Still Stuck At Home

    When you're stuck at home (6 miles from town) without a car you better have something to do.  I'm lucky because my Yarn Stash is fairly full so I can knit.  This week I did this size 4 baseball hoodie in red, white and blue acrylic yarn by Red Heart, perfect for a Boston or Atlanta fan.  Besides the Henley neck with 3 baseball buttons, it has a back zipper for ease getting it on and off.  It's knit on US 5's and 7's.  Then, being a good Yankee fan, I started a navy and white
Yankee Pin-stripe hoodie.  I wasn't going to do another size 4 but lost track of the hood and ended up with the length for one.  I just finished the sleeves this afternoon and hope to get the body done tonight.  Then I'll probably spend the next 2 days embroidering the pin-stripes.  I'll post a photo as soon as it's finished.
   In the meantime, we're all starting to feel the cabin fever of not being able to go anywhere.  There are errands that should be done, bills to mail (well, one of us could just walk down to the mailbox and leave them with the red flag up...), I have 15 books on reserve waiting for me to pick them up at the library, a Rx at the pharmacy and we've started to run low on bread. And I still haven't picked up my new glasses! But it's the principle of the matter that's bugging me.  The transmission for the Forester...was suppose to be in by Friday...but just got delivered today.  (Should of asked 'which Friday', huh?)  I could scream but what good would it do?  We don't live close enough to the mechanics for him to hear me.  Jeff took a taxi (to and from) his MD appointment on Monday but I rescheduled my Tuesday morning appointment.  Now I have an appointment to have my taxes done and an appointment in Cooperstown coming up early next week.  And 'spring cleaning' at the shop begins next week, too.  (If you don't put in a day during 'spring cleaning' you have to work an extra day during the season.)  Oh, and I thought I'd treat us all and ordered an Easter bread from the Java Shop on Main St in Herkimer but it's suppose to be picked up on Friday!  Maybe I'll have to call my cousin Ed again.  

Another Pothole or Two

   There always seems to be 'potholes' in our road of life.  I finally got my new glasses from Woolner Family Eyecare in Ilion and I loved them!  They fit perfectly and I could see distance and close up with them.  Much better than peering over the lens like I had been doing with my old glasses.  Then...Zoey ate them.  Shattered one lens and chewed both ear

pieces.  I went back to Woolner's and laughing, and were able to replace the earpieces and reorder the lens.  It cost me $78.71 for the lens.  And, because 1 piece of the lens was missing I had to check Zoey's poop for 3 or 4 days to make sure she didn't swallow it.  Luckily, it never showed up!  That's all we would have needed...Zoey with gastrointestinal problems!  Now I'm waiting for Woolner's to call.  Jeff's waiting for his new glasses from them, too.  (Oh, Jeff suggested I move my mom's big old jewelry box to my bedside table and put my glasses at night...and charging ports... in it to keep them from Zoey after she destroyed an older Kodak digital camera I was trying to recharge.  My cellphone has little teeth marks on it, too!  So far, it's proven too heavy and bulky for her to move very far!)  
  We've been having some difficulty with our '09 Forester for several months.  Jeff  was sure it needed a tune-up but he never got around to scheduling one with Dave at Hillslide in Little Falls.  He always said 'back in the day, he could do it himself' but with computers involved all he could do was to keep checking the fluid levels and keep them up.  Monday morning we were on our way to town when all the lights on the dashboard started flashing wildly!  Jeff pulled over...on Rte. 5 near the stoplight by Lowe's...and checked the oil and transmission fluid.  He decided the oil was low so we went to Lowe's and he bought a quart and put it in.  The lights stopped flashing but didn't go out.  He decided we could finish our trip to town...pharmacy and grocery store...before heading home.  Jeff was afraid the onboard computer had short circuited.  After a phone call to Hillslide, Jeff took the Forester there yesterday afternoon.  He called me with the bad news when Dave had a chance to look at it...we needed a transmission job.  Oh, well, we had almost made it thru winter without a major problem or breakdown...almost!  Dave ordered a rebuilt transmission... that will take 3-5 days to come in...and then another 2-3 days to  install.  That makes it 5-8 days without a car, sitting here in the little house in the little woods.  And it will cost just shy of $1000 for parts, labor and tax.  (I guess I know what I'll be getting for my birthday this year.) 
   Jeff also talked to Dave about having the '99 Outback towed down to Hillslide after  the Forester was back on the road.  It needs new brakes and when they failed around Christmas I suggested we just to take it off the road for the winter and worry about fixing it in the Spring.  Well, it's Spring and looking back on that decision, maybe we should have had the brakes done then. Hindsight, huh?

March Came in Like a Lamb? Huh?

     March came in gentle as a lamb on Thursday.  People were running around in shorts and t-shirts but Mother Nature was having a good laugh at our expense because this is what we woke up to on Friday.  At first the forecast was for 3-5" of snow overnight but it got closer to the 7" mark by the time the sun came up.  The rest of the day we were suppose to get 6-10" which they changed to 9-13" and finally settled for 10-16"...all wet, heavy snow that caused power lines to snap and trees to break.  Or bend over as you can see in these photos.  Jeff had spent Thursday morning getting the snow blower

onto the Cub Cadet and he found out as he tried
to make his way down to Wally's that he had it attached incorrectly.  He
kept getting stuck but eventually made it past

the fence and headed towards Wally's garage.   He had asked if he could pull into the garage and reattached the blower in there where there is a cement floor and not have to crawl around thru the snow.  Unfortunately,  the Cub Cadet got stuck in front of the garage and Jeff had to walk back up to the house and get the walk behind blower and clear a 2nd strip down to Wally's.  He got the tractor loose and then cleared a path to Wally's deck with the walk behind. By then he had a broken belt on the Cub Cadet.  Wally took over trying to clear the driveway with his rider but ran into
some trouble when he got to the mouth of the driveway.  (The Town manages to fill the mouth and block it very well.)  Wally ended up a broken belt on his Cub Cadet, too, and the driveway is still impassable.
   The cedar tree at the corner of our TV room was bent in half with part of it leaning on the roof last night.  The part that was on the roof has

straightened up but this part is still bent over this morning.  The snow has slipped off the TV room roof...it's a steel roof, and the porch roof...also metal.  There are a lot of small branches down but I can't see any major damage in our yard.   This branch came off a big

oak along the west side of the property and missed the house by a couple of feet.  The lilacs along the back of the property took a hard hit, too.  The big purple one has been broken by branches falling on it and snowing weighing it down.  Oh, well, a little pruning will help everything.    

   Wally's electrical entrance took a major hit and is loose but still hanging on.  We lost power for a few minutes last night but it came back.  My cousin Ed on Folts Road was without power for part of the afternoon but finally got it back.  Just in time, too, since he relies on a sump pump to keep his cellar dry. He said water was within 2" of his furnace when the power was finally restored.

   Today it's sunny and cold outside, a beautiful winter day.  Any hope for an early spring has been dashed.  The view from my window is of a snow covered field.  Maybe we'll be able to get out by Monday.  I sure hope so but in the meantime I'll knit.  I finally finished by size 4 Black Sheep sweater.  I think the next couple of sweaters will be small sizes, 1's and 2's.  They go faster, use less yarn and I don't get bored doing them.  I found I was getting lost working on the size 4...losing my way working thru the pattern.  And besides, the pile of library books next to me was more interesting than the sweater I was knitting!