Hill Billy Can Crusher!

I've been living out in the sticks far too long!

We, or rather I, collect aluminum cans because we can recycle them and get real money for our efforts.  The cans take up a lot of room unless they're crushed, and I wanted to max out what I could carry in the car to the recycling center.   I've been wanting to get a can crusher, but the few places around here that sold them, have since discontinued that item.

Then I went to a flea market two weeks ago, and saw one there, brand new, in the original box, for the sum total of $7.00 and DID NOT BUY IT!!!  (Duh!)  I had my eye, and money  focused on other stuff.  I did go on-line to see what I could find, and that $7.00 was cheap!!!  If I see it again, I'm grabbing it.  But in the mean time I did the next best thing...used the car to crush them on the driveway!    So of course this means...PICTURES!!!

I use bags that I get my sunflower seed in.  They're a woven, plasticized material, and quite sturdy.  This bag was very full, and even had some cans tin it that had already been crushed.

Then I spread the cans out on the ground behind the car.  I tried leaving them in the bag, but the car just pushed the bag around, and the cans did not get crushed.  Another better idea would be to try to put them in the paths of the wheels. 

After going back and forth about 4-6 times, this is what was left.  The few cans I missed, got crushed underfoot.  I did worry a bit about the aluminum cutting into a tire, but the metal is so soft, I figured I'd just chance it.  So far so good.  Notice the dog, in the upper right hand corner, staying cool.  She was no help during this at all.

This is how "full" the bag was after the cans were crushed and put back in.,  Lotsa room left!

Just another view, with the bag folded over, so you can see how much space was saved. 

I guess I could figure out that if I get 25 MPG in the car, and go less than l/8th mile, and gas today around here is $3.62/gallon...how many times could I do this and save that $7.00 cost of the crusher???

 Maybe I'm overthinking this whole thing! 

Cancer- good, bad, just plain ugly!

The husband of a friend of mine has lung cancer.  The only good thing I can say at this point is that it was supposedly small, and hopefully caught in plenty of time.   (The bad and the ugly views of cancer are legion.)  He was a smoker, but had quit a few years ago.  He is also a Viet Nam vet, so I don't think anyone could definitively answer where his cancer came from.  His wife has been sending weekly updates on his condition.  The results are startling, and scary. 

When we hear about someone undergoing chemo, and radiation, we probably shrug and think "Okay, he'll lose his hair, and he'll be nauseous, and then all will be well."  Hardly the case in this instance.   The waves of nausea, the chills, the weakness, the blood transfusions (make that numerous transfusions!), the endless ups and downs of his cell counts (white, red, etc.etc.), and other areas of concern are unbelievable.   

This has all been going on for weeks, probably more than a month or two if I were to really think about it, not just days.  And just when you hear that the radiation is over, and you assume all involved parties can breath a sigh of relief, they've been told that his type of cancer has a way of spreading to the brain, so he needs more prophylactic treatment to keep that from happening.

This couple is lucky in that they have very, very good health insurance, through their employer, and the US government (since he was a Purple heart veteran.) But how does one cope, when their own health insurance may have limitations on what they'll pay?  Lose their home?  Lose their savings?    Isn't it enough they're losing their minds with one crisis after another, without having to worry about who's paying for all this?

We're all hoping this has a happy outcome, although it's sure taking a long time to get there.  And let's also hope this is as close as the majority of us come to such devastating circumstances.   They are really bad and get even more ugly!

The buzzards were circling...

...while I was mowing the front pasture.  I had heard from other people that when a farmer is out haying, the vultures and hawks like to follow the tractor around to see what sort of varmints they'll scare up.  I can attest that on some occasions I have seen mice, rats, turtles, and a black rat snake.  The snake and turtles I relocated.  The rodents can fend for themselves.  Sometimes the dog followed me so she could get them, but it's been too hot for her to get excited about it.

Speaking of hot, it's also very dry.  We haven't had a good soaking rain in weeks or perhaps even a couple months?  I was talking to a friend of mine in Austin, Texas bemoaning the fact that it was so hot and dry.  While his temperatures were not that much above mine, he did say that they haven't had rain since last November, so that kinda shut me up!

The upside of my mowing was that the pasture looks nice and clean, and neat.  The downside is that the grass is very dry and if I put the horses back in there, I'll have an erosion problem if they pull it up by the roots and eat it.  Their own, other pasture, looks okay for now, but I didn't mow it totally before I moved them there.

At least I can say the buzzards were not circling for me!

For women (or quirky men) only!

Does the hair on your legs grow faster than the rest of your body?  Now you all know you don't always shave as often in the winter time as the summer, as you're wearing long pants more often than shorts or skirts.  But in the summer, there are so many more occasions for your legs to be seen, thus creating the need for extra shaving time.

I thought I just shaved two days ago, and yet, when taking my shower this morning, I saw stubble!  I'm not going any place where I might want to expose my legs, so I let it pass, but tomorrow may be a different story.   That being said, if my hair roots grew out as fast, I'd need to get a touch-up every two weeks or even more often.  Now I just get it touched up every couple months.  Of course my hair is now much more grey, so the color difference is not as noticeable, I suppose.

On the flip side, if my hair grew that fast, I could cut it short and if I didn't like it, wait a couple months, and it would be down to my shoulders again; not that it ever was down to my shoulders! 

Anybody know where I can get cheap electrolysis???

Craig's List...always something to chuckle about...

I started looking more seriously at things on Craig's List these past couple months.  I equate it to following eBay, except the stuff is local, so if I find something interesting, there are no shipping charges, and no fees, if I'm selling.  I have to say that I have never posted anything for sale on CL myself, although I have on eBay.

I do have to say that the people who use eBay seem to be a bit more sophisticated than the folks on CL.  Better descriptions,  better spelling, better grammar overall.  Today I had the chuckle of the week. 

A chair was listed as a "Chip and Dale" chair, not a "Chippendale" chair.  The chair was indeed Chippendale, had the proper legs, etc, but was probably not used by the infamous cartoon characters!    As I look at the ad again, the feet might be attributed more to Louie XIV, but NOT the chipmunks!  And did I mention, the sellers want $225 for it?

I'd bet it's hard to get serious buyers when the description is so flawed.

Joplin, as I saw it...

If you live in the United States and you have not heard about the tornado that went through Joplin, you've been living under a rock!  I finally went there today, to help somewhere as you need to go with a purpose, and worked with a gal who was serving free meals to anyone working on clean-up, etc, etc. 

As they say "Pictures cannot even tell the whole story" and they don't but I tried to take a few pictures that will help some of you to understand.   There were pictures I missed, and pictures that didn't turn out as I saw it, but here they are.  There has been some clean-up as it's been over a month already, but there is still so very much to do! 

Let me first show the food train that was established in the O'Reilly Auto Parts  parking lot.  We served people who stopped by to eat, and we took meals around to neighborhoods where there are people working, and people who refuse to leave their homes due to the potential of looting, etc, etc.

If you see the blue in the background, that's not a lake, it's a blue tarp on the roof of the house across the street.  This was on Rangeline and 14th.  The tornado seemed to run down 14th Street, and if you lived on one side, you were almost unscathed, if you lived on the other side, not so lucky!

While driving around we came upon a house that not only blew down, it burned!  Talk about adding insult to injury.  This appeared to be one of those old, brick, two-story, turn of the century houses, and now is less than a shell.

Further down that same street, this lot was cleaned off, but the washer and dryer were left.

This house was in fairly nice shape, except for the 2x6 (?) that was spiked through the porch roof!

There were signs all over for help, including  clean-up, roof repair, even counseling.  This was one of the more interesting, non-denominational signs I saw.

The clean-up will take months, the rebuilding will take years.  Now I can only imagine what the people of New Orleans went through after Katrina, and they're still trying to rebuild!

YUCK!!!

Found these gorgeous creatures on my tomatoes this morning!   Pulled the whole stem off, and threw it into the little tank that we're keeping a pair of small snapping turtles in.  They ate them with relish! 

They are "tomato hornworms" which metamorphose into (or would have) Sphinx moths.   And that's Dennis' hand.  I wouldn't get that close!  Snakes yes (go figure), caterpillars...NO!!!