• On Tuesday, Summer officially arrived, and as if on cue, the fireflies made their first appearance in my backyard. Now, every evening for the next few weeks I can watch them do their little lighted mating dance. The female stays in the grass or weeds and flashes her lighted abdomen, while the male flies above her flashing his signal to get her ( Read more... )

This morning, just before 8 AM, Dave stopped by to pick me up and take me out to Manlius to have 2 teeth pulled. I had been having some bad pain in the right side of my jaw for several weeks. My dentist determined that one or possibly 2 teeth needed to go. He set up an appointment for me with an oral surgeon. I could not eat or drink any water ( Read more... )

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I got my Pfizer vaccine booster shot yesterday at Wegman's. Today my arm is a little sore where I got the shot, which I expected, but I have also been feeling like crap, which I did not expect. It is nothing serious, just very tired, and more aches and pains around my body than usual. I did not feel like doing much, but with Rick's help, managed ( Read more... )

Last week, I had Dave come over with his chainsaw to take down my Peach tree. Way back in 2004, I wrote an entry in this journal, titled: "In Search of the Perfect Peach". Here is what I wrote:

Last Sunday I had the chance to do one of my favorite things: take the truck and wander the back roads exploring the countryside. I took a small ( Read more... )

We have been busy doing some major structural work on the brick store this summer. After over 170 years of use, neglect and abuse, the building was in desperate need of some repairs to its wavy , bulging and leaning north west wall. About 25 years ago, the building's owner at that time, a local architect, hired me and my crew to do some stop-gap ( Read more... )

A little over a year ago I wrote two posts about the past year's progress on the huge project I have undertaken to restore a mid-19th century brick store that I own. Here are the links to those posts ( Read more... )

Last week, the colonoscopy went well, with no serious problems found. One minor problem came up after the procedure. As one of the nurses was removing my blood pressure cuff, IV tube and heart monitors, I felt a pinching on my upper arm. I looked under my hospital gown and saw that another nurse had left the tourniquet on my upper arm when she ( Read more... )