Luna’s One Year Anniversary

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Today is Luna’s one-year anniversary in Fort Doberdale. And what did she get as a surprise? A nice big needle on her backside! Eegads! How unpleasant. But she had to get her vaccination for rabies today. She is now good to go for three years. In 2011, she’ have to get another one, unless the law is changed by then.

The lady who came out of that door and gave Luna her vaccine was very upset. Luna was scared of her from the get go. After the vaccine, the woman said good-bye, but turned around and she squatted down and said, “Dogs aren’t afraid of me.” Well, Luna was, and she wanted no part of anyone in that joint. She just wanted to go home. So I told the lady a man had scared her before she came out, (by walking by and making a noise), and that is why Luna was scared. So we went home and when we got in the truck, Luna used the ol’ Raspberry to release some steam. At home Luna couldn’t wait to get outside to chase a few lizards!

Happy one-year anniversary, Luna.
(She’s getting treats, too.)
🙂

Helen

Good-bye Pine Tree and Bench

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Today, there was a knock on my door and two tree men said they would take down the pine tree I have in my back yard which was hit by lightning a few months ago and had deteriorated from then very quickly. Earlier, bugs had gone into it, and taken what little life was left in it. So due to the excellent price they estimated for the job, I said, “OK.”

The first thing they did was put a ladder up against the huge tree. The next thing was to cut those branches off. While cutting off those branches, one fell into my nice ol’ bench and smashed it good. So not only did I lose my pine tree today, but also my nice ol’ bench. OK, and a few or so nice big pavers. Eegads! But the price was good to do the tree, and due to the quick loss of life in that tree, I was always nervous about when a branch may fall off and hit one of us. Not to mention that it IS hurricane season. Yikes!

This is Danny. He is the one who took the tree down, while Lee went ahead and did clean up and hauling some of the branches out. My front yard is full of branches and tree trunk due to I have to wait till week two in August for bulk trash. I can’t move the stuff into my swale until then. These guys are going to come back then to haul it all out there for me then. They are.

After the tree take down was over, the FDSP was let loose. They noticed something was awry. First Baby ran to the stump and sniffed it till she sneezed. Lilian was exactly irate as Raven. Meanwhile, Taylor needed to let off some steam by telling everyone what happened. She was going forth to find her tree.

When that didn’t work, well, instead of comfort food, she has a comfort toy. She grabbed her lovely white ball and squeezed it enough to make it squeak squeak squeak! That made her happy and not irate anymore.

Meanwhile, we are very fine about losing this tree on one hand because it was smack dab in the middle of the yard and obstructed the view from here to there and back again. On the other hand, this was our shampoo station, and now I feel I need to rearrange quite a bit to get straight with a new set up.

By the way, what does “True-dat,” mean?

Helen

Next Project, the High Jump

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This is my next project being the ants ate our high jump, too. So much so that we don’t even have a board, not even a piece of board, from that contraption to take a picture of!

I got most of the building materials today at lunch, but a wicked downpour of rain right when I got home to unload the goods soaked me big time! The shopping took longer than I thought because I had to ask for help THREE times from the Home Depot staff. Unusual. No one seemed to be able to change hats and come into the tools department to help me find the nuts, washers, wing nuts, and other paraphernalia I needed. I didn’t get a pair of peg board tool hooks because no one knew what it was or where they were…IF they were. And then I needed another two or so pieces of the white vinyl house siding, which the first “helper” told me to find in flooring? FLOORING? Ummm, no. There wasn’t any in the building section either where it would have been if it would have been. So those two pieces of the puzzle I still need to get at Lowe’s. Yep.

Meanwhile, I had a heck of a time convincing myself that indeed, I needed to get 1-1/2 inch PVC pipe. Do you know how big that is? It is HUGE! I had to really work that out in my head because not only is that a very big pipe, it’s nearly $5 a piece. Then we have the caps to go with it, and the tees, which are both on the high-end of PVC costs. All the materials cost about $70, without the missing two pieces I mentioned. However, when all is said and done, hopefully, I will have paid about $130 for a full set of jumps. J and J has a full set for $229 that’s before the tax, shipping and handling.  So I will have saved some moula when all is said and done, done, done!

Helen

Notes to Self on Broad Jump Building

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OK…If I do this again, and I may, I have a great pointer for myself. The gluing part was very hard for me. I had to work fast and was guessing that the pieces were aligned. You will see from the attached picture that the two bigger jumps are bowed. Was I disappointed. By the time I got the whole thing together, they were too dried to adjust. So, next time, when I do the pre-arranging, I am going to take different color markers and draw a line from one of the elbows to the PVC bar that it attaches to, so when I’m gluing, I will match up those lines and everything will be aligned like it was before I glued. I’m really bummed about that mistake. I even put them on the ground and aligned as I glued, but I didn’t have enough time to fix mistakes because the glue dries so fast.

The other thing I did was on the “second” jump – OK, I had issue with that. Not all of us know which is the second jump. There are 4 jumps and was the second jump the second from the tall or second from the small? I figured it was the second from the small, but that was just too much work figuring that out. Well, that is the one where she says to put the PVC pole on top of the elbow instead of into it. Well, I put one into it and then I screwed one on top of it, too, so it would be sturdy. I had trouble screwing, just as I thought I would. Well, it was unscrewing that was hard because the drill put the screw in, but when I made a mistake, it wouldn’t take it out, so I had to do it by hand. I was afraid the screw wouldn’t hold the PVC in place, but after that, I knew it would! My arm still hurts. So I put two bars down instead of the one like she said on the second jump. I need a few more screws to secure it, though, because now I have tape on it.

Otherwise, the plans were pretty good to follow. They were well thought out and pretty thorough. That thinking part had to take somebody a lot of time! Thank you for the free plans! My broad jump cost about $40 to make, which is well over half the cost of what I’d pay for them on-line, not to mention the shipping/handling and taxes added to that.

Now onto the high jump!  I’m expecting that to be easier.  I am.

Helen