Chapter 448

Happy National Iced Tea Day!

Although I prefer my tea to look more like this colored water than the strong stuff above.

 The cottonwood fuzz is out in full force these last couple of weeks. There are piles of it everywhere and getting into everything, nothing is safe from it!

I grew these petunias for my hanging baskets on the front porch from seeds, and now they are housing some future brand new baby birds! I found them when I went out to rotate my planters to be sure they all get a turn at the best light. When I took this planter down, the Mom bird flew right into my face and scared the stuffing out of me!

 This week's stupid stunt was wrapping the teardrop in vinyl like those cars you see driving around with the fancy graphics or advertising. We didn't have the fancy graphics printed on our vinyl,

we were challenged to get our plain white on it. So we had to turn these two tubes of vinyl into something we'd be proud to take to a campground and not have to park it behind the outhouse door. 

Tools of the trade laid out on a sterile surface and ready to go. (Not shown: sore muscles and ibuprophen.)

The victim was stripped of all trim and the surface polished and cleaned and ready to slip into it's new outfit.

Uh, just where do we start this project?

We had our 5 foot x 9 foot piece of vinyl in a 3 foot x 5 foot ball for a while, stuck to all the wrong places, glued to ourselves, and wrapped around the wrong sides. Thankfully the material is very forgiving and we got it all pried apart, peeled off us, and somehow got it spread out on the teardrop with no wrinkles...and we are still married!

The trim is going back on and it's starting to look like we (read Bob) are going to make it to the finish line with this little guy.

This is the second major remodel since Bob built the teardrop in 2000.

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We used the teardrop for several years and had lots of fun travels in it although I think the kids have used it more in the past few years than we have.

When we got rid of my car, Bob decided to take a lot of weight out of it so we could tow it with our Subaru Outback. When Bob originally built the teardrop, he used materials from around the homestead and that made it really  heavy. Since we towed it with the truck or my '56 Ford, weight just wasn't an issue until we needed to pull it with the Subaru. He pared about 1,500 pounds off of it during that remodel. 

Happy times at the Walker house! Grammy and Grampy Walker have arrived from Maine for the week. It's good they will be here because Reagan's school is closed due to a massive sewage spill from a broken pipe. Sewage backed up and spilled about 6" of sewage in the downstairs room and this means a whole new facility must be rebuilt ASAP before the kids can return.

Reagan is sewing a stomach for her anatomy project she is making. Like everything she does, she's totally immersed in the experience. Note the cone head in the background.

Sometimes Reagan has to go to work with Carissa for a meeting or an "All hands on deck" surgery when the office ladies watch her. Like all kids that go to their parent's work, she gets to play with the tool of the trade.

Reagan likes to cook but doesn't like the noise. Because she doesn't like loud noises she has her very own little sound-deadening ear muffs and she isn't beneath wearing them while she mixes.

Reagan was 4 this year and she had her monthly photo in her chair. She's filling it up for sure. Pretty soon her feet will be touching the floor.

Reagan in the same chair getting a Wet Willie from Bear.

And at 3 months she was just as tall standing in that same chair as she is sitting in it now.

Have a great week everyone!