Wednesday, July 1, 2026 started our 4th month in our 6-month volunteer position in White, GA.
Cindy usually gets up before I do; enjoys a cup (or two) of tea; reads her email and puts the bird feeders out for the day (we don’t leave them out overnight so as not to attract bears, something we learned when we had our cabin in the woods of North Carolina); and then wakes me up (if I’m not up already) and makes our breakfast.
When I got up that morning, she mentioned that she hadn’t seen the chicken when she put the bird feeders out. But we’ve seen that happen a couple of times before and then the chicken shows up and starts scarfing up any seeds the birds might have dropped on the ground.
A Murder Most Fowl
After breakfast we went to patrol the lot and saw what at first we thought was trash scattered across a couple of parking spaces, then realized it was feathers. A LOT of feathers. A lot of chicken feathers.
Cindy was heartbroken and burst into tears. I did not see any body parts or blood, just a wide spread of feathers. We hadn’t heard anything overnight, but the A/C was running due to the heat so we might not have heard anything over the constant thrum of that.
I always thought a coyote would get the chicken eventually, but it may have been the raccoon from the day before (see last blog post). Either way, it seems chicken has gone to the great coop in the sky.
R.I.P. Chicken.
Happy Birthday To Me!
Thursday July 2nd was a Happy Birthday to me. Got well-wishes from my family throughout the day, which brought smiles to my otherwise serious face, and Cindy tells me dozens of friends of mine and/or hers wished me a Happy Birthday on Facebook when she posted about it (I’m not on there anymore). I was grateful for all those.
Cindy surprised me with 4 wonderful gifts (see photo) We enjoyed a nice steak dinner, compliments of our West Coast children/grandchildren via a gift card they sent for Father’s Day and I received another gift card from them for my birthday, but I haven’t decided what to get with it yet.
Thank you to everyone!
Watching Con Man got me wanting to re-watch Firefly. Cindy had never seen it so she agreed to try it and we watched the first episode that night. She liked it enough that we’re going to keep watching it together. Browncoats, rise up!
Friday July 3rd was the day off for most people since the 4th fell on Saturday and we expected to get slammed. Had a plan (following the old adage that “If you fail to prepare you are preparing to fail.”) which I cleared with the rangers in advance to close the gates at the entrance 3/4 of a mile away and for me to man them to control entrance and egress but….didn’t need it. Never had less than 14 spaces open for truck/trailer combos and the most we had to do was direct 4 cars to the overflow lot (we don’t allow single vehicles to park in the longer truck/trailer spots on weekends or holidays) about 1/8 of a mile away.
That night we watched more of Firefly.
Happy 4th Of July
On Saturday, July 4th, we had the same plan in place and it STILL was not needed. We never had less than 12 spaces open and the most we had to do was direct a couple of cars to the overflow lot. At 7:30 pm I got a text from our supervising ranger explaining that they were slammed everywhere else on the lake, so we were lucky. Clean living, my boy, clean living.
We watched more of Firefly and Cindy is really enjoying it.
Sunday was another weird day, for a Sunday. In talking with the rangers who patrolled through we were all assuming that people were either hungover, tired from all the fireworks the night before, or maybe just sick of the heat. Whatever it was, we (and the rest of the places around the lake) were not busy at all.
It was a strange finish for a weekend that we had been told for two months would be slamming, but we weren’t complaining.
That night we finished watching the first (and sadly, only) season of Firefly. Now Cindy wants to watch the Serenity movie on Monday night.
Getting A Handle On It
Monday I fixed the refrigerator door handle…again. It broke back in the early part of 2025, and then again a couple of days ago. Fortunately, I had another spare part packed away in a tub in the back of the truck. The last time I organized the tubs in the truck I made a list in Apple Notes of what was in each tub and that tub’s location (such as bottom left or top right, etc.). I pulled up that list on my phone, found which tub had the part in it, got it out and had the refrigerator door repaired in 10 minutes.
Now I just need to order another repair kit to have on time the next time the door landless latch breaks. The worst thing is that the part that breaks is one tiny piece, no bigger than a nickel. But it’s notorious for breaking. And you have to buy the entire repair kit just to get that one small part. So you end up paying $12 for a piece that’s worth, maybe, a quarter.
We watched Serenity that night. Second time for me, first for Cindy. They used the extra money in the movie budget to good effect, but as always the story was more about the characters than the equipment.
On Tuesday I ran some errands in town during the day. That night we started watching Silo on AppleTV. I read the book, Wool, that it is based on back in 2022. The series just started its 3rd season and was renewed for a 4th and final season next year, so if we enjoy it we’ll get to see it through to its end.
Wednesday, July 8th would have been my mom’s 92nd birthday.
Our last little birdie flew from the nest this morning. I checked the nest in the afternoon and we are now empty-nesters again.
Do you know the Trivago Teeth Guy?
Replacing The CO2/LP Detector
Thursday Cindy and I spent most of the day out running errands, getting lunch and grocery shopping. Then, since my knees are feeling less pain than they have for a long time, I replaced the “expired” CO2/LP detector in Nomad. You may recall that it requires getting down to the lowest level on the floor, and my knees have just not been up to it until the past few days. One of the errands we ran was getting some screw-on wire connectors since the old ones were the crimped-on kind and were unable to be reused.
Thankfully, it did not take long. Turned off the power, disconnected the old detector, connected the new detector, tested it and put all the cabinet covers back on and re-attached the detector. Wasn’t more than 20 minutes but my knees still felt like it was an hour, lol.
I’m going to hope my knees are feeling even better next week and if so I’ll try installing the new dinette table braces I have on hand.
That night we finished the first season of Silo. I enjoyed Cindy’s suprise with the big reveal at the end. I won’t spoil it for any who haven’t read the book or seen the series yet. She’s smart and a lot of times she figures out how things are going to go, but this time she was wide-eyed with shock. I loved it!
Saturday and Sunday was moderately busy. Both nights we watched season 2 of Silo, so I guess you can assume we’ve liked the series.
As usual, Monday was a day of rest and relaxation for us. We had heavy thunderstorms come through that night while we finished watching season 2 of Silo. Season 3 just began airing weekly on July 3rd, so we’re going to TRY and wait a couple of weeks to start back on it so we can watch multiple episodes at a time.
Wednesday, July 15th I spent most of the day moving my 3 websites to a different hosting service. My ignorance always makes the process harder than it needs to be, lol, but I only do it every 3 years or so. This new hosting service helps by making it pretty easy, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to muck it up.
And now we’re 4 1/2 months into our 6 months of the volunteer position.
Thanks for following The Wandering Wetheringtons.