Do companies Ever Think Their Policies Through?

This is a corrected post. Tough is driving an hour to see your child off on a plane to their place of residence. Stupid tough is having the airline service people tell you you are 5 minutes late to allow boarding of the plane. With the plane still on the ground. With 25 minutes until the scheduled departure. With less than 12 passengers in the entire terminal. And no, it didn't help that we were in line behind someone they told the same to. Thanks United for being the unfriendly skies.

Why?

It appears someone needed some money. At least six larger wires were cut at the baseball field. The intent seems to be that they were trying to pull the copper wire from the underground line and then sell it. The reality is we have no electricity at the field for our lights, scoreboard or pitching machine. At least we have bats and balls.

On the Spinning Dirt Ball

I'll try to not make this a "life is so busy, I haven't posted in a while" posts.  It will be a series of thoughts, though.

It sure is chilly and dry.  I notice it most in my hands.  After working outside, even with gloves, my hands start to dry out and the skin cracks.  That reminds me it's winter.  Have to find the hand cream.

Finally collected almost all of the leaves in a big pile.  Some previously went into the new compost pile in the from of the yard.  Yesterday the rest went into a temporary compost bin made of wire fencing.  It's on top of the "slope" in the back yard that was created years ago as an entrance to the back deck.  The deck will be gone sometime and the slope and nearby areas will become more growing space for vegi's.  This pile is going to be a lasagna style garden with the leaves drowning out the grass, which happens to be mostly dormant at this time.

Most of the back is under transformation.  The chicken pens are being "cleaned" up and rejuvenated, as well as better defined. All of the grass will begone, and this is the last of the grass in the entire lot.  The pool is coming down.  We are currently using the water to water plants. I seemed to be the only one to use the pool last summer and not that often.  Actually others used it, but we are converting to a water trough pool.  Won't take up as much space, but still able to cool us down on a hot Valley day.

The slab will become a container orchard.  We're looking at wine barrels to keep fruit trees in, and arranging them in rows on the slab for our "orchard" of different trees.  Should be nice, but could be another oddity in our town.

Baseball is going, and means I'm not home as much.  Not bueno.

A picture of Maureen's onion start from the compost.

I had a thought recently as I was watching Maureen rebuild a lamp.  She has been very good about reusing and re-purposing lamps and other such goods over the years. We got talking about lamp parts and have been talking about building collections of things we might need to repair our current goods in the case of shortages.

This has made me think about storage.  A frustrating constant of my life is knowing that I have the part or piece to fix something, but not being able to find it.  I have chronicled the collection of screws, nails, hinges and such I inherited from my father, which he inherited from his father.  I am a pack rat that hates to throw out.  That was painfully evident when I recently had trouble deleting emails from years ago.  As it was pointed out to me, correctly with love and humor, I have issues getting rid of the real and the virtual.

So how is one to store these items? Currently I store tools in recycled kitchen cabinets.  They are set along two walls of our "tool room."  This allows some room in the middle to work if needed.  The cabinets are heavy and don't move much. Some of the cabinets are long, about 5-6 feet, and others are about 2 feet.  My latest thoughts are to separate each into about 2 foot sections with each section holding a specific kind of tool.  I've done this a little.  I have a set of drawers for the woodworking tools, and another for the wrenches and sockets. By breaking these into 2 foot sections I can use a dolly and move each set of tools if I want.  Generally one shouldn't take to moving cabinets around, but it might help if moving is needed.

More importantly I've come to think is by organizing the tool sets, I can minimize the floor space needed for storage.  This could allow for a cabinet being set aside to store parts for repair.  One for plumbing, one for electrical, one for bike parts, etc.  Currently those are in boxes in various places.  Hopefully this would mean a place for parts and also the getting rid of the parts and pieces that will never be used and that are cluttering too many places.

Now all it takes to make this work is the doing.

P.S.  This isn't our tool room.  Ours is messier.

What a Two Weeks

This has been a ever changing two weeks. We met new friends and discovered new stores. We saw all of our children in various settings and it was a great reminder of their depth of character. And just plain fun. It appears we will be adding family to our living arrangements as other family leaves. Good in one case and not it the other. Some our choice, some not. Family and close ones preparing to leave, going back to their current abodes. Some already left, and that is never fun.

 School restarts today and that is always traumatic for both student and teacher, and family. Not just the classroom dramas, but the continual weird of the campus and the start of baseball and being away. This will be a different year on the field for sure.

 Going back to school reminds one of what was done, and what is left to do. The balance of building house and home versus maintaining family and friends. Jobs were completed, started and planned. Family was held, talked to, played with and enjoyed.

 Twin reminders of, "To everything there is a season," and "The only constant is change."