Retrieval

Well, I drove over to RL's house today to pick up my Casita travel trailer. He repaired the mountings for the propane tanks, fixed the step below the door (looks better than new), repaired the door itself which had deformed hinges and wouldn't open and shut properly, and he removed the old twisted, rusted bumper and welded me a new one and painted it.

The new bumper!

I asked him what he wanted for all of that work, and he insisted that all he needed was five gallons of kerosene to use to clean his tools. DAWK!

Yeah, I know. I owe him.

He hammered out the step and rewelded it.

RL and my son discussing the music he was loaning to Andy. RL's wife's rebuilt VW Beetle in his garage (he's restored two of them).

Got the Casita home where it's supposed to be (at least when we're not using it). I did some work grinding rust spots off the tongue and repainting with black gloss rustoleum paint. Looks much, much better. All in all, I have to say that the Casita is in better shape now than before I had the minor bump-up that resulted in the stuck door.

Our beloved Casita is back home!

While I was at my wife's mom's place, I inspected the two big hemlock trees that are in her back yard, planted over thirty years ago by my wife's dad. He dug them up near North Mills River in the Pisgah National Forest. A forest naturalist recently told me that just about every single hemlock tree in the North Mills River vicinity is now dead. So old Frank did a favor to that little patch of genetic hemlock material by replanting these two trees. Mere saplings when he nabbed them, now more than forty feet tall.



"I am not without sins. There cannot be an airborne assault general who has no sins. I spit on popularity ratings. I live and serve as I see fit."--Alexander Lebed