Over the last couple of weeks, Jen and I have pored over three pages of calendar printouts—the next six months—penciling in plans and family events and trips. We’ve got a lot of it hammered out, some of it is still in flux, and other things are dependent on timing and circumstance. One of the things on the list is a camping trip I’ve been wanting to organize with Finn and Zachary for the last two years following our excellent trip in 2018. I’m a little nervous now that they’ve both fully embraced video games, and especially after a year and a half of COVID schooling, that they won’t be able to leave screens behind. Or that just as they are getting past that stuff and into being away, we’ll have to pack up and head home. I’ve got a reservation set up in late August to a state campground on the Eastern Shore for three days and two nights which should be a lot of fun; it’s near the water, has fishing and kayaking, and now that I’ve got a good hitch for the bikes we can take those along too. Now I’m thinking I should add another night to the trip so we’ve got a little more time to rough it. I also need to sort through the camping gear and make some upgrades and additions, especially around food planning and storage.
I think I’ve mentioned the Coffee Walk at some point: essentially an excuse to buy coffee and muffins, we walk downtown to the bakery and then make a long loop around the neighborhood before heading home. It’s about two miles and gives us an excuse to get more exercise, catch up with each other, tire out the dog, and most importantly, get muffins. Our local bakery makes what they call Triple Ginger muffins, which are fucking delicious, and uncharacteristic of all of their other dry, crumbly pastries. We’ve been hooked on these since they started making them, and this spring they’ve been especially good—we can often time it so that they’re still hot from the oven.
Well, all good things come to an end; the bakery makes “seasonal” pastries, and only offers two types of muffin at a time; they’ve now switched to chocolate chip-almond (not as good as it sounds and crumbly at the lightest touch) and strawberry cheesecake, which sounds like it might be good until it suddenly makes one feel sick.
Continuing around the corner, we came upon the Farmer’s Market, which looks to be busier than it’s ever been; I think they’ve been preparing for people to come crawling out of their homes looking for human contact and artisanal pickles since COVID began. One thing I was happy to see was a mobile knife sharpening van, and while we tried to scope out the rest of the offerings Hazel completely lost her mind in the presence of all the other dogs out for a walk, so we noped out of there and headed home. I grabbed up a handful of knives and headed back down there with Finn: two Schrade pocketknives I’ve had on my workbench—one 3″ I’ve had since high school, from a repo’d car, and a smaller 2″ blade that was Dad’s. I brought our Wusthof hollow edge from the kitchen, which has needed attention for the last couple of years, and finally Dad’s 6″ Dexter skinning knife from his days at Cornell when they taught him how to dress meat as part of the Agriculture program. For a total of $25 all four are back in shape and ready to be used again. He took a little more off the blades than I liked to see, but they were all in pretty rough shape. Sadly he doesn’t do chainsaw blades but I’ve got a couple of other knives around here that will need attention, so we’ll probably head back in two weeks.
Things in the greenhouse have slowed due to the iffy, ineffectual weather we’ve had for the last couple of weeks. Where there was a lot of growth in the hot weeks right after they got planted, they’re all stalled and are throwing out multiple suckers instead of producing flowering branches. I’ve got one Roma plant with about ten blooms but other than that it’s all show and no go. At the Farmer’s Market I saw a bunch of potted patio tomatoes that looked lush, carrying fruit, and it immediately made me feel like I was doing things wrong. But when I looked at other stands, I saw the same varieties we’ve planted for sale that were smaller than ours and had no fruit, which cheered me back up—it looks like we’re right on time.
I’ve let the Scout sit since Sunday with the battery connected, figuring four days would be enough time for a parasitic leak to drain the battery as it did last time. To recap: New battery, new starter, new negative battery cable. With fingers crossed, I went out and turned the key today at lunchtime: she turned over immediately. So I’ll do some short trips and keep an eye on the ammeter—but I think I’m calling this fixed.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.
A plan is hatching for the late summertime with Brian, who has asked me for some help with a project he’s got on his plate: he’s overhauling and outfitting a 25′ schoolbus for a family of six to drive across the country, and wanted to know if I could help him with the job. This is part of a larger plan he has to shift his business from home renovation to custom camper outfitting, and he’s asked me to join him.
There are a lot of considerations to be weighed here, and I’m taking none of them lightly. By nature and experience I’m extremely conservative when it comes to my career—having been laid off twice, I don’t like the feeling of operating without a safety net. I’m finally in a place where I’ve been able to put away solid retirement money year over year (and have it matched, no small benefit) but of course, I’d like to have more set aside. The idea of getting out from behind a computer and working with my hands and my head is extremely tempting, especially after having been stuck in one long Zoom call since last March. There are so many pros and cons to this idea that I can’t sort them all out right now, so we’re doing the smart thing: we’re going to tackle this first project, see how it goes, and reassess from that point. The basic plan is to use a bunch of my unpaid sabbatical during the month of September to work on the bus full time with Brian to see how far we can get, and surround that time with paid sabbatical vacation so I’m not wrung out when I go back to work. I’m upset our original plan to travel got completely torpedoed by COVID, but maybe we can make something good out of this.
It’s all very preliminary right now, but it should be a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to a break from my desk.
Reports are out that the FDA is going to approve the Pfizer vaccine for 12-15 year olds sometime next week. Which means we’ll be pulling Finn from school as soon as possible to get her first shot. Best news of the week.
Cousin Matt texted me a picture of a pretty black 1965 Mustang on Sunday, nonchalantly asked me if Henderson Maryland was close by, and if I’d be interested in driving out there to pick it up for him, drive it back to the house, and hang on to it while he arranged for transport. I told him it would be a major inconvenience, but I’d do it anyway. Actually, I jumped at the chance. He’s getting the insurance and other legal stuff taken care of, and then we’ll drive out there later this week to grab it up—probably Thursday (which works best, as it’s going to be raining until then anyway). I’m going to load up a bunch of GoPros and make a fun afternoon out of it. I’ve driven a lot of different cars in my life, but never a ’65 Mustang; taking it back across the bridge is going to be a treat. I don’t know what driving condition it’s in, and I’ll have to do a pre-drive inspection before I get it on the road, but this should be fun!
The wind was howling through the ‘Ville late last week and the temperature had dropped, so we hunkered down for a couple of days. On our coffee walk Saturday morning, as the wind blew around us, Jen reminded me that Finley had asked to fly a kite a few weeks ago—late in the day, after I’d put a full 8 hours in and without the energy to take her up on it. When we got home, we ate breakfast and then walked across the street to the church parking lot and put up her butterfly kite, one Aunt Renie got her for a birthday a few years back. It flew really well until a couple of gusts brought it down, and the fiberglas rods punched through the ends of the pockets in the wings. I figured we needed the Big Boy so I ran back to the house and brought out my beach kite, the heavy-duty beast I bought 20+ years ago that has been on every beach vacation we’ve taken. I’ve dunked it in the Atlantic, lost it in dunes, and tangled it in trees. It’s been field-patched multiple times, the bridle has been replaced twice (three)? times and it’s been through two different tails. But it always leaps into the air and stays there. Saturday was no different: it stayed aloft with no problem, and for a short while that morning the world went quiet and we watched it ripple and dance in the blue sky above.
Faced with the latest news reports which all claim vaccination rates are dropping, we’re being pragmatic about the summer of 2021. I’ve been eyeing the situation in India and thinking that we’re headed for the same blowback here: lots of people wrongly assuming the worst is over, skipping their vaccination (or simply not getting one, because…tracking chips?) and use going maskless figuring it’s all over. The alarmist in me is trying to keep from getting too alarmist but I feel like shit is going to go down before it all gets better, and I’d like to get the three of us immunized before America goes full Day of the Dead.
So, we’re making more improvements at the Lockardugan Estate, figuring we’re stuck in here for another year. Jen will be doing big reveals later and I’ll share photos then, but she’s got some exciting plans that I’ve already begun work on. This weekend was focused mainly on getting the truck running so that I could go on a run for oversized supplies, and then getting started. It’s been amazing what I can fit in, on, and behind the CR-V with nothing but a roof rack, trailer hitch, and ratchet straps, but 4×8′ sheets of plywood don’t fit inside and I can’t drive with the hatch open. So the Scout gets pressed into service for the big stuff.
Back in the fall we had an electrician come out and put a switch and a wire in on the front porch for a ceiling fan, which was good! We need a fan out there. But he had to cut through the odd 1950’s era drywall that we inherited to run the wiring, which meant the walls had some gnarly holes that needed patching. 376 applications of drywall mud later, I was able to feather out the patches, paint them, and call the walls done. The fan we ordered is “in transit” somewhere between there and here, which means it’s probably sitting in a container at the bottom of the Ever Given. We bought a simple three-blade white fan with no light, which is apparently very rare and expensive; the more lights and faux Victorian bullshit you decorate a fan with, the cheaper it gets. But it’ll look great once it goes in, and porch season is almost upon us.
I walked out to the garage on Saturday fully expecting to fire up the Scout and go for some supplies, and…the starter barely cranked over. All the air drained out of me like a leaky pool float. Annoyed, I put the trickle charger on the battery with the cables to the truck disconnected, and took care of some housework. An hour later, it still wouldn’t crank, so I put them back on and waited two hours—with the same result. I thought I’d try swapping the old starter out for the new one in the off chance that was the issue, so I put the tow strap on the CR-V and pulled the Scout out of the garage so that I could take the tire off and have level ground to work on. I’m getting pretty fast at swapping starters out, and I’ve now added a 9mm wrench for the ignition lead to my toolkit.
That, of course, did not change anything, so I put the smaller Honda battery in the Scout and found that it fired right up.
At this point, I’ve got two possible culprits:
- There’s a parasitic drain on the battery from something that has suddenly appeared; perhaps a critter got into the wiring in the last couple of weeks.
- I mistakenly reversed the polarity of the trickle charger and messed the battery up.
Because time was of the essence, I figured I’d solve for #2 and bought another new battery, which was not a cheap solution—but I didn’t have time to chase down wiring issues with other projects waiting. Once I put the new battery in, she fired right up. I let her sit overnight and she started easily on Sunday morning, so I put about 20 miles on her running errands.
On my way, I spied a new Scout sitting at the shop up the street, so I drove up to the back lot and peeked around. He’s moved the stuff that was there and pulled in some new trucks: the thing that caught my eye at once was a beautiful, beat up Metro that I think I’ve seen online in classifieds.
There was a red Scout that looked good from one side and kind of terrible from another—minus axles, engine, and front clip, and covered in interesting speed parts stickers. The inner fenders were in really nice shape but the more I looked the sketchier it got.
Near that was a 1980 in rust-colored primer, which looked like it was in very good shape from the outside. Peeking inside showed it was a manual with bucket seats, but I didn’t see any diesel badges.
Conscious that I was trespassing, I was careful to stay away from them as much as possible, shoot some quick pictures, and then leave quietly. I figure driving a Scout up to see other Scouts means I’m not just some rando, but I don’t want to piss anyone off, and it’s not hard to find the guy in the purple Scout around here. The rest of the trip went without a hitch, and I was able to slide 4 sheets of 4’x8′ beadboard in the back, using several bits of scrap wood to make sure nothing got scratched or dented.
The plan now is to let her sit in the garage until Thursday with the new battery connected, and if she starts without a problem I’ll call this fixed. If she doesn’t, then I’ve got to pull her back out and chase down a parasitic drain, the concept of which does not fill me with joy.
→ This is a syndicated post from my Scout weblog. More info here.