Happy New Year

I hope everybody had a great Christmas.
Now on to the new year. What will it bring? Nobody knows yet but we will find out in time.
We had a few interesting days. Our granddaughter Rachel was looking for her first car. She got her N (Novice driver) in November and has been looking for her first wheels. Grandpa kept searching on the internet with her and she at dealers etc. where she lives. She finally found one and was soo happy but on the way to finalize the deal the car stopped and would not go any further!! Of course that was the end of that deal. It was a blessing in disguise though since that car did not sound like a good deal to grandpa. Had too many used parts. At first Rachel was very disappointed but found her dream car the next day. A much better deal. She is now driving a 2001 Mazda Protege with a one year guarantee. She is on cloud nine at the moment. It is so nice to see the grandkids happy.

Happy New Year, Everybody

see you next year ☺☺☺

Christmas Eve

We are having a Green Christmas! and that is exactly the way I like it. I hope there will be less accidents on the road.
We have been very busy with appointments for both of us. Finally we could look after our health
The ECO battle has come to a favourable end. You can read all about it here
We now have to wait what will be done with that site. We still have to be quite vigilant.
I did a lot of baking today. Our grandkids and their Dad will come for Boxing Day lunch and after that they will head for Vancouver where they have tickets to see the Canucks in action.
They need to get an early ferry because the other day one of the ferries knocked out the Duke Point ferry docks. The spokesperson said that it will probably be half a year before it will be operational again. Since that ferry line is now unusable the other ferries have to pull up the slack. I am sure glad we did not plan on using the ferries this year.
Last night we went to an open house at one of our new ECO depot friends. It was a lot of fun. They had a life size Santa that dances and sings several Christmas songs and some of us girls danced along with him. Our friend told a funny story about that Santa. During the year it is stored in it’s box. The head comes off and the body is compressed down and to keep it down it has a lever under the box, then the head sits lose on top and the box closes. One year her little granddaughter was going to help put up the Santa, They opened the box and tried to pull Santa up but he would not budge. My friend remembered the lever under the box and pulled it. Up jumped the body but the head catapulted at the little girl. She was absolutely petrified. When the story was told yesterday we really had to laugh. I am sure by now the girl is laughing about that story too.
For now I wish everybody a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Good night everybody ☺

Bad is often not all bad…

If it had not been for the trouble with the ECO Depot we would not have met so many of our great neighbours .
Yesterday we had a bar-be-cue with the group at our neighbours turkey farm. I have never seen so many turkeys at once and the noise they made was LOUD!

This is only part of the turkey group.
We sure had a lot of fun. To keep us warm we had a fire in the field. Later on we had hamburgers and hot dogs.


This morning my brother-in-law came over bright and early and Cliff and he went to get a load of wood. Cliff saw it on Used Cowichan for sale; it was nearly 2 full cords and they had to make 2 trips. Now we need one more cord and we’ll have enough for this year and next. I even helped a bit to unload. When they came back from the first load I had lunch ready. Pork ribs with potatoes, carrots, cauliflower and a green salad with enough leftovers for tomorrow. I always like to have leftovers for Mondays because I am busy with doing laundry.
Last night I was invited to our new neighbours place for a ladies party. Everybody there was sooo young but it was lots of fun. I met the mother of our neighbour and had a good talk. She and her husband are leaving for a month holiday down South with their trailer. It is the first time they are Snow Birds. I hope they are having lots of fun. I sure envy them.
Now it’s time to say good bye and
good night everybody ☺

Last Sign-waving picture

It was a fun afternoon with lots of goodies to eat and lots of friends.

It’s over

or is it? I sure hope so. The Eco Depot was voted down by a large margin at least for the Cameron Taggart site. It was so nice not having to do 3 hours worth of “sign-waving” in the cold. It has been a long time since this nightmare started and hopefully it is over with now but we are still very vigilant.
Here is a video clip I took from the TV about it.

ECO Depot Interview on Shaw TV

We’ll see what the new year brings.
I used to bake lots of cookies to take to the sign-waving and because of baking every week I gained some weight during that time. Now I noticed though that I am so used to eating cookies that it will be hard to break that habit, but breaking it I must!!

We had a beautiful day here on the Island. Lots of sunshine and no rain but it was a tad cool. Tomorrow it is supposed to rain a bit but after that the sun will be out again. In tonight’s News we were told that the winter is going to be colder than normal. I hope they are wrong but if they are not, we have lots of wood to keep us warm in the house.

A few days ago I tried my hand at making biscuits and gravy but I think you have to be living in the South in order to do a good job ☺☺☺, mine sure did not work out too well. So I used the leftover sausage gravy to make it into a pot of soup. That was a success, so all was not lost.
I am looking forward to company on Wednesday. My sister in law and hubby live in Lethbridge and they have arrived in Victoria to spend one month on beautiful Vancouver Island. They like to be independent so they opted for a nice hotel in Victoria. It will be fun to visit often, either here or at their hotel.
Shopping tomorrow morning.
That’s it for tonight…so
Good Night everybody ☺

Long, long ago

I wrote my last entry. I just had nothing really to write about.
It only took a few days to get over my experience in the hospital. So far everything is OK and I did not have a repeat. My hearing is a lot better too so I am a happy camper.
This is the time we used to pull out of our driveway to start the long trek to Arizona. When I read about the lucky people that are on their way now I am quite envious but I am glad that we have had many nice winters in Arizona/California to look back on.
We had another sign waving today. Two more Sundays and we think that will be the end of it. General elections will be held Nov. 19. and hopefully we will be getting new directors. At the same time we will be voting for or against the proposed site for the ECO depot.
 
It really is sad to think that municipal forces want to destroy our rural life and a piece of property that is beautiful. These woods are inhabited by lots of critters including bears, cougars, racoons as well as goshawks, cooper hawks and sharp shin hawks.

We are all for recycling to keep stuff out of the landfills and we have done that for years but we already have two commercial recycling centres close by and two more in Duncan. Why we need another one to the tune of over 2 million dollars - that we the taxpayers have to pay for - is beyond me.
OK… I’m off my soap box now.
When I got up this morning it was raining but around 10 the rain stopped and we were lucky that it stayed dry and even sunny until we finished with the signs at 3 PM.
I have been busy knitting felted slippers. It is amazing to see them turn from something that could fit an elephant to something that keeps my feet so toasty warm. Of course I could buy slippers cheaper than what I have to pay for the yarn to make them but buying them is not nearly as much fun as making them.
Halloween tomorrow but I don’t have to buy any goodies because no little goblins will be coming our way, at least they have not for many years now. If I am wrong then there are always loonies to hand out.
That’s all for now,
Good night everybody ☺

Never too old to learn

I am 75 years old, married for 52 years and have canned since I got married. You would think I would have a grip on the best way to do this but… no… I only learned today. Canning tomatoes has always been a pleasure but it was quite a long process. Today I had an 8 kg bucket heaped full of tomatoes that Cliff picked in the morning. Normally I would can that as juice to use in all kinds of recipes. That means cutting up the tomatoes after taking out the stem part then cooking them until they are soft. After that I used to pass them through a food mill to get the skins out, fill jars and can. Today I decided to just can the whole tomatoes but first I had to get the skins off. Pretty easy to do if you know how. It took me 1 1/2 hours from start to having the jars in the canner. Amazing. Most of you probably knew how to do it but I only knew how to the hard way and now I am a really happy camper.
I was not too happy awhile ago because I lost a lot of my hearing back in July and it has not gotten better at all. I had an audiogram done and I might need a hearing aid. So far I am not doing too bad without it. Watching TV is a little harder to do but I don’t watch that much anyhow. Poor Cliff has to repeat quite a bit for me but he is very good about it.
I also ended up in the hospital with a severe case of vertigo. It came on within seconds and was quite scary particularly since my blood pressure was 200/90. Never happened before. I could not stand up at all and kept on vomiting. We got really scared and called 911 for an ambulance. They were there within 10 minutes and off I went on a stretcher. A totally new experience for me and one I hope will not be repeated soon. The emergency was packed. The nurse later told me that it was the worse she has seen there for a long time. It took about 2 hours before the doctor could see me. All that time I was on a stretcher in the hallway but it did not matter to me, just as long as I did not have to move my head. I was still vomiting although I had nothing left in my stomach. They kept me hydrated intravenously and after I was stabilized around 8.30 at night I was able to get Cliff to take me home.  The doctor ordered a CT scan and that came back normal so I am glad about that.

Now I feel really good again. Last week I made and canned 19 pints of spaghetti sauce and today just tomatoes whole. It was a fun and I will have to do it again.
I went shopping today and the gent in front of me bought 4 tomatoes and I just about fainted, the price came to $ 2.64. Imagine the “gold” I have in the jars ☺
Enough of my rambling.
Good night everybody ☺

Not a cloud in the Sky

and we really need the rain. Cliff and I walked in the woods yesterday and it is bone-dry. It makes it very scary to live where we are. Lots of tall trees around. I just hope everybody takes care not to start a fire inadvertently.
It really was nice weather for travellers on the long weekend though.
We are having lots of tomatoes now but they still are not ripe enough for my liking. Great for slicing etc. but I want to make tomato sauce and for that they have to be soft to the touch.
I just opened a jar of 3-fruit and noticed that I canned it on Sept. 8th. Our pears and plums are not nearly ripe to eat. It seems that everything is about 3 weeks later than normal. The damp spring and even part of the summer was great for the cucumber crop. I make a cucumber salad everyday and still they are coming on strong. I gave away lots too. Just now I cut swiss chard for lunch but most of it is still out there. This time of the year the vegetable patch is large but when the winter comes we have to buy veggies. The only vegetable I like frozen is peas. Every other type I rather eat fresh.  Not sure how the squash harvest will be. They are still very small and not plentiful this year. That sure changes from year to year.
Years ago this would be the time when I start to gather things together for our trip South for the winter. I really miss that time. Now we gather wood for the fireplaces ☺.
We were in Kelowna for a few days some weeks ago. We really hit it lucky with the weather since it was not too hot but on the way home we drove in rain from Hope right to Vancouver Island. Driving was not too bad though and we did not run into any roadwork. I guess that was due to the rain. On the way to Kelowna we saw 2 long line-ups in the opposite direction. We were hoping we would not be ending up in one of those. So the rain was good for us in a way.
School will start tomorrow and we have to be very careful driving through school zones. I am sure police will be checking to try to keep folks from speeding.
That’s it for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

Sunday Sign Waving

It was a beautiful day yesterday but very hot for waving signs. The turn-out was fantastic, more than 100 people. Lots and lots of cars going by and blowing their horns. As usual the cookies I baked in the morning were a great success and not one was left over. Good thing I saved a few for Cliff.




this is the area where an recycling/dump depot is supposed to be built.



read all about it

We have been battling the local government for over a year now. I hope it will not go on forever because it really messes up our life.
None of us is against recycling (I have been doing it diligently for years now) It’s just the location we are fighting. This area is zoned agricultural and is such a beautiful sight. I cannot understand how anybody could chose to destroy it. Besides that there are 4 recycling centres already in the area.
OK, rant over ☺

It is a little cooler today and I am thankful for that. Yesterday was the first time this summer when we spent some time downstairs in the rec-room because it was too hot upstairs.  We left all the windows and doors open last night to cool the house down. I closed the drapes this morning to keep the sun out and now I have to open everything up again to get a bit of heat inside. Crazy weather but at least I have my clothes on the line today. They always smell so nice when they are dried outside.
Lunch is over with and now I have to think what I am going to serve tomorrow. It’s a never ending chore ☺ but I like it.

That is the end for today.
Good bye everybody ☺

Where is our Summer? and Google+

I had lots of fun this afternoon trying out the new Google+. It is a really good concept and I hope to be using it regularly. My thanks to Rick for blogging about it.
I noticed that 2 more people have joined my Blog. Hope you enjoy it even though I have not been posting a lot.
The summer this year leaves a lot to be desired. On the other hand watching the News tonight I heard that a lot of people from the hot parts of Canada and the US are arriving here and enjoying our cooler weather. I must say that I rather have it this way than too hot. We had quite a bit of rain too which is not too bad since we don’t have to do too much watering in the garden. I am not sure if we ever get corn this year. It is so far behind that winter might come before it is ready to be picked. Lots of nice potatoes and the lettuce is wonderful. For awhile I was running out of greens but now swiss chard is growing great and we eat it every day. Pretty soon the cucumbers will be ready to pick as well. Life is good!
We have about 4 pounds of strawberries in the freezer and the same amount of raspberries. I am not sure what I will do with that. Time will tell.
I have been using my iPad a lot but I still like my iPod too. Actually the iPad is supposed to be for Cliff but I misappropriate it most of the time ☺☺
Between housework (not too much of that ), shopping, computer and listening to books the days just fly. I finished knitting a pair of socks for Cliff and have not started another pair yet. I think that is more for winter time.
That’s it for tonight,
Good night everybody ☺

Watching Swallows

What a great occupation!  We watched 3 little guys starting to fly. Usually one at a time with one parent around. One baby looked out of the door of the nest and another one was sitting on the peg in front of the door. At one time the little guy on the peg tried to get through the door but the “bully” in the doorway would not let it pass. It was almost through when it got shoved back down. That happened a few times and in the end it gave up trying. I must have sat watching the nest for about an hour.



I did not hear anything from the nursery in Chilliwack so I took the “Killer Basket” in the house for a few days.  It was a bit of a nuisance so I ended up taking it to the garden and using a fine mist from the garden hose to give it a good bath and hung it outside again. That seems to have done the trick and the bees stopped dying.
In the end the nursery phoned after all wanting to exchange the basket for another one so they could test the bad one. Of course there was no use to that after I had sprayed it. They were very good about it and told me to call back if the trouble came back. So far everything is OK.

butterfly on the basket


We have had a few beautiful days but the weather is supposed to change a bit. I don’t mind because I rather like the cooler weather. 

Good night everybody ☺

Happy Day

Happy in more ways than one.
First, my little iPod got a big brother! I took a flying trip to Future shop in Duncan and bought a brand spanking new iPad… big brother to iPod. It sure is easier to see but I still like iPod because it is easier to transport. Not so good is the fact that I have to share big Brother with big Cliff  
On the way to town I saw that BC Hydro was doing something on 2 power poles on the opposite side of the road so when I came back I decided to take the long way around Cowichan Bay from Duncan. That is the reason why Happy time two came into play.
Getting nearly to Country Grocer I saw a truck with a sign that read “Sockeye Salmon”. I came to a screeching halt and walked back to buy 4 freshly caught salmon. Each was between 3 and 5 pounds.
When I got home I alerted Cliff and he scaled them and I fileted them and froze them in usable portions. We love Sockeye salmon but I would not give you a plugged nickel for Chinook. I know a lot of people would deem that heresy but I find it too strong. Cliff likes it though.
When we still had our sailboat we used to fish all the time and mostly caught Chinook and Coho. I always called the sailboat “Tradewind”  a fish boat in disguise. One year we even caught the biggest Chinook at the Mill Bay Fishing Derby. That sure was exciting. I have canned hundreds of pints and half pints of Salmon in my lifetime but this year I just froze the 4 fish.  
I also have an update on my “killer flower basket” but that is for another Blog entry, right now I want to play with big brother

Good night everybody ☺

Updates

A while ago I wrote about my Maytag washer.
That break-down was actually a blessing in disguise. Because of that I started to use only a fraction of the Tide soap that I used before. It made my clothes so much softer and actually a bit cleaner too. I am a happy camper now.
Now about my Bee problem.
I asked Superstore where they buy their flowers and was told it is DeVry Greenhouses Ltd. in Chilliwack. I found their website on the net and left a message. A few days later they wrote and were very surprised that so many bees were dying after visiting that particular flower basket. They asked to have a picture of the basket and I sent one. They wanted to pick up the basket to test it and refund my money. I told them I would prefer another basket rather than money. That was the last of the correspondence. I wonder if I ever hear from them again so I wrote another email today. I will not let it rest though because if it happened with this one basket how many others are also affected and how many bees are yet to die. We are having enough problems with the lack of bees around Vancouver Island.
Now I will go back to listening to my audiobook “The Painted House” by John Steinbeck. I read the book twice already a long time ago and I love somebody reading to me.

Good night everybody ☺

2nd post

I had a terrible time to post my first Blog. Live Writer could not post it. I then tried Blogger and it took ages to enter the pictures. This is the first time I had problems. I guess I am joining the crowd in this. I just wish they would leave things alone when they work properly.
Grrrrrrrrrrr
I also tried this post in Live writer. Both times this is the window that popped up:














What's up with this??? I did the same thing I always did. Very frustrating.

Losing interest

Yes, I am losing interest in blogging. I guess that is because nothing really interesting happens that I could write about.
Today I went to the garden and took a few pictures.

Our lettuce



Rhubarb


and it looks like we are getting lots of strawberries.

The Dahlias are coming up nicely too. I saved the tubers from last year and had luck with them sprouting. The year before I did not have one that overwintered. It will be interesting to see which type of dahlias we will get. I did not mark them. This fall I will make sure I do.

The other day Cliff came in the kitchen bringing me our first potatoes. Here is a picture:




I almost needed glasses to see them but I threw them in with the potatoes for that day. Now I am waiting for the big ones! I bought a 10 pound bag of potatoes the other day and they are really terrible. I have to peel twice as much as I want to eat because so much of them has to be cut off.
As you see, nothing earth shattering is occurring but I like it this way.
Hope everybody had a great Father’s Day.

See you in the future.
Good night everybody ☺

Doors and windows wide open

drapes drawn. Only a few days ago I was cold all day but too stubborn to start a fire or turn on the electricity. Looks like we went from Winter to Summer within a few days. What happened to Spring????
This morning I even had to water and if the weather stays like this we will have to do that every day.
A few weeks ago I bought a hanging basket with beautiful blue flowers at Superstore.



I really like it a lot but lately I find about 4 honey- or mason bees dead under it on the balcony floor every day. I really would like to find out why that is. We have 3 other baskets and I use the same fertilizer on all of them, same as last year (Schultz 10-15-10 Liquid Plant Food).
I have never bought any baskets at Superstore because normally they look bedraggled but this one caught my eye. I think I want to find out which nursery supplies the store and see if they sprayed something toxic on the flowers. They might not tell me though.
I finally picked some of our rhubarb. Three stalks was enough to make a batch of “Heavenly Jam”. That is everybody's favourite. Lettuce is also coming on strong. We try to have a salad every day once or twice. Just before lunch I usually look around the garden to see what I can pick to cook. Today it was a bunch of greens and boy did they taste good! These plants are self-seeding and come back every year all over the garden.
Pretty soon the rapini will be finished so it’s good the greens are now big enough to eat.
The tomato plants are all blooming. We plant “Early Girl” and they taste wonderful but it will be the end of July before we can start eating them. I can hardly wait.

That’s it for today.
Good night everybody ☺

Bunnies and Birds

This year we have an abundance of bunnies around our house. Big ones, medium sized ones and tiny ones. As long as they don’t go in the garden they are safe but we also have one little one in the garden. I have no idea how they get in there. Every morning I expect to see the broccoli plants mowed down. I sure hope not. They play all the time, racing each other jumping over top of each other and just plain hop around. It seems that every few years there are lots of them and other years we hardly see any. It’s neat to see them clip a spent dandelion stem at the bottom and then nibble till it’s all gone which only takes a few seconds.
The birds are a different story though. A few days ago I went around the north side of our house which has no windows and is close to our neighbours' fence so we don’t go around that side normally. I noticed lots of white spots on the ground and when I looked up I realized it was bird droppings all down the side of the house. Hmmmmmmmm. I called Cliff but we thought the birds were roosting on a square vent that was sticking out a bit. The next day I looked again and I noticed a piece of hey or weed hanging from a vent hole. Hmmmmmm again. The day after that I walked home from the mail box and actually saw a robin flying out of that vent hole. That did it. With a tall ladder (the house is 2 storeys high) Cliff checked out the top of the gable.  Four of the  vent holes had no screens left.  This time he stapled wire screening over the holes but when I looked today one of the staples was gone and the edge of the screen was frayed. More staples are going up. I wonder who is going to win this war…. 
We have four or five birds roosting under our balcony and that’s OK but not IN the house please. They do make a mess there too, but I can clean that up easily.  
That was my big excitement for today.

Good night everybody ☺

Long, long ago…

I wrote the last Blog. I have had inquiries from Janna and Eddie wondering if I am OK. Thank you both for the thought and I am very well indeed, just too lazy to write. Actually there really is not much to write about.
Cliff is still working hard to stop the darn ECO depot/dump from being built in the farmland close by. Nobody is against having an ECO depot/dump  but not in a location that is farmland. It should be in an industrial area. It sure is hard to ‘fight City Hall” Last night we were both at a meeting of our area director but when questions came up that he found uncomfortable, he just changed the subject and so the fight goes on!!




Last Sunday we had another sign waving session. We are sure busy bees.


On June 18th we will have a fundraising dance. It should be lots of fun since we will have a live band which is supposed to be really good. This is coupled with a silent auction.

The garden is coming along great. We are now eating our home grown lettuce, onions and still Rapini every day. Our squash from last year lasted until about 4 weeks ago and I can hardly wait for the next crop. I really miss it. The tomatoes are growing by leaps and bounds. They are under cloches. Not long and radishes will also be on the menu.
To this day I still have 3 large bags of raspberries and one large bag of strawberries in the freezer. I really must do something with that.
The rhubarb is almost as tall as I am and I have not touched one leaf. It needs so much sugar that I don’t really want to use it. I will make some heavenly jam with it but I need crushed pineapple and after just checking my supply I find I am out of that. Next shopping trip will remedy that.
I just finished the audiobook “Heaven is for real” by Todd Burpo. It really is thought provoking. As you know I enjoy listening to books while I do otherwise boring chores. It’s a good thing I can download those from the library. I would be broke if I had to pay for them.

Back to my chores.
Good bye everybody ☺

Mother’s Day tomorrow

and we went to town today to get 2 flower baskets and some plants to put together a third one. The third one is the one that had the birds nest last year and one of the plants actually survived the winter. I originally thought I would just plant a few more flowers in it but the dirt was so matted up that I had to replace it. I hope the old plants will survive because they took quite a beating when I got them out. Now we need one more basket to even everything out. I have a solar light in each one and also solar Chinese lanterns between the baskets. Cliff figures the lanterns look “tacky” but I like them and so they stay
We actually went shopping quite a few times this week. Normally we combine all of it in one day but somehow this week was different.
The weather has been “Medium-Rare” this week but we picked nice days for our outings.
Weather permitting Cliff is outside whipping the garden into shape but he has a long way to go yet.  It has been too wet all Spring to do much.
A lot of our Lilies are up but none of the dahlias survived. I have to buy new ones next trip out.
Pretty soon we’ll be eating the first Rhubarb.
All is good ☺

Good bye everybody ☺

Is spring finally here?

I sure hope so.
According to the above picture it looks like it is true. The Orchard Mason Bees are hard at work. Cliff had to make another bee house to accommodate all of the newly hatched bees. I am glad they are not inclined to sting because there are so many of them.
It was such a fine day that I even went out and weeded the flower bed. It always pleases me to see it free of weeds. Unfortunately that is an ongoing process. It does not take long before the weeds take over again.
We bought our 18 Early Girl tomatoes a few days ago and yesterday Cliff planted them in 2 cloches. He also planted 6 lettuce plants that we bought already about 5 inches tall and 6 tiny little lettuce plants that I raised in the house. All of those are under plastic cloches as well. It is still too cold at night without protection.
I was able to pick the first useable veggies.

Rapini


I will be cooking some tomorrow. Rapini is a plant that comes back every year and tastes great. I always look forward to the first meal. This year it has been much later than normal.
It has also been a much colder Spring and most of our tulips have frozen edges and don’t look nice. Too bad because they looked great last year.
Time for bed.
Good night everybody ☺

Back to normal

Last Monday before picking up the Maytag parts we went to Walmart to do a bit of shopping.

I picked up a spiral ham that was on special. It must have been a momentary lapse of judgement because when we got home I looked at the size of it and was wondering for how many weeks we had to eat it since there is just Cliff and I at the table! To top it off when we tried it we found that it was very salty. So here I am stuck with about 8 pounds of salty ham. I knew I had to think of some way to use it because I just cannot throw food out.

I cut it up into usable portions and froze some but kept 2 chunks out. This morning I ground those 2 chunks up in my Braun grinder and figured I could use that instead of sausage to make biscuits and gravy, southern style. I checked for recipes on the internet and it sounded pretty easy. That’s what we had for lunch with a substitution of potatoes for the biscuits plus broccoli and a salad. It turned out very tasty and is a keeper. I also think that it would be great as a filling for crepes. Nicki had a good idea to mix the ground ham with cheese in scalloped potatoes for another dish. So now I am glad I bought that large ham.

All in all today was a great day.

Good night everybody ☺

Mission Accomplished

Mission Accomplished!!

By gosh we’ve got it ☺

It was around one in the afternoon Monday when the Maytag dealer called to let us know the parts kit we ordered was in. We went right to town, did a little bit of shopping, picked up the parts and started work on the machine at around 4.30 PM. At 11 PM, after we gave the washer a run through with just water, we were finished, but not without lots of work and frustrations. Actually I should say not without MY frustrations. Cliff is as cool as a cucumber when he does jobs like this one.

Maytag Man

Here are the tools of the trade:

All the electronic connections had to be made but luckily he was wise enough to take pictures before disconnecting everything.

Before that could be accomplished we had to put the machine together again and unfortunately we did not take any pictures before disassembly. That was too bad since it took us quite some time to figure it out which certainly was not easy. The icing on the cake was a wire around the drum that held the rubber boot from the outer drum to the machine. It was connected by a spring in the middle. What a job that was. Every time we had the boot in the correct position and tried to pull one side of the spring long enough to connect the other side the boot came off again. The spring was too strong. We tried using all kinds of tools but nothing seemed to work until Cliff thought of brake spring pliers he had. Off he went to the garage and after the second try the job was done. Too bad we did not think of that before.

During the whole job we had to change positions. On time I was in front of the machine holding something or other and Cliff in back, a few minutes later we switched. Up.... down, up...down. In the end I could hardly straighten up. This is not a job for an old lady ☺

This morning I did 2 loads of laundry and what a relief to hear the washer run smoothly.

All told the cost was $ 88.79, a far cry from the quote of $ 300.00 to 500.00. Cliff corrected me about the price I quoted in my earlier Blog.
Before:


and after:

Here is Humpty Dumpty put together again:

In conclusion: I hope we don’t have to do this job again any time soon ☺

Good night everybody ☺