Author: peterb51

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 54

10th May 2020

It was a wonderful brunch, I had a large slice of the vegan quiche which Kelli had made the evening before. Using the JustEgg, it is indistinguishable from one made from the real thing. Anyway my tummy was satisfied, so we set about doing jobs in the garage.

I had my usual task of trying to make a coffee table top look interesting, not an easy task when the wood is so bland.

Kelli was working on a headboard and footboard, and in between she was painting the dresser we were getting ready for Cameron.

The weather was shit, so there was not an appetite to do anything outside, but as it was Mother’s day we had to drive up to Kelli’s mum to drop off a card and a pot of flowers. It would save a lot of time if we got her dead ones, as their chances of survival are pretty slim.

We went off to Menards to pick up some mulch and top soil for the garden.

We have started to watch Gardeners World and it has excited our desire to make the garden into something more colourful.

Plants develop later here than the UK as was proven by the pictures my sister had sent me of her garden in full bloom. Although mulch will not bring colour, it will bring order and a bit of weed control to our patch.

Kelli gets excited when she sees anything spring out of the ground even if it is a weed.

I rescued a baby sparrow that we had noticed floundering about earlier. Kelli had tried to catch but couldn’t, so as it had taken shelter under the holly bush we thought it would be safe from the dogs.

I noticed Phoebe was playing with something outside, and to my horror is saw it was the little bird. I rushed out, scaring the dog away and grabbed the tiny, wet, bedraggled thing.

I called to Kelli, and she appeared with a cardboard box with a towel inside. We placed the little critter in the box, whilst Kelli called to see who could help.

Eventually the little bird was put in the care of Matt, Kelli’s brother who has as good track record of keeping chicks alive, so we get constant update of its progress.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 53

9th May 2020

The front door bell rang, “who’s that?” We both said as we sat in bed checking our phones.

I threw off the bedclothes, struggled into some clothes, putting on a hat to cover my shark fin hair, and rushed to the door.

It was Don, a family friend and confirmed flounder of the quarantine rules, he had brought round an old dining table that had come from the dumpster at his Locksmith company.

He had mentioned it to Kelli a day or so ago, and we had plans to pick it up ourselves, but he beat us to it.

I helped move it out of his trailer and leant it against our wall.

It wasn’t in bad condition, and with a few hours work could look good.

We had the buyers of the pair of dressers coming to collect at around 1.00pm. I finished waxing the top when I noticed there was a drawer runner missing from the top position.

I flew into panic mode. I had 30 minutes to make and fit it.

Scratching around for bits of suitable wood, I worked furiously to fashion something that would work. Miraculously everything went well, and it worked first time, that does not happen often.

I rubbed a generous amount of wax into the runners to make the dressers move smoothly, a feature that come up often as an inquiry.

Fortunately they loved them, and loaded them on to their truck, and drove off back to Grand Haven.

I had been having trouble tracking down a subscription to BritBox that I had cancelled a long time ago, but I noticed that a payment was still coming out of my account.

I had contacted BritBox US and they noted that my account had been cancelled, they suggested I contact Amazon in case I had set it up with them.

I contacted Amazon, they couldn’t find any record of a subscription either, so I was stuck.

Whilst contemplating my dilemma, I tried to access my BritBox account using another email address that I had, and to my amazement it worked.

This must have been the one I set up last November, that I couldn’t get to work properly.

So now I knew, it was all my fault.

I composed an email and sent it off to BritBox explaining the situation, and requesting the subscription to be cancelled.

In the meantime, I was playing around on our television, when I thought about trying to get BritBox to work on it. With the aid of my wife who gave useful advice we managed to get it to work, so we were able to watch some British TV shows at last.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if they read my email, and cancelled my account” I mused.

Well that’s precisely what happened. This morning I received a reply saying that they had cancelled it.

“ Well you need to reinstate it again, after all the trouble we had getting it to work” said Kelli.

Fortunately in the email was an option to reinstate everything, probably know as the “Dick head” option, Yep! I know what that means.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 52

8th May 2020

Kelli was eagerly awaiting the delivery from Imperfect Foods, and things were running late.

She normally gets tracking information mid-week as our expected day was Thursday.

We kept looking for the FedEx truck to reverse up the driveway, but it wasn’t happening.

Therefore breakfast was just cereal, this morning.

The one positive message was her box of JustEgg was in, and ready for collection. Because the product is so good and so difficult to find, she had decided to buy in bulk.

She was so happy, it made up a little of the disappointment of our other non delivery.

My main job of the day was fitting the screen door.

I made the necessary adjustments to the height and width so that it fitted into the frame.

The hinges were spring loaded types that ensured the door was always closed, no excuse for me to leave it open.

Every went well except the quality of the door. The corner joints were not strong enough to ensure squareness when it was hung. Someone must have known that the design would not work.

I bet the company that made the bloody thing must have the name One Hung Lu, he certainly would, if I got hold of him.

To overcome the problem I would need a some steel corner brackets, so as we had to go out to collect a dresser from Hudsonville I could get some whilst we were out.

This did the trick, now there is a fully functioning screen door that I keep forgetting is there. The hinge spring strength is like trying to set a mouse trap. When it closes there is a loud “Snap!” That I’m sure will get on my nerves, so I will have to wedge it open.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 51

7th May 2020

“We need a screen door between the garage and the entry way so I can listen to music when I’m working in the garage” requested Kelli.

(Under my breath)that doesn’t happen very often, “yes that sounds like a good idea” was my reply.

“Also when you leave the door open all the time the dogs won’t be able to escape and get run over”

She made a convincing argument, it is one of my few failings. I tend to leave drawers and doors open, and Kelli can trace my movements by these signs.

In my defence, the door from the entry way into the garage does not close that well, and when I’m in a bit of a hurry it stays ajar, and she makes a point when she closes it.

We went out to do a few errands, and I needed more polyurethane, so whilst we were in Menards we looked around at screen doors.

The first ones we looked at were some cheap wooden ones, that were a heap of crap, it was China’s finest doors designed to wrap round a corner, or at least the one we had selected was. We decided to have the premiere version, hand crafted from the finest timbers from the land of the orient. It was better made, but up there with “we could have made it better, but it’s going to America, so we don’t give a fig”

We got a pair of spring loaded hinges so we were set.

During this pandemic, face masks are strictly enforced in stores like Menards, and we are now used to it. Kelli has a girly one and I have a Union Jack neck thing that I pull up over my nose and mouth.

The majority of people stick to the rules, and you get used to wearing them, but I didn’t know how much a mask can restrict your breathing until I climbed the stairs to get the screen door that were stored up on a mezzanine. By the time I got to the top I was gasping for air, for me it was like attempting to climb Everest.

My mask was all clammy, and nasty, I looked forward to taking it off and wringing out the liquid.

Kelli sprinkled some wild flower seed on our new piece of mud, she threw so much down I thought she was sowing grass.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 50

5th May 2020

Well this blog has been going as long as Anne Boleyn was Queen of England, so keeping in the tradition I will continue to put my neck on the block and await the sting of a blunt axe.

I eagerly wanted to try my new 125 foot hose pipe. I had bought some moss killer for the front lawn. I cut the plastic straps and prepared to unravel the tightly coiled hose. There was no pent up tension of the hose wanting to be straight after months of being tightly coiled on its journey from China. It just lay there taunting me. I attempted to unravel it. I would have better luck trying to straightening a metal pipe. I stretched it across the lawn, it resembled a giant spring, but I managed to connected it to the moss killer container to spray the infected area.

Afterwards I attempted to coil the hose back up, and although the coils would have made it easier, my arms were not long enough, or strong enough to hold it. In the end I just shoved it over the fence, I’ll have another go tomorrow.

Kelli was in a good mood, her money from the government turned up, she couldn’t wait to deposit into her bank. She had been struggling to find out where it was as most other people we knew had already got theirs.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 49

4th May 2020

It was an exciting day at the homestead. Today after depositing over two thousand turds into our dog composter we were getting it sucked out. “You haven’t just worked that out have you?” Kelli remarked disgustingly.

Well you have to know these things, as we have been feeding the little darlings, they have been laying things on the lawn, so yes, it’s relatively easy to work out.

The man with the pump was quite amused, as this was his first dog inspired septic tank clear out. He laid out his large pipes, and I heard the lorry engine strain as it attempted to remove the muck. “It’s no good I will have to connect the hose to help move the material” the man said. I kept thinking that social distancing for him is the norm, after all who would want to stand next to a man who sucks shit up all day.

The hose certainly helped, not only did he remove the offending material he remove a lot of soil as well. With the extra depth in our pit we should get three thousand turds next year.

We took round the new top frame for the arbor, this went well, and soon it was all fitted, and the lady could now train her vines to grow round this fine new structure.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 48

3rd May Sunday

I was all set to assemble the arbor, everything was strapped on the top of the truck. The customer wasn’t around till after five. So we worked in the garage sanding a dresser top and a bit of gardening. The weather was good, although not hot, it was warm in the sun.

Kelli had decided that my hair needed a trim, she had watched a YouTube video, so now I was the experiment. Armed with scissors and a comb, with the video playing in the background, she took the first cut. It was the lesser of the two evils for me, it was much easier to go along with it that to defend my loopy shaggy style.

In no time there was clumps of hair all over the floor, I didn’t realise I had so much to spare. Clip, clip, clip it went on. Normally there is mindless chatter about holidays and sport, but not this time. I watched for the tell tell signs of horror on her face, but there were none, she had done a grand job.

We headed off to fit the arbor, we carried the sub-assemblies around to the site. I fitted the first of the end frames, and then I noticed that the main bridging section looked a bit short. I ran the tape measure across to raised bed and it was not the dimension I was given, it was ten and three-quarter inches short. I checked the paper the lady gave me, and sure enough I had made it exactly as instructed.

There was no way I could make it work as it was and my only option was to make a new bridge frame. We loaded up the tools and the incorrect woodwork and headed home. I had some timber at home I could use to make a new frame, but it was a bummer.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 47

2nd May 2020

We had a bit of a trek driving to Grand Haven, then on to Allandale, and finishing in Muskegon. Dropping off the bookcase was no problem, and the collection of the TV cabinet was easy too as it had wheels, so no staining of the greens on that one.

The Muskegon leg was a bit more dodgy. We ended up on a trailer park, which can be good, some of the mobile homes look well kept, and there are others that aren’t. This happened to be one of those. We were picking up a pair of side tables, so we tried to do this as quick as possible as the seller was not particularly good at social distancing and kept mentioning that he had artwork that I might be interested in. As I slid back into the truck I explained that it was only furniture we were there for, and Kelli hit the accelerator. We bathed ourselves in hand sanitiser as we do out of habit now and took the highway back to Holland.

We now have a shortage of room in the garage, so when we got back we cleaned out the shed and managed to get a few pieces of furniture stacked, including those side tables.

Our thinking was after a few weeks anything that might be alive on them would be dead.

As the lawn mower was out I thought it would be a good idea to cut the grass. I set off on a leisurely pace trimming the grass that Kelli had cut the week before. Then I came to the areas where she had adjusted the height, which was much taller than what I wanted the grass to be.

The pace slowed considerably when I entered this part of the garden. I wanted it to be a common height so I had to take a run at it. I was like a long jumper preparing to launch himself into the air. I hit the patch, grass cutting we’re going everywhere. I hit the fence and gasped for air. “This bloody lawnmower will be the death of me” I thought. Kelli would find my lifeless body covered in sweat and grass and think “maybe we should have got that rechargeable one instead”.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 46

1st May 2020

Well technically this is day one of my overstay on my visa. I am told that I am in the “system” and cannot leave until the process is over and I am granted residency. It still concerns me that although I originally sent my papers in during February, I have had them returned for various reasons, so I hope the advice I have been given is correct and I won’t get a knock at the door and bundled into a black van and never seen again.

Kelli has had many telephone conversations with someone from the USCIS and they have reassured her that I am safe.

Even with the latest Trump initiative to stop all immigrants, I should be fine as I am already in the country, so I must sit tight and not worry.

I put the finishing touches to the Arbor, and started on some of the repairs to the dressers that we bought yesterday.

Kelli finished the bookcase we got a couple of days ago, so that went on Marketplace before it got dark, and we got someone interested. Of course they wanted to offer less, which often we are prepared for, but this was lower than even we we prepared to go. Eventually we settled on a figure, but then realising the buyer lived in Grand Haven which was outside our free delivery zone. Fortunately for her we had to go to Allandale to collect a TV cabinet that Kelli had found, so it worked out good for all.

As I was tinkering about in the garage, Kelli announced, and I’m always ready for these, that we had to drive to the North side to pick up a dresser that “needed a bit of work”.

Off we drove, finding the place easily. From a distance it looked quite good with curved drawer fronts and elegant legs, but the top was beyond saving. Part of the veneer was missing meaning that it would have to be removed, not a five minute job.

Pete and Kelli’s social distance day 45

30th April 2020

Where has the week gone? We were sitting last night and both of us had missed a day, it was a shock to think that today is Thursday.

Kelli had done her wheeler dealer magic and secured a couple of dressers with mirrors, and a double bed frame for $50 a steal, unfortunately it was in Grand Rapids.

We also had the electricians in to run a new power line into the garage, but once they had finished we headed off.

There were two guys heavily masked clambering around the garage roof space shouting things to each other.

I had tried to clear up as much as possible but there were things I needed to work on.

After an hour and a half the new circuit was live and ready for use.

We were then ready for the drive to Grand Rapids.

We arrived at the address, all the pieces were in the garage, I wasn’t sure if we could get everything in the truck, but with careful stacking and delicate manipulation we got it all in. Sure there is a bit of repair work to do, but things have been a bit scarce lately and with the thrift stores being closed we have been forced to pay a bit more for our stock.

Kelli was convinced that she could sell the mirrors and bed frame off quickly, and get a good profit on the dressers.