respublica

Talking hedge Trimmers

This is one of those days when I walked around the yard and realized we needed to trim our bushes. We have a bunch of Yews which need cutting back as well as a couple of other types. But of course we somehow left our better trimmer over at the seminary when we moved. All we have is an old old Homelight that is super dull and needs an extension cord. I am very over dragging an extension cord around and plugging and unplugging whenever I change parts of the yard.

So I went online to see what is out there that is a well made hedge trimmer. I decided on the DeWalt 22 inch battery driven model. I was thrilled to see that Ace carried this trimmer so I went right over. Problem was, sadly, they had one left but it did not come with a battery. I mean, seriously? And they did not have a battery to purchase separately. I can't blame them too much, they seem to have sold a ton of yard equipment this spring/summer so lot of empty shelves.

I went over to Home Depot and they had what I wanted, at least I thought so. Quite a few of these DeWalts on the shelves, none with the battery. What is with this? Anyway, thankfully a really nice and helpful woman working in that area came along and asked if she could help. I explained the issue, she took out her store product computer and found they had four of what I wanted.

After some looking at her handheld computer she learned the battery included types were on the very top two shelves. This is not the lightest thing and in a long box. I had no idea how we would get it down and she was not a big person. But she said, this will be easy. I'll be right back with a big ladder. Whoa. The ladder turned out, thankfully, to be a huge, orange, thing that was more like a moveable set of stairs with a flat piece at the top. She wheeled it over, climbed up, juggled the box until she had a good grip and came down to my cart.

This was amazing. Still I wonder what the purpose is of selling a product that needs a battery and not including it. Or, stocking boxes of the battery.

Anyway, this is a great looking and feeling machine. The battery is charging in the kitchen counter and I can't wait to use it today, hot or not.

Self Check-out lanes

Quite often I come across posts from people who are angry about the growing number of stores with self check-out lanes. They are very emphatic about "never using them". Sometimes the reason is their concern about people losing jobs because of this or, they just hate bagging their own things and the process is confusing.

Frankly, I like those lanes and never use any other way of checking out in any store that has them. The lines are shorter and I never have an overflowing cart of things anyway. When I do, say at Thanksgiving, I go to a lane with a checker. Many  days our local Schnucks has a long line of carts stretching halfway down the front of the store for people checkers. Why wait.

But there are issues with checker lanes as well. A couple of weeks ago the local Schnucks had the self check out lanes closed and I had to use the checker lane. This is fine, the workers are usually very friendly. But what frustrates me is how little they will put in each plastic bag. Sometimes only one thing. The paper bags seem almost non-existent at our store and if seen have to be asked for. Why is this? Other Schnucks' have paper bags even at the self check area.

So much more can be put in paper bags and actually, baggers could put a lot more in plastic bags as well. Why they don't is beyond me. I've come home with endless plastic bags of things during those times. Doing it myself, I get a lot more items in each bag.

The problem at some places which have gone to self check, there often isn't enough room to put things until we're finished.

 

Thankful we keep manuals

I don't know you but so many times I'm working with some lawn equipment or washer/dryer/fridge/TV and something goes a bit wrong or something needs replacing. Half the time I am sure I know how to do it and the other half of the time I'm shown to be wrong.

This is especially true for replacement filters of any kind as well as grass trimmer cutting line and spark plugs.

Today is my day to get more string line into my Echo trimmer. I like the Echo, they work well and don't cost as much as the slightly more professional Stihl. I have two of these Echos, one is the straight shaft with a sting line that gets wound up in its compartment. The other has a curved and shorter shaft. The shorter one has string line comes in cut pieces about 8-9 inches long. When they shorten up after use they need two new ones inserted into the round thing.

What I had forgotten is how to get what is left of the spent ends out. Thankfully Google is around and I found a guy doing a short video doing this. This process has to be done often because string does break off. I like it for certain jobs and I brought it with us to the Huzzah and left the more professional one in Collinsville.

 

Thanks MoDOT

Wouldn't you just know the weekend we are heading to the Huzzah, MoDOT would be making botch all of I-44. We debated staying put, but Dale really wants to go down there, it's his happy place.

It will be near 100 degrees which is bearable along the river, but boy, how does MoDOT think it's acceptable for the crews to be working in that heat. Hopefully much will be done at night.

The thing is about highway work, if they publicize the highway will close at 8 tonight, you just know it will be mostly closed all day. If Dale would get his Zoom work done soon, we could get out of hear before afternoon rush hour out on 44 makes things really snarled up.

A short vent

Here is my conclusion as to why the Coronavirus and it's cousin the Delta Variant have begun spreading again. When people began getting vaccinated in fairly large numbers, the mask mandates relaxed. Signs were put up and news stories shared the new rule that "if you are vaccinated you don't need to wear a mask." Stores all have this notice.

But. Here is what bugged me. There was no way to have to prove this. Which lead to everyone taking off their masks, vaccinated or not. You just had to know that many people shopping in grocery stores, going out to eat or to bars, or to ballgames etc etc, were not vaccinated and did not wear a mask. And so it spread.

It would have been difficult to make any public place check this. But I am not going to be convinced that everyone taking off masks isn't part of the reason we are back in this position again. We took pictures of our vaccination card and keep them on our phones thinking we might have to show proof. No one has ever asked.

Virus on the move again

Just when we relaxed a bit over this Covid worry, here it comes again. The news is all over this virus once again and it is troublesome. Supposedly we who have been vaccinated don't have much to fear. We may get a small version, like a mild cold, but nothing which would hospitalize us. However, we could spread it unknowingly to someone we pass in a store who isn't vaccinated.

What shocks me is how low a percentage of people in many Missouri counties have ignored the vaccine. Our new cottage down in Crawford County is in a county where only 22 percent have been vaccinated. We are isolated from people where we are, but it will take some nerve to go into any store for provisions. And, Crawford is on the cusp of Covid traveling east big time.

Compare this to our own Madison County, Illinois which has 55 percent vaccinated. Not perfect and should be better, but at least it makes us a bit more secure. The comparison to other Illinois counties is interesting. In the Chicago area the percentages are in the 60's percentile. Cook County is 68 percent and DuPage County where I grew up is 75 percent. Here is a link to all Illinois counties. 

The lowest counties in Illinois with some in the 30's and 40's are in rural areas. Only one county is in the 20's, Alexander at 20 percent. This place is the southern most country in Illinois, bounded on the west by the Mississippi River, county seat is Cairo.

Because of the new outbreaks, mask mandates are being talked about once again. The Madison County Board recently had a meeting on mask wearing for kids when they head back to school. Because of lots of parental input against any mandate, the board decided to leave this issue to individual school districts.

A gmail issue

We honestly don't know where to find the information we need to get Dale's gmail working. Last night he got out his older ipad while looking for an app he'd downloaded on it. He needed some information he'd highlighted from some book he'd put on this ipad and wanted to email it to himself.

But that device would not accept the currrent gmail password so he changed it.  But, when he got back to his phone and larger/newer ipad, these would not accept the new password.

I haven't found anything from google on what the deal is and how to fix it. He really needs gmail to work on his iphone.  Why is everything so difficult? Why is it working on one device but not the others.

Update one hour later. I finally got his two devices back on gmail. It was trial and error, hunt and peck until I finally got it.

Make your bed

I came across a link to a University of Texas commencement speech given by Admiral William Mc Kraven in 2014. It is one great speech unlike so many other commencement speeches and worth listening to all the way through. But at the 4:44 mark or so, he gave great advice and reasons for it. Make your bed first thing in the morning. "It's a simple and mundane task, but if you make your bed first thing, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and encourage you to do another task."

Not an earth changing thing to do, but he is so right. I can't think of too many things that bother me as much as seeing an unmade bed at 2 in the afternoon. I believe we even sleep better then coming night if we get into a bed which has been smoothed out and made up.

In any event, the entire speech is worth a listen.

So many things to ponder

We are living in a very bewildering time. Every day something new comes along or things abruptly change. Cable news hosts spend as much time criticizing or making fun of, the hosts on other cable networks. Who's right? Who knows?

The Covid seems to be back with a vengeance or is it? Will we soon be back in our masks? If things are getting bad again I would have no real problem with the mask but I don't want to be the only one in the store wearing one. Other people would probably think I was unvacinated. This Covid nightmare will just not go away.

Then there is this. The city of Ozark, Missouri, now wants to reduce light pollution by enacting an ordinance to end the existence of unwanted, inappropriate, or excessive artificial lighting. This applies generally to street lighting which that city believes is light pollution which they believe can have several consequences such as washing out starlight in the night sky, interferes with astronomical research, disrupts ecosystems, and can have adverse health effects.

This has to be a first and seems more than a little over the top. They want all of that type of lighting to be pointing down, not up. It is just one more thing to ponder and wonder about.

Frankly I'm thankful to have various vegetables I've planted to concern myself with and not worry about what's happening beyond our yard.

Our refrigerator is freezing our produce

I just can't figure out why the fruit/vegetables I put into the produce drawer keep freezing. We've unfortunately lost too many of these items which had me going through all kinds of advice from Google and the manual. But the manual does not address this so I was left with guys who put up YouTube videos working on this issue.

So far it seems some side by side refrigerators with a bottom freezer have a sensor which should not be blocked by food. That is often the cause of freezing. I could not find anything like this in ours although I did find the air vent on the back wall which I moved things away from.

I also emptied the ice maker drawer since it sits right below the vegetable crisper drawer. That alone makes no sense since the ice chills the bottom of the produce section. I can't keep doing this so there has to be another explanation.

About that envelope

Did you know there is a way of opening an envelope that doesn't require a letter opener or make a mess? I was skeptical until I went through some of our junk mail which hadn't been opened and it does work. It's maybe something I'll do from now on or not.

1. Tear open the back of the left corner of the envelope. 2 Then pull down vertically along the left side about an inch wide. Voila, you can just slide the contents out.

A great time of year for food

This is ground zero month for mountains of fresh fruit and vegetables. Tomatoes are abundant, as are peppers, sweet corn and most everything else including the new peach crop. The local produce can't be beat at this time of year.

A great weather photo

There are photographers who make their living chasing weather events in order to get descriptive images and Zach Walters is one of them. He caught this in central Illinois farmland near Farmer City, Illinois yesterday. He doesn't have a website I have found but does have a weather chasing Facebook page.

 

Talk about the "eye of the storm", this is surely it.

A day of product successes

Yesterday two items I ordered after reading about them online arrived and both are just as good as advertised. The greatest invention since sliced bread is the shirt folder I mentioned the other day. I tried it out immediately and it folded a couple of Dale's shirts perfectly in 5 seconds. It was well worth it. Here is a photo of it which looks much bigger than real life. When not using it folds up in to a nice square.

Lay a shirt upside down in the middle, flip left side of the mechanism then the right and finally the bottom and Voila, the shirt is perfectly folded flat.

Trash can update

I am thrilled to report that on the first night of rigging up our trash can to keep raccoons out, everything worked. They did not get into it. See post below for explanation.

There is evidence on the lid that one may have walked around on it, but decided to give up.

Raccoons again

Two weeks ago on our trash pickup day I opened the lid and saw each of the bags had been torn open and rummaged through. No doubt it was the work of a Raccoon. I cleaned it up and put the stuff into new bags which were taken by the trash hauler later that day. But what to do from then on? We can't keep our garbage bags in the house until each Tuesday morning. What I did was put landscape wall stones on top of the lid. This worked very well, I could barely move those stones and either could the raccoon. But we didn't want to continue having to move the rocks each time we went out with a new bag of trash.

We debated and scoured the internet to see if there was any kind of successful solution to this problem. Dale was big on bungee cords, but I am skeptical. If a raccoon can open the lid and hold it open long enough to get in there he will probably figure out the cords. However, I did pick up a pair of bungee cords at Ace Hardware today and Dale strapped them on. It would be hard to lift the lid with them on, but I am curious as to whether they will be able either chew through them or pull them off. We shall see tonight.

To add another level of security I learned that many people swear by sprinkling, shaking, dumping, Cayenne Pepper in the trash bags and on the outside of the bags. I do know having hot pepper bird seed last winter kept the normal animals from bothering the seed. At Schnucks today I found a small jar of Cayenne pepper and came home and shook it into the bag I need to take out. Tonight I will spread it over the outside of the bag and on the top of the lid.

Hopefully the double whammy of bungee cords and hot pepper will fend them off.

If the Cayenne works I am going to go look for a bigger container of this than 1.7 ounce jar found at Schnucks.  Maybe one of the State park grocery stores will have a big one. Or a restaurant supply.

Folding Laundry will (hopefully) be easier

Yesterday I spent most of the morning doing laundry and realized for the umpteenth time that Dale has a lot of t-shirts. And, being retired he is basically living in t-shirts. And, polo shirts. The worst part is folding the darn things after they come out of the dryer and try as I may, they just don't get folded up evenly or neatly. It didn't help that he tends to take them off inside out.

As luck would have it during this laundry process I happened upon a helpful article on Smart News which promoted a t-shirt folding board. I"m not always a sucker for things that seem amazing but aren't, but this time I ordered it right away. I saw the video of a mother and her young son competing to see who could fold the most shirts the fastest using this board and I was hooked.

Call me nutty, but it comes today and I am really excited to try it.

I also decided to use one of those old fashioned clothes drying racks to dry our newly pulled onions and garlic. I love this and am doing them a few at a time.

This was surprising information

One of the more frustrating household jobs is putting clean sheets on the bed. The larger the sheet size the harder it gets and it doesn't help that manufacturers are really over-doing the strength of the bottom elastic corners. I mean, I almost believe these corners have a life of their own these days. I stretch out the bottom sheet and it bounces right back at me. Then it's a matter of trying to eyeball which end is length and which is width and get it at least partly on the mattress. Often I lay it out and the long part is on the short side or vice versa and start wrestling with it all over again.

Now I learn that sheet companies have placed a tag in one corner and that corner with the tag should go on the bottom right side of the mattress. That way at least figuring out long and short sides is over. 

I went and looked at a couple of our sheet sets and sure enough there is a tag. Knowing where to start when putting on clean sheets will be so helpful. Nothing will help that bouncy elastic however.

We say this all the time

Big or small carts?

Whenever I go to the grocery store or to Walmart, I always take the small cart. The big carts are just to big for me, too high, too wide. But Walmart never, or rarely, has the small carts at the entrance door. So I trudge over to the cart corral almost to Home Depot and bring get a small cart. Why is this? The grocery stores always have both sizes at the front of their stores.

I'm guessing it's an unwritten Walmart policy to force us to use the big cart so we will buy more things. Nature abhors a vacuum and so do grocery carts. That's my guess anyway.