A Delayed Trips and Sundries

 

Nice picture of me by Bob taken in New Bedford at a sort of "second opening" at The Co-Creative Center. We did manage to miss the actual opening as COVID came to call... but it was fun to finally make it to the show "Adjacency" celebrating the adjeacent relationship of my self and Liv Haines and Elizabeth Wilkinson to Swain School of Design alum and faculty. I am twice adjacent as both Bob and my sister Cathy went to Swain!

So we had fun and a mini-get-away and saw lots of art and people. One of the most fun pieces of civic art was this giant rooster made from entirely recycled/upcycled plastic and metal junque. Twenty feet tall and absolutely great!!

Pretty cool, right? The artist Artur Bordalo (who goes by the name Bordalo II) created this piece with the help of residents who gathered and "donated" all kinds of street finds- crushed shopping carts and orange traffic cones and even a plastic spring horse! It's monumental and fun and the way public art should be. (many "public art" pieces are bland and pretty easy to ignore...)

we had a splendid time and were even able to park for free overnight downtown as the code on our ticket refused to be read and we were ushered out for freeeeeeee!!

One Mystery Solved!

 

Here's a lovely picture of Bob's truck. In general Bob really likes his truck; it's been great. But one truly annoying problem kept arising and our local garage couldn't seem to fix it.

Bob's battery kept going dead.  Granted Bob doesn't drive a whole lot, but really? Any car/truck should be able to sit for three days and not be dead. This has happened too many times to recount, and our local mechanic kept having to replace the battery as it's always still under warranty. The mechanic actually suggested that Bob "drive more""... but what kind of a suggestion is that? Drive where? Just randomly to charge the battery? How does that benefit anyone, let alone the environment.

When the battery came up dead this past week, Bob called AAA and they got the truck jump started. The technician tested Bob's battery and said it was okay. This confirmed what we'd been thinking: it has to be an electrical problem of some sort. 

Bob decided to try another/different garage, expecting maybe a different set of eyes on the issue might solve this once and for all. Lo! and Behold! They solved it and the answer turned out to be crazy. Because the truck had belonged to a company, it had a tracking device installed to make sure the drivers weren't joy-riding (or something). The device had never been removed (or deactivated) so it continued to drain the battery. Who would have thought that??!?!? Anyway, it seems to be working now...

This is Bob standing in the horse field, next to a truly heroic squash plant. Bob threw a old squash on a composted manure pile in the bottom of Neko's field and this plant erupted and has really gone to town. I rode past it when I was riding Neko yesterday and was awestruck at the heroic dimensions- it has to be at least thirty feet across! 

It's spreading out in all directions... soon it may engulf all of Neko's field. We're hoping the squashes produced are edible. Bob has pulled some of the leaves back and claims there are several differently colored fruits. We'll see what happens when we harvest them!!