What Could Go Wrong?

We had a couple of other contractors come out yesterday to give us bids on the deck project, and I think we have decided on who we’re going to have do the work for us. One other person is supposed to get back to us on Monday, so we’ll wait until we see what he has to say. But I think our minds are pretty much made up already.

We were happy to see that just like when the fellow came the other day to give us a bid, Alli behaved very well meeting strangers. She doesn’t bark or growl or show aggression in any way, but she does sit right beside my leg until I let her know that they are okay and shake their hands. Then she is fine with them. Not buddy buddy or jumping up and down on them acting friendly and goofy, but she will sniff their hands and let them go about their business.

The high yesterday was in the upper 80s, but there was some cloud cover and the humidity didn’t seem too bad, so it was a good day to get some projects done around here. The first one involved me on a ladder with a power saw. Yeah, I know. What could possibly go wrong?

The big barn at the back of our property is a bit dilapidated but it does have a nice flat concrete floor and is watertight, so I keep the tractor implements in there. When the weather looks particularly bad, I move the Kubota, the Husqvarna riding lawn mower, and the Kawasaki Mule from the double carport up front back to the barn.

The front part of the barn is divided into horse stalls, and the back has an opening big enough to drive everything inside. The only problem is that you go in through a small portion, and then there is another doorway that was too low for the tractor to get in unless I put down the roll bar. Then when I bring it back outside, I have to put the roll bar up, and that can be easy to forget sometimes. Tractors are notorious for tipping over, and there’s a reason they have a roll bar.

Looking at the doorway, I realized that it was not a load-bearing wall and it would not take much to cut some off the top to enlarge it. So yesterday I tackled that project, crawling up on a six-foot stepladder with a battery-powered DeWalt Sawzall. Yeah, that should make you shudder. 😊

But the job went well, even if it’s not pretty. I told myself that one of these days I may try to frame it in and tidy it up, but knowing me, I’ll probably never get around to it. But that’s okay because at least now I can drive my tractor in and out without worrying about the roll bar.

As I mentioned before, we had some trees down from our big storm a while back, and once it cools down I plan to cut them up with the chainsaw. But in the meantime, I wanted to get them out of the way because they were blocking the perimeter road in a couple of places.

After I finished my project in the barn and then went inside to cool down for a while, I used the tractor’s bucket loader to push the trees off to the side and out of the way to clear the road. I’m amazed at how much power this little tractor has and how much it can do.

And just as they say in the late-night television commercials, but wait, there’s more! The grass grows incredibly fast around here and some of it was getting to be waist high in the back of the property and over by where Terry has her fruit trees planted. So I used the tractor’s brush hog to mow all of that down. I guess Terry decided I was having too much fun, because the next time I looked up she was out on the Husqvarna mowing around the carport and then the front and back yards.

There are so many big piles of grass from all of the mowing that at one point the riding lawn mower got high centered on a huge mound of grass. Terry tried to get off of it herself but wasn’t having any luck, so I told her I would push her. We rocked the mower back and forth a couple of times and then I shoved hard while she moved forward, and once she got off from where she was hung up, she shot forward and I did a face plant on the ground. Fortunately there was plenty of mown grass to break my fall, but I did skin my nose up a little bit. Hey, I was playing with a power saw and a tractor earlier. It could have been worse!

Today is your last chance to enter our Free Drawing for an audiobook of Hands of Onyx, book 2 in the Sav’ine series by Stacy Bender. It’s a story about cybernetic soldiers escorting a long haul space freighter to the outer rim planets, dealing with saboteurs who are trying to stop them and a crew that includes a half-blind medic, an explosives expert who is a sociopath, and an interrogator suffering from dementia. What could possibly go wrong?

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 this 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 – Ladies, good men do exist. We’re just ugly.