Upcycling

Some people drop $20K on a fancy new side-by-side. The husband customized a $500 golf cart:

It has ATV tires that will traverse our rough terrain. The orange sign came from the dump. He hooked up the wagon from my John Deere tractor courtesy of the hitch we bought at Home Depot on date night. After I snapped this photo, he installed a gun rack and a fire extinguisher on it. He is all set to drive around the property shooting ground squirrels and putting out fires.

It may sound like I am making fun of this project, but I am not. He continually amazes me with his ability to create stuff like this. And I might have to re-upholster that seat after all.

***************

The Diva is having issues. It may be the transmission/transfer case (again) or it may be something else. I noticed the problem while driving around town yesterday and was able to reproduce it for the husband last night. (Truly, there is nothing worse than taking your car to a mechanic and having him tell you it’s not acting up for him.) At certain speeds and RPMs, the car jerks repeatedly like something is slipping. He said he will have to do some research and look at it. In the meantime, I can drive DD#1’s Acura. We have it here because it wasn’t practical for her to take to Alaska.

My preference would be to keep the BMW. It’s a diesel, it gets 40+ mpg, and it’s a station wagon. Thanks to the US government, it’s now a unicorn. However, I can’t keep driving a car whose transmission self-destructs every 70K miles or so. The odometer just turned over 140,000 miles. I’ve gotten my money’s worth out of that car, certainly, but I hate to give it up.

***************

Fire season has begun. We had some gusty winds on Sunday and that didn’t help. The road that I take to get to Spokane—it’s a shortcut so I don’t have to drive south to Missoula and then west on I-90—is closed because of a fire, currently at 5000 acres. Some of the fires in higher terrain may be lightning strikes that smoldered until the wind picked up. Too many, though, are caused by people doing stupid things.

The forecast is showing rain and cooler temps by Friday. Let’s hope.

***************

I’m going to spam everyone with garden pics, because we’re in the thick of it now. I harvested my first ripe tomatoes yesterday. I don’t think I’ve ever had tomatoes in July before. (Yes, it was the last day of July, but July nonetheless.) I should have plenty of Oregon Star paste tomatoes for sauce this year:

I have never been a fan of cherry tomatoes, but Elysian gave me a Blue Boar Berry plant last year and it has made the permanent rotation:

And Sarah brought this Zebra Ezel to the plant sale. It is a green-and-orange striped beefsteak variety:

This one is a bit on the acidic side and will be a nice addition to sauce.

There will be more pics to come. The broccoli and cabbage may have fallen prey to ground squirrels, but other crops are producing with abandon.