By week's end, the necessary maintenance to do further maintenance, to add to comforts and to entertain ourselves should be complete, at least for a while.
Lawnmowers ready to roll . . . check.
Horses, wormed and trimmed and ready to ride . . . check.
Faster Internet and maybe even movie streaming . . . check.
Kiwi bathed in the warm sun and feeling like a new woman . . . check.
Driveway smoothed out; potholes gone . . . check.
Maintenance goes on all the time around here, but this week the efforts above have pretty much dominated the show.
Tony brought repaired lawnmowers on Monday; John will come today and trim the horses' hooves.
It's definitely time as a couple of them are shuffling around like old ducks rather than horses cuz their hooves are so long.
Bill has been doing the same with the vehicles we drive. I finally asked him a few days ago if the Subaru had any more doctor's appointments.
He said no. The car had to go to Coeur d'Alene twice to take care of a factory recall on its airbag. For some reason the first time wasn't a charm, so back it went.
Later, it went to the local mechanic for its spring maintenance.
It will be nice to have all these little chores behind us and to get on with the work and play of spring and summer.
Meanwhile, Annie has made it to South Dakota on her road trip to Minnesota where she'll spend two weeks working remotely while visiting her friends.
She spent last night in Deadwood, once home to my friend Mow who served on the City Council there a few decades ago.
In 1984, when we were on our way via road trip to the New Orleans World Fair, I asked if we could make a slight detour through Deadwood so I could look up Mow, whom I'd met while working at Camp Neewahlu the summer of 1965.
We had kept in touch and then lost touch for a few yeas. One day I received a letter from her, which had gotten wet in the mailbox, washing away half of every sentence.
So, I had to guess the other half.
When we rolled into Deadwood, I assured Bill and the kids it probably wouldn't take long to track her down.
Well, the comedy of errors ended about three hours and several Deadwood stops later where in the kitchen of a restaurant I learned that my friend had moved to Kansas City and had married a guy named McGhee.
"What's his first name?" Bill asked, wasting no time getting the car in motion toward Rapid City.
"Oh, I don't know," I said. "Couldn't be too many McGhees there."
Ha, this country hick learned her lesson a few days later upon opening the telephone book and finding at least two pages of fine print, listing McGhee's of various spellings.
Long story short, after No. 9, I finally reached someone who said my friend Mow (whom I described to each person cuz I didn't know her husband's name) was married to her cousin.
I tracked her down, then having to wait until the silver department at the mall where she was working opened.
Once again, the family had to wait until Mom finished her search. This time: only 15 minutes.
Mow and I haven't lost touch since then, and I'm sure Annie has vivid childhood memories of Deadwood which should be erased with new ones on this trip.
I harbor no regrets toward putting the family through all those waits cuz they enjoy Mow and her friend Bob, the parrot, as much as I do.
While we are looking to a possibility of the high 60s today, Annie may be encountering a snowstorm.
Hope the weather's not too bad.
Here at the Lovestead, the chimes are not quite as active as they've been with the last three days of wind, but their occasional melodies ring out, competing with a variety of morning bird talk.
Should be a gorgeous spring day.
Happy Thursday.
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