I HAVE NEVER MADE THIS MISTAKE....'YET'

With not even a hint of wind in the air it made this morning's 35F at least doable as long as I had myself dressed warm enough.  And I was.  And so too was Pheebs with her partially shed furry winter coat.  Not a shred of sunlight anywhere but at least it wasn't raining or snowing.  So nice to be out on the quiet country roads again.

 A VERY LONG TELEPHOTO LENS SHOT

 PHEEBS TAKES A BREAK FROM HER NAVIGATIONAL DUTIES

Home again I checked the 14-day weather forecast and saw that future nighttime temperatures were all safely above freezing.  That told me it would be okay to turn our outside water on for the season.  This task becomes more difficult for me with each passing year and I'd been mulling around in my mind just how I was going to do this for the past month or so because of my hip.  To do this job I have to lift a heavy trapdoor in our front deck and then rather unceremoniously lower myself down into a very cramped space onto my knees.  From here I have to twist and stretch my body around until I am flat on my stomach on the ground.  From there I inch myself forward through a narrow opening under our house.  And, it seems that opening somehow becomes a tad smaller every year.  Or, is it because I seem to become a tad larger every year??  Now, while in this stomach position, I have to reach over to my right and turn a red valve to the right which closes a drain line.  Then, I have to scrunch and roll to the right and onto my back.  From here I reach to my upper right and locate another red valve on a different drain pipe.  I also turn this to the right to close it.  If I forget to close either one or both of these valves, when I turn on the main valve for the outside water I will be instantly drenched.  Surprisingly, in over 20 years of doing this I have never made this mistake.....'yet'.  Now, kinda half rolling onto my left side I reach back with my right arm and locate another red valve on an aluminum-wrapped main water pipe and turn this valve to the left....'Walla', the outside water is on.  Now comes the hardest part.  I have to very carefully extract myself from this totally prone position underneath our unit, bend and twist myself into a sitting position, then kneeling, begin my attempt to stand up through the trap door hole in the deck.  All this while being very conscious of where my right leg and hip are and where I am going to have to place my leg next.  I had pre-positioned a couple of footstools close to the hole so that I could lean on them and then leverage myself back up onto my feet.  I had my cane close by for back up just in case.  Happy to say everything went off without a hitch just as I thought it should as long as I thought things out, moved slowly, and didn't try to do anything stupid.  Doing stupid things can sometimes be quite normal for me.  I didn't tell Kelly I was going to do this because she might have scuttled the mission.  I won't have to reverse this annual procedure until late October or early November when I will have to go down there again to turn the outside water off for the winter.  And, no doubt that small rectangle opening under our unit will once again have shrunk even more!!

 DOWN I GO INTO THE HOLE AND NO I DO NOT HAVE MY SWEAT PANTS ON BACKWARD

IT'S A TIGHT FIT UNDER HERE

 MY MAIN OBJECTIVE IS TO TURN THE WATER ON WITH THAT RED VALVE ATOP THE ALUMINUM-WRAPPED MAIN WATER PIPE AND YOU CAN SEE THE RIGHT SIDE DRAIN TAP TOO

 GOTTA TURN THAT RIGHT SIDE DRAIN TAP TO THE RIGHT TO PREVENT WATER FROM FLYING OUT OF THERE WHEN I TURN THE MAIN WATER ON

 THE OTHER DRAIN TAP ON MY LEFT-HAND SIDE HAD TO BE TURNED OFF TOO

 OKAY, I JUST HAVE TO REACH OVER AND TURN THAT MAIN WATER TAP TO THE LEFT

 I COULDN'T CONFIGURE MYSELF TO TURN THE VALVE AND TAKE A PICTURE AT THE SAME TIME

NONE THE WORSE FOR WEAR I BEGIN TO PULL MYSELF UP OUT OF THE HOLE AND ONTO THE DECK AND YES I'M GETTING A HAIRCUT THIS COMING WEDNESDAY

 I BET THAT SMALL RETANGLE OPENING WILL BE EVEN SMALLER WHEN I'LL BE BACK HERE TO TURN THE WATER OFF IN THE FALL

I finished Lucy Maude Montgomery's autobiography entitled, The Alpine Path.  A very enlightening book and it would be an inspirational read for burgeoning writers.  It was certainly not an easy road for her trying to get any of her literary works published and it was only by sheer determination and not allowing all the consistent rejects of her works to beat her down that after years of struggle she finally persevered and eventually found success.  Now, I don't think of myself as a writer as much as I consider myself a simple blogger.  But, I do like this line that Lucy Maude Montgomery wrote of herself when she said, "If the love of writing is bred in your bones, you will be practically non-squelchable."  In my blogging ways, non-squelch-able equates to 'you will be a Mr. Blabberfingers'.  So yes, I do see a comparison there.  And here's another chuckle I had when I found out I had something else in common with Lucy Maude Montgomery.  In her later married years, she and her husband journeyed to Scotland.  They traveled about visiting various places and here is what she writes about a place they visited called Iona.  She writes......"I would have liked to have spent several days in Iona, prowling by myself around its haunted ruins and getting acquainted with its quaint inhabitants.  There is really little pleasure in a hurried scramble around such places in the midst of a chattering, exclaiming mob of tourists.  For me, at least, solitude is necessary to real enjoyment of such places.  I must be alone, or with a few kindred souls before I can dream and muse, and bring back to life the men and women who once dwelt there and made the places famous"...... Now, as long-time blog readers may remember, I have complained, whined, and ranted about different places we have been in our travels where there were just toooooo many noisy people milling about all over the place for my liking.  Yes, yes, I know...who did I think I was wanting to have the place all to my quiet self!!  When I read Lucy Maude Montgomery's words I was instantly reminded of one of those many times I had myself in quite a fluster because of all the noisy tourists.  It was February 19th, 2014 and we were at Arizona's Montezuma Well.  Here is my post for that day.  My Patience Runs Out At Montezuma's Well.

 MONTEZUMA WELL

Below is a photo I forgot to include in my Saturday post.  Kelly's daughter had bought Kelly several things for her birthday, one of them being a purse.

Al's Music Box:)) Mr. Bo Jangles by Sammy Davis Junior.  This is a song written and originally recorded by American country music artist Jerry Jeff Walker who said he was inspired to write the song after an encounter with a street performer in a New Orleans jail.  While in jail for public intoxication in 1965, he met a homeless man who called himself "Mr. Bojangles" to conceal his true identity from the police. Mr. Bojangles had been arrested as part of a police sweep of indigent people that was carried out following a high-profile murder. The two men and others in the cell chatted about all manner of things, but when Mr. Bojangles told a story about his performing dog who was killed by a car, the mood in the room turned heavy. Someone else in the cell asked for something to lighten the mood, and Mr. Bojangles obliged with a tap dance.  The homeless "Mr. Bojangles", who was white, had taken his pseudonym from Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson (1878–1949), a black entertainer.  The song became one of Samy Davis Jr.s signature performances, which he recorded for his 1972 album Portrait of Sammy Davis Jr. and sang at President Richard Nixon's invitation at a concert at the White House the following year.  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band did a version of Mr. Bo Jangles as well.

GROANER'S CORNER:((  A boy is writing a paper on childbirth and asks his parents, How was I born?  His mother awkwardly answers the stork brought you.  Oh, says the boy. Well, how were you and Daddy born?  Oh, the stork brought us, too, and Grandpa and Grandma.  The boy begins his paper, This report has been very difficult to write due to the fact that there hasn't been a natural childbirth in my family for three generations.

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- Being an adult is a little out of my price range right now.

- I do this cute thing where I stay up all night and feel like death in the morning.

- Two hours of cooking just to eat in 10 minutes and now I have to wash everything.

- Apparently staying to yourself and not bothering people....bothers people.

- My ducks are absolutely not in a row.  I don't even know where some of them are and I'm pretty sure one of them is a pigeon.

- About 4 minutes into my run I've decided I want to work on my personality instead.

- I'm so glad I learned about hexagons in school instead of how to do my taxes.  It's really handy in hexagon season.

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