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Bits and Pieces
  Annie
sent me this picture from her cell phone of Charis and me jamming on our
guitars. Annie and Charis have 3/4 size guitars. We all have
a long way to go to become proficient. Valerie and Charis also
love to dance while I sing and play.
More
dog days with Luna were spent on the 16th to the 18th as Jean and Joel
took Galen and celebrated their third anniversary in Leavenworth. I
took the time dog sitting to push ahead with more lecture preparation in
the book of Jeremiah.
 For
my birthday, I bought myself a Black+Decker 20V cordless 10" chainsaw.
(My 16" wired chainsaw
just wasn't cutting it. It is hard to keep its chain tight.)
I fired up the new one on the 19th. It's a timely purchase as
we need firewood since our home heating system is just limping along.
I've been keeping the woodstove going every day. I can saw wood
for about eight minutes before I need to recharge the battery for four
hours. But eight minutes of sawing, then splitting with the maul, and
stacking the wood is about all I can handle. If I start early in
the morning, I can recharge and saw more in the afternoon. The
contractor coming to check on our boiler system isn't scheduled until
March 3rd.
I learned that my
first girlfriend, Kathy (Finney) Hildebrand finally married long-time
beau Bruce Anderson on the 15th, and that they are moving to a new home
in Pasco. She retired from working for the Social Security
Administration at the end of 2022.
In the garden:
The garlic continues to flourish outside. Hundreds of Evergreen
Bunching onions are started on the end table near the wood stove.
Four varieties of tiny tomato plants have come up on the plant stand by
the dining room window. The Centiflor tomato growing under the
basement stairs has fruit turning red. And I have 36 Yukon Gold
seed potatoes beginning to sprout in a box in the basement.
 This
month, Randy cashed in his 30-year Series EE savings bonds that Dad had
given him. The $15,000 face value on the bonds was worth just over
$31,000 when redeemed. Randy took advantage of this gift to
purchase his new Toyota Camry. He sold his old Camry for $5,000
and bought the new one for around $30,500.
He stopped by on the 28th to get some of my online assistance.
First, I scanned his renters insurance for 2023-24 and uploaded it to
GPS Renting. Then we went online to PEMCO to remove his old car
and replace it with his new one. He struggles to keep track of
passwords, so I keep a password-protected list of them.
I got my own set of bonds out of the safe and calculated their value
online. Their face value of $15,000 makes them worth $31,104.
I need to cash them in as they are no longer accruing interest.
Unlike Randy, I have no specific plans for the windfall.
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A 7.8
magnitude earthquake struck southeast
Turkey on Monday, February 6th. It was followed by a 7.5 magnitude
quake the same day and hundreds of shocks continue. Within the first week, the death toll had
climbed past 34,000.
