Only Three Trips to the Store

 There is a joke going around these days that is actually pretty funny.

How did Jesus' parents know that he was divine while he was yet a child?

He only went to Home Depot once to complete his first carpentry project.

Here's the situation. The upstairs toilet has been leaking for quite a while, but not badly enough to do anything except keep a towel under the tank. Last week, I decided to tighten the bolts that hold the tank to the commode. Nope. One of them disintegrated under my fingers.

I had made the first stop at the store before I started removing the old bolts. Assumptions will always get you in trouble, right? I assumed that because both toilets were installed when the house was built that they would be the same. Remember I just fixed the other toilet last year. That one has two bolts, so I bought a two-bolt kit. Nope, this one has 3 bolts. Number two trip to the store.

Yesterday, I took off the tank and replaced the gasket (good timing- you can see the old one is pretty deformed) and the bolts. Everything sealed up nice. I filled the tank partway with a bucket to be sure nothing was leaking. So far so good.

Then I went to hook up the water line. As I was tightening it, the fill valve tube broke in half.

Trip number three to the store this morning for a new fill valve. That went in with no issues. It seemed like the old one hadn't been changed that long ago, but from the blog post, I see it was 11 years ago.

Look through the water and you can see the three shiny new bolt heads, and the new fill valve on the left.

The mess is almost all cleaned up. Working on getting the rust stains off the floor.

I got groceries while I was out and stopped at Cathy's so she could dig a sliver out of the bottom of my foot that I couldn't quite access.

Edited, did dishes, and am back to working on prep for the Sept-Oct hike.

See Fix It and Then...

Random Flowers

 Here is the 'Banana Split' Sedum in full bloom. It's WAY too tall for its space, but it may not be that tall next year, so I'll leave it alone for now. I like the dark leaves and pale yellow flowers.

After umpteen years, the wild Orpine is blooming. The deer think it is candy, but keeping it in prison has done the job this year, and I think this is only the second time it's bloomed. This is a native sedum.

In theory, I have a lot of naked lilies. The original patch was down at the other house. I moved some up here and they are in the beds with the day lilies. But, they don't like to be moved and it takes them several years to get established. I think they bloomed a couple of times, but now those ones haven't bloomed for years. Not sure why. This year, the original patch down by the road bloomed. This is really an amarylis rather than a lily. In the spring it has a shock of strappy leaves which die back, and then in late summer the naked stalk comes up nearly overnight and blooms.

It was supposed to rain while I was gone, but it didn't. I came home to several unhappy plants. I don't think anything is dead, but some are sad. And something dug up two of the Gazania. I've replanted them. We'll see how they do. And now I'm watering everything.

Worked my little job in the morning. Walked to the library. Started that home repair job that I bought parts for twice last week. Had it almost back together and something else broke. I'm not going out again today. Maybe I'll get it finished tomorrow. Sigh.

Miles walked in 2026: 294.4
Road walk to town and back.

See Naked Lily

All Wrapped Up

 I am safely home. Jean has another 1.5 hours to go.

This is always a long, long weekend, but we both did well. Today started off rainy and slow. That did clear up, but it got just windy enough to be chilly and make us take down some of the looser parts of our displays. Despite the slow start we both had pretty good sales for the third day.

Every vendor that we talked to was quite happy with their overall sales. That makes vendors want to come back another year. Jean and I both signed up for next year already, which wiil guarantee us the same booth spaces.

Just two weary but happy vendors.

That's all for tonight. All my stuff is put away except my personal cooler, and I have nothing of any greater interest to report. Well, I'm kinda fired up about author things because I made good sales, but I have to get busy on other things for the next couple of weeks. Always how it seems to go.

See Blue...Bear...y

Blue...bear...y

 The location Jean and I have in the festival is really a good one. And right from the back of our tents, we have this beautiful blue view of Whitefish Bay. The land you can see out there is Canada.

I keep trying to get some good pictures of Jean interacting with people at her booth. This one isn't bad.

The man playing guitar and singing here is a regular at the Wild Blueberry Festival. He is really great with the kids. He had a whole bunch of them singing and dancing and talking into the mic.

I figured I should have my blue-bear-y face hole board picture taken. These are also called "comic foregrounds." Did you know that?

Here's my best story from the event so far. A lady came to my table and said she liked mysteries, especially the Joe Pickett novels, which I also love. So I responded and asked if she had discovered the Mike Bowditch series. (One is a game warden in Wyoming, and the other is a game warden in Maine.) She also knew that one and she began asking about the mysteries I was selling. I clarified that they aren't thrillers, but are classic murder mysteries. She thought she'd buy a couple, and then found out that there is a price break if she bought 4 or more, so she decided to buy the whole series. She was getting out her credit card, and I was collecting the set. She asked me, " But, do YOU like this series?" I did a bit of a double take. I said, "Well, I wrote them, so... yes." Then she did the double take!

She still bought them all.

It was another good sales day. Neither Jean nor I are quite as tuckered out as yesterday, but we are again chilling with a book for the evening. We do this for one more day.

See Chickens and Puppets

Chickens and Puppets

 Today was pretty amazing. People were buying! I sold a lot of books, and Jean sold even more.

Here are the two chicks she brought this year. They are both Silkies. This is Cocoa Puff.

Jean writes "Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Horror, and childrens' books about chickens." I get to listen to her say that a thousand times a day while she listens to me say "I write mysteries, mysteries for kids, and three books about the North Country Trail." If you think we are sick of listening to each other... we are actually sick of listening to ourselves. But this is how you sell books.

This is Lola, daughter of Laya who is in one of Jean's chicken picture books. Kay-Kay is in the other book. She sells a ton of these.

As I mentioned yesterday, there are lots of kinds of entertainment available. This puppet was walking around inviting people to come to his show.

It's pretty much impossible to get pictures of new things at the event. Vendors who don't have multiple people manning their booths are really tied to the spot, especially when it's busy as it was today. Jean and I have an excellent location for our spaces, which we get to keep unless we don't sign up some year, then we would lose those spots. None of this is complaining... mostly just explaining why this year's pictures look pretty much like every other year.

Jean and I are simply talked out. We came "home" fixed some dinner and have retreated to separate spots to read for a while. We like each other just fine, but we'd both be perfectly happy to not have to say another word to anyone until tomorrow. This is a great event, but you need a fair amount of stamina to participate.

9-5 again tomororow, then 9-4 on Sunday. Paradise, Michigan!

See Wild Blueberry- Take #4