Enjoying the last week of May

As I mentioned in my last post, our tractor was sitting idle and the grass was growing. We didn't get the replacement copper washers for the hydraulic line until yesterday (Tuesday) since Monday was a holiday. The bad news was that the leak wasn't fixed even with the new washers. Ray called another dealer a little farther away and learned that they, too, had a backup and probably couldn't find and fix the problem for about three weeks. (Imagine how tall our grass would be in three weeks.) The dude he talked to didn't think he had ever heard of a block cracking and leaking. I suggested calling our neighbor, the one we play cards with, since Mike is an engineer and has an instinct for fixing things.

The happy ending is that Mike and Ray were able to locate the source of the leak. One of the hoses purchased a month ago was defective and in less than an hour Ray made the trip to Danville to exchange the hose for a new one. I had to offer a little help to attach the new hose but last evening Ray finished mowing the front lawn and today the back lawn. A happy ending to a frustrating few days.

Checking all the connections to find the nasty leak.

Today we met Pat and Max Walker for lunch and then went geocaching in an area west of Mooresville. We stopped at four sites that I had picked out and we found the hidden cache in each place. Ray was without a doubt the best as he found three caches and I found the last one.

This find was located about 20 ft into a wooded area behind a cemetery.
The clue indicated a 4x4x4 box.

Here's the camouflaged Lock 'n Lock box in its hiding place.

Our last find of the day is the smallest container of the day.

With each find, we signed our names and didn't add anything and take anything. A fun activity on a warm, sunny day!

Memorial Day 2014

We've had a quiet but active weekend. The active part included doing lots of weeding around various landscape plantings and also spraying with weed killer in other areas. Also found time to get in a long run on Sunday after church at a park in Mooresville. This was the first time to run the trails at Pioneer Park and I probably will go back again. One lap around the perimeter is nearly three miles.

Unfortunately, Ray had a mishap with the tractor yesterday. He was mowing and had made good progress when he noted hydraulic fluid leaking. You may remember that several weeks ago he replaced two hoses with success. For some unknown reason, something caused a leak. As he was assessing the problem, one of the copper washers dropped and has yet to be found. In the end, three different washers have slipped away. Since we don't think they landed in the grass and probably just landed on top of the mower deck, this has been very frustrating. Being a holiday, we were unable to purchase replacement washers and our tractor is sitting idle and the grass is growing.

I planted several cucumber plants last Friday and kale and milk weed seeds too. The milk weed plants are to entice Monarch butterflies. Should be an interesting experiment.

The strawberry plants are looking good with lots of green berries. I did find a few ripe berries yesterday. A real treat!

Just enough for strawberry shortcake!

The Pacers are playing the 4th game in the division championship against Miami and I'm not sure if they can win in Miami. I hope they can come back to Indianapolis tied with Miami at 2 and 2.

Enjoying May

Where shall I begin? The first thought that comes to mind is the Pacers' win over the Miami Heat this afternoon. A great beginning to this series. The first two playoff series had fans mystified as to what team would show up. I listened to part of the game while working on the patio. I also took a photo of a spiderwort plant that's looking good right now. When it gets hot and dry, it's definitely not pretty.

Spiderwort with Coral Bells in front (a little damaged from all the rain)

Last Friday afternoon/evening we drove to Evansville so I could run a 5K to qualify for next summer's National Senior Games. I was the only woman in my age division and I can say with confidence that I qualified! The race was held in a local park but when we arrived we immediately noticed the number of broken tree limbs and several fallen trees. We learned that on the previous Friday a severe wind storm did all the damage with 77 mph winds.





We returned home about 11 p.m. and didn't get to sleep late yesterday (Saturday) morning since I was planning to help with quilt knotting at church and then at 1 p.m. attend a Hat Tea with a friend at another church. The tea was interesting with a light luncheon and lots of hats. Most everyone wore a hat and several people told stories about their hat. At least one woman admitted to having more than 50 hats. The granddaughter of one of the women (who wasn't able to be there) modeled some of her grandmother's hats even though she herself wasn't a hat person. She indicated that her grandmother probably had 200 hats. I wonder where she keeps them all. Sorry, but I didn't take any pictures.

Several days ago during the rainy spell we had a second hailstorm in almost as many days. The small pea-sized hail didn't do any damage but is always a surprise when it happens.



Last Sunday we were invited to Joe and Nancy's house for a cook-out on Mother's Day.



Our three generation photo:



It's great when a Do-it-Yourself project is successful. About two weeks ago Ray decided to order new tires for the front wheels of our Kubota tractor. As you can see in this photo the tires hardly had any tread left.



Lots more tread on the new tire:



I think I've covered the major events of the past two weeks, but now it's time to get to bed so I can get on with the rest of this week.