Trees And Other Things

Does anyone remember the children's song, John Brown's Baby? .We sang it in school.

I guess they thought we couldn't handle moldering and hangings. Or maybe it was just an Akron thing.

 

"JOHN BROWN"S BODY and fender shop"

 

Stopped by one body shop. Appointment for Monday. Not sure what exactly will happen then, but until I sign a paper I'm not obligated. They already mentioned labor for painting has gone up from $46/hr to $50/hr, and the ins. co. did NOT factor in 3 coat paint. Earliest they could start is end of July. If they say they can't reach an agreement with the ins. co., and I have to pay more, I'll tell them I'll get back to them. Depends on how much more.

Male bluebird showed up with TWO young ones in tow this afternoon. Couldn't get a good enough look to tell if the second one is male or female.

 

Oh, this may all work out just fine. I have a bad habit of trying to always think of the worst that can happen, so it doesn't catch me by surprise. Hoping someone with experience will point out things I haven't thought of, just like you have. Thank you.

The only negative reviews on this body shop are... "there are cheaper places." Maybe they don't try to negotiate very hard. Maybe the insurance company just made an innocent mistake about the paint. I'll find out Monday. Insurance premiums will go up because parts and labor are going up. It may all come out the same in the end anyway.

Sometimes I think it's not worth fixing. The dents may look better than mismatched paint on a whole fender. (There I go again.) This was the first place I tried. I'm willing to try another, now that I know what you're supposed to do.

 

Compared to #1, I believe #2 is a girl. Need to get a better look at the top of the tail. They are eating rehydrated freeze-dried mealworms—bring to a boil in water and let them sit for a while.

 

This is a perfect day, weather wise. I went over to cut the grass. The 2 new 12 week old chicks were in the chicken tractor, had been since brought them home and I locked them in last night. I fed the adult gang outside and went in to find one of the chicks walking around the barn. Of course I could not catch her. She is about half grown and has two legs! But I did not want to drive the loud machine past her so she might meet up with the cat or the meanie flock, in fear. I let her sister out to give her some comfort and decided to do the lawn tomorrow. Pretty sure it will still be there. and as long as there is room to get away, the two should be able to figure it out.
But I can't figure out how the chick got out. The doors were still locked. Renter taking a peak? Houdini?
Anyway to keep the thread of trees and things going,
Maybe 8 years ago, my friend gave me two catalpa tree seedlings. They are quite large now and have glorious bunches of flowers today that smell lovely. I wish they would last longer.
I don't do pics but here are some on a site:

https://www.bonanza.com/listings/No...MI19nqo5vM-AIV-ubjBx3bjwCyEAQYBCABEgICevD_BwE

 

Mary, I had to look up chicken tractor. They make something like that for goats and sheep. I thought only goats got out of pens mysteriously.



Those are beautiful blossoms on that catalpa tree.

There was a medium sized one in the back yard when I moved into this house. It grew fast and had long beans, but shot off at an angle. I think it was half of a forked tree at one time, and would never have straightened up, so I took it out. It was so long ago I don't remember if it had blossoms.

I would like to have a big watermelon colored crape myrtle, but they are slow growers.

 

Backtracking 2 weeks to Saturday (6/11/22) for the record

PC crashed about 9 am. Had to troubleshoot with only a 2" x 5" smartphone screen/keyboard. Long story short, recovery disk didn't work, everything I tried made things worse and finally crashed Windows.

Accidentally stumbled onto a help screen outside Windows with several options, all but one requiring a BIOS password, set by Dell. I never heard of such a thing before. Internet geeks said it's SUPPOSED to work that way so no one can get into your computer.

By midnight I was not in a good mood and chose the only option that didn't require that password---Reimage the pc back to factory settings. Everything worked fine then.

For 2 weeks I've been gradually getting things back to normal, in between putting out other fires. Just finished transferring a bunch of files from the pc at the farm yesterday. Almost there.

 

One day on the front porch steps was a business card from Daniel X, Background Investigator, CACI. Headquarters in Virginia. I didn't think anything of it. Just now looked on the back. In handwriting: "Visited 6/13/2022. Please call" I Googled the man. He looks to be in his 30s or older. Something else to think about.

I'm waiting on a return call from the insurance agency headquarters. They called Friday and I missed it because my phone had turned its own sound off. I'd like to hear what they have to say before going to the body shop. Afraid to put the phone in my pocket. It (the phone) called GC out of the blue one day. Another day it had typed 7 lines of gibberish ready to send as a text. If I set it to Lock Screen, sometimes it won't let me answer a call. So I unlocked it. I hate this phone.

 

Maybe get one of those phone cases that's like a wallet with a flap to cover the screen? My husband carries his phone in a type of "holster" case that fits on his belt. But then he always has to wear a belt.