I received two email scams. They look like this, but what else is there I don’t know. I trashed them. 
I don’t know either of the names and haven’t ordered anything in the prior month. When I order from Amazon there is an immediate confirmation to email and it looks very different. The bottom one has, in the subject line: “Hey there! We are thrilled to have you as a …”
Online orders I’ve done never have a person’s name. Rather there is a company name. A line that sounds like a neighbor shouting across the street doesn’t engender confidence.
An internet search explains that opening such a thing will reveal they are charging you for several thousand dollars, like $5,350, and they want you to respond. Such things lead to trouble. Ignore.
The high temperatures here have been near 100°F with another three days of that before dropping a little into the high eighties. My main concern is that I can only do outside things from 6:30 to 10:30 am, and then from 8 to 9 pm. Age has something to do with this. At 10:00 this morning (Sat) I drove to town and made three stops, the most important was buying ice cream and red-grapes on sale. Sunday is smoke hazy with thin clouds above.
Contractor Walter came a week ago and wanted to get started on two projects we talked about many months ago. I had shown him images of little buildings (from garden shed sites) with an idea of having one as a “waiting for the bus” space for school kids. Just a landscape and selling point feature, ’cause I got no kids. That idea morphed into a bigger project involving completing a “firewise” component.
The idea is to get rid of the old horse-loafing shed I was using as a firewood splitting and storage space just 20 feet from the new roofed deck. The debris and wood so close to the house is a bad situation according to fire inspectors. (debrE, not debriS – why is that?) More gravel, More gravel!
So, we rented a small excavator and dug into the dirt and rocks. Worker Jonathan (Johnny) ran the machine.
First we had to remove fences (posts and wire) and a lot of accumulated waste. Meanwhile, another worker (with occasional help from Johnny & John) dismantled the 8 by 12 building.
The area is now cleared and partially leveled, but it is not yet horizontal. Next week we will try to rent a machine with a front bucket and finish the job with fill.
A partially completed road around the house was attacked by the little machine. Fire-crews do not want an entrance to the back of a property to be a dead end. Two years ago I got half way done when the fellow changed his day job and left my project undone. The initial work is now completed – a 14 ft. dirt and rock track now is completed. I could, but haven’t, driven the truck on it. However it has been used by two of my neighbors. I think mamma is off to the right, but I couldn’t see her. Photo below is from 50 feet away, through a sliding-glass door, with an iPhone.
At the yellow dots, there is a drop of 10 inches. Past the purple dots there is a steep slope covered with a few tons of basalt cobbles. To finish, the surface needs to be rocked, graveled, leveled and compacted.
Woody: The once feral female cat got taken to the vet this week. (over $300) She has a double coat – very full and fluffy. I got her inside the new room (old double-car garage) in the fall of 2020. I spent more time with mother Sue because her coat was clumpy. This was a slow process because of being wild. I got Woody to accept being touched. Her coat was matted and difficult to work with. She is small, but as I got hair off, I released she was thin. More recently she has had a respiratory issue. Also, I don’t know how old she is. I’ve thought she was too young to be doing the “old cat fade away” routine. Maybe not.
At the vet’s office, they took most of the hair off – Yikes! She is really thin. Radiographs revealed her heart is misshapen – elongated and pinched some. How that fits in is a mystery. She is on an antibiotic called Clavamox, a combination of amoxicillin/clavulanic acid that is commonly used to treat susceptible infections.
She is eating well, maybe more than before. Nothing more to say at this point.
Keeping Raack
on the Naneum Fan
John