Author: peterb51

13th June 2026

Hello Winnie here, time for an update for the one reader of this blog.

I’ve lived here for seven months, so it’s time I bring you up to speed.

I think I’ve made my mark here, I can get the old guy to do most things for me. Every morning I jump on the bed with a ball in my mouth and use the soulful eye trick, and it works every time.

He reluctantly gets out of bed and starts kicking the balls about, and quite frankly he is useless. The number of times the ball goes under the sofa, or bookcase. No wonder when the English footballers play in an international match they always have a return ticket. But he tries, poor sod. After half an hour he makes the excuse that he needs to sit down, or start breakfast.

The one thing he is good at, and that is getting my food. I’m sure he gives me more than Phoebe gets which suits me just fine. Oh by the way, she still  doesn’t like me very much. Although I just want to play, she just doesn’t join in, miserable old fool.

I do like to play tug with the old fella, several of the balls are punctured so I can grip them in my mouth, on a side note, I have a wonderful set of teeth, I got rid of those baby ones, now they are fine specimens.

Anyway I play tug with one of these deflated balls gripped in my jaws, and I offer it to the old chap. There is just enough of the ball showing for him to grasp hold of. Okay I get a little enthusiastic and try to grab more, and in the process bite into something a little softer, this makes the old git make a noise, and he lets go of the ball. In those brief moments it’s a nice taste, I could get used to that.

That is about the time when he says, “that’s enough, time to rest” then he goes over to the sink to wash some red stuff off.

That is my clue to look all cute again.

I often lay down and think “ should I start chewing his legs and work up, or suck his eyeballs out and work down?”

In the meantime I’ll just take one bite at a time.

12th June 2026

Finally finished the two dressers, they are not really fine examples of contemporary furniture, but they would fulfil a need.

I started making the new parts for the desk pedestals. I got some oak scrap from John on Tuesday, enough to make the legs, so there was planing, shaping and grooving to do.

I got an update from Randy on the upholstery for the love seat and sofa. He had a couple of weeks sick that put him back a bit, but hopefully I’ll see him on Sunday to view progress.

It looks like the people that were renting Larry’s old house have moved out. I thought they were staying there until they found permanent living accommodation, but no,they weren’t there even a month.

Over the past couple of days the storms have left their mark, there have been trees uprooted or snapped in half. The sound of the tree kashers echoed around the neighbourhood.

11th June 2026

It was the monthly visit to Kelli’s kinesiologist.

It was positive, and even more so when he took her off four supplements. 

I not sure where I stand on supplements, I know a lot of foods we eat are not nutritional, here in America they seemed to be taken by everyone. This says a lot about the state of their health.

I’m happy that Kelli’s journey is showing progress, getting her liver strong again has taken time, but as it’s an important organ, it’s great.

We finally got our internet back, with thanks to my wife and an Indian guy from Comcast’s advanced technology team. 

She was persistent on the phone sometimes on hold for an hour while the inefficient customer service people struggled to understand and appreciate the urgency. This guy managed to reboot our router remotely, that’s a scary thought that our appliances can be controlled anywhere in the world. But it’s fixed now and we can go about our daily life.

We managed to get two dressers painted, and ready to post at the weekend, it’s been a slow start to the month.

I knocked apart one of the desk pedestals that we acquired last week. The ply in the side panels was completely blown. It is now in pieces ready for repair and reassembly.

A heavy storm was expected in the late evening. And at 8.30pm the tornado alert was sounded.

The rains and the winds were heavy, but we avoided much of the destruction that usually occurs.

10th June 2026 

Day 4 without internet. Someone was supposed to visit from 4.00pm to 6.00pm to fix it, but they never arrived, this is really starting to piss me off.

I can use the hot spot on Kelli’s phone but that is slow and not always switched on.

I drove to Elaine’s house to help move her caravan from the garage to the barn. By the time I got there her stepson Chris had done most of the work, so basically I was wasting my time.

Thankfully I had plenty of sanding to do at home. I don’t know how I would fill my time without sanding.

It was a hot and humid day, just right for sanding, I love it.

We had a splash around in the pool, the bigger size makes a big difference. I was able to add to my already red legs, now they are bright red, but surprisingly they are not sore. 

I read that after seventy there are no nerves in the legs, so they can burn to a crisp and you cannot feel it, I’m not sure who said it, sound like rubbish to me.

9th June 2026

Another humid day without internet. How can this be normal? This is America, a country on the cutting edge, except getting us back on the internet.

Kelli was going to make a call, hopefully one that will send shivers down the spine of our service provider.

I on the other hand headed down to meet John the wood for another day of  special projects.

He was waiting for me with another piece of tree to transport to the barn.

I’m not sure what he plans to do with them, but I’m sure he has a plan.

There was a note pinned to his door, it was another John who wanted to purchase some timber. I called him on the number he left, it was easier than listening to the awkward conversation they might have, but I did ask him first. 

After explaining who I was, and that I was speaking on John’s behalf we arranged a meet the following Tuesday.

We did more finishing coats to the table and under structure and left it out to dry. The humidity in the air slowed the drying.

We got on to the next topic, the saw mill.

I needed confirmation that we had to remove the pump from the assembly John had received a year ago. The best way to do that was to call Wood Mizer myself.

There I spoke to Bob, who knew John, I explained the situation and after a general chat about who I was and what I was trying to do, he agreed that I had to remove the old pump and replace it with the new, so that might be next weeks project.

I’m glad I did it, poor John isn’t really capable of having a detailed conversation, it’s hard when it’s face to face, and I wish I could do more for him.

I have done some research into the causes of dementia, and there is so much conflicting information and confusion.

I might go into a more detailed rant another time, but the belief that cholesterol is bad is totally wrong, reducing it is bad for our bodies, it is what our brains are made of, so trying to starve our brains of it destroys it. 

I think the medication that John is on is doing just that, and I intend to find out.

In the meantime, stop using seed oils, enjoy dairy your cholesterol will thank you.

8th June 2026

Day 2 without internet, what a bloody shambles, if it wasn’t for the hot spot on Kelli’s phone we couldn’t communicate at all.

It just goes to show how dependent we are on all this crap, the effin’ witchcraft we have all been sucked into makes things more convenient, it but it doesn’t make life better.

What does make life better is shopping. Well I had to say that because it was food shopping day. We did our usual run, we left Winnie at home, this was a test to see how she copes with longer periods of time on her own. 

We had additional places to go, the UPS store is a regular and I had to pay my US phone bill.

Getting back home I went straight out into the garage to get two of the dressers finished and ready for Kelli to paint.

I rebuilt three broken drawer boxes for one dresser and completed the rebuild of the skinny one.

It was so humid today, by the end I was drained of energy, requiring a decent amount of water to rehydrate 

7th June 2026

I was getting prepared for my video call with Tim Wallace.

I had been watching YouTube on my phone whilst I was washing up the breakfast stuff, so I was shocked when I could not connect with him.

My phone showed “ no internet connection”.

Normally a quick reboot of the router would solve this problem, but not this time.

I was puzzled, I decided the only thing left to do was engage the emergency protocol which is running around in circles shouting “We are doomed!” I was panicking a bit, connecting to the internet is vital in paying bills, buying stuff and keeping in contact with people.

“Was it just me?” I thought, “Kelli doesn’t seem to have any problem, is it just my iPhone?”

My head was scrambling with questions.

I checked my American phone, that too was not connected to the internet, so it must be all of us.

I checked with Kelli, sure enough she was not connected either. 

She then put a call into the service provider.

After hanging on for an age, she got through.

They checked the connection to the house, that was okay, they kept looking, but found nothing at there end.

The end result was an engineer would have to call to check the connection this end.

That wrecked part of the day, but it was hot enough to float in the pool.

The climate altering bastards were weaving their threads across the sky. I watched them go in one direction then the next, all around the sun, the rest of the shy was left blue. After a while the sun was covered in a white haze that lasted most of the afternoon. Yet there are many people that aren’t convinced.

More should spend a bit of time looking with their own eyes, not listening to what others say, just look and watch, see the sun get shrouded stopping us from filtering the vitamin D we need to stay healthy. Why would they do that?

6th June 2026

Well somethings happen for a reason, well that is what I believe, but when it does, I can’t help to get pissed off about it.

We were thirty minutes away from having our test drive, we both were looking forward to it.

Kelli received a message from the lady selling the car to tell us that a nephew had shown an interesting it, and that he had a “sentimental“ attachment to it. This of course scuttled our plans, but we remained philosophical about the situation, and moved on.

To lighten the blow we went to Nature’s Market instead.

Earlier, we had a pleasant float in the pool. Kelli had bought a couple of new floats which after an effort to inflate them decided that they were not what we wanted. These were inflated pieces held together by adjustable straps. The aim was to get the correct fit before you drowned.

You can’t beat a good reliable float where you just lie, and roast lightly in the sun.

5th June 2026

Rain was expected today. it had been a while since we had a soak, and whilst I should have been happy that the garden would get watered, it messed up my plans for woodwork. 

We had planned to take the MX5 for a test drive, but not in the rain, but we also were picking up an old desk from the same place.

We agreed to do the desk today and the test drive tomorrow. 

I tried to convince Kelli not to bother with the desk as there was water damage, and it would require a lot of work to get it suitable to sell. 

She argued that we get a good price for matching side tables, so against my better judgment we loaded it into the truck.

Once we got home I wasted no time in stripping it down, I had to, there was little room in the garage. I first hosed everything down with water, before I touched it. 

I just managed to take it all apart before it started raining again, but it did allow me to see the condition on the piece. All the plywood side and back panels will need replacing, and I will have to make a leg because in the desk configuration there were only three on each pedestal. All this added up to a decent amount of work, but at least it was in pieces so I could load it in a cart and store it.

I waited until the rain stopped, I had other jobs to do so that Kelli had things to work on. I did remind her that I was at the limit of my anxiety, with all this product that I had to work on, I was close to panic.

During a break in the weather I calmly pulled out the two pieces that required work. The drawer sides on one dresser, and the total rebuild of the other.

I kept going even though it rained again, but again fierce opposition I managed to complete my tasks.

Then it was a brisk walk with the dogs, resisting the constant pulling of Winnie who seems to get stronger every day, or, I’m getting weaker.

4th June 2026

I decided to tackle a narrow dresser that I picked up at the Byron Center a couple of weeks ago.

I believed that it needed a back panel and a good sanding  ready for paint, but when I looked closer it was a pile of crap.

I was not happy just to fit a plywood panel on the back, so I made a decision to strip it down and rebuild it properly.

Fortunately the drawers were in good shape although the handles were a bit ugly.

Once I started to take it apart it looked a bit homemade, the drawer runners were chipboard as was most of the carcase.

I removed all those and replaced them with some oak strips. I laid up some oak offcuts that I got from John’s scrap box to make a new top.

Kelli reminded me that we wouldn’t get much for it, but I would not have been happy just to do a bodge job.

I managed to get both side panels done, then I had to rush into town to meet up with Lloyd for our beer tasting session, it has been a while, so it was good to get back into the old routine.