won't fit my youngest granddaughter this winter, but it will be perfect next winter. Now my oldest granddaughter loves ballet, taking lessons twice a week. The youngest? Who knows. She's a fearless little thing, and when provoked, she will growl in frustration. Her father says, "She's that girl who will walk around with a brick in her purse," which makes me laugh every time that I think of it. 

So...she may well not be at all interested in ballet. She may end up passionate about karate, for all I know. But I fell completely in love with that little corduroy jumper. Being that I'm a grandma with no self control, it left the store with me. Along with a tiniest bangle bracelet with an etched floral design for the oldest granddaughter, a tee shirt made out of the dryweave material that William swears by, and the puzzle and the book for the Amish Christmas. 

I was pretty excited about my $5 adventure. 

We worked at the new house today. Well...not really the house. Tim's installing heat for the kittens in the garage. We have a large carpet that we used to both cover the cold concrete floor, but also nailed it to the board wall to block drafts. At the rehab there were, believe it or not, two damaged Coleman coolers, one in the attic, another in the garage.  We cut entrances in them with a sawzall, and tucked a blanket in each one of them, so that the kittens will have a well insulated nest. Once the heater is running on low, that will make a cozy place for them. 

So that was our project today. We'll finish it tomorrow, and those cats will be glad of it. They sure did not like all the noise today. 

So, yeah, that is exciting too. 

I listened to the video from the city council meeting on Monday, and the council unanimously voted to make a payout to us for the sewage debacle last spring. 

So, that's exciting too, although we have no word on when that check will actually be cut. 

I have to tell you though, my biggest excitement, I can't even tell you about. It should be here the first week of December. It is the perfect thing and I'm ridiculously excited to give it for Christmas. I can't wait.

There is another bit of excitement that I know of, but cannot tell of, because it is a gift to us from my daughter and son-in-law, and Tim does not know yet. That is their job to tell him. 

The Story of A Bike.

 The story begins on November 16th. A woman posted on a local 'helping hands site' that she wanted people to be on the lookout for her bike, which had been stolen. She was offering money to anyone who could help her get her bike back.

She was so desperate to get it back, I started wondering what it was that made a Salsa Timberjack bike so special. A little googling made it clear. The bike ranges in price from $1700 to $2000. 

A lot of people tried to help, contacting her if they saw a green bike anywhere, or giving her suggestions about camera placement around town, and the like. 

Two days ago, I happened to notice on a local garage sale site, someone was selling a bike. 

It clicked with me, and so I contacted the woman who'd had her bike stolen. 

(So did about everyone else in town.) 

The seller was from Youngsville. She posted it on a Corry site, a town about a half hour away. 

The woman who'd had her bike stolen contacted her and offered to buy the bike. 

The bike was in Jamestown NY at her boyfriend's house, the seller said. She had no way to get it back to Youngsville, which was why she was selling it. They only accepted Venmo or CashApp payment which is very strange for an in person pickup. 

The  prospective 'buyer' said that it was no problem, and that she'd need the boyfriend's address. 

It was provided!!!!!

At some point, the seller's post lit up with comments claiming that the bike belonged to So and So. The seller said, "It's not the only bike of that brand bought in the area." But she also made the connection that her prospective buyer was the same woman the bike had been stolen from. She very quickly sent out a response that the bike had been sold by her boyfriend, and the ad was taken down just before the police showed up. 

And that is how a ring of thieves who targeted high end bikes and e-bikes was taken into custody. 

They may have been good at stealing, but it is interesting to me that they didn't seem to know anything about serial numbers. 

But anyways, I do love a happy ending, don't you? 

Conversations from a Marriage

 Today was another work day. We got another ceiling up in the third bedroom at the rehab. That was our goal for today. Mission accomplished. I did some insulation work too.

I also swept.

The house is old and it was pretty bad. I have been sweeping over and over, every time that I go, but still...there is more dust. Yesterday, I hauled out the wood from the kitchen cupboard. Didn't seem like after getting rid of the doors that there was much point in keeping that wood, but Tim thought maybe it might come in useful for something. And the wood does match the woodwork. So I hauled the wood out to the garage and stacked it, and cleaned the debris left behind and swept out the kitchen. Dustpan after dustpan. Where does it all come from? Who knows, but I swept upstairs and downstairs again today, and found plenty more dust. 100 years of dust doesn't get swept up over night, I guess. 

Tim made the comment about 'the next house we buy...' Pretty sure he was joking, but you never can be too sure. Just in case he was serious, I looked him square in the face and said, "We. Are. Not. Buying. ANY MORE HOUSES! I am making it perfectly clear. I am ready to retire, and I'm not doing it anymore, so if you decide to get yourself tangled up in another rehab, you better be prepared to be working on it all by yourself. I AM DONE!~!!" He looked surprised but didn't say anything. I've said this before, but, by heavens, this time I mean it. I think the man would be happy to drop over dead with a hammer in his hand. Me? Not so much. 

We worked all day and then headed down to feed the kittens. Tim went hunting last night for a couple hours, and so he took over feeding them last night. (I stayed home and made supper for him, scalloped potatoes, with smoked sausage.) I know that he doesn't fuss much with them. He'll just throw a couple cups of dry cat food in their dish and call it good. I'm different. But I knew that he'd want to get out hunting right away. I bring the pitcher home with me to wash, so I got the bright idea to make the gravy here at home for him. I handed him the pitcher on his way out of the door. "When you get down there, just add a packet of beef broth to the gravy, heat up the water in the electric kettle, and then pour it all in with the gravy. Stir in a couple cans of cat food, and then take it down and add it to a couple scoops of dry cat food and you're done. 

I'm not sure what he did not understand there, but I noticed that when I filled the kettle with water today, it was brown. Really, really brown. I wondered what was going on with the water. I've never seen it that color before. But then, something struck me. I said to Tim 'So...did you add the beef broth in the electric kettle?'

He said, "No. You didn't tell me to do that." 

I said, "I'm glad. The water was so brown that I thought you'd misunderstood or something."

He said, "Well...wasn't I supposed to pour the gravy in there?" 

Me (aghast), "In the electric kettle???!!!" 

Him: "I was heating it up for them." 

Gaaaaaaahhhhh!!!!! I explained the proper use of an electric kettle to him. Nuthin' but water! You use the kettle to heat water to add to things in a pitcher (or a cup). Nothing but water goes in the kettle! I think that I used enough exclamation points. He'll probably remember. Maybe. 

The kettle was brought home for a thorough cleaning. 

The kittens were especially glad to see me today, poor starvelings! I mixed their food up just the way they like it, and they gathered around quickly. I notice when I sit down on the floor to watch them and talk to them that three of them seem almost to be more interested in being petted and scritched behind the ears than they are in the food. Today, I didn't have enough hands because three of them crowded close. Minnie was eating her food while it was still hot, but she stayed close and watched carefully as Tiger, Sigh, and Possum milled around purring and rubbing against my hands. The three of them initiate the contact by standing in front of me staring at my face. When I look at them, they give a quiet questioning 'purp!' That gets the pets started. It is fun to see them learning to trust, and I am grateful for that small joy. 

So. That was today. Work and kittens. We stopped at a grocery store to pick up carrots and broccoli for a stirfry, but I don't imagine that you're interested to hear about that. Or the turnips I picked up for a pot of turnip soup either. So. I won't mention that. 

Happy weekend.