I spent most of the day just puttering around doing little things. Sometimes it seems like I don’t do much on those days but it all needs to be done eventually. I watered our three new fruit trees, two apricots and a peach tree. They are still in buckets and I will get them in the ground next week. They are all blooming so I will have to pick off the fruit as soon as it shows up. I don’t want them to produce fruit this first year, I want them to grow and spread their roots.

We had already moved our chive plant up to the front porch entrance pots. I split it in half so we could have some in each pot. So today I split our edible creeping thyme into two bunches and put it around the base of the chives. We would like the thyme to grow over the side of the pots. The thyme was in an old half wine barrel in the back garden area. When we moved the barrel the entire back is rotted out so it needs to go away. We will use the soil in the other garden planters then I can burn the rotten barrel. Both planters got a good soaking with water to start them on their way.

I dug thistles on the front hillside. Since we are trying to establish clover we cannot use any type of herbicide on the hillside. So all thistles are dug with a shovel. This took quite a while to get done. As soon as I finished that I went and cut ends for our tomato enclosures. Annmarie wanted panels on the end to keep the cats out so she could plant basil plants between the tomato plants. I almost found enough clips to hold them in place correctly. I need four more small clips. Now that I think about it there may be four out in the old house. I will have to check sometime.

I have been slowly working on the Bell! I run the wire brush over it to clean up the rust then hit it with some Rustoleum spray paint. I have been doing this for over a year. Today I decided to just hit it and make some solid progress. Mr Rainman and I had lifted the bell off its stand a couple of weeks ago so I had a lot better access to the bell. I got both uprights sanded and painted. I ran out of dark blue spray paint so now it is a bright blue. I went over to the old house and found eight more cans of spray paint so I figured the bell was getting whatever color I had on hand. I was able to break loose the bolts holding the ringer gear onto the bell. I cleaned the bolts up and ran the threads over their entire length to make sure I could tighten them on the reassembly. I then worked on the ringer gear and got it all cleaned up. I am not going to paint the bolts until I get them on the bell. I think another two hours and I will have the entire bell body cleaned up and painted. Once that is done I will need to make a new wooden base for the bell. Then I need to buy four 2x8x20’ boards and I can mount the bell in the upper portion of the hay side of the machine shed. This will keep it totally out of the weather.

Since the Gingerman got the Little Dumper running yesterday I figured I had better do my part. I went over to look at the door rubber seals. I ended up having to grind down some rusted screws holding a metal plate to the bottom of the door. It was just one solid horizontal piece of rust. I was able to grind the tops off and pry the metal piece off. I then had to grind down the screws until they were flush and smooth before installing the new rubber seal. I managed to get the seal on and only had to cut about one inch out of the bottom middle and use seal glue to put the gasket back together. I tried to take the screws out of the door so I can gain access to the window but there was one screw I could not budge. I will need to spray some penetrating oil on it and hope I can budge it next week.

I have all of the door seals and the front and back window seals. The front window seal needs to replaced ASAP. It is torn and has multiple holes in it. The rear window seal looks great but since I have a new one I might as well replace the old. I did try and latch the passenger door but it would not seal tightly. One more thing to adjust and repair on the old truck. I suspect the rotating mechanism is not rotating! I know, it took a pure genius to figure that out. When I get the panel off to get at the window I will be able to get at the door lock/handle mechanism at the same time.