Things are Looking UP

My luck has finally changed. Jeff and I went to Clinton today to check out a 2002 Subaru Forester (same make/model/year as my wrecked one) but were disappointed.  The body was in good shape but there was something going on with the rear end mechanically that Jeff didn't like.  And the dealer would not discuss lowering the asking price.  We decided not to get that car after all.  On the way home we stopped at Frank's Mohawk Motors and finalized the deal for the 1999 Subaru Outback (my all time favorite Subaru model in my all time favorite color...navy & silver) that we saw last week.  They'll do all the paper work...except the insurance...for me. Got a good deal, too.  When we got home the body man Wally had recommended... and we went to see last night... came over to look at the car.  He gave us an estimate that nearly knocked Jeff over!  We will be getting the '99 and fixing my '02 all with the insurance check that was waiting for me when we got home. There may even be a little left over...maybe enough for a new digital camera?
                                                                                                 

The Wait is Over

And the wait is over.   Yesterday I missed a phone call from the other guy's insurance (I'm tired of avoiding it's name but it's the same as the mascot for the community college I attended) so I called back.  Got some guy's voice mail and left my message.  No response so I called again this morning.   Had to leave another message so I called the original contact number for the company.  Finally got to talk with a person (!!) who told me that my claim was with a settlement officer...that must be who I had been leaving voice mail for...and I should hear from him soon.  Then I called my insurance agent who promised to try and learn something.  Skinner's called a few minutes ago to let me know they finally got paid by the other company for towing and storage. (Their check was dated 7/24 and they received it today! Should we blame the US Postal Service for that??) Anyway, they just brought my poor, bruised car back to us.  Jeff wants to see for himself what condition it's in.  I could hardly look at it...I started to hyperventilate...had to come back inside the house! (We were so lucky I hadn't picked Jeff up before the accident. He would have ended up in the hospital for sure.)  Wally and Jeff looked it over and think it could be fixed. While we were all looking at our poor car, the other insurance company called again.  He had a few questions and then some answers.  My car's worth $5897.34 minus the salvage price of $843.20. (I'm not salvaging it.)  I accepted the offer and the check will be Fed-Xed to me tomorrow.  Wally and Jeff think it might cost $1000-1500 to fix it so that's something we'll be looking at.  I've been searching online for a comparable Subaru and found one in Clinton.  Jeff and I are going to go check it out tomorrow. Maybe we'll keep both cars on the road, I checked with my insurance agent and my insurance would go up about $30/month.  It would be nice to have a working spare out here...at the very worst, it would be something we could cannibalize for parts if necessary.  

This morning I was trying to finish my sweater order by working on the hat and snapped the  acrylic size US6 changeable tip on the circular needle I was using. Guess I had it in a death grip.  Good thing I didn't have to have a INR done this week!! The stress of this accident might have pushed my clotting numbers off the chart!  Oh-oh, I do have to have one done... on Friday. Hope the numbers are good.

And the Wait Goes On!

The wait goes on. Got a phone call from the car rental place Monday afternoon telling me the other guy's insurance company had finally had OK-ed the rental and I could get a car the next morning.  We arranged for them to pick me up...and they even waived the security fee coz an insurance company was involved. Got a Chevy Scion...a little thing, good on mileage but I still miss my Subaru!  Jeff and I have been looking at cars...found some Subaru's, too...just have to wait for the settlement to make a deal.  My cousin Pete, who is an insurance lawyer, offered last Tuesday to see what was happening.  My insurance guy told him a settlement was going to be offered but if there is still no sign of it tomorrow I think I'll call him myself and inquire about this mythical settlement. 

Jeff's been building raised-bed boxes out of pallets he's taken apart and used all the compost/soil he had filling them. When we get a car switching the trailer hitch will be one of the first things he'll have to do so he can go get more compost to fill the empty boxes! He's scheduled to have another round of procedures done on his back August 5th and would like the boxes already in the garden to be filled by then.He's not pleased with the garden this year...oh, things are growing but the fruits are small and slow to ripen. We have green tomatoes and peppers and a fair amount of squash blossoms but we haven't picked anything. The broccoli started to bolt in the heat so I cut those heads off and the plants are forming new heads. Got to keep an eye on them and pick them soon.  Our broccoli doesn't produce large heads like you see in the stores.   

I finally felt like knitting so I started a pair of socks for Jeff.  Didn't like the yarn at first but the self-striping is kind of neat.  I think he'll like them.  Got 2 other solid colored washable wool's waiting to be made into socks for him,too.  Did almost the entire foot of one sock yesterday...that's 10" of 64 sts on size US 2"s...watching Bones, Castle and Criminal Minds. I should turn the heel this morning and be ready to do the leg tonight. Hope there is something good on tv. I knit faster with action shows, don't know much I'll get done watching my usual Sunday night British dramas. At least my stock bag is full for the shop so I don't have to worry about that.  I'm scheduled to work Aug 9th. Have to wait until I get a new camera to post photos.

I told my mom about the accident the last time I visited her.  We were in the dining room...it was almost noon...and several other residents waiting for dinner were very interested in what I was saying.  In fact, when I visited her yesterday, those same folks asked about the car, me, what was happening, etc. surprising me. Don't think Josie liked liked their interest...especially since they were more interested in it than she had been!
 

No Decision Yet

I'm trying to keep it together with very little luck. Insurance companies do not move fast enough to suit me.  Still no word...except a form letter...from the other insurance company saying what they'll pay depends on the degree of liability of their client (if the police reports says he was 50% in the wrong, they'll pay 50%, etc). I'm planning on calling them this morning and faxing them the repair/maintenance history on my car.  Last night I  
found Subaru's at local car dealers as old as and with as many miles as mine offered at higher prices than KBB! Keep me in those prayers and fingers crossed!

Jeff's sister came for dinner yesterday with her mini-Schnauzer, Max, and her new Schnocker puppy

(schnauzer/cocker spaniel), Sunny.  The dogs all got along for the most part.  Fanny isn't quite sure what Sunny is but let her eat from her dish and swim...drink...in her water dish.  This is the 2nd time Sunny's been here so that might have helped.
Sunny has wide, flat cocker feet and an inquiring mind that probably comes from living with Max and 3 cats, all quite a bit larger than she is...at the moment.  Jeff and I think Sunny will be bigger than Max but smaller than Fanny.  She's double in size in the week since I last saw her!

In the meantime I sit and watch tv.  I have no interest in knitting...blame that on the heat?...or being outside.  I did clean the kitchen fairly well yesterday but that was necessary!  When I finally turned on the overhead light...UCK!  (Trying to keep cool I've kept the lights off.)  We watched McLintok, an old John Wayne western Saturday and Conspiracy Theory 
last night. The old western was better.

Life Goes On

Life here in the little house in the little woods continues car-less.  The insurance appraiser saw my car Thursday but we haven't heard from him.  He did have to wait until yesterday for the complete police report so I don't expect a decision before Monday.  In the mean time, we are supporting the Affordable Taxi company with 'necessary only' trips to town ($15/round trip).  Boy, you never know how much you rely on your car out here in the country until you don't have one. I'm thinking of asking anyone interested to consider coming over to check out the gardens with a couple of gallons of drinking water as a hostess gift! (We have plenty of running water but have you ever tried drinking sulfur water?  I can brush my teeth with it but actually drinking it??  Besides, it makes lousy coffee.  And the reverse osmosis system doesn't produce as much clean water as we had expected.)  

We had a fairly strong thunder storm last night.  Jeff had just built a fire in the outside pit and we were trying to fight the mosquitoes when the thunder and lightening started.  I chickened out and went inside but Jeff stuck it out until the downpour started. (When he went out to check the garden after the rain stopped Jeff found the fire was still burning! The grate was protecting it enough to keep it alive.) We ended up watching RED on TV and except for a couple of scenes (i.e the lady who was following them with an arsenal of weapons....) it wasn't as good as I had remembered.  Hope RED2 is better.

The heat/humidity has seemed to have broken and it's not too bad today.  Of course, with all the rain last night the mosquitoes got a head start on us. Maybe I can get some knitting done today if I stay inside.  Jeff found a MacGyer marathon on this morning and those 80's styles are kind of funny. Remember those unisex layered haircuts??

And the Joy Continues

Oh, what a week it's been... so far!  After being T-boned at a Stop sign Monday morning, I got to learn about the exciting world of Insurance.  Since the other driver was ticketed for blowing the stop sign, my insurance company said his company would probably pay for a rental car for me but when I got to the rental office on Tuesday, they had not heard of me or the accident (didn't the driver call them??) but if I wanted to rent a car, they would be happy to help me...with $350 security upfront plus $65/day.   I made it to Jeff's before becoming totally hysterical. Let's blame the heat but poor Jeff, he didn't deserve that! After calming down, we went to the nearby dollar store to get some water and soda, called the taxi company that I had used earlier to get to town and went home.  I felt like I was being sent to Siberia! I called my insurance company and gave them the other guy's insurance info off the partial accident report I had gotten from the police which had been my 1st stop when I gotten to town. (The report was incomplete coz the p olice computer was down) and tried to keep busy and not think about living in the little house in the little woods without a little car.

Yesterday the saga continued.  The other insurance company called and what the guy was saying smelled like compost...no, that was the horse and cow compost Jeff's using in the garden, we were sitting outside taking a break from yard work.  Any way, I put the phone on speaker and handed it to Jeff.  The other driver (notice the absence of derogatory terms describing his family orgins, sexuality and/or personality) still had not called them so they could not authorize a rental for me. They'd get an adjuster there as soon as they could...but they'd pay storage at Skinner's only to Monday...after that, if the adjuster hadn't made it there it was my responsibility.  Oh, and if they decided the car was 'totaled' it was also my responsibility to dispose of it.  Jeff and that agent had a nice little discussion about about the car, my mechanical heart valve, etc and in the end the agent said he'd call for an adjuster as soon as he got off the phone with us. My next phone call was to my agent bringing him up to date, then we called Skinner's. The folks there had never heard of disposal being the owner's responsibility but had a couple of suggestions...they would sell it for us as older Subaru's sell well regardless of their condition or they could get a door and fix my car.  Their mechanic is going to inspect the car as soon as the adjuster sees it.  If he and Jeff decided it will be safe to drive we'll think about fixing it.  Jeff and I talked about it last night and if we can get the car back on the road for $1000 or so we'll probably do that.  If the insurance settlement is for more than that (book is $3500-4500), I'll bank the difference and after fixing the car, wait until Spring, then think about getting a newer one.  In the past year I've put about $2700 in the car upgrading/replacing the cradle, fuel funnel, rear structs, front axles...and yes, I have the original statements from the mechanics which didn't please the other insurance agent one bit. So now we're waiting to hear...something from somebody!

We worked outside as much as we could yesterday but the heat was awful  I got part of the lawn mowed before the insurance lessons began and Jeff took apart pallets in preparation to making more raised garden beds.

He's slowly replacing the in-ground garden rows with raised beds.  Keeps the dog away from the plants and lets him use a modification on square-foot gardening. I have a lot of photos to download but I'm waiting until after the weather cools off a little (and I'll include a photo of the injured car).  

I'm scheduled to work in the shop in Cooperstown this Friday and next Tuesday but without a car that ain't gonna happen so I spent part of yesterday morning calling other members looking for a sub. Got one for Tuesday but Friday is still a problem. Judy suggested trying asking several members to restock that day and work a couple of hours each and is working on that. 


ONT:  another ladies tank top but it's been too hot to knit for long.

Oh, and to end the day an just the right note, while we were watching the original Stargate movie last night...with all the lights off, windows open and many fans on, we tripped a breaker and were thrown into darkness.  Jeff went down stairs and got most of the lights on but the parlor seems to have shorted out.  Something else to worry about.

Good thing I don't have an INR scheduled for this week.  Stress throws the ratio off the chart and if this week hasn't been stress full, what has?!

Oh, What A Day!

Today started out beautiful...sunny with a light breeze.  I had errands to do and needed to stop at Walmart for some ice and ice tea mix. It's been so hot and we've been drinking so much ice tea I can't keep up making ice.  I stopped at the bank to cash a check and joked with the teller that I was headed to Walmart just to wander around in 'air conditioned' glory.  Unfortunately I spoke too soon.  I barely got 2 blocks away from the bank when some old man in a big GMC truck blew a stop sign and t-boned by Subaru Forester on the corner of Prospect and Church Sts, probably totaling it.  Luckily I wasn't hurt...just the passenger door and window, and the windshield, maybe bending the frame.   I called 911 to report what happened and another woman called the local police to report it, too, coz she saw the truck blew the stop sign.  The old man was shaken...and very apologetic...but unhurt.  I called Jeff and was ok until I saw him walking towards me and then I lost it and started to cry.  The car was being towed to Skinner's on Rte 5 by the cemeteries and the driver offered us a ride.  After talking with a nice lady at Skinner's, Jeff and I went across the street to Donna's Diner for lunch and something cold to drink and then went back to Skinner's for a promised ride home.  Later I talked again to my All State agent, the Enterprise Rental place and the police.  I'm going to pick up a copy of the accident report tomorrow and a rental car...on the other driver's insurance coz he's supposedly getting a ticket. Then it's just wait until the powers that be decided to fix or not.  And if not, how much money are they going to give me.  And to think today started out so nice.

A Gardner's Work Is Never Done

Jeff's been busy changing the garden to a series of 4'x4' raised beds made from the pallets he's been collecting.  

He's leaving wide paths between the boxes that we'll eventually line with wood chips... but so far this season he's tilling the paths... to control the weeds.  The boxes are set on tilled ground and the anchor/legs hammered down. Then he mixes composted grass and vegetable scraps from our compost bin with composted horse manure (from our former vet, Gary, who lives about a mile down the road from us that Jeff's getting in trade for helping repair Gary's washed out driveway) and composted cow manure (bought from an ol'Cornhill friend of his brother's on South Side Rd in Frankfort) with the soil dug from another area of the garden and fills the boxes. He then fills the hole he's created with the mixture.  This fall Jeff wants to add vermiculite to the boxes to aid drain but they seem to be draining quite well without it.  He's been using the same mixture to hill the potatoes in the vertical cages and the potato plants are to the top of the cages and have started to flower.

(Remember, flowers on the plants are promises of potatoes underground!)  Yesterday we stopped at Massaro's and got some tomato plants (with tomatoes!) and Italian long hot peppers to add to the plants Jeff's grown from seeds.  He's got lettuces and spinach in one box, herbs in another, the dreaded beets and parsnips in another and bush beans and squash in others.  The bean tower has vine all the way to the top and the squash and eggplant around it's base have started to flower.  We're waiting for the hummingbird/butterfly flower mix to start flowering around the apple tree but that won't be for another couple of weeks (good thing they're perennials) so we got some petunias at Massaro's, too.  He's also got a HUGE crop of mosquitoes that have driven me inside.  He sprayed again last night and if it doesn't rain for a day or 2 that might help. 

OTN:  The blue size 2 boy's cardigan with colorful train buttons and a watch cap that is a special order is about half finished.  I took time from that to do a size 6 mo 'pretty in pink' set that I sent to the shop Thursday and then did another one to put in my stock bag. Today I'm doing baseball hats coz they sell as quick as I can do them and I'm all out in the shop.  Sunday evening The Grateful Dead is in concert at Doubleday Field.  Don't know if the 'Dead Heads' will shop but we're planning on being open late. (Or is that insurance that they won't trash?)

Flood update:  FEMA has designated the Mohawk Valley as a commercial disaster area due to the recent flooding but hasn't decided about the residential areas.  I heard yesterday that at least a dozen houses... in Herkimer alone... have been
condemned due to flood damage.  Some people are also concerned that the undermined roads will develop sinkholes.

Time to Order An Ark?

Last Thursday night the area was hit by a major rain storm:  5" of rain overnight! The west side of the village (from Main St to  the high school and Walmart) was covered by the the muddy runoff of Bellinger Brook (usually just a trickle of water that runs thru Brookwood Park). The parking lot for Midtown Apartments had only the roofs of the cars parked there above water! (This photo was even shown on NBC Nightly News! Wish I had taken it!)  The Stewart's on the corner of Bellinger and Mohawk Sts had 2-3' of water inside. Most of the cellars on the west side of the village were full of muddy water, with mud covering sidewalks, curbs and roadways buckling and braking them.  I saw a tool shed backwards against a house on Caroline St having been moved there from several houses away by the raging water; lawns and gardens covered by mud with several gardens on Steele St totally destroyed.  Sunday one still had 5"of water on it while the others looked like weird sculpture with the plants (tomatoes, peppers, garlic) covered by dry mud!  The village scattered large dumpsters around for residents to use and when they were full  large piles of soaked stuff lined the streets. Pickers and junkers were all over making the mess worse by pawing thru the piles scattering things all over.  National Grid was busy trying to reconnect electric and gas lines as they were inspected. And as the temperatures rose the mud turned into dust and the village was covered by clouds of it that were diminished when only when it rained which it's been doing off and on all weekend. Tonight after supper we had an especially heavy downpour.  Now all those streets are full of water again and the flood warning is for the east side of the village where the West Canada Creek is already over flood stage!  Herkimer wasn't the only village hit, Little Falls had underground streams break thru into stores on Main St and landslides block roads, Mohawk had a large sinkhole develop on Warren Road that swallowed several cars and was without electricity for 3 days with their power station underwater. Living out here in the little house in the little woods we were spared typical flood damage.  The driveway and lawn have several small lakes but they should dry up when it stops raining and slugs are feasting on the garden. I think I can cope with that better than water lapping at by cellar door.

OTN:  You'd think with all this rain I'd have gotten a lot of knitting done. I did finish 2 baseball caps and a 3-6 month sweater set that I sent to the shop yesterday. And today I started a size 2 boys sweater for a special order.  Hope to finish that this week.