Shopping

06:18 Tuesday, 17 June 2025
Current Wx: Temp: 75.88°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 93% Wind: 4.61mph
Words: 483

We headed over to Ithaca yesterday, about 20 miles away, to shop at some big-box stores. That may seem like a bit of a schlep, but it's not unlike going many places from Nocatee, which I often jokingly said derived from the old Osceolan word for "thirty minutes from any place you'd actually want to be."

The difference is the drive. Thirty minutes to Ithaca affords very pleasant views on country roads with very little traffic. It gets kind of busy in Ithaca, and the parking lots can be cratered like the far side of the moon, but it's still a far less stressful drive than anything in St Johns and Duval counties.

The Maverick came in handy again. We bought a gas grill at BJ's, which supposedly weighed about 100 pounds. They gave us a cart to take the box out to the truck, and with the added six or eight inches on the cart, we were able to press the box up against the lowered tailgate, grab the packing straps of the box and lever it up into the bed of the truck, never having to bear the entire weight of the package. I'm not confident that we'd have had the same luck with the RAV4 due to the curves and uneven surfaces at the bumper/hatch interface.

Similarly, at home, I was able to remove the box by myself, letting the tailgate take most of the weight, tilting the box up and sliding it down the edge of the tailgate onto a hand truck we have.

BJ's gas is cheaper, so I filled up while we were there. Gas mileage on this tank was 37.5 mpg, which I expect may be what I can expect around here. As someone mentioned to me, you're either going up a hill or down a hill anywhere you happen to be driving around here, and that's mostly true.

Before breakfast yesterday, I went out and pulled another six or eight t-posts. They all came out fairly easily. The biggest challenge was the grass and vegetation that had grown through the bottom of the wire fencing. That was a bear to overcome. I'll go out and do another section this morning. I hope to get it all done by the end of the week.

Taking the tools back into the garage, I discovered a dove had been trapped in it overnight. The garage door seemed to confuse it, and it couldn't get out even though it was open, always flying above the door. I opened the side door to the garage and closed the garage door and it found its way out. It scared the hell out of me at first though! Had no idea it was in there until it started flying around the ceiling.

Didn't get any pics after the spider yesterday.

Well, better get at it.

The beat goes on...

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