The Last Few Days

We went to visit Rambleman's family on Tuesday.

We drove along quite happily until a strange sound assaulted out ears. Sort of a thwucka-thwucka and a clack-clack at the same time. The car wasn't driving oddly, so it wasn't a flat. I was getting ready to pull over and check when Ladybug pulled a beaded strand (with large fimo and glass beads on it) back in through the window. *laugh* We drove on thinking all was well when about 3 miles later, we heard the sound again. Passengers checked out the windows while I drove onward (looking for things that had maybe gotten shut in the door). Then we heard a whack, and the sound was gone. I began to worry a bit more seriously at this point, and found a place to pull off the road, where we discovered that the tread had completly left the tire. *sigh*

No worries, we have a jack and a spare tire. *grin*

So there we are in the heat of the day with the car partially jacked up (a part of the jack busted half-way through the raising of the car), and Keebler can't get the hubcap off. But I find a spoon in the trunk and manage to pry it off of the wheel with a little bit of work...

I stand by the side of the road waving my arms. Nobody stops. I see someone with their window open and I yell "help". I can be exceedingly loud if I really want to. *grin* They turn around and try to help, while commenting on my "horn". They don't have the part we need, but they do have a jack that came with the truck they're driving (attatched to the inside of the engine compartment). They screw it out and we try to use it. It's rusted shut. So we try to use parts of it to make out jack work. No luck. At least he tried. He makes up keep his jack. So I give him some cherries and he drives on down the road to his destination (a flea market) hoping that maybe he will find the elusive missing part to our jack (a straight lug nut wrench).

Less than a minute later, I'm out by the street again, but with a better idea than before. So I'm waving my green spotted hair scarf wildly at passing traffic. After a few minutes, someone in a big truck stops to help. He has nothing to make our jack work, but he has a jack of his own. (This makes a total of three jacks on the ground around our car.) He has just gotten off work, as a deisel mechanic. *grin* We're in luck! As he's jacking up the car, a semi drives by REALLY slowly. A couple fo minutes later, a man walks up to where we are and starts talking to our helper. Come to find out, He's waiting for his load to be emptied (or some similar), and he's chatting up a storm with the other man.

We find out that it wasn't just that we needed help that made him stop. He had had a run in with fate just the week before (regarding one of his cows (escaped), a highway, and a final, safe return for all involved. He wanted to return the lucky favor to someone and there we were. *laugh*

At least we had a spare and a jack, even if the jack was busted, so nobody thought of us as ill-prepared. *chuckle* I will be getting a new jack shortly.

The spare was a little flat, so we went to get some air. We pulled up to the first gas station we saw, drove up to the air thing, and saw the out of order sign. *sigh* We drove to the second gas station we saw, drove up to the air thing, and saw their out of order sign. *deep sigh* I feel like we're going on a tour of the local out of order air compressors. *wry smirk* There we are with a flat tire, and no air. I swear I'm getting one of those air compressors that hooks up to a car's lighter so that we won't have this problem again. I walk into the store and beg for a manual air pump. No luck. So I ask after any other gas stations. I am told of two others.

While we are there, we see a plushy Captain Jack Sparrow figurine in the toy display case at the McDonalds. Incongrous to say the least. I must have one! *giggle*

Anyway, back to the story, We stop at the next station on our list and pull up to their air compressor, and it's NOT out of order! Oh joy and glee! So we prance (well, I prance anyway) into the store and ask if we can mayhaps make a purchase with our credit cards so that we can get the $.75 for the air tank. (yeah, I thought it was a bit much too). We share the tale thus far. Again, no luck. We have no cash with us. We can't get change.

Our little savior of the back seat says she's got money!!! Bless the 12 year old packrats obsessed with carrying everything with them all the time. She had all of her money with her. So we get air! All of the tires were a bit low, so we fill them all up to about 2 PSI below recommended, and finish the trip.

Once we finally arrived, we spent several hours just chatting and having fun. We missed the Harry Potter birthday celebration at a local bookstore, but it was SO worth it. *grin* There aren't really words to explain how much fun we had or how great it was to finally meet them all in person. I got a mini-tour of their property, and got to taste some of the yummiest unripe apples ever grown. (Yes, I begged for seeds to be saved for me) We accidentally left stuff over there, and the kids had a blast and kept eachother up too loong (each was trying to stay awake to not miss a moment with the other ones. *laugh*) Too cute. They swam, jumped on the trampoline, and played video games. I think they were all asleep before we got back onto the pavement. I know mine were. *grin*

They gave us two carseats for Littlebit (I hadn't thought of needing two, but now that I think of it, grandma is going to need one for her car too, so it works out perfectly.) *grin*

We left some stuff over there at their house on accident, but it's all good, as now they get to come over to our house to visit sometime. We had a great time visiting.

I still forgot to post a received for the carseat. *blush*
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Gave away some egg cartons in a Freecycle transaction and gave a farmlette tour to a friend (same person). He house had burned down this past Janurary and she gives me her spare animal parts every fall after butchering. I'm glad I could help her out in some small way.

Talked to the maintenance man (we'd been missing him) and gave him some flowers for his wife to grow from our garden.

Worked on the farmlette some more, gave the bunnies some free roam time, had an unexpectred visit from a friend, wondered if it was some sort of odd holiday.

Found out that Lafarga is a special rare pattern called RaCcoon. Weird. And here I was thinking that he was just some sort of odd mis marked cap stripe or some such. *laugh* Three of the babies are the same pattern. Maybe I'll be better able to find homes for them because they're "more special" in someone's eyes? I can hope. *smile*

Planted the potatoes today. Still looking for a place to plant the fancy exotic squash. I'm thinking I may just end up having to buy some organic potting soil at some store (we are SO out of natural dirt) so that I can put them into containers in the greenhouse.

The ratty baby boys got to go swimming in the bathtub and go fishing for frozen veggies and blueberries. They had an absolute blast.

I have discovered that cassette tape cases make excellent purse holders and self-standing display thingies for business cards.

Tomorrow is a busy day, and it starts early.