Lots-o-stuff goin' on

Life's been keeping me pretty busy, here's an update on what's been going on....

The Bug (Bug#1) has been having brake problems, I've gotten pretty good at driving around with very little brakes, the tricks are keep it slow, use first gear to go down hills and the emergency brake still works, oh and always keep an eye out for a place where I can drive the bug off the road if I can't stop in time to prevent a collision. PB has been tirelessly working on the brakes, first he took them apart to see what the problem was, we ended up having to order a master cylinder, those sure look funny on a Bug, not like any other master cylinder I've ever seen before. They ranged from $25 to $100+, as you can probably guess, we ordered the cheapest one, we received it in about a week. Once we had that, then PB discovered other issues, had to order brake lines, fortunately all of this ordering I was able to do through Amazon.com and since I have an affiliate account with them, and many of you, my wonderful readers click on my Amazon.com links and make purchases, I have enough credit to be able to order these things without it coming out of my pocket. I have another way I earn Amazon.com credits, if you are interested, check this out, it's free and it works, click here to learn more.

I have back brakes but no front brakes right now, just waiting for the other parts to come in, should be sometimes in the next day or two, for now PB just put everything back together so I can drive where I need to go, it's a little challenging, I let everyone know that I essentially have no brakes so don't stop in front of me :)

Next item, I'm still using the Periogen and the other calcium therapy products in my mouth, so far so good, I'm still happy with the results, the tartar is dissolving, even between my molars where I can't get at them to scrape them, so I KNOW it's the Periogen doing the work. I'm averaging using the Periogen about 4 times a week, I know if I would just remember to use it everyday, the tartar would be coming off even faster... I also feel like my teeth and gums are getting healthier.

Next item, I'm going to be in the Easter music program at church, they didn't ask me to head this one, and for that I'm grateful, I would have had to say no, I just don't have the time any more to be in charge of those things. A friend of mine is heading it and I'm helping, she picked out the music we are going to sing, I found the music on line so we can practice, I'm also burning copies of the music onto CDs for everyone so they can practice at home if they want to. I'm really having to work to make time to go to the practices, but I didn't want to let my friend or my church down, and it's fun too, can't complain about that. :)

Dinner, tonight I'm making something I haven't made in a long time, I don't have a name for it, I take those little red potatoes, I cook them whole, I'm cooing them in my pressure cooker, I don't cook them all the way done, just most of the way done, then I cut them in half, scoop out most of the insides, mash the part I took out, add butter, milk, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese salt, pepper and an egg, then I refill the potato shells with the filling, pop them in the oven to heat through and brown. They are really good and pretty easy to do.

I had a stroke of good luck, or something like that. Last October, toward the end of the month, I had ordered a replacement MP3 player, my old one had developed a problem with the headphone jack, it had a short in it, if I held the jack just right I could hear, but if I let it go, the sound was horrible if any sound came through at all. So my new player, just a few months old suddenly developed this same problem a couple of nights ago. I think I know why it's happening, I listen to it when I go to bed at night, I put it under my pillow, I think I'm putting pressure on it when I turn over, and that must be what's causing this problem. I checked the warranty and it's just slightly out of warranty, they have a 90 day warranty on MP3 players. I checked and they don't sell this model any more, and I REALLY like this one, I didn't want to change to a different model or brand.

I took a chance and called the customer service number anyhow, I hoped that maybe they would fix it even if I had to pay a little for it. I talked to a very nice gentleman whom I could understand, that is very important to me, you can have an accent but I want to be able to hear and understand you. He told me that since it was purchased close to the Christmas holidays, they extended the warranty period and I fell in that period. YEAH, all I have to do is mail it back to them with a $6.00 money order to cover shipping, and I'll get another MP3 player, they don't repair them, they just send out another one. I asked about the older model I had with the same problem, I was hoping they could do something about that one, but since they don't repair them, and this one is so far out of warranty, there was nothing they could do. Oh well, I might try to figure out how to take that one apart and see if I can fix it myself. I spent a little time deleting everything off of my player, mostly audiobooks, podcasts and a little music.

Oh and speaking of ordering from Amazon.com, I finally had to replace the filter elements on my Berkey Light water purifier, I have had them in use for a LOT longer than they say you can, I have kept them clean though the last 6 months, I've been almost afraid to take it apart to clean them, I was worried that they might begin to fail and I wouldn't have anything to replace them with at that point. I know that there have been issues with the black elements, failing on the first use right out of the package, there have been multiple complaints about that, I had a problem with my first set, it appeared that one of the elements had been dropped, it worked at first, then failed later. A set my dad purchased for himself failed right out of the box too. I had contacted the company about it and they assured me that the issue had been addressed, it had to do with how they were glued to the base. I still had doubts though, I knew they probably fixed the problem but I didn't know how many potentially problem units were still sitting in warehouses waiting to be sent out to customers.

I decided to purchase the (2) British Berkefeld 9" Replacement Ceramic Water Filters for Big Berkey, I checked and it turned out they would fit in my Berkey Light unit, they are almost too tall, the top of the filter comes right to the top of the water level in the unit. They don't require priming like the black elements do, and you have to pour off the first 2 runs of water, that's OK, I did it overnight after pouring the clean water into a clean pitcher for use the next morning.

When I had contacted the Berkey people about the problem, I asked if the other filter unit would work in the Berkey, they didn't recommend it only because it doesn't last as long, but I figured at half the price, I didn't mind if it didn't last as long, my water is very clean going in, the only reason I filter it in the first place is because I store my water in a big plastic tank, I don't want to drink or cook with that water straight from the tank.

So, that's all that has been going on for now. Hope everyone is doing well, it's almost garden time, woohoo!

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

PB Goes To Church

PB was inspired by a friend's video (a friend and PB's brother), he liked the camera setup on the hood of the vehicle, so PB decided to DIY his video mount on the bug, he documented his ride to church.







All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Two Bugs Are Better Than One

Grabbed some pix of the new (old) bug, as a good friend of mine likes to say, it's not as bad as it looks (LOL)... actually our current bug looked about like that when we first got it, PB says it's in better shape than our original one was...

PB putting on good tires...

Some rust, but not bad...

His n Her's

Kissing Cousins

Coming in for a landing...

 

 

Yeah, the tires are trashed, gotta get another 2 then we will be set...

Someone started to Baja it, they used fiberglass parts...

The nose, hood, fenders front and back are fiberglass...

The front windshield is cracked...

There is going to be a lot of work to get it really going, but once it is going, it will be a lot of fun putting around the neighborhood in our twin bugs. :)


All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Mosaic Crochet Scarf Video

OK, I decided to make a video of the scarf, sorry it's a bit dark, but it's the best I could do at the time.

Enjoy


Whew, could they have picked a worse spot to use as the beginning??? They do give options to choose from but believe it or not, this was the best of the 3. :p

All written text from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message.

Wretha,

Thanks for visiting!

Mud Bug Fun

We live in the high desert, mountainous area of far west Texas. We don't get much rain most of the year, though we get more than other parts of the desert. We do have a rainy season, referred to as a monsoon, that's still a strange word to me, it conjures up images of rain forests, south America, India and other, far away and exotic places... but we do have our rainy season, and it is called a monsoon.

We also have miles and miles of unpaved, dirt roads, our terrain is very hilly, sometimes steep hills, with lots of  S-curves thrown in for good measure. Mix the unpaved roads with lots of rain and you get stuck vehicles. We have a particularly bad spot just up the road from my place, we have to transverse it if we want to get in or out, oh there are 2 other ways to go, one is very steep and rough, only to be used in extreme conditions, the other has an even worse place to get stuck in the mud, so it's not used at all when the conditions are wet. The main route, with the rather sticky S-curve is a bad place to be when it is wet, the road though that part contains a lot (a LOT) of clay, very little gravel, and since it's an S-curve, you can't make a running start at it. Therefore, most people who try to go though there while it's still wet, will almost always get stuck.

A couple of weeks ago, I got stuck in it with a friend, we ended up sideways in a Suburban, it took some doing, but we finally got ourselves unstuck. Last Saturday, I was working at the Country Store, PB called me to tell me that someone was stuck in the mud on that S-curve, a full size pickup truck, he didn't know the people in it. PB asked me if there was someone I could call to go help them, there wasn't anyone, the two peopke I know that could have helped were not home.

So PB went back up there with the Bug, hooked a tow strap to the Bug and the pickup, then he pulled the pickup out of the mud. I wish I could have seen it, it is quite a site to see a little Bug pulling a full sized pickup!

Fortunately, one of the people in the truck snapped a few pix of the action, here they are, enjoy:

Thanks for sending the pix! :)

Don't forget about the book giveaway contest. click here for details http://wretha.blogspot.com/2010/07/my-wonderful-guest-book-giveaway.html.

All written text and audio podcasts from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment, but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission. You may post a portion of this (or any) message from this blog on another site as long as you include a link back to this site and the original message. Wretha, properly pronounced wreetha, (included for the text reader), Thanks for visiting!

A "Real" Job?

I have to say that I LOVE my little bug, there is nothing like driving someone elses car for a day to make me realize how great my rattly, bone jarring, bouncy little bug is. :)

Yesterday I had to go into town, something I don't do very often. I usually bum a ride with someone when I have to go into town, right now my bug is not street legal, no tags, no inspection so I can't drive it outside the neighborhood (all the roads where I live are private roads so one can drive anything in any condition, legal or not)... I was loaned a truck to go into town.

Now as to why I had to go into town... I actually had a job interview, gasp!. The interview and paperwork were merely a formality, I was hired before I ever got there. One of the ladies who lives nearby is going in for back surgery, she will need someone to come in for a couple of hours a day to do the things that she will not be able to do until she is healed up, She asked me if I wanted to do it, she said I would get paid an hourly wage, I said "sure". All it will entail is cooking meals, dishes, laundry, general straightening up, and any physical help she may need.

She loaned me her truck to drive into town to do the interview and paperwork with the home care agency she uses. She told me that I could do any shopping I needed while in town, so I did. I hit several stores, the dollar store, the grocery store and the hardware store. Stocked up on some essentials and came home. It was dark when I got home so I kept the truck at my house overnight, it's not a good idea to drive around where I live after it gets dark, it's rare to find any of the locals driving around either once the sun goes down. The reason is because of the animals, deer, donkeys and other critters that move around in the dark, if you hit one, it will tear your car up, not to mention if something goes wrong, you break down, it's going to be a long, dark, cold walk home, not something I relish doing.

I just got back from taking the truck back and getting my bug. Again I say, I love my bug, it works so well out here on these mountainous dirt roads, I am sitting much closer to the ground (I used to drive a mid-sized and a full sized truck, so I don't mind sitting up high), plus feeling like I have more control for turning and stopping makes me feel so much more secure while driving.

So after my friend has her surgery, I'll be "employed" for a while, making a real paycheck with taxes being taken out and everything. The taxes coming out will be a good thing, I do claim my "barter" that I get from the Country Store, with the changes in the tax laws, I don't know if I would have to pay in this year, so having taxes coming out night offset that.

I don't know how long I'll be doing this "job", for now it's 21.5 hours a week, so it will not interfere with working at the Country Store. My friend told me that she qualifies for home care now, and would continue to qualify after the surgery, so it seems that I can do this for as long as I want to, so we will play it by ear for now.

Did I mention that I love my bug?




All written text and audio podcast from this blog are copyrighted and owned by Wretha unless otherwise stated. All rights reserved, You may download or copy for your own personal enjoyment., but please do not distribute (text or audio) without written permission.

Wretha,
properly pronounced wreetha (included for the text reader),

Thanks for visiting!

Bug Pictures

Mountain Man Bob has done more work on the Bug, it's paint job is now complete, at least for now, that is subject to change. The other thing he has been doing is working on the inside. He removed the back seat and I was amazed to see more air and rust than metal. The floorpans are nearly non-existent. MMB cut out the part over the transmission and replaced it with a sheet of aluminum, he cut it, bent it using a piece of railroad tie for an anvil and a rubber mallet. I helped by standing on the metal as he hit it. It is nearly a perfect fit. You can see a picture of one of my favorite magazines on the new metal, Mother Earth News. You can also see a copy of the book I am reviewing (I'm nearly done James, I promise!), it's called MAKESHIFT WORKSHOP SKILLS FOR SURVIVAL AND SELF-RELIANCE written by James Ballou.

The book can be found here:
http://paladinpress.com/product/1150/82

Click here to view these pictures larger

Wretha

Thanks for visiting!
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More pix, again...

02-29-08

I have more pix:

This is our cabin from the opposite side of the valley from us, can you see the cabin? If you can, then you have super vision or are very psychically gifted.



Here is the same pic with the cabin pointed out, yeah I know, not very clear, but it's the best my cell phone camera does. :)



After we got back from town the other day, Bob didn't want to carry the cement powder (100 pounds) and all the groceries across the creek and up the hill, so he just brought the bug across, it took a few tries to get up the hill, but he made it.











Finally up the hill and parked in front of the cabin.



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2 Comments

Tracy said...

I spotted it right away. I hope that doesn't mean I'm being supervised; I don't like that idea at all!

June 7, 2008 11:16 PM

Wretha said...

Naw, not being watched, you are just good! Now, your papers pleeze.... ;)

Wretha

June 8, 2008 11:55 AM

Going to town...

02-27-08

Pizza night went very well, the dough I made rose very well, I love a happy dough! I used spaghetti sauce for the pizza sauce, I cooked some ground beef, I had some left over(cooked) deer sausage, but it smelled a little off, I set it outside well behind my cabin for the wild animals to eat. I used fresh spinach, chopped onion and mozeralla cheese, it was very good and quite fun, everyone enjoyed it.

Today was a good day, we drove into town in the bug, we left out about noon, it is the first time in over a month that we went to town on our own, I have gone to town with our neighbor many times, but this time Bob and I went together, it was quite fun. To my knowledge, we have the only VW Bug in or around town, we are getting to be known a little, I believe people are beginning to recognize the little blue bug, it's fun! We went to the resale shop, the sales here benefit the local animal shelter. It was full of lots of fun things, I got a couple of shirts (for $1.00 each), Bob got a pair of shoes, and we got a few other misc things.

02-21-08

It's been several days since I wrote anything, that is because not much has been happening, Bob has been gone during the daytime, I do get some things done, dishes, cleaning, taking care of the humanure toilet. Day to day life is becoming normal here, at least normal for me :) I get up in the morning, I look outside to see how the day looks, I take the dog out, I change out of my pj's, I take a sponge bath using the water from the stock pot that is still warm from last night's fire. I put on my clothes, I do any dishes that were left from the night before, if I am hungry, I eat something, usually I make a bowl of oatmeal, if the water in the pot isn't hot enough, I have a 2 burner propane stove, it doesn't take long for the water to get hot enough to cook the oatmeal. Sometimes I listen to the radio, we get one station, it's a NPR radio station out of Marfa, they play a variety of music, I have heard everything from rock, classic rock, country, old country, ancient country (grin!), pop, jazz, classical, Cajun, folk, blues, and some I can't put a name to, and that's all in an hour or two! It seems that they don't want to offend anyone or leave anyone out, so they play this crazy variety of music one after another, you might hear Pink Floyd then right after that they might play Hank Williams Sr, then something classical... it's like a crazy quilt for music. Anyhoo, at some point during the day (or evening) I go to my neighbor's house for water and company, once Bob gets home and gets cleaned up (as much as possible), I make dinner, we eat dinner while watching the most beautiful mountains and sunset. Our mule deer show up just before sunset on most days, they have gotten quite used to us, for better or worse, they hang around for an hour or so, depends on how many crackers I toss their way. After dinner, if I haven't gotten water yet, I will go then, otherwise, we have movie night a few nights a week, IF the weather cooperates. If the wind is gusting, we can't hear anything but the wind, many movie nights have been canceled because of the wind. But that is OK because we do like to talk to each other, actually we are opposites from most couples, in most other couples, the female talks more and the male talks less, often to the point where the female wished her mate would talk more and the male wishes his mate would hush up! :) In our situation, Bob is the talker, I like to say that he narrates the world, this is a good thing, I appreciate his gift for gab, I on the other hand, tend to be a bit on the quiet side, at least as compared to most of the other women I know (though I can chat up a storm when I need to), so for us, it works out quite nicely.

I just heard the Bug pull up, it will take Bob about 5 minutes (+/-) to walk up to the cabin, once he gets here, we are supposed to go to our neighbor's house for dinner, our neighbor is cooking a pork roast, Bob just walked in, I stopped typing and started heating water for coffee, Bob is a coffee drinker, he likes it semi-hot and very sweet.

I have figured out a glitch in our power system, not a bad one though, I dug out my alarm clock a few days ago, it runs on 110 and has a battery backup, it's just a standard, digital alarm clock. The first night I had it plugged up, it worked just fine, but the next morning, I noticed the time was wrong, it was a head about 20 minutes, I assumed that either Bob or I had hit the wrong button and made the time jump ahead, I reset the time and watched it for a bit and it ran just fine. A few hours later, I noticed the time had jumped ahead again, not much, between 5 and 10 minutes, again I reset the time and assumed that one of us must have bumped the button that resets the time, it's quite sensitive. So today, I was watching the clock to see if it was having a problem, the digital clock was a minute behind the clock on the weather station, I heard the power inverter's fan kick on for a few seconds (that happens when the refrigerator comes on or some other load occurs), right after that, the digital clock jumped a minute ahead of the weather station clock, that was the "aha" moment, I started making the inverter fan come on by turning on lights and other things that cause a power load to occur, each time I did this, the digital clock would jump ahead 30 seconds to a minute, so I am going to have to isolate it from other power loads in the future, Bob thinks he can do something to change the "flavor" of the power, we will see if it works, it would be great of it did, but it's not a big deal if it doesn't work, for the most part, we don't need an alarm clock. :)

Moon

Last night I watched the lunar eclipse, I saw it from the point where the moon was red, I got a late start and missed the first half. I went out about once every 10 minutes to see what was happening. I must say that I wasn't very impressed, it was kind of fun to see it, but not a huge thrill, I understand our next full lunar eclipse will happen in about 3 years... A strange thing that happened during the eclipse, I don't know if it was associated with the event or just a coincidence, my cell phone couldn't acquire a signal at all, this went on all night, it worked during the day just fine, but about sun down, it started "looking" for a signal and it did this all night. This morning, it finally started working again, I hope this doesn't happen often, I get a marginal signal at best, it's always a "roaming" signal, and for the most part, I have to stand in a certain place in the cabin, if I move around, my signal drops out and I may even lose the call alltogether.

Comments

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been leaving comments, I really REALLY appreciate each and every comment, keep them coming! :) Comments, questions, I read and respond to them, so if you ask a question, go back to that comment and look for my response, it may take a few days to get back to you, but I will respond.
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5 Comments

Oldman in th eBoonies said...

Perhaps I missed it in your posting but Unless you have a true sinewave converter you will always have problems with a power inverter and some elctronics. Variable speed motors and standard inverters do not get along well. I replaced the variable speed fan on our Wood burner with a equivilant CFM bathroom fan and some flexable ducting. The inverter is much happier now. This was a much cheaper solution than a Sine wave converter.

Thanks for the info on the water pump. I keep forgetting about RV and Marine stuff. I am building a rainwater catchment system and 12 componants are essential. Since we are in the frozen great north the project is on hold for a while.

February 22, 2008 7:17 PM

Wretha said...

Yeah, we have an inexpensive inverter, it was the biggest one I could get where I used to work, Best Buy is not known for selling inverters, computers yes, but not the bigger inverters, but it was a good deal for me so I got 2 of them, eventually we will get a bigger/better one, but for now, what we have is working just fine.

Where in the frozen north are you located?

Wretha

February 23, 2008 9:07 PM

oldman in the boonies said...

We are in Central Wisconsin. We got 14" of snow last sunday after it had been -20 for a couple of days in a row. we have had about 80 inches so far this year. It is in the high 20's yesterday and supposed to be 35 today.

We are in our late 50's. We have about 5 acres. We grow about 75% of our vegetables. We have 5 chickens.

We do have a nice 6" well that gives us all the water we could want. it runs on 220 and that scares me. I have put together a rather extensive rain water catchment system. while it is still evolving I am always looking for better ways to do things.

You and Bob are doing great. I look at your every day to see if you have posted.

February 24, 2008 8:11 AM

nanabird2000 said...

Hey Wretha, everyone sends their "Hello's" sounds like things are going well for you guys. Was nice to talk to you the other day. If you keep up all talking to the animals you may turn into Dr Dolittle and the animals talk back to you, :) Glad you guys are doing good your neighbor sounds like a heaven sent, you must be company for each other. Keep up the blogs look forward to reading them and enjoy the pictures too, explains alot of things, thanks. Until next time......Nancy

February 25, 2008 9:53 PM

Wretha said...

Oldman, wow, that is too much snow for me, and too much cold! I really love living in the desert AND on a mountain, I get the best of both worlds. We are going to get chickens sometime this spring (I hope!), I can't wait to have fresh eggs and the occasional chicken in the pot... we are also going to grow lots of fruits & veggies. How do you store (long term) what you grow?

Nancy, thanks so much for keeping up with me, I miss each and every one of you! I will keep up the blog, it's great fun and honestly, it allows me to remember things that I might forget, especially about the early periods, and helps me to appreciate each step.

I have more pix that I will be uploading soon, stay tuned! :)

Wretha

February 26, 2008 10:07 PM