May 27, 2024

Carol's Dragon Fly Ranch

Home of Carol's Pond

I have no excuse for the time between post. Lazy is the word.

The wildlife have been very active this spring. Samantha, Jane, Sam and Jr as well as Bob have been here. Bob got his name because part of his tail is missing. Samantha was flirting with me. She does not run when I go out on the deck. I guess she realizes that I am not a threat.

But there has been some other wildlife around that were not welcome. Snakes. I hate snakes and I kill them if at all possible. One of them and I played hide and seek for most of the day. Sadly it escaped. However the next day there were 3 of them on the ramp for my power chair. Two of them were mating and a third was watching and waiting. I chopped at them with my spade which was too dull to cut them in half but I did inflict damage. The watcher escaped unharmed. And then I look at the other ramp and there was one heading to the orgy. It did not make it. I don't know what kind of snake they were and I am a firm believer that the only good snake is a dead snake. Birds of prey can thin out the mice etc. And there are both Red Tail Hawks and owls in the neighborhood.

There is also evidence of some other nocturnal visitors. I think one was a raccoon or possum and the other was a skunk. They left their calling cards on my walk and the deck. So now I get to power wash the deck. I just wish they were house broken or deck broken. A couple of years ago we had a problem with beavers trying to dam up the spillway. I would take a lawn chair and sit on the dam after dark and watch for them. While sitting there, I had a young skunk, a young raccoon and a young possum walk up close to me. All 3 decided to go down the back side of the dam into the woods.

Because of recent storms and the blatant stupidity of the power companies, I have had to spend a couple of nights in a local motel. While in the computer world, I traveled all over this country. I have stayed in motels from coast to coast and north to south. I don't like motels. But because of the stupidity of the power companies I still have to use one occasionally. To avoid local motels in the future, I ordered a generator from Lowe's on May 3. As I told the manager at Lowe's I would fire everyone in the shipping department. I live at the dead end of a county road. And one can not get an 18 wheeler back here unless they want to go backwards for ¾ of a mile and make two ninety degree turns. My generator was dropped off in Longview, Texas, about 55 miles from me. Lowe's did not seem concerned. I was. I gave them a deadline and they missed it. However they did send a truck out to pick it up. The driver did not hardly believe me. I went to the store and they assured me I would have it by Wednesday. At noon on Wednesday I went to the store to get a refund. I secured the refund. They could not locate my generator via the computer. So finally the manager when back to the warehouse and guess what, they sat the generator. I walked out. I went to a store called Atwoods and they did not have one. So the next stop was Tractor Supply. Tractor Supply had one like I had ordered. I bought it and they gave me the Military Discount and a store employee, using his own truck delivered it the next day. That driver got a good tip.

But the saga continues. I was not strong enough to get it out of the box. In trying, the roll around stool I was sitting on started slipping down the slope out of the garage and I could not stop it. So I bailed off in a controlled slide to the ground. I ended up sitting with my back against the garage wall at the door opening. But I could not get up. There was nothing for me to get a hold of too pull myself up. I called my neighbor and he came over, got me up and ripped the box off the generator. And he also put the wheels on it and the legs. I did not have him tighten the legs. I thought I could do that. So Sunday I was in my lift chair reading and the power went out. The emergency back up on the lift chair would not work, but I managed to climb out over the side of the foot rest. Since I could manually open the garage door I decided to tighten the nuts on the legs of the generator. While trying to get a wrench on the inside nut, the kneeling pad I was using started sliding. I went with it. So there I was lying on my side in the garage floor. I tried for about 30 minutes to get up but was not successful. I was not injured in any way, I just couldn't get off the floor. So I called 911 and the EMS folks came out and got me up. Of course the neighbors across the street came over to see what was going on. They are both ordained ministers. And I suspect I taught her some new words. The position I was in had to change to get me off the floor. Laying on my back is extremely painful. But they got me high enough to put a chair under me. And that was what I needed. After they left, I finished prepping the generator andthen went to get gas and start it. It works great. I might have cried if it didn't.

That is all the excitement from Carol's Pond. Well, not quite all but a lot of it and enough for now.

Later,

Rex