Gone to the dogs...and whatnot

 Well, sort of.

My neighbors on the top of the hill had a family vacation planned a while ago. They felt hesitant to ask me to care for their dogs while they were gone.

I've done this for them for the past few years. Their dogs are friendly, fun, and really quite easy to get along with. I enjoy my time taking them for a walk in the mornings and the afternoons. I don't mind feeding them and spending some time with them.

This is Tiyo. They adopted him in Africa and he is a mixed breed Baesenji which is a barkless dog. He does squeak when he is really excited.

Because of his thin coat, he loves hot summers, but doesn't care too much for rainy days or cold weather. 

However, he is a thoughtful dog who is pretty reserved but friendly once he gets to know you. He and I are pretty good pals.

He squeaks when he sees me.

Rupert is the classical mixed breed dog that is impossibly happy and exuberant all of the time. He literally bounces all of the time.

I did catch a shot of him being still. He seems to suffer from quite a few allergies, but that never seems to get him down. He just goes with the flow.

The gals are still grazing in their 'winter' pasture, but have started to eat a bit of hay. Apparently weeds are tastier in the fall?

This is the view of our place from my neighbor's woods at the end of their 5 acres. You can see their fence line in the shot below. We can't see each other's houses which makes it feel pretty isolated. Any other neighbors are at least 1/2 mile away.

The Whatnot...

Well, a friend of mine whose husband was also my husband's nurse is having their son's wedding at their farm on Saturday. I volunteered donate pumpkins from my pumpkin patch as well as help clean up the gardens. 

I actually had quite a bit of fun working at their place on Thursday.

I volunteered to come back on Friday and Saturday to help with setting things up for the wedding and my friend asked me to please bring my camera. Wink-wink.

I assume the groom and bride have a photographer so I would just be the one to get behind the scene candid shots as long as I am not interfering with a paid photographer.

My Grandson, Dennis, is coming in sometime Friday afternoon so we'll have some time together. 

Saturday morning Dennis is going fishing with Rich's fishing pal, Steve at 6am. I don't know how long they will be fishing, but I can always give Dennis the location I'm at and he can join me [after he does chores!].

I am absolutely thrilled to be helping my friends with such an important day in their lives and their son's life.

I texted my grandson and told him to bring a nice set of clothes as he may end up attending a wedding Saturday evening.

My Whatnot's can sure get interesting!

Neighbors

A lot of things happened over the weekend and I'll try and get into some of that later.

Hay.
My one source of hay for the winter miscalculated her inventory of round bales and at first I left it to Rich to do the 'hay' search. He has always been the negotiator and hay purchaser.
Over many years though, I've watched, listened and learned.

I called a gent we bought from last year. I figured he'd be out of hay too or it would be beyond my price range. I left a message and when Darrel called back we had a nice chat. I explained what was going on and that Rich had a major setback in his health.
In the end, I settled on some large square bales.
Darrel called me this morning.

He worked out a plan, he'd deliver and if it was okay, ...he'd use our skid steer to stack the hay in the shed.
[Rich has always taken the hay off from Darrell's trailer and stacked it.]
He'd even would deliver our neighbor's hay and stack it in our shed since they didn't have a good spot to put out of the weather.
I did remind Darrel that I always paid cash, but it was Sunday and the bank was closed.
He laughed and said, "I know you guys, you are good people."
In country speak that means", "I trust you.

Darrel came down with his huge truck and trailer and I had the skidsteer warmed up for him.

Darrel came in a talked with Rich for a little bit and then went out to move hay.
I finally walked out, Darrell came back with the skidsteer. He couldn't get the bucket to detach. The bucket wouldn't come off.
We tried once solution after another. Rich even dragged himself out to try it. He had to be helped out of the skid steer and I got him back inside...

No go.
Hmmm.
Darrell thought perhaps the fuse or relay for the Hydralulic Attachment thingy wasn't working properly. [thingy is MY term]. We searched the skidsteer up and down looking for the fuse box...thingy. Both of us stood out in the wind and tried using our smart phones to look it up too...to no avail.

We finally settled on Darrell knocking the hay off the trailer with the bucket and my neighbor could place it in the shed with his little tractor.

With that sorted out, Darrell parked the skidsteer back in the shed and I said goodbye and I'd drop off the money after Christmas.
I went in the house and dug around.

Rich always has manuals on our machinery. I found the manual for the New Holland L220...

A bit of candy, an apple and some sticky note paper and I was suddenly...studying a machinery manual.

And there I found it. The relay and fuse box thingy that would perhaps give me a clue as to ... well, something, right?

I had told Darrell that I could have someone come out and service it after the Holidays.
He had wrinkled his nose at that.

My cell phone rang while I was doing chores.
It was Darrell.

I answered with a bit of pride in my voice, "I found the fuse box, I found the manual!"
He asked if the fuse box was located by the left side near where the driver's calf would be.
"Yes!"
Then there was a pause and he said, "My goodness you are just like me. Got a problem and you just have to see if you can solve it..." he paused. "I got home myself and had to look it up."

We talked a bit and then Darrel said, "I'm probably going to take a drive tomorrow and stop by to check it out."
My turn to pause, "Darrel, it is Christmas Eve. It is a holiday."
"Huh. Well I'd like to see what I can do. I'm sure it is just a relay or fuse. It's probably very simple and I can learn something. Besides," he said, "you are a good neighbor and neighbors help neighbors, there just isn't enough of that going around these days. Besides, I don't want you to have to pay for a service call if it is an easy fix."

I told Rich about the phone call when I got in. I got a smile with a thumbs up.

I spent the rest of the afternoon actually reading the manual.

Yuck. I have never liked machinery, but I learned something today also.

Last point though. I wonder if neighbors are also those who live 10 miles away.

Well, back to the manual...

Look at that, I will be able to find the air filter!
Score one for me!
That is after I find the fuse thingy.