Changing goals and speed

[AClark]

I'm so over this sensor and the leaking - it did great for about 2 weeks and I'm back to leaving puddles everywhere I park. Truck runs great, sensor is working, but I'll be damned if I can figure out why it's leaking again.

Bunnies are doing good, still have 16, even the little bitty runt is healthy, just tiny. Two of the white ones have red eyes which was a surprise since both parents are white with dark eyes. I'm not really handling them since they have a purpose, but the oldest ones are friendly regardless. They meet me at the cage door on their hind feet to be petted, and really how can I say no? The most I ever handled them was to check that they were being fed and to put them back.

I have a feeling that butchering day is going to suck for me, I've really tried to not get attached and not to handle them so they wouldn't be friendly, but some of them are anyway! The other two litters are much more standoffish, and that is fine by me.

Well, just a short note on things, since I need to go pull that sensor off and see if I can stop the leak, since I need to hit the feed store and grocery store both today. If I get lucky I may even make it down to the fabric shop which I've needed to do for several weeks. I have a lot of sewing that needs to get done, and I'm running out of time, but this leaky truck makes me wary to drive it very far.

ETA: So, somehow that sensor managed to work loose - that was the cause of the leak. After spending 30 minutes looking for the correct socket for it, I noticed I could take it off with my fingers. How, I'm not sure, as I know I put it on reasonably tight to begin with.

I'm trying to get all these little things fixed, since we're doing our move after Christmas and I'm going to be hauling the other truck - I'm also about to be short the only other pair of adult hands for a month so now we're on a push to get it all done. Truck needs rear brake pads, but the thought of having to take off all 4 back tires isn't a pleasant one. It has to be done though, our car hauler doesn't have trailer brakes, so I'm going to have to rely on my trucks brakes to do the job.

I swear my husbands work is doing everything they can to make this as difficult as possible. He's barely been home due to work issues (well, other peoples issues, not ours) and with him about to leave it's getting to be a lot. I'm scheduled for hand surgery after the baby is born so while I can get some stuff done, I am not nearly as efficient as I need to be.

 

[AClark]

Well I haven't been around much due to the craziness of getting ready to move and all. Still looking for a house but have a lead on something in the country so maybe, I have my fingers crossed.

I lost the vast majority of my baby rabbits. They were 10 weeks old, I moved them to a big pen outside since I was out of space inside. Only the ones I planned on keeping stayed indoors. Something got into there inside my yard and I guess? scared them to death, they'd been out there for a couple of weeks already. I was planning on processing all of them the weekend after Thanksgiving, but I lost 8 in one night, moved the remaining ones inside, and ended up putting 1 down and the other passed on it's own, it seemed fine the day before as well, I went out to feed and it was dead. I have no clue what happened to them, the one i put down was still alive but couldn't get up. Not a single mark on any of them, cage was undisturbed. I had lost a couple before the move, mainly being the runty one - no clue on those either, nobody seemed sick and the ones that are still inside all are healthy and in good shape. It hasn't been very cold and they were protected from the wind, the place I have them indoors isn't heated either. I guess it's a learning experience, though I'm not sure what I learned other than my pellet gun is functional for the job, which I had planned on using it to process them.

I wasn't looking forward to processing day either, some of them were really friendly even though I barely handled them, but this just sucked.

Meanwhile, spent Thanksgiving day with my parents. My mom wanted us to cut a tree down for her because it had died and was leaning over a fence. My husband got their chainsaw out and got it running, cut a wedge in it...and we decided it felt rotten enough to pull over with the truck. It was leaning so bad we were really afraid to cut it in case it fell the wrong way (it could fall on a fence, through their power lines, or through the other fence - not a lot of room to drop it correctly), so we had planned on putting tension on it with my truck from a good distance to force it to fall that way.
Well, that didn't exactly work. I pulled the straps tight with the truck gently and the whole tree ripped out of the ground, roots and all. I had probably 200 feet of straps for a 20 ft tree so it didn't come anywhere near my truck, but

 

[HomeOnTheRange]

Sorry to hear about your rabbits. It is really sad to loose so many and not even know why!

 

[Latestarter]

Did you use any kind of chemicals on the area where the rabbits were placed outside? Insecticides? herbicides? fertilizer? If so, it could have had a cumulative effect over time while they were out there. Just a thought. Sorry you lost them. Loss of meat as well as the hit to the pocketbook. Hey! What's up with this?

it didn't come anywhere near my truck, but

An incomplete sentence followed by a distinct lack of pictures?!?!?! Hope there wasn't any significant damage.

 

[Bruce]

Maybe we get to suggest an ending to the story @Latestarter

... it didn't come anywhere near my truck, but it scared the bejeezus out of us all the same.

 

[Latestarter]

... it didn't come anywhere near my truck, but we'll be doing fencing on someone else's property besides our own.

 

[AClark]

LOL, I got distracted and thought I was finished. It scared the living heck out of me because my almost 90 year old grandfather was "supervising" this (he's spry, very spry) and he has this tendency to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When I put tension on the rope to take up the slack I saw the tree start to go (I was idling the truck forward) and saw my husband pushing grandpa further away from the tree because it was shaking back and forth. I ended up gunning the truck - which sounds more bad@ss than it is considering I was in granny gear, to make sure it would come over my way and not on them.

You just can't tell what crazy stuff might happen, and I was afraid it was going to snap and shoot back at them. I can replace a fence or call the power company out to fix the line if I goof up, but can't replace grandpa. Grandpa scares me because he can be kind of oblivious to when he needs to get out of the way. Love him dearly, but wish he wouldn't supervise our antics. My husband is good at getting out of the way but he does his own stuff I don't approve of...like climbing said rotten tree to put the strap on rather than going and getting the ladder. I was watching him pull off good sized limbs climbing it because it was in such bad shape, and though he's only 150 lbs, I had my doubts on whether it was going to hold him.

The bright side is, now I don't have to worry about that huge tree coming down on the main power lines going in the house, or on the fencing, or my mom's truck or anything. Downside? When we go visit at Christmas we need to chop it up.

As for the bunnies, no when I put them outside, I put them where my garden was. I've never used any chemicals there. They sprayed pesticides there before I moved in but not since, and they are supposed to be "eco friendly" for pets and kids. Maybe that was the cause though, it would make sense considering the one I put down was acting like it had a neurological problem.

 

[AClark]

I've learned a lot about TX DMV lately, and am happy to be leaving. I mentioned before we had bought a flatbed/car hauler off a friend. Well, he gave us a bill of sale and receipt for it, he didn't have a title. Apparently, that's A-OK in TX and common for "home made" trailers. It is a manufactured trailer that had the tongue replaced, and the VIN is gone, but it has been registered etc. So, I went to register it, and found out to get a title on it I have to have it inspected. That means all the lights have to work, and they don't, I have a magnetic set to plug in for it. Then they charged me through the nose to register it, at least I think $66 is expensive for 1 year of trailer plates! At some point I'm going to have to get a title on it so I can register it back home, as they won't touch it without a title, but I'm not paying another $66 next year - my AZ plates on my truck are only $45 a year. AZ said my plates would be $125 but those are permanent plates that you don't have to renew ever. Maybe I'll register it in Oklahoma, I'm not sure, but definitely not TX.

It's down to crunch time getting ready to move. We just finished a nightmare with the gas pickup. When we first got the truck we went out mudding, and hit a huge hole in a wash we couldn't see - that broke the race and dumped all the bearings out of the CV axle, we replaced that but didn't realize it had damaged some other things as well (tie rod and wheel bearing on the same tire). After we had done the tie rods on it since one was shot, we figured out the wheel bearing was bad on that side - which requires replacing the entire hub. I ordered them in a pair, and we did the bad side first. It took about 4 hours to get it all apart. We held off on doing the second one because we ran out of time. Well, hubby and I were going to the store and the truck started wobbling really really bad. Pulled over and the driver side had sheared off 3 lug studs out of the 5 on the one we hadn't replaced yet. He has oversized tires, and though we went and got our car hauler after getting a friend to give us a ride home, the extra wide tires wouldn't fit on our trailer by about 1 inch, so had to call a tow truck to get it home. It also ate up the front tires pretty bad so another $400 for 2 new tires on top of the hubs/bearings and tie rods, and $100 to have it aligned after all that since I am not good at alignments. He makes fun of my 17 year old truck for having problems occasionally, but it has never cost us $1000 in repairs all at once, and it has 193k miles on it, his has 91k. The worst that has happened to mine was the oil pump went out almost 2 years ago and cost us $450 in parts to replace. We still have to do 2 actuators inside the dash on his because we just figured out his truck doesn't have any heat - I guess that's a perk of living in TX is realizing in December the truck heater isn't working. It was a recall for Dodge, but they said it had already been repaired and they wouldn't fix it again. They are easy, the worst part is pulling the dash apart.

That being said, I am waiting on a new wiring harness for my cruise control. I took my truck to the dealership for a recall and they cut into the harness to put a fusible link in. Well, since theyd id that, I haven't had cruise control and my brake light is on and off. Only $14 to replace it and about 5 minutes, but all the same the dealership sucked and said it "wasn't their fault". Funny how it all worked fine until they cut into the harness. Barring anything breaking while I put that wire on, my truck is ready to go.

Other than that, it's the great purge of crap of 2016 in my house. I threw out an entire truck bed full of stuff out of the garage over the weekend, literally all junk and crap that has accumulated for the last 3 years. We are in the phase of "let's try to eat all the stuff out of the deep freezer" now, which makes for some oddly concocted meals. Anything we don't manage to eat we are giving to a friend. I've managed to empty the refrigerator and freezer that came with the house and get it clean, just have to find the shipping bolts for our washing machine now.

 

[Latestarter]

I'm sure you'll be thrilled when it's all done and over with... Mean time, try to keep your chin up.

 

[AClark]

Chin is definitely up because we are leaving here! I'll miss being close to my family, but this is a black hole in the way of duty stations.