Cold Sunrise That's just the name of the song written by Gordon Lightfoot. It was actually -13 F when I got up this morning (wind chill -24). Tucson may have pulled back into the lead! There's a lot of weighing pros and cons of Colorado vs Arizona by the wood stove. Not much else to report. I did enjoy a few games of pool and a beer with my brother this week. We don't get together very often, so it's good to try to keep the lines of communication open, especially with my mother celebrating her 86th birthday next month. He lives in Milwaukee and just started semi-retirement. Our opposing politics and lifestyles keep things very casual and surface-level. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's important to find common ground. He and his wife have started going to concerts and recently saw the Steve Miller Band. Music is one of our common interests.
I wish that I had something exciting to blog about.
I've been puttering about the house mostly. This week's big project was replacing a garbage disposal leaking from the bottom. From my research, a disposal is pretty much burnt toast when that happens. I watched some YouTube videos to see if it was a do-it-yourself and pretty much concluded that I would be calling a plumber on this one.
Then I watched a video by this young woman named Sarah that convinced me that I could do it myself. Honestly, she had the best video on this installation, although her language and enthusiasm might be a bit much for some. Lots of people must agree on the video's value because she has almost 700,000 views, despite only a couple of thousand subscribers.
Anyway, with Sarah's help, it was a very quick job and easy swap out. The broken disposal came out easily. The new one went into place with more difficulty, but no leaks so far. I'm not very handy, but YouTube is an amazing resource and a confidence builder.
I also swapped out my shower pump in the Scamp, which stopped working after 19 years.
Old Shurflow Pump
I couldn't find an exact replacement, but I found something that worked for about $40 on Amazon.
I rarely use the shower, but I do take sponge baths with a bucket of water. It's quite handy to pour the bucket of water over my head when done and have the pump take away the water to the gray tank. Gravity would be preferable, but my Scamp wasn't designed that way, so it has a pump.
Yesterday, I took my usual walk out into the country during which I pass by some bees.
The first thing you might notice is how high the bee boxes are stacked. During the winter, they are stacked about four high. The beekeeper keeps adding boxes throughout the summer to give the bees room for expansion and honey production.
We had a storm last night that rocked the bees' world.
Dominoes
The bees in the toppled tower were understandably upset.
Other than that, we are just muddling around here in the fly-over state of Wisconsin, hoping that our tower doesn't topple. If things don't get too bad, there will be a fall trip with the Scamp either north or west
My wife Julia is helping me to become more of a minimalist. She throws my stuff out when I'm not looking and adds to her own stuff. I guess it all equals out.
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