Just Another Day

On Sunday I sharpened the cutters on my chainsaw. Or rather, my friend Butch sharpened them. He has a couple of chainsaw files of the correct size, and it took him about ten minutes to do the job. Then yesterday, Wednesday, I cut down the stump (see previous blog post if you're confused) of the tree that I had already cut up, and it was ten times easier going through the wood now that the cutters are sharp. What would have taken me at least ten minutes now took only about a half minute. Amazing! I can't wait to tackle that other tree. But it's so large that it will take two or three days to cut it down, working two or three hours per day. I'd get a professional to take it down if I had permission, but because they have to bring their truck into the yard, I'm not going to do that until I have permission. But if the tree gets any larger, I'll probably have to get the professionals involved. That's why I want to cut it down now.

It's 30°F now, but it's going to be 62° later today. And it's going to be sunny. So, it seems that it will be a nice day for lopping branches. But I know Nuria will want to trim some of the bushes in front of my house. I thought I had them trimmed back for the winter, but we've had enough warm weather the last few weeks that they've spouted new leaves and stems. They need another trim. Really, if it was just me living here, I would say screw it and put it off until next spring. But I know Nuria wants the house to look pretty on the outside, and I understand that.

I got my first delivery of heating oil for the winter. It cost $1290 for about 300 gallons. I'll have to buy another delivery in January. When I moved into this house in 2003, I paid about $140 for the same amount of oil. Back then, the cost was about $1.50 per gallon. The price of oil has doubled since then. But everything goes up in price. I guess it's the nature of our economy.

My car is 27 years old. It was 3 years old when I bought it. I tend to stick with things I buy until they break. But it would be cool to have one of those new electric cars. I've looked at some YouTube videos of some electric cars. Last night I checked out the Chevy Bolt. It's not as pretty as the Tesla, and doesn't have all the features of a Tesla, but it's still impressive. And expensive, at almost $40K. My old Jeep still runs well. I don't feel any pressure to replace it soon. I drive it about 500 miles a year. Maybe less, now that Nuria has her car. I woke up one morning last week and there was a note from Nuria stuck on my computer screen. She had gotten up before me and had gone to Walmart to buy groceries. I almost did a little dance of joy. I hate going to Walmart for groceries. It's one of those necessary evils, though.

I don't really have anything to write about this morning. I'm at my computer. Nuria is sitting on the sofa doing something on her laptop. The house is very quiet. I can hear the refrigerator running. At 7AM, the morning news is coming on and the sky is lightening in the East. Sunrise will occur at 7:22AM today in my central Virginia city. I'm going to fix myself something to eat. Probably cereal. Yesterday morning, I heated a frozen sausage-egg-cheese biscuit. I don't eat cheese, so before I heated it, I opened the biscuit to remove the slice of cheese. I found some kind of debris on the cheese. It was about the size and shape of a fruit fly, but I couldn't tell for sure. It went into the garbage can and I heated the biscuit and it was tasty. 

On the TV weather, the weather-person just said that a warm-up is in store and it looks like it will last for the remainder of October. That sounds good to me. Less oil to burn and more good walking weather for Nuria. I hope you all have a good day. See you next time.