The Parts Pile Is Growing

Michael felt in the mood to tackle working on the 2004 Ford today, right after our walk he started removing more parts and hoses.  Late this afternoon here is what my poor truck looks like: Radiator is out, fan is out, there sure is a big hole where all that used to be and lots and lots of parts on the floor in the shop.  Can he remember how to put it all back together???  And if he doesn’t have the right tool, he builds one: Pretty handy guy I’m married to!  You might ask why he is going to all this trouble, why not take it to a repair facility.  This particular repair job would cost us over $6000, Michael is capable of doing the repairs and we would rather put our money somewhere else.  There is also the issue of we originally paid a small fortune for this truck, it only has 143000 miles on a diesel engine which should last 500,000 miles.  We aren’t too interested in putting any more money into this truck—the injectors which Michael thinks are causing the problem cost $300 each so we will have to replace some of the eight injectors, maybe all of them.  American made—pretty sorry state of affairs if you ask us!

While Michael was being the family mechanic I cleaned and cooked.  I made six dozen oatmeal/chocolate chip/pecan cookies plus tacos for lunch.  I’m freezing some of the cookies for sending to Laci in Italy and giving some to Nat—they are his favorite! 

I’m liking my new Dyson vacuum cleaner with the exception of the hose and attachments.  The hose sucks itself back into the machine all the time—I feel as if I am constantly wrestling a snake!  Hopefully the hose will lose some of its “spring” with use!

Michael called to me from the bedroom this morning, Emmi was up on the bed growling—here is what she saw on the deck railing.

And we saw this big guy on our walk this morning