I was coming back up the mountain with Sam a few days ago when something caught my eye. It was a floating maple leaf.
It reminds me of the end scene for Forrest Gump, where a feather floats up and away. In this case, it wasn’t just the wind. The leaf was attached somewhere by an invisible line spun by a spider. It was flying like a kite. But it was pretty cool.
These little tomatoes are growing at the base of our driveway.
I picked three, and ate one. It was the sweetest tomato I have ever had. Leah agreed. Sam did not.
This spindly tomato plant is a second-year volunteer. I noticed tomatoes growing at the same place late last summer. I noticed these a couple of days ago. The plant was hidden by tall weeds, so I didn’t realize it was there until the tomatoes ripened.
I am pretty sure these came from a neighbor just up the road. I think she probably pulled up some old tomato plants late one summer a few years ago and threw them across the road. The old fruit decayed and the seeds washed away, eventually finding a home at the base of our driveway. Then they germinated and grew last summer, dropping their fruit at their feet. That fruit rotted and released its seeds, which sprouted this year.
And then I picked some and ate them. We will probably eat a few more, but we’ll leave the rest to drop to the ground. Maybe we’ll have more next year.
I mentioned in an earlier post that our dishwasher had died. I did some online research, which recommended a diagnosis routine, which indicated that our dishwasher was brain dead. So I ordered a new brain.
The brain came. I did some more online research and found a video that showed how to do a brain transplant. As usual for such things, the video instructions were both complete and incomplete.
The instructions showed a disembodied hand opening the front panel and removing some screws. I opened the front panel and found more than one screw in the indicated location. After one false start I identified the correct screws.
Then the instructions said to remove two more screws, after which the brain pan would drop down, conveniently exposing the dead brain. I removed the screws, and the pan did not drop. I had to pry, which was not easy. But eventually doable.
I removed the old brain and installed a new one. I closed, and then turned the power back on. Of course I had flipped the circuit breaker before touching all those electrical connections between the brain and the rest of the dishwasher. Lights appeared on the control panel, a good indicator, but not conclusive. A test dishwashing was required. Fortunately, we had dirty dishes. I set the washer to come on at 2 am and got up the next morning to clean dishes. Victory!
Here is the offending circuit board and all of the tools necessary to do the repair.
By the way, the floor is hard.
The dishwasher at our old house was very loud. We couldn’t hear the television when it was running, and since our bedroom was close to the kitchen, we wouldn’t let it run after we went to bed. So it was kind of a hassle.
At our new house, we looked for a quiet dishwasher. We found one that wasn’t quite as quiet as the quietest, but which was quite quiet. It was nice. We can barely hear it operating and can easily watch television with it on, even as close as we are to the kitchen when we watch television. But it also has a delay feature, so I can set it to turn on at 2 or 3 in the morning. Our bedroom is now at the opposite end of the house, which is not all that distant from the kitchen, but we never hear a thing when the dishwasher rus. Nothing at all. It’s great.
So, on Tuesday night I set the washer to come on at 3 am. We had filled it with all of my juice glasses, a whole lot of cups, lots of saucers, and almost every single utensil we have. On Wednesday morning I came into the kitchen and opened the washer. The first item I took out was dirty. Great, I thought, what did I do, obstruct the washer’s water spray? Then I looked at some plates. They were dirty. Unwashed. And then I realized that none of the control lights that should have been on were actually on.
Great. The washer is not working. It looked like there was no power, so I thought maybe the electrical plug had come out. I unscrewed the washer frame and pulled it from under the counter. Nope. It was wired directly with no plug. I went downstairs and with Leah’s help identified the circuit breaker that controls the washer. It was fine. I turned the power off, hoping maybe it would wake the washer up when I turned it back on, but no luck.
With a little online investigation I found some instructions for checking the controls. I activated a sequence of buttons, and all the lights came on, and then what looked like an error code appeared on a screen. A little more investigation convinced me that our problem is almost certainly a failed circuit board. I ordered one online and we’re waiting for it. It looks like a fairly easy replacement.
In the meantime, we’re washing dishes by hand. The load I unloaded after it didn’t get washed did, indeed, include virtually every utensil we own, plus some that a stray hobo must have put in the washer while we weren’t looking. I’ve never seen so many utensils. We must be rich or something. I remember washing large quantities of dishes by hand, but it’s been a long, long time.
This makes me wonder, just a little, only a little. We had our noisy washer until we moved, so from 2005 until 2017. Twelve years without a problem. It was noisy but it lasted. Now we have a very quiet washer, and it lasted two years.
Oh well. It’s like Roseanne Roseannadanna said, “That just goes to show you, it’s always something.”
Those of us who are of a certain age are probably aware of Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannadanna character on Saturday Night Live. She had a number of relatives, including her Nana Roseannadanna, her aunt Pollyanna Roseannadanna, her “musically happening cousin” Carlos Santana Roseannadanna, her religious aunt Hosanna Roseannadanna, and her singing cousin Lola Falana Roseannadanna.
Leah and I miss Roseanne, as well as Emily Litella. We wonder what Gilda would be doing now if she had lived.
Friday morning I took the dogs for their regular walk down Fouche Gap Road. As usual, I was woolgathering while the dogs sniffed out anything new along the road. We were about halfway down the mountain, just passing a low tree that was completely covered by a mound of kudzu and muscadine vines. Just as I drew up even with it, there was a loud rustling and crashing from it.
The mind works quickly in situations like that. I fully expected a large animal to come out right at me. I thought, what will it be? I went through the possibilities. There are some bears around; I have never seen or heard of one in our area, but the Atlanta news sometimes shows videos of bears in suburban neighborhoods. I have seen coyotes here, but they run away when they see a human. In south Georgia they have wild boars that can do a lot of damage to a person, but I have never heard of one in north Georgia.
So, I wondered, what will it be? Will it attack me? Will the dogs bark? Will they throw themselves at the wild animal that is almost certainly going to be huge and, from the sound of its thrashing, angry?
And then, in the last part of that instant when all those thoughts ran through my mind, a turkey burst out of the vines and flew away.
It happened so fast I really didn’t have a chance to be scared. Startled, definitely. A profane expression might have escaped my mouth at that point.
The dogs must have known it wasn’t going to be dangerous because all they did during the moments leading up to the turkey explosion was stare in the direction of the noise with somewhat greater than mild interest.
Turkeys are noisy flyers. We saw another one on our way back up the mountain. I heard its wings hit limbs as it flew through the tree tops. I wish they would make a little more noise on the ground instead of hiding until the last moment.