Just Exchanging Pigs

Wondering about the title? Well, let me start at the beginning ......

I was sipping my hot coffee and watching the news on TV, minding my own business. Cujo growled the growl he growls when someone is parking. He can see the parking lot on the monitor. I looked to see that 3 cars were gathered in front.

I growled. It was too early to deal with the public. I threw some jeans on and reluctantly hit the lights to illuminate the office/store. I pasted a smile on my face and unlocked the door. I watched the people in two of the cards get out of the vehicles and start talking to each other. You might recall that I tinted the windows, I can see out and watch to my heart's content, but you can't see me.

I watched until the man in the third car approached the door. I scurried to the other side of the counter and tried to look professional. Well, as professional as on can look with their hair standing on end (bed head). The man was not with the other two vehicles and was inquiring about a month's stay. Legitimate business that I was happy to accommodate. While I was taking care of business, the door opened and a man popped his head in to request the use of my bathroom facilities. I immediately asked him what he was doing here.

"Oh, we just here changing out our pig we bought." At first I thought I must have heard him wrong. I looked at the legitimate customer and asked him if he heard what was said. Pig, he said pig. I looked out the window and saw that a woman was indeed cradling a pig in her arms.

Had I not been busy scheduling a month's stay for the nice man who just happened to arrive during the pig exchange, I would have gone out to question (interrogate) why my park was chosen for this exchange. I am close to the interstate and easy to find for campers, but not that convenient for people just looking to meet up .... to exchange pigs.

And, I only saw one pig.

HeWho Is No Poop Scooper!

Still working on the ceiling. I am chomping at the bits to paint. HeWho does not feel my urgency to get the job done. He did manage to install the new back door ......

You might recall that I went along with him to insure that he got the right door. I looked at the illustration of the door and approved it. I wanted to make absolutely sure that he did not get the first one he saw matching my description (he almost did just that and the door he chose was twice as much as the one I wanted .... this is not my forever home!) and to also make sure he got the swing direction correct. Since we have been here the door has opened on the wrong side. No wait, I convinced him to install the door to open out for a year, then I wanted a screen door and that no longer would work. So, he changed the door to open in and I have worked with it since.

It opened in on the left side, making you have to walk around the door through a tight hallway and open it. This is the dogs exit to their yard and sometimes they would get stuck behind the door while I struggled with it and the cold wind would come funneling in. We got a door with a right hand opening side. HeWho unloaded the door and put it in the back yard awaiting a warm enough day to install it. 

Although he stopped in the middle of the ceiling project, I was happy to see him fiddling with the door. He had already removed all the trim and the freezing winds were coming in around the door. I was excited that he was going to get the new door in ........ until he came in to announce to me that the door did not fit. I am the one who measured the door opening. Before I even launched a search for the door. 36". How many times had I stressed that number on the way to the builder's supply?

I immediately thought I had measured wrong and apologized, hoping that my recent illness would serve as a good excuse for my error. But, it was just as I had measured. The store loaded a 32" door. He had to take it back and get the right one.

He is always up for a trip to the store, but a trip to the store from where we live involves lots of time and mileage. I was annoyed, but tried to take it in stride. This meant that it would be starting to get dark by the time he returned and the door would have to wait until the next day ...... if the weather was mild and it didn't rain.

The door is in. It seals out the weather, opens on the correct side and the 9 light window top provides lots of light in that dark corner of my kitchen. I am quite happy with the door. The dogs are confused, though. They keep running to the wrong side of the door and then I sometimes have to pick them up to convince them that the door opening is on the other side.

If that is the most annoying thing in my life, then I would have to say that my life is good! Today's 60 degree weather makes me want to dig in the dirt and plant things. I know it won't last. I took advantage of the weather to spend some time outside, though. You can never start planning your garden too soon! The dogs were so happy to accompany me and run figure 8's in the yard. 

The yard has not been properly patrolled while I have been sick. There was an amazing amount of dog poop! I am happy to report that I picked most of it up and the dogs are ecstatic. They have changed their habit of pooping all over the yard and have picked two areas on the outer perimeter. I guess they figured it was not going to be picked up and they had to take matters into their own paws. I hope this will become their habit. It will make the clean up easier for me. HeWho routes sewer does not scoop poop.

The day is coming to an end and the temperature is dropping. I am ready to prop my feet up and sip a cup of tea while the canines vie for my attention.

Ceilings

Today I am learning patience. All of you must be wondering what HeWho is up to. You would be right on the mark to be wondering this.

I may have mentioned before that when we put the new roof on, some 10 years ago, the vent pipe on the roof was not properly sealed and resulted in a leak. I caught it with the very first rain and the problem on the roof was taken care of. The problem that resulted in the ceiling was never addressed. It wasn't a gaping hole. Just a bulge. I don't know that I would have even noticed it in someone else's house, but it drew my eyes every time I entered the room.

Over the years, the bulge became more prominent and a crack appeared. I painted over and tried to hide it. For whatever reason, out of the blue, HeWho suddenly decided that we should repair it. I could tell he had put some thought into and we tossed low cost ideas back and forth, trying to avoid actually replacing the sheetrock. The ceiling has a swirly pattern that is really hard to duplicate. I know this from experience.

We thought about a faux coffered ceiling after I nixed his idea of a tin ceiling by looking up the price of the panels. He became excited about the idea and off we went on a mission to Menards. They had the lowest cost on the 1X2's (a small room would look really funny with anything bigger) and the 11% rebate they were offering. We all know how I feel about sales and rebates.

Some weeks passed after procuring the necessary materials. I have an old church pew on the front porch and at any given time you can find the beginning of one of HeWho's projects either in the seat or under the pew. I knew we would be working on the ceiling when I heard the compressor come on outside the window. I made myself available to help.

The first obstacle was the nails for the gun. He couldn't find them (that comes as no surprise). I rushed into my laundry room where I had labored over putting all the tools and the accessories to the tools in order. I came back with a can full of nails ready to load the gun. He deemed them useless, not long enough. A trip to the hardware store.

He returned with the longer nails and we started. I was excited, thinking we could whip this project out in no time. I was not feeling great, but I was game to get it done. The bulge in the ceiling was a bigger problem than we realized and the plan was put on hold. Sheetrock came down and a new piece was patched in. While the piece was out, it was determined that the joists were on 24" centers and not 16". This means we had to be careful about adding too much weight to the ceiling. Or so I was told. Actually, that made logical sense to me.

The new sheetrock was put in before Christmas, before I came down with the flu. So, last week we tried to install the 1X2"s again. They refused to lay flat. Despite the fact that HeWho seems to think the nail gun is a machine gun that should spit out as many nails as possible, as fast as possible. This matters when you have to disassemble one of his projects. It makes for a lot of work with needle nose pliers. But that is another story about how ..... thrifty I am.

So here we were, two stepstools in the middle of the room, furniture pushed to one side. Both of us discouraged. The ceiling finish would be labor intensive to sand off. Not at all like popcorn ceilings, this would require a lot of time on a ladder with a sander and arms in the air. We are old, you know. Our joints are not cooperative. And you know how things are, once you start, you end up going beyond that one room.

We quit and watched TV. For two days. I was at the height of my coughing non-stop and wondering if I should make a will.  We threw ideas out from time to time, but mostly just sat there on our computers in front of the TV. I dozed a lot and sipped orange juice.

Finally we decide the cheapest way was to cover the ceiling in luan, then add the 1X2's and then I will paint it all. That's right, I do all the painting. When we show the place to sell, we are selling a business, not a home, so as long as it looks "okay", I am good with it.

So, the first board goes up. The building is ducted for heat and air. There is no central air unit. That was gone when we bought the place. The furnace is really old and we don't use it. We have the wood stove and a back-up propane heater that keeps us warm. He measures the placement of the ceiling vent and he cuts the hole. It was way off. Yesterday he tried again. I watched him measure it. It looked like he was doing it right. Better on the 2nd attempt, but still not right. 

He left that piece up and quit for the day. This morning I looked at it and knew the vent cover would not fit. He cut the hole the size of the entire cover, not just the part that should go into the ceiling. When he came back from his morning biscuit and gossip session with his cronies, I enlightened him to the error of his ways. Diplomatically, of course.

I am so glad we are putting these up in 4X4' sections. Because, we would be down 3 sections by now. I offered to do the measuring. My job is to climb up on the stool and hold while he employs the nail gun. The new hole is wrong, but he swears he can "make it fit". I had suggested just covering the hole. We don't use the vent system.

Now I have to figure out what to do with boards that were cut wrong. Not to worry, I will come up with something!

In the meantime, I am making a rag rug. It is actually referred to as a toothbrush rug. The tool used is a toothbrush. You simply pop the brush off and file the raw edge. Mine already had a hole in the end, that becomes the "eye" of the needle. It is about the size of a toilet seat, so far. If only I can figure out how to download pictures on my new computer .........

This and That

Although he tried, HeWho just couldn't be sick enough. I did cater to him while he sneezed and coughed. I gently laid an afghan across his legs as he napped and brought healthy soups to soothe his throat. I dosed out medicines and brought them to him.

He tired after two days of such treatment and went back to his old routine of McDonalds in the morning and his appetite never failed. He longed for food that would scratch his throat, like French fries and pizzas. That was enough to convince me that he was never really sick with my ailment.

I ventured out to hit the clearance racks and stumbled upon the bargain of the century. Everyone knows how much I love a good bargain. Although my body type does not lend itself well to the pants labeled as leggings (I am fluffy), I still was not discouraged from checking out the clearance.

Leggings make great long-johns! Even those with Santa and the reindeer splattered all over them. Yes, I scored some for a mere 25 cents a pair! Yes, Santa grows quite fat and jolly as he spreads across my thighs and derriere. But they work great to insulate my body on these frigid days.

The instant pot (appliance, not medication) has been featuring in my daily life. I found a couple of ribeyes in my freezer. HeWho wanted "a good steak" when asked about his preference for supper. When I asked about grilling them he looked at me like I had lost my mind. Grilling is the preferred method, you know.

I mean, just because the temperature is in the negative, does this mean we sacrifice the flavor of an expensive cut of meat? I hit my Pinterest button and conducted a search.

Did you know that you can cook ribeyes in the instant pot? Unlike a regular crock pot, the instant pot has a saute function for browning. After this is done you add liquid and use the pressure function to finish the steak. I used beef broth, with a dash of red wine and added a couple cloves of garlic (good for healing colds).

It was good, although not nearly as tender as I thought it would be. I only ate about a quarter of mine, but HeWho polished his off (after telling me that it would have been better grilled). This left me in the kitchen cleaning up and wondering what to do with all that broth. Everyone knows that in addition to loving a bargain, I hate waste.

I poured the broth into the Chinese soup container and had just about a quart. I chopped up the remains of my steak and dumped that in. The next day I added a handful of barley and some fresh carrots, some chopped onion and ........ made the best soup I have had in a long time! Sometimes I amaze myself with my culinary talents.

Today is bone chilling cold again, although rumors of a thaw and some 50 degree weather for the weekend have me longing to go outside. I still have all the Christmas décor up outside. I will remove it this weekend. Just not worth being miserable and cold to get it all down right now.

I am not looking forward to the thaw, as this will reveal how many pipes have burst. HeWho will be busy capping them off and running back and forth to the hardware store. Even though I have advised him to always buy enough for three and keep it stocked. He tried that once and after fixing one pipe, he lost the other two and had to go buy more. I give up ....... 

Horror of Horrors

I am so much better. I feel like tackling some projects and doing some sewing and cooking and lots of cleaning.

The cleaning makes me feel much better. I love the smell of clean. Bleach, laundry detergent, and floor cleaner makes me happy. Nothing is quite as satisfying as falling to sleep under fresh linens knowing that the bathroom and kitchen is freshly scrubbed. I suppose I was meant to be a housewife. I will admit that I could be equally happy if someone else did the cleaning, but I really prefer to do the job myself.

So, as I am happily taking over my chores again, HeWho happens in and his voice is very deep and he coughs ........ "NOOOOOOOOOO," the voice inside my head is screaming.

HeWho is sick with my ailment. He is currently sleeping in his recliner. I have his phone so I can refuse any tow calls he might agree to take. I don't know that I can survive his illness!

Passing Time

Cold and miserable, lacking ambition. I have seen every Hallmark  and Lifetime movie ever made. HGTV has new shows, but I am tiring of those. My new passion is pet vet shows.

Dr. Chris hails from down under and has loved animals his entire life. I like that one okay. Dr. Jeff, Rocky Mountain Vet is interesting and more graphic with lots of spay and neutering. This vet offers low cost vet care and is really big on community service and the belief that everyone should have the opportunity to enjoy having pets, no matter their economic situation. I like this show a lot. Maybe I should move to Colorado just to be able to visit his clinic!

My newest favorite is The Incredible Dr. Pol. This show is not for those who get weak kneed at the sight of blood and gore. I love this stuff! I have learned so much watching this show. He cares for large and small animals and makes house calls to farms. Cow birthing is hard work! Almost violent.

Dr. Pol is on Nat Geo. I was flipping along hunting down more episodes when I discovered a show I had never seen before. Dr. Pimple Popper! I am not kidding! I must be part cat, because curiosity got the best of me and I had to watch an episode. This is a dermatologist who does surgery under local anesthesia. She slices away lumps and bumps. On the episode I watched she removed some scalp fatty tumors, then let the patient don gloves and squeeze the dead skin and crap out of the tumors she removed. The patient seemed to find this very satisfying, although she did comment on the foul odor .....

Just so you all know that I am not just sitting around wasting time while cuddled up with my canines keeping warm. Martha, the boy cat's wound is healing quite nicely. Cats are better at keeping their wounds clean than dogs are ... Dr. Pol said so. 

Master Of Procrastination

Still coughing and waiting patiently for my new health insurance card to arrive. I must be getting better, though. HeWho is beginning to annoy me.

I may have mention a time or two that I am married to the master of procrastination. He likes to purchase the supplies for a project, then listen to me "encourage" him to at least start the project. Sometimes, like when I am too sick to care, I just let it go.

In his defense, he is always fixing things around the park. Of course, I am quite certain that if he would listen to his wife and do things her way, he would have a lot less to deal with.

I am starting to go a little stir crazy here, so while the weather was so nice this week, I joined him on a trip to a builder's supply store. We were on a mission to replace the back door. The door that needs a new everything. The door is fine, but the door jamb is not, the sill is not. HeWho knows things said it would be cheaper (meaning easier) to replace the entire unit. So, I researched ready to hang doors on line and found one I liked.

I knew I had to go with him, lest he get the wrong one and pay too much. Like men everywhere he did not want to ask for help and was going to pay about $50 more for a door I didn't want. I insisted that I had made sure it was in stock in that store. I was right and we got the door. I even got to go out to eat! Then I got sick in the store and felt pretty crappy. But it was great to get out of here for awhile.

This was Tuesday. Yesterday, HeWho installs my doors ripped away all the trim from the existing door in preparation to hang the new one. So, now, I have an old door with no trim, leaving big gaps for cold air to come in and the weather has taken a turn for very cold and windy. The new door is somewhere in the infamous barn. Things tend to get lost in there and I just heard the TV tell me that the "feel like" temp is 4. FOUR.

I will be researching door installations ....  

OH, The Drama

So, yesterday's annoying phone call turned into a day long event. Not that I ventured out to interact. I never took my nightgown off and dressed. I am sick, haven't you heard?

I dispatched my man-servant (aka HeWho) to address the issue. He found the local constabulary already in attendance trying to reason with the parties. The one that no longer lives here had "loaned" her camper to her brother. She wanted to retrieve her personal belongings, but was being turned away by her daughter, who lives in another camper. This is what prompted the call to me. I told her to call the sheriffs office for assistance. 

I suppose she took my advice. The lot rent was 5 days late on said camper and that is really all I cared about. As long as you pay your rent and follow my rules, I don't have issue with you. I do not want to be your new best friend, I do not want to take care of your children or be privy to your various relationship issues. I do not want to hear your excuses for not paying your rent on time, while you tell me about the great vacation you just had.

That is not to say that some of my tenants have become very good friends that I value greatly. The people I choose to surround myself with are my choice. 

There was some screaming and profanity involved, some towards the deputy. Had I been well and gone down there myself, I would have solved the entire problem and asked him to haul the entire lot of them off my property. Disturbing the peace ..... my peace! HeWho was dispatched is more of an onlooker. 

In the melee, the older woman slipped on the ice and fell. An ambulance was dispatched to take her to a hospital and the husband of the daughter of the woman could not be bothered to finish his day at work. He said he had to take her to the hospital. 

It did break the day up and make me tired enough to doze awhile in my chair before going to bed. I was still in the same nightgown as I shuffled off to bed. No, I did not take a shower. I was shivering all day and the thought of taking my clothes off was not appealing. Remember my last hospital stay was for 4 days with no shower. It won't kill me to skip a day, didn't kill me to skip 4, did it?

Do I Look Like I Care?

So, still coughing from the very depths of my soul. I am sitting here, minding my own business, sipping hot liquids, when the phone rings. With great effort I bark out my greeting.

I want to say the most annoying calls are the ones informing me that I may have already won ....

I would be wrong about that. The call this morning would be one of the most annoying. A previous tenant calling to complain. Previous would be the key word here. The fact that you no longer live here would immediately place any complaint you have in the "not my problem" category.

I must have something stamped on my forehead telling the world that I am willing to listen to your problems. This one was a feud between a family. I cannot solve your legal problems, either. My solution would be to evict the entire family and be done with it.

Just makes me tired and annoyed. Think I will go hide in the shower under some steaming hot water and start the day anew.

The problem(s) surrounding this particular tenant has been turned over to HeWho is willing to arbitrate such matters. 

I Am Still Here

I might have the flu bug. Maybe, I don't know. I have been sick since the week before Christmas. I stayed away from the land of Blog, lest I be contagious.

Yes, I am aware that it does not work that way. I feel better, but I still do not feel good. I am still coughing form the depths of my body. Would not be surprised to find my toenails gone, I have coughed so hard. My voice comes and goes. I sound like a heavy smoker upon awakening ..... and it does not go away.

As tired and bored as I am from doing nothing much all day long, I just don't seem to have the energy to get much done. I cooked today, but the efforts left me in a cold, clammy sweat. I took note that this place is rather dusty, but, unless little elves visit in the night, I suppose it will still be waiting for me to gather the energy to deal with it.

My eyes hurt for about 10 days, preventing the joy of reading to while away the hours. It is cold, here. So cold that Wall-E, the wonder dog is refusing to go outside. Normally he is happy to go out with any other dog heading out.

Martha, the boy cat, has decided to use the litter box. What has he been doing for the past 6 years? Well, he has been taking it outside. Exclusively. He would wake me in the wee hours of the morning and would linger near the door during the day. Now, suddenly he has decided to take advantage of that box of litter that has been at the ready all these years.

You may be wondering why I kept a litter box all this time. Well, just in case. Should he ever find himself stuck inside with no access to the great outdoors, he would have a place to go. Even when we go on a trip, he waits patiently for our friend to let him in and out. For 6 years. I would check the litter from time to time, but found no evidence of use. I would even change it and provide a nice clean, smooth layer of Fresh Step for his going pleasure.

So, imagine my surprise (and utter annoyance) when he woke me around 3 AM one morning (his usual habit) and I stumbled along to open the back door and he swished past me to the litter box in my laundry room and proceeded to make use of it! I suppose he felt the need to let me know that he had chosen to change things up a bit, but I was not amused. He could have shown me this during my awake hours!

Martha has not been outside in over 10 days! With no hunting, he is becoming even fatter. He still gets limited exercise tormenting his canine siblings. Eddie loves to wrestle with Martha endlessly. The others tend to just ignore him unless he decides to launch a surprise attack from behind a chair or from high above. Then they will bark at him and give chase.

Martha's main path to safety is to jump up on the half-door that separates the office from our living quarters and escape into the office. I am not sure exactly what happened a few days ago, but Martha apparently misjudged his jump and ended up in the floor with the curtains he grabbed on his way down.

I was busy coughing and did not witness the accident, but Martha must have caught his shoulder on something sharp, resulting in a good sized tear in his skin. He has an area about the size of a quarter that has no skin on it. Totally raw.

I have been cleaning it and applying bacterial ointment. He lets me do as I wish (he learned that fighting me was pointless when he was but a scrap of fur), but I can't keep it covered. I applied a nice bandage, then wrapped it with an ace bandage. He took it off when I went to bed and presented it to me the next morning.

I must be doing something right. No signs of infection and it seems to be growing a nice layer of transparent skin. Hopefully, it will not need a vet visit. I am not up to it!

While coughing and moaning about my aches and pains, I have been binge watching "The Incredible Dr. Pol" a series about a vet on Nat Geo. I have absorbed many skills that I hope never to use!

Now I am off to bed, dosed with Nyquil. Tomorrow should be better.