Sunday 5 December 2010

Last day of hunting season. Got up about 530am, got dressed and went out into the brisk 22 degree weather and the wind and went looking for deer. Lasted a few hours and saw nothing, so I came back in and got warm. Maybe next year. Yeah, maybe next year I’ll have better clothes to wear out there. And maybe next year I’ll have a better idea of where they are and when. And maybe next year I can put in some kind of ground feed to help attract them and keep them on the property. Or at least bring them here long enough to shoot one. Sad I know.

Monday 6 December 2010 Worked on school work, and had a managers meeting at McD. Not much has really changed there. Not sure if it is good to be back or not, and still way too much drama for me.

Jeanne and I decided we are going to get married in early February and then take a trip down to San Antonio for our honey moon. We will take the kids with us, guess that is only right. We were going to go to Corpus Christi and the beach, but the Spurs play the Dallas Mavericks then so we will go to that. And the Zoo and maybe some other stuff. We’ll take about 2 days there, then come back. We may take the next day and drive to the beach anyway. Non one here has ever been to the beach, so that will be great. But it could be cold, so we’ll see how it turns out. Jeanne said something about her van making noises. Maybe her alternator going out. Watched the movie “Pearl Harbor”

Tuesday 7 December 2010

Got up this morning and she said something about that was the noise her van was making. Oh and we got up late because I turned the alarm off yesterday. As in “Turned it off.” Not just disabled it for today. So she started about 15 minutes late. Then she called me and said the van died. Actually, the alternator belt broke and she was going to try to get to mom’s. So I went in and looked at it, and replaced the belt. Turned out to be the AC compressor froze. And that costs about $225 or so. But the have a by-pass pulley for $35 that you put on in place of the compressor to hold tension on the belt and then keep running. So she took the rest of the day off, and followed me home in my van. The water pump runs off the belts also, so the temp stayed rather high. Coasting down hills helped. And the power steering doesn’t work. Just outside of Springfield a Coyote came running across the highway and I couldn’t miss him. Got him with the passenger tire. She was following me and almost hit him, too.

So I’m off to work tonight (close) then off again tomorrow and she’ll bring the part home and I’ll try to replace it. I think my van is doing alright, and hers isn’t too bad. They just both need some TLC and maintenance and they should do alright for a while longer. We need to get something that gets better mileage and is more reliable for her to drive back and forth to Springfield. Who knows, next year we both might be driving someplace, or I could get a job here in Buffalo and she might look for something closer. So we’ll see that happens.

Wednesday 8 December 2010

Took the AC compressor off the van. Not the easiest thing to do. Then put the bypass pulley on, only to find out that the belt is just an inch too short to fit over all the pulleys. And not sure where I would have put the compressor anyway. So did some checking And it sure looks like the electric clutch froze up but the compressor is still good. The clutch costs $120. So she got that and brought it home.

Friday 10 December

Put the new clutch on clutch on, and it doesn’t seem to work right, like it is binding. And making it hot. Fear it will seize up also. But it got me out to the farm to check eggs and feed the birds. Got 4 more turkey eggs. Then went in to work from 1-9pm. When I got off we candled the eggs in the incubator. There are 6 that are definitely developing, 4 that haven’t been in long enough to tell and 4 that I just put in.

If I get all my paper work done in time to get my graduation notice by 7 January 2011, then in February we’ll drive to Utah and attend the graduation ceremonies. If not, the next ones are in July. Not sure why, but it would be nice to actually participate in a graduation ceremony.

Saturday

Went out and covered my cabbage plants with a plastic tent. Supposed to get really cold tonight and want to see how this helps them. They are starting to get small heads on them, but nowhere near enough to eat yet.