A rainy morning 4th of July. Fog in the valley with sun slowly burning through. Yesterday was torrential. I pray for sun. My garden is magnificent but could use a steady three days of good weather.
Friday my younger brother came up and spent the night. We had a lot of laughs. Laughed till it hurt. Friday he arrived around 8 so we went downtown to get some food and drink, came home and laughed until I started nodding out from fatigue. He took this opportunity to clown me as I spoke in random thoughts every 30 seconds... in between falling asleep. He said I made no sense and talked crazy shit. Funny thing is that he's done the same thing with me once. Back in WA, when he was visiting and had taken allergy pills that caused him to drift in and out of consciousness. We were having a conversation and he was saying the most illogical things. Then I knew he was all narcoleptic. So I asked him all kinds of testy questions and got the most insane answers. Hilarious!
Seems to be that it runs in the family. Dad, the two brothers, and myself can't make it through a movie. Food + couch + TV = sleep. We hiked a semi-marked trail on the west side of the valley, an area I've wanted to explore since I've been here. It was awesome! So many creeks! I continuously looked for good rocks to cross the creek by. Waterfalls and springs led us back over the other side and we looped around, back up to the east side , spotting tiny bright orange and yellow shrooms all the way. Nothing edible and if so, not choice, but very illuminating and cute.
Starving we headed back to 'campus' and decided to get burgers in Phoenicia. Afterwards we shared a beer at the river and gasped for breath laughing, watching the dozens of people tubing get stuck, their tubes stuck in an outcrop of rock. Our stomachs hurt. We likely cried and peed a bit in our pants. Good times.
Last Sunday I earned some extra cash planting, pruning, and weeding in Uma's mom's yard. It was a great time hanging out with her and the pups. We had an awesome lunch of salad from the garden & toast topped with parmesan and prosciutto. Some of my favorites. She also made an awesome cup o' tea. Some kind of vanilla rooibos chai with a touch of cream. Yummy like dessert.
On the way home the El Camino overheated and I pulled over and saw a spittering leak in the radiator. I topped it off and got it home. Monday I went to gettin' it fixed. I don't recall ever replacing a radiator, but I knew I could do it myself, maybe with a little help. I popped the hood and saw it wa just a few bolts and a couple of hose clamps... plenty of room to work... ahhh, old American cars... you could lay down in the empty space under the hood. I mentioned it to a few guys that work here- maintenance dude for tools in the shop, kitchen dude to see if they'd offer muscle. No one offered help. Not because they didn't want to I suppose, but because they had no idea what was under the hood. Wow.. seems sad in my book. I may not need a man to fix my car, but I rely on them for advice. To reinforce that I've got it right.
By Monday evening at 6 I had the car in the shop and went to scavenging a catastrophe of a shop for the right wrenches and sockets. Amazing I found everything I needed and had the new radiator in by 8. Woo-hoo!
7/8/11Honeybees showed up
Watched a male hummingbird drink from a pea blossom
Sunflowers 6' & up
Tomatoes chest high
Corn 5'
Kale & collards 8th harvest
Dumping the old antifreeze is the biggest pain in swapping out a radiator. Usually, getting one fixed is like $75 as opposed to getting a new one, but that one is prolly 30 years old. Good work, Thorpes are mechanical, machines are my therapy.
ReplyDeletewe are mechanical aren't we!
ReplyDeleteone may cost only $75 to get it fixed, but it's worth much more not having to find a local trustworthy mechanic... and have him take 3 days to repair it.