respublica

Pot potatoes doing well

I mentioned some time ago that I was planting potatoes in the ground and in big pots. The idea for pots is to plant the potatoes on about two inches of soil at the bottom and as they grow, add more soil around the plants. When the soil is about two inches from the top, you can stop adding more. Then it's a waiting game until harvest. When they are ready all I have to do, supposedly, is dump over the pots and there will be potatoes. I hope they are right because lugging around those soil bags and filling more into the pots every so often is hard. Potatoes grow up the stems so they need soil as the stems grow.

In the back, the potatoes are doing really well also. I've periodically gone out and mounded up more soil around their stems. Those will have to be gently dug out.

Here are our two pots of potato plants.

A pot of lemon grass is in front to hopefully keep bugs away.

Dale's old milk truck ready to roll

We went over to check the progress of the restoration of Dale's old milk truck. This has been one of those things that he has absolutely loved ever since he delivered milk during summers when he was in college and seminary. These trucks are no more and they are cute as all get out. The owner of the Chester Dairy knew Dale's love for home delivery and those trucks and when he was ready to call it quits, he offered one of the old trucks to Dale. It was in pretty rough shape, but someone it was able to get to Collinsville where it was stored in a local barn for years.

It has taken 4 years for this restoration to be complete. The wonderful people at Precision Restorations on Forest Park in St. Louis knew they could take their time, there was no hurry, but boy, is this truck beautiful. This business only does antique or collectable vehicles. Yesterday was the day they were going to take it out for a test drive, Dale got to back it up. ha. They even put in some modern touches like a back up camera.

Here is what it looks like before and now. Dale had them paint the Concordia Seminary seal on it. The before is Dale with his cousin John who understand the family milk delivery history.

I have to admit this was beyond my understanding, but one thing I insisted on was that it had to have two seats. The originals only had one for the driver. But he was not about to spend all this time and money and me not be able to ride along.

Finally window treatments

In the months before we moved back to Collinsville last June we'd had all kinds of work done on the house. The one thing we did not get around to was window coverings which we put off while using those paper blinds you can get at Home Depot. Today, finally, a window guy is coming to measure ahead of getting wonderful blinds everywhere.

Let me just say, when old Mr. Krite had this home built in the 1930's he built it to last in every respect which is a huge benefit to us. However he also must have loved windows because it often seems like there are hundreds both upstairs and down as well as the basement.

I am taking photos ahead of all this so I can look back to note the difference as well as have it all dated. Here is a look at part of the downstairs, I haven't gotten around to doing the second floor

This is what we call the library in the front of the house. There are 7 windows in this room.

Part of the living room, there are 3 in there as well as sidelights on each side of the door. We aren't covering the sidelights or the other two which are stained glass.

The dining room has 3 windows

The back family room has two.

The kitchen has 3, one is not shown.

The second floor has 8 windows with two more halfway up the stairway.

The frustrating thing will be for the installation is that each area looks the same, but the sizes are all different in width.

 

So far the garden

Here is how some of our raised beds look this morning. Nothing seemed to have been hurt by last week's freeze.

Yesterday I planted tomatoes and peppers in the bed on the right. Also some broccoli.

The first section we planted is doing great, we're already picking radishes.

These are potatoes and doing well. I've already begun to mound up the soil around them as the grow.

Any shower head experts out there?

When we had our main bathroom renovated I was smitten by the then new rain type shower head. Since we moved back and use this shower all the time, the charm of this shower head has worn off. It tilts a bit, but not enough and you have to stand right under it against the glass wall  which makes it awkward. And, the rain head water openings are too far apart so the stream has too many gaps. In other words, not a thick stream.

So I want to change it out but we are not plumbers and we don't know if this current head can screw off or not. Here is a photo.

I don't know if I've described the issue too well, but I'd love to change it out for as shower head that moves and has steams of water closer together.

Cars. You never know what will happen

Last week, Dale was to preach the evening Good Friday worship service at Holy Cross. Because of this he wanted to get there earlier than I would. He got into his car and it wouldn't start. This was weird because there was nothing wrong with the battery. He was a bit panic-ed because his car was behind mine and the only way to use mine would be to back out using our neighbor's lawn.

So he first called our St. Louis daughter Elizabeth who was headed to Holy Cross with her family to see if they were close. And they had just gotten into Collinsville so would come by and pick us up. Well, as often happens, Dale's car finally started and he was able to get going.

But. This had to be looked into, this strange behavior by the car. Yesterday he was able to get the car started and took it into St. Louis to be examined. He went to St. Louis because that is where the warranty fixers were located. It took a few hours of the mechanics checking things and in the end they discovered the problem.

The battery in his key fob was dead. I mean seriously. This key fob not only opens the doors but it also starts the engine remotely. All you need to do is have the key somewhere on your person or in the cup holder, push a button on the dash and the car starts.

This is something we never ever think about. Changing a key fob battery. I'm kind of glad my key fob just opens the door locks.

But this is not an easy battery to get in and out. The mechanics showed Dale how it's done and he tried practicing last night and couldn't do it. So hopefully this new one will last quite a while. At least we have a spare should this happen again.

Now I'm worried that my key fob has a battery inside that will die and I'll be standing next to the locked car door with a cart full of groceries and no way to get them in. Mine only locks and unlocks the doors, but still. It does look like it may open and have a battery in it. It's never died as many years as we've have the car so, my paranoia is: When will this battery die and where will I be?

Noticy Time

Maybe it's Dale having retired or the Covid closures, but it seems to us that the days are long, but the weeks are short. Why this is I don't understand, but one minute it's Monday and the next minute it's the weekend again. In between are days that take forever to end. Crazy.

Our weekday conversations often go like this: "Is it only 10?"  "Feels like it should be at least 2." Then, "Can you believe it's Friday! It's already Friday. What the heck did we actually do this week?"

Some ads make me want to buy

An ad for this T-shirt showed up on my Facebook page the other day and I really really want to get this for Dale. It's perfect for what he's doing these days. However, I'm wary of those kind of ads and the company involved. Are they on the up and up or a scam. So maybe I'll do this or maybe I won't.

Thus far the vegetable garden

Our raised beds now have a number of plantings growing. All are currently the type which deals well with cooler temperatures. It will be some time before we put in tomatoes and peppers etc. You may notice Dale is big, really big, on using big stones.

Lettuces and cilantro in the back corner.

Brussel sprouts in one corner, we have a few more in another spot.

The ground looks awful here, but the rain and sudden cold did this, the soil is actually excellent. Radishes in front, then onions, and finally garlic in back.

These are strawberries with asparagus in those weird wood frames Dale insisted they needed. Behind all this are potatoes and red onions.

Dale's Sunday School Video

Last week Dale went out to a farm field near Glen Carbon to do a selfie video for this week's Holy Cross Sunday School lesson. I wrote about this effort and our work to get it actually uploaded to where it was supposed to go. We did it. Ha. With help from our church's vicar.

If you are interested in what he did, here it is.