Running Boards. Shipping Plants to Canada ?

Oh, What an interesting life I lead right now ! Not really.

Yesterday, Ray mowed the whole place after he got back from a pressure washing job.

Also, I was expecting Mindi to bring the dogs again, and I was going to groom Suggy, but then she called and said it would probably be next week now. She sounded tired. Maybe having a 15 month old in the house, when you are not used it, was the cause of that !!

As she wasn't bringing the dogs, I worked on the plants some more, and got caught up on reading some of the blogs of my friends on RV-Dreams chat. Some are Fulltimers, and I love to look at the pictures of the places they travel. Some are Gonnabees, who have contracts on their houses, waiting on the closing date, having the yard sales, giving their "stuff" to their kids or charities, and getting ready to get on the road. Some are Wannabees, and have the date set for when they can retire, sell their houses and "stuff", and get on the road. Some like motor homes, and some prefer fivers (fifth wheels).

Today, I was expecting someone to come at noon to look at the Class B, and I had noticed that the running boards looked a bit grubby, so Ray and I scrubbed them with soft brushes, scrubby sponges, and aluminum cleaner. They look a lot better. I had turned on the fridge, so that they could see that it worked. They didn't show up, and emailed me 15 minutes after they were supposed to be here, and said they could probably make it on Monday. Gee, I had even put on a dress !

My long utility trailer is next to the Class B, and so it reminded us to remove the flat tire. It had just got old, and when BOOM one day. We jacked it up, put jack stands under it, and the wheel is in the back of the truck until I can get into town and buy a new tire. Probably tomorrow, as I have to take Minkie to Adoption Day to meet her prospective new "parents". While we were at it we packed the bearings on each wheel.

I worked some more on the screen porch, re-potting aloe for a long time, and trying to find out more from the USPS site for shipping plants to Canada. Just one more thing to learn when you ship stuff, that takes time, until you have done it before. Domestic Mail is a lot easier.

I started writing this at 4.00 and it is now 6.46.pm. I have spent all this time finding out more about shipping plants to Canada. It take a special certificate and inspection through Canadian Customs. Our Post Office, and their main 800 # didn't tell me all this when I asked them about shipping plants to Canada. I need to go take shipping to Canada off my listings. Be right back.

Now, I didn't do just that for the 2-3/4 hours, I also put a pork roast into my electric frying pan, fed the cats, and kept on checking on the roast, etc. I could have put the roast in my big convection oven, but it is easier for me to do it in the big electric skillet, as I can add veges later easier. I love potatoes, onions, carrots, celerey done around a roast.
Not good for my cholesterol, but once a year can't hurt much.

I have to go put the potoates in with the roast, or I won't get any today !

Truck's Back.Got Mindi's Dogs.Minkie New Home?

Mindi called and said that she would be bringing the most boisterous dogs today, after all. She and her husband are adopting a 15 month old people baby and now this was finally the date that he would arrive. She didn't want to have all the dogs around when the baby got there.


She brought 5 medium size dogs, and the great big fat Lab, "CD". I had already got the big cage out, again, and set it up in the grooming room for CD. Sometimes she isn't too nice to the smaller dogs, and I didn't want any issues as long as they are in my care. She wouldn't get in the cage. Ceasar found a chew bone in the toy box, and CD took it away from him, and was growling at the smaller dogs. I had already put a big collar on her, as I can kind of guide her gently with it, but she wasn't having any of that. I am not going to argue with a growling dog that weighs over 100 lb. !


So let I them all out into the back yard, rushed in and got the chew bone in the cage, and when CD came back in she went into the cage. Phew ! She still growled when one of the smaller dogs came near her cage as long as she had that bone. I found each of the smaller dogs a little rawhide chew thing of their own.

Also the truck was ready, so Ray and I went into the next town to get it. We took the Puddle Jumper, not his car, so that we could pick up the lawn mower from the repair shop. If I had it in the back of the truck, I wouldn't be able to stop anywhere. Whereas, if Ray had to stop anywhere, he could lock up the little old Mercury Tracer wagon. We got that done, but never got to do the digging to see where the leak is from the guest house washing machine drain.

Ray had to go do an unexpected pressure washing job, and I had to finish grooming at least one of the dogs, Ceasar, and I worked on him. In between all this, I was printing out the list of all the last month's calls on Ray's cell phone, so that Ray could look at them, as his bill said he had gone way over his minutes.

Then the internet cable went out so I turned on my laptop, as I have it connected to dial-up. Everytime I turn it on, it is updating something, Windows, Microsoft, AOL, AVG, etc. That's because it has been sitting in a corner just about ever since I bought it, until now. At least I could check my email on it, and answer some questions about my ads. I still can't get used to the keyboard, the main thing is that I am an old typewriter gal, and I am used to having a long space bar, and on this keyboard, too. So I keep on hitting the keys on each side of the little short space bar with my thumb, and so the laptop does unexpected things. As the little buttons, and holes around the sides, and above the keyboard aren't marked with anything but little hieroglyphics, I could see that I really needed the "destructions" for it. So when the cable came back on, I looked up the manual for it, and printed it out. I haven't had the nerve to try to get my printer attached to the laptop yet !!

Kenya called and they have an approved adoption application for Minkie, my little black foster kitten, and they want to meet her on Saturday. I will be so glad when she gets a forever home. For her sake and mine. As you know, she and Bobcat spend their mornings on my screen porch. I used to have some Spider plants (Airplane plants, to ole Brit me) with lots of little dangling spiders, (or airplanes). Minkie has caught all the spiders, and they are no more. On top of that she has chewed the bottoms of the hanging leaves. Then she lays down in the trays of little aloe plants and flattens them. Bobcat would never think of doing anything like that !

I took pictures of big CD, and of my injured plants, but I am back on dial-up as the cable went out again, so they won't load. I hooked the phone line to the desk top this time. I will add them later. Maybe when the cable company gets it all together my machine will run faster ?

Mindi picked up her dogs, so I am done with dogs for today.

Busy with the Ads, and Aloe, and Lumber

These last few days have just flown by. Ray and I worked some more on the lumber pile, getting it moved so that the fence can get repainted. We got a lot of the mess and pine needles cleaned up, that the high winds had blown all over the place the other day. We tore apart some racks that my late Johnnie had built years ago, I hated to do it, but they were no longer needed. Jay wanted to bring his lumber up to my pile. I think he was just trying to see if I would let him work here, which I didn't, as he was still acting up. But I knew he needed his little bit of lumber out of his mother's way, and so we loaded up my truck and brought it up here, and stacked it with mine. (Jay couldn't keep his paws off the fancy radio/CD in the truck and pushed buttons that made it do all sorts of weird things.) Ray and I had the burn pile going again, getting rid of everything that wasn't of any use, and the pine needles.

EBay was having a '5 for free' listing sale for certain sellers, including me, and I spent a lot of time on that. This machine always seems to get into low granny gear when I am on eBay.

I have been putting different spyware and virus searches on my computer, and running them, and removing them. I thought they might show up something that was slowing this thing down.
Nothing showed up, so maybe it isn't my computer, maybe it is the cable !! I got the laptop going on dial-up while the cable internet was out, thanks to Bill KY, who told me how to turn it off WiFi. But I am not at all comfortable with that keyboard, and you can forget that touch mouse pad thingy. When I bought it, the deal was that they would throw in a real mouse, and I make sure that he/she has it's own 'pad' !

It was time to renew some ads on Craigslist, and when the ads are new is when you get all the inquiries. I had to answer questions and sent pictures to prospective buyers. Craigslist only lets you post 4 pictures, so I have albums of each item, stored on AOL's Picture Storage, ready to send. That all takes time.

Before I took the truck out, Ray looked at my radio/CD, and tried to figure out what Jay had done to it. I had found the Sony "destructions" on the internet, and printed them out into a little book. We sure needed them. It still had a CD in it from the PO, and that was the terrible racket that the radio was making. Gee, who would WANT to listen to that !! We found out from the book, that the 'eject' button was behind the removable face plate of the radio. We got it back onto radio again, thank goodness. Now, I don't know which is the 'bass' button. They don't call it that anymore so I will have to study the book again. I wish it just had a plain old radio in it. All I want is the news, the weather, and some easy listening music, not too loud. I don't ask for much.

Finally, I got into the next town, with a big list of things to do, when one of my front brakes started smoking. Good Sam ERS kept me on hold for a long time, and then said that they would only take it to an authorized repair facility in that town, and I would have to pay the difference to get it to my town. The wrecker fee to my town was going to be as much as having it fixed, so I crept about a mile with my flashers on, to a little mechanic's shop and left it there to be fixed. Ray came and got me. Thank goodness he wasn't in a hurry, as there were two things I had to get before going home. Sand for re-potting the aloe plants, and some dry kitten food for the foster kitten, Minkie. We didn't feel like fighting the crowds, and always full parking lot at the Wally World there, so a quick stop at Lowe's and Krogers, on the way home.



Now that I had the sand to mix in with the potting mix for the aloe, I spent a lot of time the last few days on the screen porch, which is also my potting area. I had run out of sand while I was re-potting some of them the other day, and I couldn't just leave them out of the dirt, so I had to re-pot some of those again, too. I needed to know if they had rooted well, as folks don't want to buy plants that have root rot from over watering or something. So I took some pictures for my ads. I think that they are well-rooted !! I have some that are supposed to be sent to Canada. USPS said it was OK.

We have had thunder and lightening some days and in between them, Ray painted a little part of the Class B, just inside the side door, where it looked like someone had scraped their boot. The sun visor wouldn't turn sideways in the truck, so we fixed that. The snappers that hold the passenger side visor up on the Little Van, needed new snappers, so we fixed that. Mindi never did bring the dogs and the big black Lab, so we folded up the big, heavy German Shepherd cage and put it up. We got some of the monthly list done, as it was raining, i.e. cleaning and repacking the filters in the air cleaners, vacuuming the ceiling fans, cleaning AC filters, checking tire pressures of the vehicles that are under cover. We still have to start the generators, and check the tires on the other vehicles.

It never ends, the joys of ownership again. Now there is some kind of a leak coming from under the guest house utility room, there are suds are coming up from the ground in my RVport, whenever Shay uses the washer !!

Tomorrow will be a digging day.