Wednesday, July 30, 2014 Guerneville CA.
Let’s start with the visit to Petaluma
I went on down to Petaluma to visit Tom and Mary and help Mary out with her computer. Seems it needed a little bit of tuning up, which we did. We had a little visit, then I went to Home Depot to get some stuff, especially a pipe fitting I needed for my water line project, that I found later, I didn’t’ need.
Home Depot
Finding PVC fittings in most stores is a pain, because there are a bunch of little boxes of fittings, but the fitting get all mixed up by shoppers and get put back in all the wrong boxes.
So, I need a one inch, forty-five degree elbow in PVC. I looked through all the boxes once, twice, three times and didn’t see a box of them or a tag for them, but I knew they must be here somewhere. I looked through all the other boxes for them that someone might have put in the wrong box, but found none.
So, I looked way up high where they keep the new stock and didn’t see any up there, but they were just high enough, I couldn’t see the labels with my glasses on or off, things just wouldn’t focus.
I persisted and finally saw there was a box of them up there, but no one around to get them down for me. So, I did what you aren’t supposed to do, I climbed up on the bin and tipped the box down until it fell down, not on my head, I caught it in my hands as it started down.
I bought two of them and checked out.
Walmart for some new things
I went over to Walmart and bought a pair of pants four sizes bigger than what I normally wear and a pair of suspenders. I also bought a pair of coveralls with the bib and suspenders built in.
Why did I do that?
Well, about six mouths ago, I bought a new, two inch wide leather belt and started to wear it. I was having trouble keeping my pants up.
Belt and tight pants hurting my legs
A few days ago, I realized this belt was riding on my leg joints as my pants just wouldn’t stay up any longer at my age, for some reason. I kept tightening up the belt to keep my pants up and was putting more pressure on the leg/hip joints and maybe by now was also slowing some of the blood to my legs?
That was an important realization, as I’ve been having problems with my legs hurting for quite awhile now, even at night, sleeping. Felt like I had pulled some muscles in my legs and there was some sharp pains in the right leg too. I was thinking there is something going on with my sciatica nerve in my leg, so this was an important find. Looking back, most of this pain started after I bought the new belt, although, I’ve had some pain in that right leg for a long time now.
Wore the stretch waist pants for quite an improvement
I have a pair of stretch waist pants with no belt, so I wore them one day and there was a huge improvement in my hurts, so I dumped those smaller pants and the belt and things have really improved. The day pain is way down and the night pain is almost gone, after only a few days without the belt, so I’m hoping things will continued to improve some more. At my age I expect to have some pain, but it started to become more serious and was slowing me down.
Anyway, suspenders and stretch waist pants for me from now on
I did some shopping at Costco too, but find I can’t buy very many things there anymore because most of the stuff has corn type products in it. I can say that about most of the stores I shop at, but it’s getting harder to warrant the yearly dues, when there is so little I can buy there anymore.
Home for a nap
Yes, I came on home and unloaded my car and had a little much needed nap.
After the nap, I went outside and noticed my grapes are starting to get editable, as in ripe, so I ate some of those.
Grapes getting ripe
Some of the grapes getting ripe. I start eating the riper ones now, or the birds will get them all. People who wait around for fruit to get perfectly ripe, don’t usually get much fruit, as the birds and animals will get it all. I learned that very early on in age as I’ve been eating fruit around here since I was a little kid.
Some fruit is tasty before it gets real ripe and some isn’t, you just have to taste it to find out, and when it’s not tasty, I just spit it out. From years of eating fruit off of trees, I know, somewhat, what to look for and expect.
Started work on the yard waterline project
Since I had the PVC 45 degree elbows, I decided to do some work on the water line project.
Here is where I was working. I had to tap the new line into the end of the old line and the angle for doing that was bad, that’s why I got the 45 degree elbows.
Things don’t always go well, but they are all part of the process
I installed the 45 degree elbows and things still didn’t line up well and in the process, I broke the line at the tee, which is laying on the ground under the repaired tee. You can see the line going down has a bit of a bend in it.
I realized the hookup would work better if I just could bend the line a little without the 45’s in the line, so getting the 45’s was a big waste of time, but it’s all part of the process. :O)
I got it hooked up
So, I did get the line hooked in and decided that was enough of that for the day.
I then was thinking I should do some weed mowing, but I was too tired out and it would be dark soon, so I just looked around at what I needed to mow. Everything needs mowed as the late spring rain made all the weeds grow for a longer time this summer.
Italian prunes getting ripe
I went around to the back yard, checking out what needs mowing and also checked out one of my Italian prune trees to see if the prunes were ripe yet, as when they ripen enough, I want to dry them to the kind of prunes must of you know. Dried prunes.
The Italian prune trees are on the left of this picture, apple trees to the right.
Here are some of the Italian prunes in the ripe stage, almost ripe enough to start drying them. They are very similar to plums, but elongated.
The prunes are very sweet at this stage and tasty too. I prefer them a bit greener or yellower for eating as they are very sweet even at that stage and when they get too ripe, they get mushy in the middle, which I don’t prefer.
Some more of these tasty things.
You won’t likely find any of these fresh type prunes at the store, as they get too mushy to ship, so you only find the dried ones in the store. And these dried ones at the store aren’t really too good, as they usually steam them to plump them up for more selling weight, which makes then not as good, as the dried in the yard ones, that are really dried out a bit more and chewy and good.
Drying the prunes
Like I said, when they get too ripe, I don’t like to eat them, so I’m drying some along with some other plums.
The prunes are in the front that I’m drying. I’ll pick some more soon and add them to this for drying.
Enjoying the day, with almost no bugs
I spent the rest of the day sitting around the yard just enjoying the day. I maybe had one or two mosquitoes bother me for you guys that are where the bugs are. :O) When I hear of all the bugs other people have to deal with in other areas, I’m very thankful that we have very few bothersome bugs around here pestering us.
That was my day.