Butterflies….

Last year we met Mary-Pat up at Crater Lake, Oregon.  Mary-Pat was just starting out on her journey for the year from of all places, the Roseville area near where my sister lives, and near where we currently are located.  I started following her blog, and noticed she was having problems with her header at the top of the blog that she was seeking help with.  I offered a few suggestions, eventually I made the header picture above which she just loved so much….and I was more than happy to be of assistance.  One thing nice about this header picture is that it has a transparent background, so if she changes the colors of her blog, it (the background behind the butterflies heart and wording) will change with it…..and with all those colors with these butterflies, there are endless colors for her to choose from which will match her header.

Today after her physical therapy for a recent knee surgery, we met her at Brookfields Restaurant in Roseville, not far from her PT.  Mom and Dad live going to Brookfields, and I can remember when it first opened not far from one of the restaurants I use to manager back in 1981…it sure took a dent out of our business at that location for a few months, that’s for sure.  (Thank goodness I got out of that vocation, restaurant work is hard, something I did for over 14 years, starting at 16 years old.)

This time I remembered to get a picture of Mary-Pat, and I included our lunch with it.  It took the waitress about 45 minutes to get to our order taken, not because of her lack of trying, but because we were engrossed in talking through much of our visit.  That is Marcia to the right, and Mary-Pat across the table from me.  You will have to visit her blog later to see a picture of us….unless I broke another camera. 

At the beginning of the month I talked about FeedBurner problems in that Yahoo, Hotmail, and others, are not sending FeedBurner emails through.  I tried a few fixes, but to no avail.  Read something from a blogger who felt that Google could fix this fairly easy, but they want everyone to use their Google Circles thing, which makes me NOT want to use Google Circles even that much more.  So I have now set up an email list with MailChimp.  By noon Pacific time tomorrow I will know if I set it up right or not to mail out the blog to our followers who have requested it.

This is going to be the first blog that MailChimp hopefully sends out…if I do it right.  MailChimp is free for email lists of up to 2,500 addresses, which means for me, it should be free for like, forever.  “IF” I ever got that high, then I think we would be having Amazon links, advertising, etc. in order to pay for it all.  Not even my intentions, that is for sure.

Here is Bubba and Skruffy earlier today on another “hunt”.  Honestly, we really don’t think either will ever get a squirrel, and as we said last year, it would break our hearts if they ever did harm one.  But it is a real hoot watching them try day in and day out.  Yes, that is a squirrel inside the little feeder house.

They have both brown and grey squirrels here in the backyard, and sometimes they can be a bit loud as they “bark” back at Skruffy.

    

There are two of these Blue Birds (left) which try to keep the other birds (like the one on the right) away from the bird feeders.  This year, they have even gone after the Doves, but since there are more Doves than Blue Birds, the Dove are less intimidated.

   

And this little hummingbird is the same little guy which keeps all but his girlfriends away from the hummingbird feeder, just like last year.

I have had some very nice places to post blogs from…mostly from inside the motorhome looking out at ocean, a river, a mountain….but here is one of the few places that I can do it sitting outside in the nice cool shade, free from bugs, and enjoy nature from just outside of the bustling metropolis of Sacramento.  Life sure is wonderful at times….

L.P. has New Meaning

This is our Liquefied Petroleum Gas tank, also known as the Propane Tank.  Ours is located in the middle between the back tires, just south of the axel.  Since it is so far, they have a filling up location on the side in which a high pressure line takes the propane to this tank.

    

This fill-up area is along the passenger’s side, far back corner next to a storage bin.  In the picture above left you can see the yellow cover, which is removed and the propane filling nozzle is attached, the switch at the bottom is turned off shutting off gas from the motorhome, and the middle relief valve is opened so that when propane starts spurting out, it is time to turn off the pump.  The right picture is the back side of the left picture…and you can see that the high pressure line is missing.  Well, when I tried to top off the propane in Evanston Wyoming nearly two weeks ago, that is when I found out about the missing line.  If you look at the first picture, the line goes into the valve in the upper left, near the middle, of the tank.  Another of the small things one discovers as they use a “new to us” motorhome.  I sure did not see it on my brief inspection under the motorhome as we were buying it because I was looking more for rust and potential road salt damage.  LP’s new meaning?  "Lost Pipes"

Above is the FedEx shipping history on the progress of our awning being shipped to my sister’s house in Citrus Heights, California.  In the upper right corner you can see the proposed delivery date, which I saw last night for the first time….and oh no, there it is…..Holiday, Florida.  Yep, they sent it to Florida instead of California.  Today it arrived in and departed from Orlando.  I talked to the folks at PPL Motorhomes in Houston and pointed out their error, and they were going to try and have it re-routed to Citrus Heights….this is hours before it arrived in Orlando.  It departed Orlando tonight, and it looks like it is still headed to Holiday.  Perhaps it is bundled in such a way that they have to move it on to Tampa before they can re-route it….or perhaps PPL did nothing about correcting their mistake.  Tomorrow I will know one way or another, but it seems like this awning thing has been such a circus.  GRRRRR!!!  Perhaps LP means Lost Parcel, or Losing my Patience….take your choice.

Have you ever heard of Bag Balm before?  This is some great stuff.  Here is what Wikipedia says about it:

Bag Balm is a salve developed in 1899 to soothe irritation on cows' udders after milking.  The product is officially only meant for animals and is inspected as such by the United States Food and Drug Administration, but it's also often used as a treatment for chapped and irritated skin on humans and can be found in places such as drug stores, ski resorts, online vendors, needle-work stores, and of course farm and feed stores. Its uses are many, for example "squeaky bed springs, psoriasis, dry facial skin, cracked fingers, burns, zits, diaper rash, saddle sores, sunburn, pruned trees, rifles, shell casings, bed sores and radiation burns." ….. The active ingredients of Bag Balm are 8-hydroxyquinoline sulfate 0.3% (antiseptic) in a petroleum jelly USP and lanolin base.

Well, my use is for dry feet, which developed while we were in Wyoming.  We had some last year, given to us by my sister in a small container, which we carried in the motorhome….which burned up and became ashes a few months ago.  Well, the other day I broke down and bought some from Walgreens….a bit hard to find unless you know where to look…in the lotions and skin creams area.  It works great, and this “tin” will last us for a long, long time.

As for my knee, it is doing much, much better.  No problems since a week ago Sunday, which means it was probably just a pinched nerve, probably from the hectic drive.  Since I was favoring it, it put more pressure on the other leg which was sore, like a sore muscle, but nothing to worry about either.  Thanks to all who were concerned.

The great squirrel hunters are so happy to be back in Arny and Sandy’s backyard.  Skruffy runs and barks and barks and runs and never comes close.  

Bubba, on the other hand, is a true hunter.  He will sneak right up on the little creatures and with a big, final pounce, he always comes up empty.  It is at that point that he lets out a large, resounding BARK, and sits there and stares at the squirrel which is typically giving him a squirrely chirp.

I just love the trees over at mom and dad’s house.  The lady who use to live there, now deceased, was a great gardener…and from what I have been told, the yard looked even better when she was alive.  Her surviving daughter, who lost the house in a foreclosure, did nothing to keep it up…many plants and even a few trees were lost over the years.  Mom sure enjoys going out and watering….to the point that I had to rescue her the other day when she got her little GoGo stuck out on the lawn.  No pictures of that, unfortunately.  

    

Later this week we hope to visit with Mary-Pat who writes the Butterflies and Heart Songs blog.  She is recovering nicely from recent knee surgery…and we look forward to seeing her again since our initial meeting at Crater Lake last year.