Today May Be a Clue
Is life ever dull on Stauffer Avenue . . . not!
Before I begin my tirade, this weather is such a gift. Regardless of what comes during the day, this blessing cannot be taken for granted.
There may be a clue as to why some elderly people decide to hang up the single family residence and find an apartment. I made mention of another limb that was hung up in the ancient Maple. It wasn’t safe to leave it swaying in the breeze 20′ off of the ground. Addressing it was the next step. Hmm. Dennis dug out the 15′ fiberglass ladder and was off to get the Cub Lo-Boy out of the back garage. The ole cowboy rides again. Easy peasy! Dennis planned on going up the ladder and lassoing the branch with a rope and then using the Cub Lo-Boy to pull it loose and let it fall to the ground. Fall to the ground . . . I had visions. While Dennis headed back to the east edge of the acre to get the rope and tractor, I was on the cell phone.
Dennis’ sister’s funeral is Saturday. No way on earth did we have time to plan a double funeral with the escapades of Dennis. Son-in-law Thomas was over before Dennis even had gotten the tractor started. Good man Thomas! All was not lost for Dennis’ part of the project. He was able to pull the huge limb out of the tree after Thomas had it all rigged. Huge drama averted.
I usually greet the mail lady as she makes her rounds. As I walked around the northeast corner of the house there was a puddle of water that caught my eye. Wait a minute. We had a hose connected at the house to take the sump pump water out into the street. Aha! The blue plastic hose had split, letting just enough water to show up at the street with most of it spilling right into the lawn adjacent to the house. I got Dennis a lawn chair and we began the task of taking off the clamps of the blue hose and reconnecting the water out-take from the pump, allowing it to drain underground. Why had we disconnected it? With such a wet spring and summer, we virtually had a swamp as the area with the underground drain had nowhere to go but pond.
With two possible problems taken care of, do we really want to give up our forever home with some needed day-to-day maintenance? No! Just enough activity to made us mindful of checking out the home from stem to stern consistently.
With all things calm, it’s time for a cookie and some coffee.