Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Lots of bees dining on the milkweed blossoms yesterday!

I have to say a little something about the mechanics we encountered yesterday. If you don’t know, Don tried to start my car yesterday to make a run to the grocery store and it wouldn’t start. I went outside and tried it, too, and it was clear the battery was dead. Since I just got a new battery about 2 1/2 years ago, I knew something was up. We have insurance through Geico, so we called roadside assistance and they had someone here within 30 minutes. The guy, who wore a mask (Yay!) was the most positive, lovely, salt-of-the-earth kind of guy. He got out, brought his battery charger with him, Don got in the car and tried to start it and it started. The gentleman immediately told Don to roll down the window and he looked in the car and noticed that the dome light – the one you can read by – was on. That’s what drained the battery. Don had last used the car Wednesday morning to recycle and we’re pretty sure that while taking the bins out from their position on the passenger seat, one of them hit the on switch and that darned light remained on for two days – or until the battery died. We are so grateful for a guy who gave us advice about what to do next, all with a twinkle in his eye and a smile – even though he had a mask on, he had a smile on his face. I could tell.

His advice was to let it run for about 30 minutes and then take a drive to let the alternator continue to charge the battery. In the meantime, we called a tire center which is just about a mile away and they told us to swing by after the drive and they would check to see it the battery could hold a charge. (I bought my current battery from them and it is still under warranty.) They were incredibly helpful. We asked what their COVID protocol was. They wear masks. Good. So we stopped by, Don went in (masked) and talked to the guy at the counter (masked) a young guy (masked) came out and checked the battery. It was good, so we didn’t have to buy a new battery. Then he replaced the windshield wipers, because we figured we should take advantage of the opportunity.

And then we went home. Everyone was so helpful, so kind and they weren’t disregarding the rules about masks. Bravo. We felt safe.

All of this happened early in the morning and as I’m not a morning person, I never felt fully awake the rest of the day. But I’m grateful it all worked out.

Late in the afternoon, we also gathered some smaller rocks to fill in some of the bare spaces in the rock garden.

We’re due for rain today. We are thrilled as it is very, very dry here, approaching drought conditions. Much of it will be in the form of thunderstorms, but we’ll take it. More is due tomorrow, so we’re going to take advantage of being indoors and relax.

I’m currently reading Where the Crawdads Sing  by Delia Owens. I’m late to this one. I like it. I’m not crazy about it. But it’s early on, so I’ll share my final thoughts when I finish. I will say that Owens writes beautifully.

I’ve started another Van Gogh puzzle. It will be slow going, but that’s just fine.

By the way, I made a video of a walk in our woods and uploaded it to IGTV. This is my first video and it’s a bit long, but what the heck! I’m not sure how to make an IGTV section in my highlights; I’ll figure that out later, but you can see it via my latest post on Instagram.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.