Finally Friday

It was 80 degrees with 80% humidity at 5:30 AM Friday, and that was the overnight low! I stopped at Home Depot before work again and picked up the rest of the few items I needed (I hope) to finish wiring the trailer.

I went home at lunch, but not to eat. The front lawn was way too long and, when the blessed cold front comes in, it is supposed to bring strong storms. So, I cut it at lunch. I took off my short sleeve shirt and cut it wearing just my t-shirt. Of course, it was drenched in sweat by the time I was finished pushing the mower around. So, I took it off, washed up as best I could with cold water and a wash cloth and then put deodorant and a fresh t-shirt on. Then I topped it with my original short-sleeved shirt.

I drove back to work, wishing (and not for the first time in this heat wave) that I had some Gold Bond powder in the house!

Of course, this time it didn’t rain before 5:00 PM, and the weather said the strong storms were moving north of here, through Waterford and Lake Orion. So, all my efforts at lunch were for naught!

Instead, I changed clothes after treating cats, and turned the news on for the weather. Next, I watered all the container gardens, front and back. The heat’s been brutal on them as well. But, the nice thing is that they may look dead, but they bounce back miraculously with a good drink of water!

Impatiens before watering

Same plant, less than two hours after watering

Then I headed out into the heat to work on the trailer lights. The weather was weird! At 6:45 PM, a loud noise distracted me. At first, I didn’t realize it was thunder, as the sun was shining. Then the rain came down and more thunder. But, the sun was still shining! That only lasted about 15 minutes, though, until the rain stopped. It didn’t cool anything down here, it just made it more muggy!

I got a new ground wire attached to the trailer and various wires joined with wire nuts. Then I started to wrap the wires into a wiring harness. I used plastic electrician’s tape the first time, but I was using friction tape this time. I am hoping it lasts longer than the brittle plastic.

I attached the harness as I moved down the frame rail with the wire ties at each pre-drilled set of holes. I got the right side front sidelight wired in and was slowly moving down that rail, wrapping the wires, when I saw my next problem. I had used what I had on hand to secure the sides to the trailer bed: Long, big (1/4-inch diameter) hex head screws. But the screws went way into the frame rails and the coarse threads might cut the wires that have to travel over them. Damn!

So, I took measurements so I can buy the right size bolts, nuts and washers on Saturday. I went inside to write them down and saw it was almost 8:00 PM! So much for wiring the trailer tonight! Discouraged, I shut everything up and quit for the night with maybe, maybe, 1/4 of the job done…

I took a much-needed rinse off shower. Well, more than just a rinse-off, as I had been rolling around on the garage floor and sweating for the past two hours.

When I was drying off, the NOAA weather radio was going off (the first, but not the last time – it went off about every hour the rest of the night). It said that at 8:45 PM, a strong thunderstorm with 60 MPH winds and 1/4-inch hail was predicted to hit Redford. They even interrupted the TV with the emergency warning system with the same message. It did get windy, but no storm here. I dodged the bullet, that time.

I made a chicken potpie in the microwave and a small salad while it cooked. I ate both for my late night supper. 

I tried to watch TV, but kept dozing off. So, I turned off the TV and went to bed. But, as I said, the weather radio kept waking me up. Most of the storms they were talking about were north of here, but I finally got nailed about 2:30 AM.

Since I was up anyway, I went outside and sat on the front porch to watch it. It was quite an impressive light show. The rain came down in sheets and even without the weather radio, the thunder would have probably woken me up! I will have to wait for the morning's light to see what tree branches were blown down.

When it ended, I went back to my troubled sleep.