Down To The Wire

We’ve only got a couple more days before Terry’s folks arrive from Arizona for a week-long visit, so we are down to the wire trying to get things done before Wednesday. There’s a lot we want to get done, and hopefully we’ll accomplish it all.

Yesterday, I use the weed eater to trim up around and under both decks, around Terry’s raised garden beds, and a couple of other places. Then I jumped on the Husqvarna riding mower for a quick pass down the edge of the French drain on the side of the house because the grass was getting kind of high there.

I also wandered around out in the pasture looking for one of two arrows that I lost in the grass before I decided to start shooting behind the barn. Alli found one of them, but the other is still MIA.

While I was doing all of that, Terry was tackling a bunch of things inside the house, including assembling the shower seat she ordered for her parents’ visit, more laundry including bedding and pillows, planning some meals while they are here, and fine tuning things.

Today Travis is going to come over and we are going to grind away the bent piece of metal on the body of the tractor’s mid-mount mower that is being hit by the blade as a result of me hitting a stump with it a while back. Then we want to put the wheel weights on the rear tires of the tractor to give it more stability when carrying a heavy load in the bucket or going up and down hills. Today and tomorrow are supposed to be the last nice days for a bit, with the daytime temperatures dropping down into the 50s and 60s later this week.

As an author of mysteries and crime fiction, I do a lot of research for my books, and one of the best resources I’ve ever come across is Crime Scene Investigations, the second book in my friend Patrick O’Donnell’s Cops And Writers series. In Patrick’s 25 years as a police officer, rising to the rank of patrol sergeant, he oversaw thousands of crime scenes and investigations, including homicides, sexual assaults, and robberies. He is now an author, podcaster and public speaker, as well as the host of the popular Cops and Writers podcast, which you can listen to at https://copsandwriterspodcast.buzzsprout.com. If you want to know about real police work from a real cop, this is the book to read, and it’s just 99¢ this weekend only!

Today is your last chance to outer our Free Drawing for an RV camping journal donated by Barbara House. Barbara makes several variations of these, and they all have pages where you can list the date, weather, where you traveled to and from that day, beginning and ending mileage, campground information including amenities at RV sites, a place for campground reviews, room to record activities, people met along the way, reminders of places to see and things to do the next time you’re in the area, and a page for notes for each day.

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 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 – Remember: Don’t insult the alligator until after you cross the river.