Hello and welcome back to the wonderful world of the Dogpound. Well, Thanksgiving is over, the election is over “kind of,” and Christmas is the next box we need to check off to close out the year 2020. I have been busy; I got my new carpet in, and finally got my new kitchen/dining room floor installed (dish washer had a bad leak), looks very nice. Did discover that when they moved the washer and dryer the vent hose fell apart, literally. I could see the rest of the hose through the hole in the floor, but it was too far away to reach. So, I took a wire hanger, untwisted the top, and made big hook on the end. After several attempts I was able to snag the hose and draw it up close enough where I could reach through the hole and grab hold of it. Unfortunately, the hole is just large enough to allow the vent to pass through, but not big enough to allow my hand and the hose to pass through at the same time. I finally gave up and called my local repair guy to come out and replace the whole line. In the meantime, still needing to do wash, I got some pantyhose and put it over the dryer vent to catch the lint and hooked up a floor fan to circulate the moist air out of the utility room. Not pretty, but functional. Speaking of functional…see how I easily moved into my next topic. I decided this year to cover my raised garden with tarp and not just regular ground cover. The ground cover helped keep some of the weeds at bay until it was time to plant again, but I figured a heavy tarp would really put the final nail in their coffin. I covered four areas and made sure it would not move by using a number of bricks to hold down the flaps. All was good until the rains came….and I wake up to four miniature ponds where my garden used to be. I did not think having three or four inches of water standing around on the tarp was a good idea, and I certainly did not need any skating rinks. So, I wound up removing them, and I put them back making sure one side of the flaps were on the inside of the raised garden boards to ensure that the water had a means to escape. Whew! A lot of work, but that should do it till spring. Just a sidebar: the tarp had been in place for over a month, and despite that darkness, there were still some plants that were nice and green. Mother Nature is certainly a tough cookie.
THOUGHTS FOR THE WEEK
“Life is really simple, but men insist on making it complicated.” Confucius
SMILES
Ever since we got married, my wife has tried to change me. She got me to stop drinking, smoking, running around at all hours of the night and more. She taught me how to dress well, enjoy the fine arts, gourmet cooking, classical music and how to invest in the stock market.” “Sounds like you may be bitter because she spent so much time trying to change you.” “I’m not bitter. Now that I’m so improved, she just isn’t good enough for me.”
Nurse: Your blood pressure is amazingly high. Is your job very stressful?
Patient: Well, I work at a petting zoo. Nurse: That seems easy enough.
Patient: I determine which animals are too vicious to be petted.
That is all I have for today. As always be good, do good, play safe, and remember; the clock is ticking, so, get out there and buy and buy!
JR
