Back home, feeling OK again after 3 days getting medicine adjusted so I can breathe OK, and also getting rid of some of the double vision. Back to functional at about 68.4% of normal!
Scott and I reloaded my rebuilt trailer to put more weight on the front and took it for a run. It didn't swing back and forth anymore! So will bring up my planned load of stuff that I would rather have in WI then in MN (a push lawn mower, a small sized clothes dryer -- for the cabin) and some recycling stuff that I can get rid of at the Restore Store in St. Croix (electric stuff) and metals scrap for Freiberg's Gone Green in Frederic. Have to pay down here for most everything like that.
Margo headed back to Pine Island from West Bend where she celebrated father's day, her parents 66th anniversary and her father's birthday all on the same weekend. Myrtle, her mom, is far into alzheimer's but still likes a piece of cake and once in a while responds and talks a little. She sleeps a lot and walks a little with someone at her arm at the nearby nursing home. She left for home at 10 this morning with instructions from her brother to leave the car running if she stopped along the way!
Margo is driving the 1991 Olds Cutlass Ciera that she got from her Aunt Lou three years ago with 50,000 miles on it. It is a pretty good car, but the starter stopped starting on the way down. It does start with a moan when it is cool, but not when hot--probably bearings gone. I thought I might try pulling the starter and spending $8 for new bearings and another $10 for new brushes and rebuild it myself, however it looks like getting the starter out is major work!
Studied up on how to replace the starter on the internet. Most cars have it quite simple to replace--take off the wires and a couple of bolts and pop it off and put another on one. This one says to disconnect the battery, pull out the radiator, remove the freon from the air conditioner, unbolt the engine and raise it up, remove the A/C metal hose running under it, and then remove wires and two bolts and replace, the put everything back and replace the freon. Beyond my ability to do -- so our local shop in Pine Island, Ron's Auto, will do it starting tomorrow
Thursday night is the Sterling Eureka and Laketown historical society meeting at Cushing upstairs at the community center at 7 pm. Mostly we are going to get ready for the Sterling Old Settler's picnic Sunday at noon (potluck in the Community Center too). Have to bring some stuff downstairs to show, and make sure things are orderly. I think we will setup two tables of Cushing Tigers baseball memorabilia and pictures. The Tigers were an outstanding local team that played from 1904 to about 1984 winning many local and state chanpionships especially in the 1960s.
I am preparing for a Monday night talk at the Polk Genealogical Society meeting on the 25th at 7 pm at the Luck Museum. An update on the 1940 census indexing project, what is in that census, and some of the free places on the Internet where you can do family genealogy. We will be talking about the Polk County Fair coming up at the end of July--our group is responsible for the Red School house and plan to have genealogy help and exhibits.
Hope to get the car back from the shop by Wednesday and be up to the Lake Thursday. No mosquitoes down here, so working outside is very nice! It has been very wet, and a little hail, but things are green and growing well. Started up the push lawnmower for the first time for a couple of years and ir ran OK. Decided to do a thorough cleanup up including taking of the plastic and metal covers and then put it back together and it wouldn't start--found that the gas line had rotted out. I guess using ethanol gas in old mowers dissolves the gas lines sometimes as with Scott's chainsaw.
Comments and photographs from an old local historian and backwoodsman about life in the St. Croix River Valley