Recovery Process of a Friend

I stopped in on my friend who injured herself the other day, and she is doing very well. She did have medical, and in honour of that, it seems the doctors took extra precaution on treating her leg, and x-rayed her.

This seems logical, except that they carried the process to the inclusion of her heart and lungs ..... a natural concern when you trip and cut your leg, somehow........

They also did more logical processes like a tetanus shot, cleaning of the wound, and then they did dissolving stitches on the first layer before using 22 staples on the surface. Then they put her in a stovepipe style splint to prevent the knee bending for the next 2 weeks.

She isn't in pain, and amazingly enough, didn't tear the muscles, bled very little, and in general avoided anything resembling complications. - Blessings seem to prevail.

And now, over to the weather department:

We have been nice and sunny for the last few days, but nights are definitely dipping into the cooler temps. Daytime highs still reach high teens to low twenties C. The wind still bites with a familiar winter edge, but in the sheltered areas, it is definitely t-shirt weather.

We have gone to town a couple times this past week, and are hoping to stay put for a bit.

In just over a week, we will be taking in a bit more of an eagle's view of things - stay tuned.

We are just settling in for a quiet evening, so I will bid you

Adieu.

This, That, and Sound Advise

It has been slow and quite around here, and Ken has been putting in model time, tweaking the blue boy with sturdier wheels and carriage, repairing the speedometer cable on his bike, and finding a bit of Miller time with the neighbours.

I have been puttering too, with laundry, honey runs, and general domestics as well as a bit of crocheting.

We will be going to town tomorrow for supplies, and visiting. We are expecting another storm by the end of the weekend, and then we will likely do a bit of cleaning of the outer rig and truck as they are now bespeckled with the last storm's contribution.

One unfortunate event of today brings a very important angle to traveling outside your native country - Medical insurance.

One of our neighbours, and a new dear friend had a mishap of grave significance today, and it occurred for the most innocuous of tasks.

She and I were chatting in front of her rig when the phone rang inside. She hurried off to answer it and tripped over one of the awning spikes and fell. As she went down, she ripped a gouge in her lower leg that had to be at least a foot to a foot and a half long, and moderately deep. (editor note: The report back says it was only 7")

She of course was rushed to a medical centre, and that was around 2:30 this afternoon. I didn't see them back when I last checked just before dark around 6.

I don't know if they had extended medical, but I am pretty sure they did. If not, it is not going to be a pretty bill.

Please. If you travel, take the precaution to invest in your health. It is penny wise and pound foolish to omit that expense.

I am calling it a day now, so I bid you

Adieu

Glitches In The Blog & Weather

Apparently, I am experiencing technical difficulties. I am still seeking resolve on the linking feature, but I have also been told that my comments portion may be malfunctioning.

If you are having difficulty, please bear with me, I am posted as looking for answers. Perhaps in the interim, if the comments are failing you, you can try commenting in the guest book. I get notification that messages land in it, and then I go in and they should post within a day.

Meanwhile, back at the Ridge, we experienced our first big gale storm last night. It was accompanied a bit by rain, but primarily the rain from earlier was the main contributor to the lovely speckling of mud over everything including the solar panels.

We have cleaned some of the windows and the solar panels, but aren't going whole hog on the cleaning as we are expecting repeats until around Saturday.

As for the solar, it is working well overall. We are still learning but overall are content.

We had the generator supplement the recharge yesterday as the clouds made the solar nearly useless, and the charge on the batteries was definitely needing topping up.

I am also behind on the honey runs as yesterday was not conducive to outing of any sort, so today is primarily catch up day in a lot of the outer activities.

The expected entertainment for today will likely not occur due to the expected winds of this afternoon.

Anyway, chores beckon, so I bid you

Adieu

Continuation of Ken's 58 Mack

Ken is taking advantage of the aforementioned space in the kitchen to do some more work on the 58 Mack. I shall include some update shots for those interested in its progress.

(As mentioned in the previous post, I have discovered that you can view the zooming when I download via Picasa. When you see the Blogger icon at the bottom, you can do this.)



The headache rack and cab are reattached, and the hood assembly is back in place as well. Beside the driver door are the seat, and the gear shifts which will eventually be placed back inside.

The undercarriage back together, but still under further construction.

This particular tool has been a treasure. As an added bonus, we have priced it in Canada at around $50, but on Black Friday we got it for $14.99. It is articulating, so it is extremely versitile!!

This belt sander is another gem. It is cheaper made, but it will do as Ken has a better one at home. He is sanding off the pallet look. On the bench beside him is a couple pieces awaiting sanding. The blackening of weathering is being removed to expose the beautiful hardwood below.

Like I say, it is an absolute joy to watch the pallet transform into this beautiful model.

Well, that is about all I have for you for now, so I bid you,

Adieu

The Rain on the Plain

We are actually having a full fledged rainy day. I have experienced 3 rainy days since being down here in the Yuma area, and two of them amounted to perhaps 20 raindrops in their combined entirety.

Today, however, is taking itself more seriously, and it is actually doing a full out drizzle, and has been for hours. Everyone is cozying down with books, generators, and tvs along with whatever indoor activities they can muster, or making it a go to town day.

I have taken some shots of the wet, as I don't expect to see a whole lot of it in the region.

Tomorrow promises some interesting sights from the side yard as I am told a training exercise will invade our space some time tomorrow. Stay tuned, and hopefully the photo display will entertain you.

For now, here are the wet ridge shots:

I was trying to capture the water on the window, but the reflection is nice, and the dry marks under the rig provides a contrast

You can see the water trail on the water tank, and in the shot of Ken taking a shot, you can see the water on the road

This is just a water accumulation in the chair shot to prove that there was enough to make a puddle.

At this point, it is safe to say that it is not a flash flood level of rain by any stretch.

I have discovered what I believe to be the difference between allowing you to zoom my attachments versus being stuck with what attaches. If I start by clicking on "blog this" in Picasa, it will allow you zoomability, so I will continue my thoughts in that fashion.

So briefly, I bid you,

Adieu

Sight Seeing in Our Backyard

A couple days ago, Ken and I decided to follow up with a suggestion of a neighbour, and go up to the water tower behind us to see the view.

To gain proper prospective of the outing, I am first putting a picture of the view from the door to the water tower.

As clarification, I mean the white one in the distance, not the red one. I also walked up to the peak beside it on the right and the bump to the left.

We rode the moped as high as we could and walked up the rest of the way.

This shot is from the peak to the right of the tower. The arrow is pointing to the bikes. (Honest) :-)

The red water tower in front of our rig is on the right near where the water is wider.

This shot arrows the rig, and you can still see the bikes just to the right of the date stamp.

The cell did a couple pan shots for me. The overlap point is the high point just right of centre on the upper shot.

For this one the overlap is the extreme left peak point.

This is one of the locals posing with a smile over a very multi-depth shot.

I am standing on the bump to the left of the water tower in the first picture. I love the way I have the burro, the swampy water, hills, the imperial dam, the road to Squaw Lake (which is just off screen to the right) and then several layers of mountains in the background. The more layers of scenery I can include, the happier I am with the shot.

One day I will have to brave the darker lighting and go at sundown as the sunset should be spectacular from there.

One thing I noticed is that the rocks on these mountains are much different than those familiar to me in the northern rockies. These are a much flaker, brittle rock. It is very intriguing to me.

Well, chores are calling me, so I will bid you

Adieu.

Yuma Outdoor Military Museum

We made a quick run to town on Sunday, then stopped to take in the display of tanks and related vehicles near the Yuma Proving Grounds.

It was a yard filled with multi-generational static displays of military might, and for those who find interest in such creations, it was a sight to see. We wandered around shooting the shooters, and enjoyed the stop.

The linking tool is still malfunctioning. (Hello, Google - are you listening??? Perhaps you will pick up the tab for uploading data instead of linking to a web album... , but I digress....)

... so I am going to just insert some of the highlights.

I took a close up shot of each, and the 4 sides of the info panels. If you would like to see some more of the shots, let me know and I will post them.

For now, Midnight needs to go on a "business trip" so I will bid you

Adieu