Don’t ya know?…Half the FUN is in the “planning”…

First of all, I need to give a big “shout out” to 2 very lovely ladies who have decided to take a chance and follow this train wreck….Welcome aboard to grammynmaggie…and also Skylady.  Neither one had a blog, but they gotta be fun loving people if they climbed into OUR truck!! Glad to have you riding along..If either of you have wine, you can ride up front with ME ..

  We have been having such GREAT weather for August!! It has been 80 and sunny, and a campfire is in order every evening…My Wren family “flew the coop” and I am now an empty nester.  My  hummers are getting more frequent and way more aggressive!

Please note that my pictures are not near as good as some, but I have to wait outside the backdoor and hope one shows up, otherwise I have to take the pictures through our screens..NOT a good photo!

We’ve been pretty busy around here.  MacGyver finished our front porch screens, installed new garage doors and took down a tree or two…We are still making trips to Montgomery every 3rd day to see Uncle Jr.  He is doing well and we hope to see him released before too long…and that is will open up another whole can of worms..

As I said, Dennis has been a busy little bee.  We got a call from our oldest daughter, Terrie, who lives about 1/2 hour from here.  Seems their 10 year old hot water heater “bit the big one”and decided to spring a leak…Enter MacGyver..

 

Dennis took the ol’ blue truck, picked up Tim, and they went to purchase a new hot water heater.  I was still at home.  Now Dennis discovered he needed LOTS more tools for this job…(We love our son-in-law very much. He is a wonderful Father, Dad and Detective…but he doesn’t know diddly squat about the right end of a screw driver, and has almost NO tools at their house!!) So Dennis called me at home, and talked me through gathering all the tools needed for installing a hot water heater, so I could take them over the them. This does NOT bode well for a congenial relationship..

  I went into our garage, cell phone in had with Den giving me orders of what to find and where to find it.  As you might imagine there was LOTS of heated discussion in that phone conversation.  The following are just a few finely chosen quotes from MacGyver.. “What do you mean you don’t know what a pipe wrench looks like?”…and..”Donna, that solder HAS to be right in front of your face…NO, NOT the acid solder, the solid solder!! “…”Now don’t forget my drill and socket wrenches…oh, and the pipe salve, sand paper and blow torch”…This next comment was the best..”Jesu_ Chr___!  I could have driven home and got it myself by now!!”  Holy Crap, please don’t let me forget anything!

TRA DA!!  Only one little glitch..Turns out that what I thought was steel wool was some kind of padding for some whatchamacallit…Hey! That was my only mistake!!  As you can see, their dog, Bogie, was lots of help with this project…And what does it call for when a big job like this is finished????…………

…why, a couple cold beers, of course!!!

Some of you may remember that MacGyver is a farmer “wanna be”..and he helps a good friend, Jim Fritch, combine the corn in the Fall.  (This often becomes a bone of contention when I am spinning my tires to get the Heck outta here in the Hiker, and the harvest goes on until December. Just for the record, these following 3 pics were taken Nov. 20th, 2008..I rest my case.)

Anyway, Jim called Den yesterday and told him we could go pick us some of his fine sweet corn.  It was in a small cornfield in back of his Dad’s house on the East edge of Sandwich.  So, on our way home from visiting our elders, we wheeled into his Dad’s yard and drove right around back to the corn…

 

As soon as we stopped, I jumped out of the truck and headed toward the cornfield….Just as I was about to climb over what I thought was just a fence, Dennis said,” “Be careful not to touch that electric fence when you step over it”.  WHOA, TONTO!!…Gee, thanks for telling me SWEETHEART!  “So….would it KILL me if I touched it?”, I had to ask.  “ No, but you will get one Heck of a shock..It’s there to keep the racoons out.”…OK, so now I am paranoid about this little nasty fence just a few feet from MY feet.

We managed to get out dozen ears and didn’t even drop one ..My evil twin was really wanting to throw one of the ears of corn at that fence and see what would happen.  I had to rein that twin in, and it wasn’t easy!  She’s a tough old bird!..

I guess that just about does it for excitement around here.  The Hiker still sits idle.  I did have a brainstorm though.  If we can get our elders safely ensconced in assisted living next month, maybe …just maybe we can go to Shabbona State Park for a couple weeks.  Shabbona is about 30 miles from here.  I told MacGyver that if he is making me a farmer’s widow again this Fall, first he has to take me and the Hiker to Shabbona State Park and PARK US!!  He can still play in the corn, and we are only an hour from the elders…It’s not far from where Dennis combines the corn, and about 45 minutes from OUR house in Sandwich.. See?? I gotta plan, Stan!! WOOT!WOOT!…please let this work out, please let this work out, please let this work out….

“Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.”

                                                           ~Horace