Weather | 2/17, 0.07" moisture, 23°, 29° | 2/18, 21°, 29° | 2/19, 17°, 31° | 2/20, 0.02" moisture, 28°, 36° | 2/21, 20°, 37° | 2/22, 20°, 42° | 2/23, 0.77" rain, 31°, 41° |
- Sunday (2/17): I sold a complete dog training package (three six-week sessions) to a woman with a 5-year old golden doodle (Golden Retriever and poodle mix) who took her dog to training at Petco 5 years ago, wasn't impressed, and left after 3 weeks. I said I hoped she had a different opinion about Petco dog training after working with me and in the middle of the class, she said, "Oh, you're already much better." That was nice. The 2 other dogs in this 2 PM class are a chorkie (chihuahua/yorkie mix) and a shar pei/boxer mix...basically a pile of mutts.
- Monday (2/18): Mary saw a sharpshin hawk while walking the dogs. I did dog training to Cupcake, a fast-growing yellow lab, and Freyja, a dog the owners think is a German Shepherd/Doberman mix, but I think is a Kelpie, an Australian cattle dog. Shane, my boss, is on vacation this week. He and his wife took the train to Chicago and are going to tour the big aquarium there. He left a note in the office not to bug him. Of course, Mary texted him over some frivolous thing, he answered her text, then reminded her what the note said. She told me that if he wasn't on vacation, she would have quit this morning...if only! She is a pain in the ass who never does her job and skips work all of the time. She missed her shift on Sunday.
- Tuesday (2/19): We cut firewood.
- Wednesday (2/20): Mary made a cherry pie and baked a turkey for my 62nd birthday. We ordered garden seeds. I ordered a heat gun and heat shrink connectors, using up monies sent by Mom for my birthday.
Weather | 2/10, 0.03" moisture (snow/sleet) 20°, 31° | 2/11, 0.48" moisture, 25°, 31° |
2/12, 24°, 27° | 2/13 13°, 36° | 2/14, 25°, 53° | 2/15, 10°, 17° | 2/16, 1/2" snow, 8°, 28° |
- Sunday (2/10): Shane asked that I cancel all dog training for Sunday, because we were going to have a skeleton crew at Petco with an expected store inventory starting at closing time, so I canceled all classes the night before. An ice storm in St. Louis canceled Sunday's inventory in our store, because out-of-town inventory workers couldn't make it to Quincy. Molly asked me to do blue dots (ordering). I went through 7 pages of blue dots. A normal session is 3-4 pages. We are really low on product.
- Monday (2/11): Mom texted me that Aunt Lois died 1 day shy of her 82 birthday. It rained most of the day. My 6 PM dog training clients canceled, so I checked with Mary and trees were icing at home with the temperature dropping, so I canceled the 7 PM class, contacted all clients, got Shane to bring Missy in to cover my shift, and went home after 6 PM with no problem. Again, my Cadillac has amazing traction and torque on ice. Shane texted at 9:30 PM that our Quincy store ranked 8th in the nation on percentage increase in services (grooming & dog training) sales from last year's numbers. Mary heard a pack of coyotes howling just NE of the machine shed at noon. We had 1 of the original 6 kittens that were here January 8th show up in our machine shed. I fed it a bowl of Wholehearted cat food and a bowl of water.
- Most all ice melted on Wednesday (2/13) and Thursday (2/14).
- Both Katie and Bill called on Wednesday (2/13). Katie moved to a new house in the country. She has a roommate, loves her new job. Once she buys the tools she needs, she'll make $15/hour and be a supervisor. Bill is working at training a guy to take over when he takes time off...not going well. We talked for an hour about food, his apartment, his work, movies, things happening here.
- Thursday (2/14) Mary experienced on-foot coyote hunters in the woods west of our property. She monitored them. They stayed off our property..
- Friday (2/15): We cut a load of firewood, loaded it into the woodshed, then split larger logs and loaded another wagon load into the woodshed. We've been hearing a chainsaw running in the timber to the west of our property for several days, so we took a look. They're harvesting trees off of that land. We learned from Ansel Marquette that the land immediately to the west of us was sold to a land dealer. He's tearing down most all of the trees. Nobody likes trees around here. Katie told us she got $850 of power tools from Home Depot for $350. She has more tools to get, but it's a good start. We saw 2 bald eagles and a mated pair of red-tail hawks today.
- Saturday (2/16): I've had a dizzy woman with a 3-year old corgi who is originally from Minnesota, near Fargo, and is involved with the dairy to the west of us who always cancels. She bought her dog training in mid-October. Today, she and her dog graduated from the first 6-week course, which took 16 weeks to accomplish. Two weeks ago, I bumped her out of the 2 PM, Sunday time slot, since it's a prime time that she held up for months. Of course, last week she canceled. Today, as I was driving to work, she texts asking if she can come in later than we arranged. After getting to work, I responded that she could sit in on my existing 2 PM class, which she did. That class was held while we were having an adoption event with Homeward Bound, a dog rescue entity. Besides my class of 3 dogs, there were about a dozen other dogs in the store. It was messy with dogs. My most recent addition to the class, a German Shepherd/lab mix, left the training area and took the juiciest poop all over the floor. Shane said, "Imagine the consistency of the ice cream machine at McDonalds...that's what I cleaned up." The pet parent accidently stepped in it, too. Obviously, she was embarrassed. My pain-in-the-ass skipper of dog training classes said she had a college class to finish and had to visit her ill mother in Fargo, so she will get back to me the first week of April on starting up the second 6-week dog training course that she bought. When I told Shane, he rolled his eyes and said we'll still be trying to finish her training a year after she bought the classes.
Weather | 2/3, 44°, 51° | 2/4, 27°, 51° |
2/5, 15°, 27° | 2/6, 0.28" freezing rain, 21°, 29° | 2/7, 9°, 27° | 2/8, 0°, 15° | 2/9, 3°, 26° |
- On Sunday (2/3) Mary watched coyote hunters. They always seem to show up on Super Bowl Sunday. Three pickups were parked on the gravel road, just south of our property. She said she walked down the lane and watched them with binoculars. A small coyote ran across the road and into our woods. A minute, 30 seconds later, 3 dogs came following the scent. The dogs lost the coyote in our woods. Mary said no hunters shot rifles onto our property. She thinks them seeing her with glasses on them prevented that. Mary said Churchill got upset. He hates coyote hunting hounds.
- The warm weather melted all but snow patches on the north side of woods.
- On Tuesday (2/5), we fired up the tractor and cut firewood in the woods north of the bins/machine shed.
- After we unloaded the wood, it started misting and raining, instantly freezing. I texted Shane, since I probably wouldn't make it to work, when I was supposed to open the store at 8 AM. We decided that I'd switch with Mary Moffet. She works my hours on Wednesday (2/6) and I'll work her hours on Friday (2/8).
- On Wednesday (2/6), I started this new blog on this website. I also cut Mary's hair. Ice never melted and weather prediction is for 0.2" ice accumulation overnight.
- Thursday (2/7) started with freezing rain, then mist, sleet, and snow flurries. Mary & I walked to the gravel road. There's no rock on the road, due to the roadgrader from the dairy west of us taking several passes to clear snow off, so it's a solid sheet of ice, without any gravel for tires to grip to. I texted Shane to let him know I wasn't coming to work. He asked me to contact dog training clients to cancel today's class, which I did. Mary made 4 loaves of bread. I vegetated in front of the stove with dogs & cats.
- Friday (2/8) the sun warmed the east and south facing windows of vehicles enough for me to open the driver's side door of the Cadillac. I started it and ran it for 30 minutes to melt the 1/4" of ice off windows. Then, I made a test run to the pavement and back home. It was hairy...shear ice...but slight traction from cold temperatures, and they sanded/salted County Road J. I got ready and went to work. Dropped off our Cadillac payment at 1 bank and a reimbursement Petco check for a hotel stay in Quincy a few weeks back at our main bank. Shane sold me 6 outdated boxes of Purina Pro dog food for $4.50, which would have been well over $100...advantage to working at Petco. Our garbage pickup service hasn't been by for 3 weeks, so I dumped the latest bag of garbage into the Petco bin after I clocked out at 9:30, then drove home just fine. The Caddy has amazing torque and traction on ice.
- Saturday (2/9) the sun melted ice so that the gravel road was mostly open. I shopped after I got off work at 7:30 PM.
Weather | 1/27, 3°, 35° | 1/28, 13°, 33° |
1/29, 3°, 13° | 1/30, -17°, -3° | 1/31, -9°, 13° | 2/1, 3°, 29° | 2/2, 30°, 49° |
- With subzero temperatures predicted, on Monday (1/27) we cut firewood just west of the house and used the sled to move it to the woodshed. I also removed ACs from the west living room and upstairs north bedroom windows. Much warmer, now.
- On Wednesday (1/30), a UPS driver drove up our lane, busting through the hard snowdrifts on the driveway while delivering a package of leather work gloves that we ordered online. That evening, I drove the Cadillac up the lane. I bottomed out a couple times, so after I got home, I took a spade shovel and whacked the tops off of some of the frozen snow drifts.
- We had a frozen cold water pipe at the kitchen sink Thursday (1/31) morning. I vacuumed the spider webs out of the basement to get to that pipe and put a heat lamp below and above the floor facing that plastic water pipe. While in the basement, I noticed cold air pouring in a crack between the foundation and house sill. I stuffed it with old underpants rags. We normally have a north wind on cold snaps, but it was out of the east this time, thereby putting cold air directly on that pipe. Within 45 minutes after putting on the heat lamps, the water started running.
- On Friday (2/1), I called the Hannibal MO Social Security office and learned that I need to show up at one of their offices and give them a copy of my driver's license. The woman said I'm onboard to start getting social security payments, beginning on March 2019. The payment for March will be on the third Wednesday in April. I also learned how much money I can earn, calculated Petco pay and decided to switch from full-time to part-time at Petco on April 6th. I also determined that I can work about 20 hours a week for the rest of 2019 and still be OK without losing my social security dollars. The extra work will help on income for paying off car loan debt.
- We cut more firewood on Friday (2/1).
- On Saturday (2/2), I told Shane, my boss, about my retirement details. We decided once I go part-time, I'll work my dog training days, which are Sunday, Monday, and Thursday, working about 8 hours on Sunday and Monday, and 5 hours on Thursday. I'll give my keys back, which means I won't be opening or closing the store...yahoo! I will get a drop in pay level, since I won't be a manager, but Shane said he will fight to keep my pay at the current level. He says everyone in the Quincy Petco store is underpaid.
Weather | 1/20, snow, 0.25" moisture, -1°, 14° | 1/21, 0.01" moisture, 5°, 23° |
1/22, 0.62" rain, 25°, 33° | 1/23, 17°, 20° | 1/24, 15°, 23° | 1/25, -5°, 25° |
1/26, 5°, 29° |
- Mary saw 8 trumpeter swans fly over our property on Sunday (1/20).
- The snow that came down on Sunday (1/20) drifted with strong east/NE winds. Mary attempted to shovel the driveway, but quit with it started drifting. As a result, I parked the Cadillac at the end of the lane, just off the gravel road and walked our 1/4-mile lane to the house for the rest of the week.
- Had 1/8-inch of ice on everything Monday (1/21) morning. It took about 15 minutes to break into the Cadillac. I made it through the driver's side back door. Crawled through with the backpack on and tried to reach over the seat to open the driver's door. While doing so, I think I cracked my lowest right rib, since it hurts when I move certain ways and doesn't seem to get much better from day-to-day. What an idiot I am! Oh, well...grin and bear it.
- Shane, my boss, got to talking about changes he wanted to make with employees in the store, so I told him I was retiring as of my 62nd birthday. He wants me to stay on as a part-time dog trainer. He told the district manager, Rob, about my retirement and Rob was saddened...said I was a good employee and dog trainer. Rob told Shane to get me to stay on part-time. I told Shane I'll have to get information from Social Security on just how much I can work as a part-time employee.
- I bought groceries on Saturday (1/26). Mary met me at the end of the lane with the plastic sled, which we loaded with groceries, and we hauled everything home.
Weather | 1/13, 13.5" snow, 0.27" moisture, 25°, 33° | 1/14, 24°, 31° |
1/15, 25°, 33° | 1/16, 29°, 35° | 1/17, 28°, 35° | 1/18, 25°, 31° |
1/19, 19°, 23° |
- I was stuck at home on Sunday (1/13) through Tuesday (1/15). Mary and I shoveled the paths and our lane. It took 3 days to get that all shoveled out. A road grader from the dairy to the west of us plowed the gravel road out as we were shoveling out the last stretch of the driveway on Tuesday.
- I worked all of the rest of the days of the week, since my days off got used up on the days I couldn't drive to Quincy.
