A New Project For Terry

I started yesterday with a telephone interview with someone who is writing an article about going to school in Toledo, Ohio back in the so-called good old days, and she wanted to talk to me about my experiences as a student in junior high and high school, and also about the books in my Tinder Street historical saga. The series tells the story of a family living in Toledo’s historic Old South End, where I lived during my high school years. There are five books out in the series now, which begins just before World War I and will eventually end with the Vietnam War years.

After that was done, I had a new project for Terry. My beautiful wife and I are a perfect match for each other. She loves to cook and I love to eat. I love to write and she loves to edit. I love to buy things and she loves to assemble them. How could it get any better than that?

Terry’s latest project was putting together a Field Tuff pine straw rake that I had ordered from Northern Tool and Supply. You can see by the smile on her face that she loves the challenge, and she’s always up to tackling something new.

We have so much dead grass laying around from mowing the yards and pasture and I needed some way to rake it all up to use as mulch later, or at least to get it out of the way so we could see the green grass under all of the dead brown clippings. The rake is 60 inches wide with 26 spring steel tines and will attach to my Kubota tractor’s 3-point hitch.

It only took Terry about an hour and a half to put it all together, with me holding things in place when she needed them and basically staying out of the way the rest of the time. As I said, we work well together.

And here it is, all ready to go to work! Thanks for all your help, honey. What would I do without you?

With that project done, I used the tractor to mow the rest of the pasture that I had not finished on Tuesday, which took me less than an hour. Depending on how the weather cooperates, I will probably try to take off the brush hog and hook up the rake in the next day or two and put it to work.

It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of The Search for Grandma Sparkle by Darlene Miller. This cozy mystery begins when Sarah Spoolstra learns that her grandmother Opal and niece Jessica are missing, and she decides to search for them. When their car is found with two flat tires, Sarah and her boyfriend travel up and down the rural roads and creeks of southern Iowa looking for her missing relatives. Because of a recent storm, would they have sought shelter in an abandoned barn, house, or maybe even a coal mine? Were they abducted? Who would have a grudge against the gentle woman who only tried to help people through her church’s SPARKLE Club?

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed. After 90 days, unclaimed prizes revert back to the drawing pool for a future contest.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – I was sweating so much from the heat that I hydroplaned off the toilet seat and landed in the bathtub.