Tag: stories

The Wheels Have Come Off the Bus

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Our snow is finally gone, it’s staying light past dinner time, and it’s getting warmer, albeit slowly.

Spring is finally here.

For those of you who live where real winter exists, you are probably familiar with the concept of winter tires for your vehicle.

For those of you who don’t, these are more rugged, less slippery tires that are designed to help us navigate all the conditions winter decides to throw at us, so we can still leave our houses and be as much a part of society as we choose to be in the colder months. They are usually put on sometime around November, and come off around this time of year.

I have lived in places where winter exists all my life, but I have never actually participated in the “great tire switch out” in past years. I have always just had a good “all weather” tire on my vehicle and called it good enough.

Now that I live on a private, dirt road, with a couple decent hills, and this being my first winter here, with no context as to how well that road is maintained (very well, as it turns out), I decided to go with the less slippery winter tires this year.

Now that spring is in the air, it was time for those tires to come off, and my regular old tires to come out of hibernation, so I started my morning at my car guy’s place for this swap to take place.

The swap itself was relatively uneventful, besides a corroded lug nut they had some difficulty with, and I soon found myself back on the road with four “all weather” tires under me, and four winter tires riding behind me in my cargo.

When the car guy had stashed my tires in the back, he had stood them all up on end in a nice little row across my cargo area.

Not thinking anything of it when I got home, I popped open the lift-gate to unload the tires and was met with four very large tires barreling down on me. (I drive a large SUV, so these are very large tires!)

My reflexes kicked in and I assumed my best and quickest star fish pose, my arms going one way and my legs the other, and I managed to stop two of the tires with one of each.

However, I was not so lucky with the other two.

Now, I live at the top of a hill, and my yard slopes down this hill, all the way to the lake below me. The road to my house circles around and my driveway comes in towards the back of my house. My driveway has a nice gentle slope all the way down to the road, and you turn out of my driveway right at the top of the hill, heading down and around a curve. My neighbor’s house sits at the bottom of the hill and the top of the curve, diagonal from my house.

After interrupting the escape of two of my tires, I turn around to see my other two tires continuing their journey down my driveway to the road, quickly picking up speed as they go, apparently thrilled to be making this journey without a multi ton vehicle on their back.

The first tire took the inside lane, and as it made the turn out of the driveway onto the road, it hit one of the stones lining the edge of the drainage ditch there, and it’s journey (thankfully) came to a halt.

The other tire, however, took the outside lane, made the turn onto the road, and sped up significantly as it started it’s journey down the hill.

Somehow, it just missed the sand barrel at the top of the hill and careened down the hill, into my neighbors yard, through her driveway, jumped the little fence on the back side of her parking spot, and continued down the hill behind her house. (Luckily she and her husband winter in Florida, so neither they, nor their car are here at the moment)

At this point I lost sight of it from the end of my driveway, which is as far as I had gotten in the time it had traveled all that way, but there are a multitude of trees and other items on her hill, so I was sure it had come to rest somewhere on the hill.

I make it through her yard and to the top of her hill, trying to locate the tire’s final resting place, but having no luck.

And then I spotted it.

It had continued it’s journey all the way down the hill and directly into the lake.

I have no idea how it managed to miss absolutely every tree and obstacle between here and the lake, but yet it did.

It was floating about 10 ft out, with just a small portion of it still above water.

I get down to the lake and quickly realize it is just far enough out that there is no way I can reach it and still remain on dry land.

I look around for anything I can use to try to fish it out, and even try a couple sticks, but there is nothing long enough.

I start the trek back up the hill, trying to brainstorm ways I can get the tire out and still stay dry, but I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact I was going to have to get wet.

Which was extremely unappealing, as the ice has only been off the lake for a couple of weeks, and I’m guessing the water temp is not much above 35 degrees. And no, I do not belong to the cold plunge crowd, so this is not something I do for fun.

Luckily, I gave my dad a call to see if he had any great ideas on fishing tires out of lakes (he usually does) and sure enough, he did.

He suggested tying a rope around my hammer, and throwing it out into the middle of the tire, hoping the hammer would catch and drag it back in.

I make it back down the hill, and after a few unsuccessful throws, where the hammer hit the middle, but failed to catch on the way back, it finally did, and I was able to drag the tire back out, all while staying dry.

Hauling that tire all the way back up the hill to my house was another adventure all together.

All four tires are safely stored away until the next snow flies, and here’s hoping the only other “tires” that land in the lake this summer, are the inflatable ones designed to hold a person as they float lazily in the sun.

The Case of the Lost Chicken

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I have chickens. I know there are all the memes about women of a certain age and hens, or crazy chicken ladies. That’s fine. I can deal with the sterotypes and labels.

But I have chickens because nothing beats fresh eggs.

And they have the built in bonus of being the best composters to cut down on what you throw away.

So I have chickens.

When I moved into my new place, there was a convienently placed garden shed in the back corner of the lot, that was easily converted to a chicken coop with the addition of an inside wall and an outside run.

Now my chickens literally have the Taj Mahal of chicken coop set up. Lots of room to laze around inside, and even more room to run around, under the trees outside.

This current batch of hens (+1, which is a story for another time), I got when they were just wee little fluff balls, so they had some growing to do.

Now, I’ve had chickens before, but apparently, in my dog Pavlov’s mind, these new chickens needed to be oriented to the “ways of the Pavlov”, so he found it highly entertaining for awhile to make mad laps around the chicken coop when the chicks where in the run, and stir them up into a literal tizzy.

And the chickens, still being young and excitable, never failed to humor him and run around like chickens with their heads cut off and squwak.

(Thankfully this was relatively short lived, and Pav has now learned “no chickens”- again, and the chickens have learned to ignore him)

However, back when the tizzy’s were still a thing, I went out one night to put the “girls” to bed, and upon doing a quick head count, realized I was coming up one short.

I went inside to see if she had put herself to bed earlier, but no.

I walked around the entire coop and run, trying to see if she had found a hole and a way out, but there was no escape hatch.

Huh. Strange.

Where did the feather ball go?

I did have some wire laid across the top of the run, more to keep the neighborhood hawk and eagle OUT of the run than to keep the chickens IN, but the chicks were still young enough they weren’t really proficient flyers yet, so I didn’t think she could have gone up and over.

But after a little more investigating, I decided that she must have somehow flown out, because she certainly wasn’t still in.

I expanded the search into the woods a ways, but there was no sign of her, and it was getting dark.

I figured she’d either find a spot to roost for the night and show up in the morning, or the friendly neighborhood fox would take her home with him.

The next morning, I got up and headed out to the coop to see if the wayward chick had made her way back, but still nothing.

I did another loop in the woods and around, looking for any sign of her, but still no luck, so I figured the circle of life had swept her up.

For the next two days, I kept an eye out for her, and did a sweep every morning and evening, but still no chicken.

I need to pause here to paint a visual picture of my coop for you.

The garden shed I converted to my coop is a full size shed, probably 18 ft x12 ft or something close. It’s tall, with a little loft area over the coop section, and situated in the back corner of my lot. However, it is not situated on level ground. So whoever initially put this shed out there, attempted to make it as level as possible, by put it up on cement blocks at the corners.

Quite a few cement blocks.

This made it relatively “level”, but also left quite a crawl space under the building.

When I put up the run, we ran chicken wire all around the bottom of the building, to prevent the chickens from going out under the coop, and to prevent anything coming in.

Because I know chickens love to dig, on the side of the coop inside the run, I also put a piece of wood, probably 3ft wide up against the building, in front of the chicken wire, so they couldn’t get in there and dig under the wire.

Then the ramp to go up to their door was also going up over this piece of wood.

On day 3 of Operation Missing Chicken, I am on my way out to open the door and let the chickens out for the day, when I happen to look into the run, and notice something odd protruding from under the ramp.

I stop and look a little closer.

I can’t say for sure, but that kind of looks like a head?

I open the gate, go into the run, and sure enough. There’s a little chicken head poking out from under the piece of board up against the building, under the ramp.

My little missing chicken had somehow wedged herself up between that board and the wire, likely during one of the Pavlov tizzy runs, and had spent 3 days trying to work herself out. I can tell you, there was not a lot of room to work with.

She must have gone up head first, and it must have taken her all that time to turn herself around and stick her head out, hoping someone might finally see her and come to her rescue.

I helped her get out from under the board and back to solid ground.

The poor thing tried to stand upright, but promptly fell right over. (Imagine if your legs had been stuck in one position for 3 days and you tried to stand on them!) She also had some toes that were not in the shape or position they should be, which weren’t helping.

I was a little concerned about her ability to recover from this, but she was still with us for the moment, so I figured first priority was food and water, since she hadn’t had these for 3 days either.

I got the other chickens out in the run and then took her inside and got her some food and water in dishes she could reach sitting down, and she let me know she had definitely been missing both.

I hung out with her for awhile, trying to decide what she was going to need. She kept trying to walk, and kept falling over, but she did seem to be standing for a little longer each time.

I decided the best plan was to let her hang by herself, with plenty of water, and get some rest. Then we’d see where we went from there.

It took her a few days to get all her kinks worked out, and to unbend herself back into normal chicken form, but now she’s out there running around with the rest of them like nothing ever happened.

And hopefully she (and the rest) have learned their lesson about playing hide and seek with Pavlov.

Laundry Day: Now Featuring Music and Error Codes

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I have been in my new place for almost a year already! Time flies when the days are short and the air is cold!

When I purchased this place it came with a set of pretty old laundry appliances that I knew I was going to update at some point. We’re talking those ancient relics of washers where you actually had to load the laundry from the top, and your clothes were given a ride around a maypole to get clean.

About a month or so ago, the dryer stopped warming up on the regular cycle. For some reason, it would still dry clothes on the gentle cycle, so I have been managing to limp it through the winter. But then, about a week or so ago, the washer’s lid quit locking, which meant the wash cycle could never fully engage, and my clothes never got their maypole ride. If I slammed the lid just right, while crossing my eyes and holding my breath, I could possibly get it to latch, but I realized this was probably not a long term solution.

So it being almost spring, the time for all things fresh and new, I decided it might be a good time for a new laundry duo.

That, and the fact there was a sale.

So, I ordered my fancy new matching laundry set, with the front load doors and missing the now extinct maypole, set up install and waited.

My install was scheduled for yesterday, and for any of you that know me at all, you know it was not going to just be an easy, story free process.

The delivery team actually showed up on time (right at the start of their 4 hour window too!), and set right to work on getting my old machines out of the way and the new ones un-boxed and ready to take their place.

We were only about 5 min in when the first issue arose.

As the install tech went to shut off the water (there was an easy shut off valve right there at the hook ups), to disconnect my old washer, he pointed out that the valve seemed to be shot. It was not completely shutting off the water flow, and there was a slight leak when he went to disconnect the hoses. He mentioned I would need to get someone to come replace the valve.

Ok, fair enough. I’ll add it to my to-do list. In the meantime, I grabbed a towel to tuck around the hook-ups while he was making the switch to prevent the leak from making too much of a mess, and on we went.

They get the old machines out of the way, carry in the fancy new washer and start to get it into place. This is where the fun really started.

As he is positioning the washer, he tells me he has not hooked up any of the hoses, but he’ll leave them in the tub, so I can connect them after I have the valve replaced.

Not sure I was completely understanding what he was saying, I said “I’m sorry, what?”

He replied that since the valve was leaking (in the off position) he wasn’t able to hook up the new washer to the valve. It was against the “rules”. So thus, he had also decided he just wouldn’t hook up the hoses to the machine either.

So, just to be sure I am understanding this correctly.

You are going to leave the washer not hooked up and the valve off and leaking until I can get someone to replace the valve, instead of hooking up the new washer and turning the valve back on where it doesn’t leak?

Of course. Makes total sense to me. Might as well just turn my utility area into a swimming pool while we wait for a plumber. The dogs have been dying for a swim.

After some negotiation, we agree he will at least connect the hoses to the machine and leave them where I can easily reach them, so I can easily connect them “once the valve is replaced”.

He finishes everything else, cleans up all the packaging and they jump in the truck to take off.

And as soon as he is in the truck, I connect the washer hoses and turn on the valve, thus stopping the leak and preventing an un-planned for pool.

He had also explained that I had 48 hours to make any reports of issues with the install, and then after that I would have to deal with the manufacturer for any issues, so I decided I might as well run a load of laundry and make sure everything was functioning as expected.

The washing machine did it’s thing with no issues, despite the now non-leaking valve, and my clothes came out clean and wet, while the utility room stayed dry.

But now it was the dryer’s turn.

I load the clothes in, turn on the cycle, and watch the clothes start their tumble routine.

Before they have a chance to complete their whole routine, however, I am called back to the machine with the melodic sound of the “there’s an issue” tone. (It’s so nice that these fancy new machines play you music instead of those harsh old buzzers)

Flashing on the display are several lights and a “nP” error code.

Digging out the manual and searching the error code list, let me know that this code indicated an issue with the power source and the fact that the “power cord had not been connected correctly”.

Hmmmm…. Guess it’s a good thing I have that 48 hour window.

Of course it was too late to call by that point, so first thing this morning I am on the phone with the 800 number provided as the techs had made their exit.

An hour and multiple transfers later, during which I am told they can’t get anyone out for over a week to fix the problem, then being sent to LG to see if they can somehow fix the issue over the phone (I know, I was surprised these new “smart machines” could be smart enough to re-hook up their own power cords correctly, too ) and finally back to the installers who finally “make an exception” to get someone out here first thing Monday morning to see what they could do.

I’d like to say I’m hopeful that I will be back to a fully functional laundry set up by mid-day Monday, but I’ve learned to be ready for anything.

Maybe there will be a “to be continued….” added to this post.

It’s a Black & White Problem

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I know it’s been awhile. I haven’t traveled nearly as much as I used to the past couple years, so travel stories haven’t been as abundant.

However, I’ve realized even when life isn’t in the clouds, my Life On The Ledge still has things to share. Although the characters are different, the entertainment value is still strong.
So back by popular demand (or no demand at all) the all new view from my Life on the Ledge!

This story starts in the black of night.

Right before I’m headed off to bed, my trusty four footed companions decide to do their excited dance at the door. I figure the chances are about 90/10 that the dance is due to some uninvited visitor in the yard vs upset tummies that were going to wake me up in the middle of the night with the need to use the bathroom. I hesitate for a minute, but decide that despite the low odds, I really did not want to be woken up in the middle of the night, so I opened the door and let them out.

As soon as the door opened and they took off around the garage, I knew I played the wrong odds.

Sure enough, their run was soon accompanied by their “Oh, look! A new friend!” bark.

I gave it a minute or two, then called for them to come back in. Not only did they not appear, but I recognized their “Hey look! We want to show you what we found!” barks, so I grabbed my flashlight and decided to go look so we could all go to bed.

I came around the garage and the flashlight found the pups hanging out in front of the chicken coop.

Followed quickly by lighting the black and white fluffy friend running around inside the chicken run.

Luckily, when I gave a quick yell to the pups, they came running back to the house with me, and I decided our little skunk friend could show himself out.

Apparently, Pavi’s experience last year getting sprayed in the mouth by a skunk (Yes. Directly. In. The. Mouth) was enough for him to learn to leave the black and white kitties alone and he had avoided the spray.

Ember, however, had not had the chance to learn that lesson.

She seemed to only have gotten a glancing blow on her neck, though, which I quickly scrubbed with dish soap and vinegar before it could set in, and the smell remained quite mild, considering.

Bullet dodged.

So off to bed we go to a great night sleep.

Bright and early the next morning, we’re downstairs and ready to start the day.

Somehow, even before my coffee, my brain kicks in enough for me to think maybe I should just go double check that our guest had made his way back to his own home over night before I let the dogs out.

I was really glad I did, because sure enough, as the chicken coop comes into view, there is our Oreo colored friend, still running back and forth in the run.

Hmm. Why did he choose to stick around? Surely there are more exciting places to explore than my chicken run.

The chickens had dug a hole in the corner of the run, which I had covered with chicken wire to keep them from escaping, and I realize Oreo had pushed up under the wire from the outside to get in. But now that he was in, he was standing on the wire, so couldn’t burrow back under it to get out , so now he was trapped.

Which means now I have to get close enough to the coop to let him out.

My run has two sections to it, a larger one and a smaller one. Both sections have doors in them, and since Oreo is currently running back and forth in the smaller section, I decide my best bet is to open the door in the larger section.

So I very slowly make my way towards the door, keeping my eye on Oreo the whole way.

At first, he is too focused on his panicked pacing to notice me, but just as I get into range to touch the door, he stops and looks at me.

So I stop and look at him.

I figure as long as I’m seeing the two-eyed side of him, I’m safe. It’s the one-eyed side I need to avoid.

So I keep my eyes on him and slowly reach out and open the door.

Once I get it open, I quickly retreat around the corner of the barn, and watch from a safe distance.

But Oreo has just resumed his frantic pacing along the back stretch and seems unaware his path to freedom is behind him.

That’s fine. I’ll go inside, get some breakfast and coffee, and surely he’ll be gone by the time I’m done.

Except he isn’t.

I load the dogs into the car for our morning walk and go to check, and Oreo is still doing his military march on the back of the chicken run.

Now what?

I decide maybe I need to open the door that is closer to his pacing path.

And also about 3 ft from Oreo’s business end.

I find one of Pavi’s strategically placed, enormous sticks lying between me and the coop (Now I realize he wasn’t creating a mowing obstacle course, but a home defense system!), so I grab it and again slowly advance into the danger zone.

I use the stick to flip the latches on the door, but I can’t get the right angle to pull the door open with it, so I have no choice but to creep in and pull the door open.

But I make it! And now Oreo has a clear escape path just 3 ft behind him.

I take the dogs for our walk, and when we get back an hour later, this time I’m sure Oreo has moved on.

And yet again, I’m wrong.

Not only is Oreo still pacing the perimeter, one of the chickens, who had still been shut up in the inside coop, had somehow let herself out, and was now pacing around with our black and white friend.

2 doors standing wide open to the outside world, and both of them are just getting their steps in the cage.

Obviously time to regroup.

Oreo is now in the larger run area, but also under the inside coop. As far from the doors as it is possible to get. The chicken is hanging out by the open door, so I figure I need to shut the doors and figure out how to corral Matilda before I can continue trying to encourage Oreo to move on.

I decide if I can try to corral Matilda in the smaller area I might be able to grab her and remove her from the equation, so I go get some grain and throw it down in that area to lure her in.

Sure enough, she takes the bait.

But as soon as I open the little door to try to nab her, she squawks and runs the other way.

Straight at Oreo. And straight into his smelly shower.

Somehow, I still avoid becoming collateral damage, but now Matilda is not happy and squawking and flapping, and Oreo is even more agitated.

Perfect conditions to continue with Plan Rescue.

Matilda finally calms down enough to go back to the grain and I’m able to grab her.

So now I’m standing hugging a skunk stink chicken.

Somewhere along my quest of collecting useless trivia, I had remembered hearing that once a skunk sprays, they are unable to spray again until their supplies replenish, so I had googled that earlier in the morning to see if I might be able to use that to my advantage, knowing he had sprayed the dogs last night.

While it is true, they can actually spray 5-6 times before they deplete their supply.

So I do debate, for a minute, whether I should just throw the chicken at Oreo 4 more times to run him dry, but quickly decide I’m unlikely to come out of that plan unscathed.

I stuff Matilda back in the coop through the nest boxes and reach in and lock the door so none of the other girls get the bright idea of trying to join the party.

Then I swing the outside doors wide open again.

Meanwhile, Oreo continues his frantic marching.

Now what?

I grab what is left of my blackberries from the fridge and again venture back to the danger zone. I toss a handful of berries back towards Oreo and then strew the rest of them to the door and out.

There. Plan Hansel and Gretel is sure to work.

I head inside to give Oreo the room he needs.

An hour or so later, I again make my way out to the chicken coop. Only to see Oreo still running back and forth.

Really??

I had already tried a stick to attempt to prod Oreo towards the exit, but it wasn’t very effective through the wire of the run.

Which is how I find myself doing something I never thought I would be doing .

Throwing rocks at a skunk.

Oreo is still pacing as far away from the door as possible, so I start throwing rocks at the coop near Oreo to get him to move in the other direction.

And it works! Oreo runs to the other end of the run- right past the two open doors (and over all the blackberries) and resumes pacing on the other end.

Old Oreo is proving to be a formidable opponent.

Apparently Oreo is only going to go out the same way he came in.

Except now Oreo is pacing directly over the entry point.

So now I’m throwing rocks again to get Oreo back to the other end he just came from.

Once he is safely back at the far end- again- I move in, tug the wire out from the bottom of the run, prop up the corner with a piece of wood, and move in for the final volley.

Back to the other end of the run to throw rocks-again- to move Oreo back to his chance at freedom.

Finally!

Oreo gets back to open corner, slips back out under the coop, and disappears under the fence.

And I survived 3 hours of battle with a skunk without getting sprayed once.

Victory!

Hopefully chickens don’t have a strong sense of smell, because their coop was not so lucky.

The Rare Land Shoe Shark

My 30,000 foot view1 Comment

This week has been a tough week. Not a horrible news, events that change your life kind of tough. But the nothing goes as planned, little fire drills everywhere, super busy but feeling like nothing got accomplished kind of tough.

So it seemed like a good Friday evening to spend at the beach.

The pups and I had been chasing sticks, splashing in the water and having a generally fabulous time for about 5 minutes or so, when we were joined by an older gentleman and his pup. I had met this guy a few times on our beach trips and always exchanged a few words, and then we both continued on our way, so I was hoping that’s what would happen this time. Not because I was especially anti social, but I had done enough talking to people for the week and really just wanted to throw sticks.

But he had other plans for the evening.

We started out just chit chatting about this and that, but soon he was sharing about all the time he had spent in the South Pacific, India and Asia back in the 80s. Ok, kind of a cool story and great adventure, so I was engaged. Pavi was slightly perturbed that my stick throwing was lagging somewhat with this interruption of conversation, but Ember was perfectly happy romping around with the new pup friend and annoying her brother.

And then suddenly the conversation shifted to aliens and UFOs and I found myself listening to his account of his up close and personal encounter with these beings while in Thailand.

I have to admit I was having a little trouble following the whole story, but I do know it entailed several people telling him he needed to put clothes back on, that he couldn’t be naked on he beach, him getting arrested while naked, aliens visiting him in jail and a gigantic white creature glowing with blue light appearing at the end of the pier

Apparently he made no connection between those events and the bag of whacky tobacky he had purchased from some random guy on the side of the road or the magic pills he apparently kept finding in his pocket and taking throughout this ordeal, but one has to wonder….

During this fascinating story, a group of 6, who I assumed was a family with older teen/ young adult children, had wandered down to the beach and were clustered just next to us. After a slight invitation from the daughter, my social Ember decided to act as the beach welcoming committee and pranced over to say hello to her new friends. They were delighted to meet her, and she ate up the attention. She even came back to grab a stick and returned to show them the quality of stick specimens our beach has to offer. Then it was back to romping with her brother and her new four legged friend.

My companion had wrapped up his alien story, but suddenly, as I just finish throwing a stick, he says “can I see your hand?” as he simultaneously grabs said hand.

Which is how I find myself getting my palm read on the beach.

While this is rather awkward, he seems harmless enough, if maybe a little lonely and maybe more than a little affected by the long term effects of whacky tobacky, so I decide to just let him stare at my palm lines for a minute or two and let him come up with whatever he thinks he sees.

Meanwhile, the family has decided to shed their footwear and go wading in the ocean.

If there is one thing my sweet little Ember cannot resist, it’s an abandoned shoe. More times than I can count, I have had to go in chase of a shoe, often into the yard with no shoes on. Even the split second they are left unattended while putting them on or taking them off, is too much for her to bear, and she feels the need to rescue the poor shoe from a life of abandonment.

And now there is a whole pile of unattended shoes just lying on the beach calling her name.

Just as I am about to find out about the 2 real loves of my life reflected in my palm, I see Ember streak past us straight into the pile of shoes.

Luckily, we’ve had lots of practice with “drop it!” and “bring it!”, so I was able to disengage my hand, while yelling these to her, and she dropped the shoe right on the water line before plunging into the ocean.

I returned the shoe to the pile while offering my apologies, but the family found the whole thing quite hilarious and were quite entertained by the whole ordeal. Just to be sure, Ember ran over to the dad, whose shoe I’m guessing it was, and offered a wet nose in his palm as an apology.

And now that family has a good story to write in their vacation blog.

And I will have to find another opportunity for a random beach palm reading to find out how long my lifeline is.

Is There a Mr. Fix-It In the House?

My 30,000 foot view1 Comment

I thought I had been lucking out the past few months. Not only did a get a bit of a break from traveling so much, the trips I did have to take were relatively smooth and story free.

I should have known the odds would need to right themselves eventually.

I just didn’t expect it all to happen in one trip.

I had a “quick” trip planned to North Carolina this week. Out on Wednesday afternoon, and back Thursday evening. Since there aren’t a lot of direct options for me into Raleigh/Durham, NC, my out flight was a connection in Baltimore.

The flight from Denver to Baltimore was smooth, and even arrived a little early, giving me those few extra minutes to grab some food before boarding leg 2. If I had seen the future, I may have grabbed a little more to eat.

We boarded the Raleigh bound flight on time, but were quickly informed once boarding was complete, that there was a maintenance issue with one of the plane’s navigation systems. Not to worry though. Maintenance was already here addressing the issue, and we hoped to be cleared to leave shortly.

No big deal.

Sure enough, they were back on about 15 minutes later saying maintenance had fixed the issue and we would be pushing back.

They finished up the paperwork, closed the main cabin door, and we pushed back from the gate.

Only to have them immediately put it back in drive and pull us right back up to the gate.

“Sorry, folks. While maintenance did fix the problem with the first navigation system, now the second system is throwing an alert, so we need to have them back to look at that one.”

I can already see where this is headed.

About 10 minutes later the captain is back, this time with a less optimistic message.

They are pulling the plane from service for the night, so we all have to deplane. Please see the agent at the top of the bridge for information on a new plane.

I’ll give them credit. We were off the plane less than 5 minutes before they were sending us to a new gate, with a new plane, and less than 30 minutes later we were all loaded on the new plane.

The problem was, the bags were not so lucky.

We were sitting on the plane for an hour, before the little carts with all the checked bags finally pulled up beside the plane.

At exactly the same moment that the flight attendant  came over the intercom to call for help with a medical emergency for a passenger in the back of the plane.

Which meant the bags had to wait to be loaded on the plane until the Emergency Medical Response team could board the plane and get the passenger back off.

Another 45 minutes later, the medical emergency has been taken off for care, the bags have been loaded and they announce they have closed the front door and we will be leaving soon.

Which was evidently just what the man in row 2 was waiting for as his cue. He decides to choose that moment to throw a fit and demand to be let off the plane.

Despite the fact that the flight attendant explained in order to do that they have to get clearance to re-open the door, get ground crew to do so and re-do all the paperwork which will only delay things even further, the man continues to demand to be let off the plane

I’m actually surprised he made off the plane in one piece. I thought the entire plane was going to riot .

Another 30 minutes later, we are FINALLY ready to go. For real this time.

I finally get to my hotel and in bed a little after 12:30AM, and had to be up at 5:30AM for a 7AM meeting. That set my Thursday up to be a great day!

I come out of my early morning meeting to a message that my flight for that afternoon had already  been delayed for 3 hours.

You have got to be kidding me!

This time my plane, which was starting it’s day in Burbank, was scheduled to make a pit stop in Denver, on it’s way to pick us up in Raleigh to take us back to Denver.

Evidently, before it could leave Burbank, however, it was pulled due to a flat tire and left Burbank 3 hours late.

Even I can change a tire in less than 3 hours.

So, this is how I find myself landing in Denver, 3 hours later than planned, and then still have to make the drive home when it’s already past my bed time.

Now, not to toot my own horn, but I had done a remarkable job of staying cool and letting all these irritations roll off my back to this point, if I do say so myself. Even though I was beyond tired,  I figured the irritations were at least behind me, and all I had to do was make it home.

I should have known better.

I get to my car in the garage, and pull up behind one car in line to pay my for my parking and put the airport behind me.

And I watch as the guy in this car tries 3 times to insert his parking ticket. Then watch as he tries 3 different credit cards to pay his fee. And then continue to sit there, and sit there, and sit there, as he does who knows what. Finally, after about 10 minutes, the arm goes up and I breathe out my irritation as I assume the guy will finally leave.

Except he doesn’t.

I’ve already admitted I was beyond tired, so I assume maybe this guy is too, and possibly he fell asleep behind his wheel and failed to see the arm go up releasing him from parking planet. So I decide to play a gentle alarm on my horn to wake him up and urge him into freedom.

Except he still doesn’t move.

So I toot again.

This elicits him popping his head out of his window and yelling, “Stop that!”

Stop that?? Ummm, what??

Maybe he doesn’t speak horn? He wasn’t able to figure out the message I was trying to send?

So I decide to help him out and translate to plain English for him. I pop my head out of my window and say

“You need to go!”

To which I get,

“I’m not going! They have my license on camera showing I didn’t pay!”

I am beyond confused as to what this guy is missing, but he must be more tired than I am. The arm doesn’t pop up to let you out unless you pay. The arm is clearly up! So, I decide to translate for this guy again.

“The arm is up, so you obviously paid. Now you need to go!”

To which the guy decides to pull his head back in his car, put it in reverse and back it quickly up half the distance to my front bumper.

This seems an interesting move for a guy who was just expressing concern about them having his license plate on camera for not paying, but doesn’t seem concerned about being on camera backing his little car into my SUV.

I get it. Drive and Reverse can be confusing. And this guy is obviously having a difficult time figuring things out at the moment. So I decide to try to help one more time.

I pop my head out the window and say,

“Ummm, you need to go forward…”

Which got him backing another several inches towards my car in response.

Then his head is back out the window and he yells, “I’m not going! If you don’t like it, you can move!”

“Ummm, I’d love to! Except you are in my way, and I can’t!”

Now the parking attendant two booths down starts yelling at the guy that he needs to go, but the guy continues to just sit there.

I try one more time and offer “He’s telling you you can go!” out the window, as the attendant continues to yell at the guy, and the guy continues to sit there.

Finally, another attendant comes out of the main booth and starts to walk towards the guys car. The guy finally decides to move.

After reversing one more time to come as close as he can possibly come to hitting my car, without actually hitting it, he finally puts his car in drive and takes off.

I sure hope he managed to find his way home and to bed a lot easier than he found his way out of DIA parking.

At least I found my way home and to my bed without anymore delays.

Goldilocks & Papa Bear

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While things have been a little quiet on the travel front this summer, tonight I have a story for you, thanks again to my dog Auni.

As any of my followers know, Auni suffered from a broken leg this past winter, and already has arthritis in her front leg. So as part of her “therapy” to keep her as active as possible, we go on almost daily walks.

Tonight, we headed out for our constitutional after dinner, and after the thunderstorms decided to clear out, around 7pm.

We were having a nice leisurely walk, stopping to sniff anything that might be suspicious, and exploring everything that might have changed since our walk two days ago, when I happened to catch a glimpse of something moving out of the corner of my eye.

We have a creek that runs parallel to the road in our neighborhood, and most of the driveways have little bridges going over the creek to get up to their houses.

Taking his evening constitutional and heading across one of these little bridges in our direction was our neighborhood Black Bear.

When I saw him, we were about 10 feet from running smack dab into him at the end of the driveway.

Luckily, since he was looking in the other direction, and ambling even slower than my canine companion, we were able to quickly back up about another 10 feet and come to a stop before he got to the end of the driveway and the road we were on.

And it gave me a few seconds to get my camera.

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I actually never carry my phone with me on our walks, but I happened to be waiting for a return call (on a package delivery issue, of course) and so had brought it with me tonight. However, my photography skills were a little lacking after this one picture when I realized he was looking right at us. I figured I should maybe pay more attention to what he was going to do, then take pictures.

And what did my faithful companion do? The same companion who literally turned into a wild woman 3 nights ago, when this guy was clearly outside our house around 10pm? That night she was pacing back and forth across the house, barking at every door and trying desperately to make me let her out to face her foe head on. (There were a few moments when I wondered why I wasn’t doing just that). But tonight, when she actually did confront her foe head on?

She sat calmly by my feet and watched him with me from our spot on the side of the road.

Which is probably a good thing in hindsight.

Our fellow ambler spent a few seconds in the above pose checking us out, and then turned and loped off across the street and into the yard on the other side, and we turned and continued our walk back to our house.

It’s always nice to make new friends in the neighborhood.

 

This is why We Can’t Have Nice Things…

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As most of you know, we just got back from a few weeks overseas. Evidently, while we were gone, we got a lot of rain, and the weeds, which seem to be the only things that grow easily in my yard, had taken that as their cue to grow thick and tall.

Basically my yard was overrun. And the fake grass, that seems to be the only grass that really wants to grow on my “lawn” was knee high.

So, I decided that this past weekend would be a great weekend to whip my yard into shape for the summer.

I decided that not only would I attack the weeds into submission, I would also plant flowers and shrubs to replace the ones that didn’t bounce back from last year’s hail storm, and give my yard a whole new face lift.

So off I went to HomeDepot after my coffee Saturday morning, to get supplies and plot out a landscaping strategy.

I added so much top soil, bark mulch, flowers, shrubs and vegetables to my cart, I actually had to make two trips to my car with it all. Every square inch of my car was full of my future garden.

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, and I was actually enjoying working up a sweat pulling weeds and digging holes.

And let me just say, I pulled SO. MANY. WEEDS. Enough to fill 3 extra large hefty bags.

My yard, as you my faithful readers know, is all on a hill, so I have many tiered beds, formed by the retaining walls, on all different levels up my hill.

I didn’t even mind hauling all the bags of mulch and dirt up my 28 steps.

Probably about 3 hours later, I had finished weeding, planting and mulching all the beds in the front of my house, when the afternoon showers forced a rain delay.

I wasn’t even upset by the call of the game, as it gave me time to run back to Home Depot for more bags of mulch and plan for the next day’s planting.

Bright and early, right after my coffee on Sunday, Auni (my faithful canine helper, who, by the way, is a great gardening assistant) and I were back at work, tackling the beds by my front door.

Another 3-4 hours later, my masterpiece was complete. I had planted beds of flowers, pots of flowers,  a bed of tomatoes and fresh basil (Hello, Caprese salads!), planted some shrubs around the fence line, and even strewn some wildflower seeds, hoping they might be more hardy for our Colorado climate. I had watered all the new plants, added root boost to give them the best start in their new homes, and done everything possible to help their transition.

I’m just going to say it. My yard was lovely!

And I was already looking forward to the coming months, when the plants and shrubs really started to flourish and I was eating fresh veggies from my “garden”

I took some pictures for posterity (and maybe a little bragging rites) and then poured some ice water to sit on my deck and enjoy my landscape for the remainder of the afternoon.

This was about 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

Around 4 o’clock I got ready to head to my hair appointment.

As I walked down the steps to my car, I smiled at how pretty my yard was, and what a reward those hours of work turned out to be, and took more mental pictures of the results.

If only I had known this was to be the last time I was to see that lovely yard.

On the way to my hair appointment, about a 10 min drive away, it started to rain. I’ll admit my first thought, was Good! This will be great for all my new little flowers!

By the time I pulled up to the hair salon, it was a torrential downpour. So much so, I sat in my car, literally right outside their front door, for 10 min, waiting for it to let up enough that I could make that 5 foot or so run, and not be completely drenched.

While it did let up long enough for me to reach the door, the torrents continued for a solid hour. The roads had trenches 3 inches deep along both sides as the drains struggled to keep up with the deluge.

People’s phones kept going off in the salon with weather alerts and flash flood warnings.

I’ll admit, I was a little concerned about what was going on at my house, partly because I had left all the windows open, and a little bit about the yard.

But I checked the radar and the weather alerts, and it appeared that the storm was just missing my area. Maybe we just got a lot of rain too.

If only that were the case.

As I drove home a couple of hours later, the closer I got to my house, the worse the roads and yards around people’s houses got. In fact, about a mile from my house, there was such a pile up of slushy hail, it looked like there was about 3-4 inches of slushy snow in the road. The rest of the road was covered in inches of thick mud and sand the rushing river that had run down it during the storm had left behind.

When I pulled onto my road and rounded the corner to head up my hill, I already knew I was not going to like what I saw.

Apparently the storm not only brought torrential rain to our area, but very gusty wind, and lots of hail. While the hail was not big enough to do any damage to the cars or houses, there was so much of it, it piled up literally inches thick.

My whole yard looked like it was covered in 4 inches of snow.

And not only were all my flowers gone, and plants completely crushed or literally razed away, but the leaves and debris from the surrounding trees and that the rushing water left in my yard, made the weeds that had been having a hay day just a couple days before, look inviting.

I couldn’t even really assess the damage until this morning, when the hail all “melted”. But it was basically as bad as I assumed.

So, I am very glad that my 6+ hours of work, allowed me to enjoy my pretty summer yard for exactly 2 hours. And the good news is, I have lots more projects to fill my weekend’s for the rest of the summer now!

I also have a feeling I will be putting that “unconditional plant guarantee” to the test in the near future, so stay tuned! You know there will be a story or two to accompany that!

Memories are the Best Souvenirs…

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I just returned from a lovely trip to Europe with my family, to celebrate my son’s graduation from college. (I know, I can’t believe it either).

The trip was amazing, beautiful, fun, and of course, not without stories.

Our trip started off with a lovely visit in London. As we landed from our 9 hour flight, I saw an email from Air B&B that there had been a flood in the apartment we had booked and they would be unable to accommodate us. Cue a slight panic, as sleeping on the streets of London was not how I had planned this trip starting out. Luckily, that panic was short lived. When I logged into Air B&B to read the entire message, our hosts apologized for the inconvenience, but let me know they had another apartment just around the corner from the original booking, and they would be happy to accommodate us there. The apartment was comfortable, and a perfect home base for exploring all London had to offer.

Waking up on day 3, it was quickly apparent that someone on our long flight had decided to share with me my first trip souvenir.

From my scratchy throat, clogged head and the worst cough I have ever had, I was pretty sure I had Typhoid, Bubonic Plague, the Bird Flu, or possibly all three.

This was not exactly the kind of souvenir I had been looking for.

I still had 12 days of sightseeing planned, however, so I was not letting a pesky, (possibly deadly) virus slow me down. So I just added several European pharmacies to my sightseeing agenda, added several pills, sprays and lozenges to my souvenir collection, and soldiered on.

The various pills and medicated state I found myself operating out of, soon came in very handy.

We arrived in Ireland and rented a car for a drive across the county.

I was already a little nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road, but surprisingly found that that, itself, was pretty easy to adapt to. It was actually amazing how quickly going left around a traffic circle became second nature.

And can I just say, they love their traffic circles in Ireland?? I’m not even exaggerating a little when I say that we couldn’t go more than half a mile in any direction without hitting a traffic circle.

We made it to Galway without issue, but the real fun came the next day, when we decided to take a trip further west to Connemara.

Driving on the wrong side of the road was relatively easy on a 4 lane highway. However, you leave those highways in Ireland, and the roads quickly narrowed to no more than a lane and a half of what we are used to here in America.

With absolutely no shoulder.

There is literally the road, and then a hedge, or a tree, or a house a mere inches from your car.

Oh, and did I mention the roads are windy? Like you can’t see more than 100 ft down the road because of all the sharp bends and curves, windy.

This all just added to the fun of driving on the wrong side of the road. Especially when you met another car. Or one of the many tour buses on these roads.

With nowhere to move over. And all going a mere 100 km/hr.

But, in case that doesn’t sound like enough fun for you, it got better.

On this particular day, they were also doing a bike race on this road, in this part of Ireland.

So on top of dealing with sharp curves, tour buses, and super narrow roads, we also found ourselves dealing with bikes.

Lots and lots of bikes.

That were not going 100 km/ hr.

And had no where to go either, except smack dab in the middle of the lane we were driving in. Sometimes in groups of 10+ bikes thick.

While I appreciated the additional challenge to my driving skills, I was more amazed at these bikers, who obviously were Frogger level Master Plus back in the day.

Somehow, we made it to our destination with no casualties.

The middle part of trip was relatively uneventful, at least in the story department. Besides the fact that I had to continue adding pharmacy stops to our itinerary in every destination, we continued to enjoy the beautiful weather and amazing sites everywhere we went.

Until it was time to come home.

We ended our trip in Paris, and were preparing for our departure the night before, when my parents went to check in for their domestic flight back to Maine after their Trans-Atlantic flight stateside.

We had all booked our international flights together, but their return flight was bringing them back to Newark, while ours was bringing us to Denver. So they had to book another flight from Newark to Maine.

Which my dad had done back in February.

Or so he thought.

As he went to check them in for that flight, he was treated to a pop up that said that flight reservation had been cancelled.

That was going to be a little inconvenient.

Which is how he found himself on the phone with the travel site through which he booked the reservation. For roughly an hour and 45 minutes total, across about 3 calls, and about 75% of that time being on hold, while they tried to figure out what happened.

All at a mere $2/ minute on his international cell phone plan.

Which didn’t get any easier to swallow when he was told that, “OOPS!”  Somehow, when he booked the flight back in February, the travel site had never actually sent the payment  to the airline, even though they had charged his card for said payment. Which had caused the airline to cancel the reservation.

Not to worry, though. The flight was still available. At about 3x what the original fare had  been.

Cue more hold time, calls back and $2/minute cell phone time.

Luckily, he eventually got a supervisor who was able to get them booked and waived the extra charges.

Yay! Everyone would be able to get home.

Or so we thought.

We arrive at Charles de Gaulle the next morning, make it through security, and to our gate with plenty of time to spare. Everything seems to be going as planned.

Until about 30 minutes before our flight.

When we start getting announcements and alerts that our flight to Frankfurt is delayed about 10 min.

This got my attention as we both only had exactly an hour, once we touched down in Frankfurt, to make our connecting flights. 10 min shouldn’t affect our ability to still make our connections, as long as it wasn’t any more than that.

But of course you know that wasn’t the case.

Soon we were looking at a delay of 30 min, and I was getting alerts on my phone that my parents were not going to make their connecting flight, but we should still be good on ours. Which was very confusing as we had 5 minutes difference in our connecting flight times.

So, I find myself at the desk, trying to see what our options are.

Sure enough, it didn’t look like my parents would make their connection, although their system was saying “no problem, you’ll make yours” as far as ours was concerned Still confused on that, but first things first. We needed to find another option for my parents.

The gate agents explore options, spend lots of time on their computer, phoning friends, and conversing in French, but finally come up with an alternative flight plan.
They will now fly to Munich, catch a flight to Newark, and still be there in time to catch their domestic flight to Maine.

Thank goodness, after all those $2/min minutes on the phone last night!

They get their new boarding passes, and head to their new gate.

Then the gate agent turns to me and says, “Now I have bad news”.

Of course now the system is saying we will not make our connecting flight either.

Nice of it to catch up.

So thus begins the search for alternative options for us to make it to Denver.
Cue more computer time, more phoning friends and conversations in French.

All to tell us that they have no other options. Any alternative flights are sold out or bounce us all over the country once we make it back to the US.

Our “best option” for now is to stay on our current flight to Frankfurt, and then try again for other options there, as they would have many more options available to them.

Which is how we find ourselves waiting to board our delayed flight. Which at least the plane has now showed up for and landed during all this research time.

We board our plane and are ready for push back and taxi by noon. The pilot comes on to announce the conditions are favorable and he thinks he can get us to Frankfurt in about 50 min as opposed to the hour and 5 minutes scheduled.

Hmm. Our connecting flight is scheduled for 1:25. If he can get us there in 50 min, that would leave us 30 min to still make our flight. We are in the front of the plane, and we can run if needed, so maybe we’ll make our connection after all!

Of course you know I wouldn’t be writing this if that was the case.

We push away from the gate, taxi out to our position for take off…and sit there for 20 min.

As the minutes tick away, I am realizing our chances are ticking away with them.

Finally the pilot comes on and says:

“Well folks, sometimes things work out and sometimes they don’t. Unfortunately, the plane that was right in front of us, had an ‘incident’ and needed to be contacted by police/security, which caused us to lose our take off slot, so now we are waiting for a new time”

I can’t make this stuff up. And now I really want to know what is going on on that other plane. Which of course I never find out.

But thanks to this “incident”, we find ourselves landing in Frankfurt at the exact same time that our flight to Denver is taking off.

Which is how we get the chance to add a 5th country and another night to our trip itinerary.

Despite all the glitches and the added visit to Urgent Care upon our arrival home, it really was an amazing trip, and I wouldn’t have traded the stories anyway. Just maybe the cough.