Archives for 2015

Last week I had made an appointment at Smalley’s Garage to get our leaking Air conditioning condenser on the Savana van fixed, with an appointment at 8:00, so we were up before 7:00, fed the horses, heated up coffee (which I promptly left behind) and headed down to the shop, arriving right on time. We explained the problem again, then went across the street to Burger King for a quick breakfast before heading out to Walmart to shop. My Sierra truck has been needing front tires, and we priced them at Walmart, but they didn’t have my size in stock, though they could get them by tomorrow. Unfortunately, they couldn’t mount them because they don’t have a floor jack big enough for my truck! Then I called around and found another place that could put a set on, so we decided to get that done while we were in town, so set an appointment for 11:00. Then we got a call from Smalley’s saying they couldn’t fix our AC because it required a “body” shop to get into it. Really? A body shop to remove the five screws on the grill? Even the manual says that’s all it takes to get to the parts that need replacing. Obviously he didn’t want to do the job, but he could have told me that before making the appointment. Anyway, I ended up making an appointment at a shop in Rochester for next Tuesday, an old friend of one of my brother’s who has very good reviews online. Finished shopping and headed over to the tire place and hung around while they did the job, then headed to Great American for frozen custard for lunch (I had Kahlua flavor and Hubby and German chocolate, mm-mmm.) Got back to camp by 12:30, put the horses out on anchors again, and spent a relaxing afternoon in gorgeous weather!

We were both a bit tired today, so we took the day off, watching another one of the TV series we’ve been DVRing for the last few months. A great relaxing day!

Though we had originally planned on leaving for Sugar Hill tomorrow, the weather forecast has deteriorated, with now a 60% chance of rain tomorrow, so we made the last minute decision to head out today, even though we’re paid through tomorrow. Got packed up in no time, and were out the driveway at about 1:00, with several stops along the way. Walmart in Geneseo to pick up Hubby’s Rx, then Travel Centers of America in Dansville for fuel, propane and to dump (never again!) They had a lock on the dump, and a different lock on the water, and no hose to rinse away the spillage! They only gave us the key to the dump, so that meant another trip for another key, so we didn’t bother, particularly since there was no hose without dragging on of ours out. That and the fact that there was a broken down car sitting in front of the dump, which the staff had to push out of the way. What a mess! The dump was $5 besides! The only good thing was the propane was the best price I could find around, just $2.39 gallon, which is still high compared to other states, but a lot less than anywhere else I could find along the way. By the time we made stops, and then my GPS sent us to the south side of the forest instead of the north side, which added another 20 minutes or so (I should have checked it more closed, mea culpa), we finally arrived right at 5:00. Fortunately our “usual” spot was open, and most of the rest of the campground was clear except along the edge of the trees to the west, where there was only 2 or 3 trailers, only one of which was a horse trailer. Hubby could even still see the outline on the grass of where we had the satellite dish before, so setup was a breeze! We put the horses on their anchors to graze for a while, and settled down for our usual evening routine.

Spent another day relaxing today, knocking out another series we’d been saving, in between exercising and training Lola, of course! Also did some laundry, had a great dry wind from the west that was drying every load in about 30 minutes. Love it! Smells so good!

We both slept pretty late, suffering the after affects of our busy but very productive and memorable week. We’ve been recording a number of new summer series, so today we decided to makes some room on the DVR by watching a full series today. Very relaxing day, which we needed after so much activity!

Another long day, though we only worked until 3:00 today, as our client had a flight out in a few hours. We got much accomplished, and are discussing the possibility of us going to San Antonio to work with him next time, he has an important event next month that we agreed would be good to attend. That will be another interesting logistical challenge for us, but I’m certainly used to those by now! By the time we got back to the farm, we could feel ourselves start to crash, which always happens once a job is finished, and there’s nothing in our immediate schedule. Whew! What a week!

Had to get up early to drive to a hotel in Greece, west of Rochester, where our client has flown in to work with us. Had a long but very productive day with him, before heading back to the farm.

Today was a reunion of a different kind, having lunch with two first cousins that, except for a very short time in a very large group 4 years ago, I haven’t seen since about 1964! Their mother and mine were sisters, but there was a lot of years between them, and they had a falling out back then that was never resolved, so we didn’t really ever get to know them very much. Anyway, we met them down at a lovely restaurant on the Erie Canal in Fairport, and despite the years, it became evident that their upbringing wasn’t that much different than ours after all, with many things in common. We managed to fill in some gaps in family history, and had a great time for over 3 hours! Who’d a thunk?! After lunch, Hubby and I stopped at the ice cream store next door and had one of the best frozen custards EVER! Nice and egg-y tasting, which I really like, before heading back to Caledonia. What an exhausting week, that’s not even close to over yet!

Still not wanting to miss out on the time we had together, most of us headed to our friend Nancy’s house for dinner, meeting around 6:00, and chatting into the late hours before finally heading out. What a great time this has been, re-cementing all these old friendships! Can’t wait until next year, when I’m sure the group will be even bigger!