Sunday, August 13th., 2023…… Hot again today! Temps expected in the high 90s. I guess it’s
bad all around the country though. At least it cools off nicely at night up
here! We had the girls out for their walk and back in before it hit 70°. I left
and went and got us breakfast and coffee. Cat took the car and went off to
church. She took some watermelon that we just bought yesterday from the
Hermiston truck that sells on one of the corners in town. Hermiston is a region
up in the Columbia River Basin east of Portland, almost to Pendelton. They have
the best watermelon in the state! Anyway,
she cubed it and will freeze it for later. Or eat it quickly! I worked on my
blog and watched my races and before I knew it, she was back! She brought ribs
and scalloped potatoes and apple pie from their meal. Always yummy! These church ladies know how to cook! I went
back to relaxing for the rest of day and got caught up on all of yesterday’s
races. I am also watching the Little League games. They have completed the
regionals and there are 10 US teams now in Williamsport for the LL World
Series. That starts on Wednesday. Always fun to watch these kids. I remember
fondly when my boys played little league and went to the San Bernardino
regionals to see them play. Randy’s team was sooo close! Cathye went and visited Lona, who wasn’t
feeling well. After that, we just hung
around the house and relaxed. There are several fires up here and around us.
Nothing for us to worry about, but we are now starting to see smoke. They say
the winds will be sending it our way tonight or tomorrow. Tv and spa and then
off to bed.
Monday, August 14th., 2023…… We were up early with the dogs and had them out before it got too hot. Temps in the high 90s today! We decided that after our workout we would go down to Eugene for breakfast. We hadn’t had The Original Pancake House’s apple pancake for a while now, so it was time to take a drive! It was a good idea but we didn’t account for the smoke we would find when we drove down the I-5. It was pretty thick
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but we went ahead anyway
and had a nice breakfast. We got back home and decided to stay in for the day.
Just too hot!
Tuesday, August 15th., 2023…… An early morning for me. I was up and out and took Cathye’s truck and headed off to Corvallis for my 8:00am acupuncture appointment. I like going early but Cathye doesn’t like it when I leave. That means she has to walk the dogs by herself! I finished up my session and stopped and got McDonald’s then drove on back to Lebanon and stopped by the car wash and had the truck washed. Cathye said it was a lazy morning and she decided to just let the girls out in the yard and they all walked out to the property line to check on the blackberries growing wild back there. She found that some were ready to pick! Maybe tomorrow. I had an appointment for the second half of the rain gutter work on the deck. Today they will be installing black gutters on the gazebos. Turns out that two of the sides of each gazebo drain down onto the patio deck and we would like to prevent that. So, now is the time to get that done before those guys get busy. We were their second appointment of the day so they showed up around 11:30am. No real ladders involved so they had an easy time of it for our job! They were in and out in less than an hour. Not bad and the black matches the gazebo roof and blends in nicely. We added rain chains to the ends since it’s only a short run and there’s not much water to deal with. They hang over the flowerbeds so that will work nicely! They were a gift from my sister! Thanks Sis!
After they left, we were pretty much done for the day. It got to 100° on our
back deck! Nobody should have to be outside in that heat! We let the dogs out
but only through the back door so they can avoid the super-heated driveway.
Wednesday, August 16th., 2023……
Nothing on
the calendar today. We did see a little drop in the temps today. It only got up
to the high 80s. We needed to water the flowers though. We have noticed a drop
in water pressure these last few days. We are on a well so whatever is going
on, it’s only us, not the city or county. I finally called the water service
for the soft water filtration system. It hasn’t been serviced in 6 ½ years. My
bad! I was never told about it when we
bought the house but I know things have to be serviced every so often. They won’t
be here until next week so we will deal with it until then. So we water anyway…
Cathye has found 1883 on tv and is
binge watching the series. She only needs the last two which haven’t shown up
on DirecTV yet. Hot tub and bed.
Thursday, August 17th., 2023…… We decided to get things going
early today since it’s still pretty hot. We hit the gym and then went to
breakfast at Kristi’s, then Cathye went off to Jamie’s while I worked a little
more on my bar project for the deck. Cathye has made up our mind – we need to
make the thing four boars wide, instead of three! So, I need to come up with another way to
attach the boards. Remember, these are 12 foot long boards and are thick and
very heavy. The tongue and groove will give them extra strength so we hope they
won’t flex. But I still want to add reinforcement to the underside for more
stability and I’m thinking that through. We made plans to return to Stayton
tomorrow for one more board. Later in the morning, Cathye dropped off Rylee and
Jama at the groomers and then ran some errands.
Friday, August 18th., 2023…… Today is three years since Jim’s passing. The plan this morning is to head up to Stayton to pick up that one board we need for the bar. She tells me there is a place that she and Jim went to for breakfast and it was a nice little place with good food, so we decided to go there first. It took a little searching but she found the place and she was right – it was really good! I tried their chicken fried steak and the gravy was good enough to make us want to put it on our list for another time! Cathye recalled her time there with Jim and shared a few stories. After that, we stopped and got the lumber and headed back home. I hung around the house then left for the first of our massage appointments with Emily for today. Mine was at noon. My job was to pay for both of the massages. Cathye will go at 4:00pm. Her job is to make appointments for next time, plus stop by next door and get us teriyaki for dinner. After the massage, I headed off to Albany and went to Harbor Freight. I needed some items, especially some pipe clamps to add to my collection. I don’t plan to do too much else today but I need to get the posts on the gazebo anchored and they have twisted a bit since we built them. They will need a little persuasion and the pipe clamps will give me that leverage I need to twist them a bit. I went out and bought some iron pipe for the clamps and assembled them and then set them up on the columns. It only took a little bit of tweaking and I had them lined up enough to look pretty straight again. Once bolted down, they line up now for the bar top.
Saturday, August 19th., 2023…… The plan today was to walk the girls, feed them, eat breakfast and then go over to Sweet Home to help with the school health fair for students there. We worked this last year and volunteered again. On the walk, I noticed that Rich’s large French drain was pushing out water into the ditch out by the road pretty heavily. I got curious and went to investigate. I thought it might be from his little pond but that was unlikely. I found water on my side of his fence line and figured it out! I came back and got the truckster and drove out to our well head. Yep, it was spewing water, with high pressure. Water was everywhere! I came back to the house and shut off the pump. I texted Russ since he worked on it last. He said he would be over as soon as he could. Cathye left to go and work the school event,
while I stayed to deal with this. Russ and Carrie got there an hour or so later and I already had the pipes disassembled. I knew what we needed and we headed off to Wilco to get materials. We made the connections (with pvc like before) and we got it reattached. Meanwhile, Corey had gotten here and was working out in the yard pulling weeds, so I asked him to flip the breaker back on to the well pump. I’m sorry to say it leaked a little. So, we needed to redo it one more time. This time we decided to use metal unions which would give us a little leeway for the fittings. We cut the one pipe too short so we had to make another trip back to the store for more materials (did I mention I hate pvc!). But the second try was successful and we had no leaks.
It was important to fix it quickly because we have absolutely no water without that pump working! Russ and Carrie went home and I cleaned up from all of that while Cathye took my truck and went out to get a load of wood chips for Corey to spread out in the blueberry cage. We had done half of it already and found that worked well to help control weeds, so we needed to get the rest done while we had Corey here. He got that done before calling it a day.
He is such a hard worker! Love you buddy! After he left, I came back in and rested for
the day. Cathye headed over to Lona's where they were celebrating Nancy's birthday with a get together. Because we leave on Monday to go to Crater Lake for a few days, I wanted to get a few things done before we leave. When Cathye got back, we got the bike rack installed on the Honda and loaded the bikes. Tomorrow we plan to mow. At least the weather
is cooler.
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