It was our 'Friday'.....

 6:43 am - Friday - June 3rd - Likely, CA - 52° F, 59% humidity, wind 3 mph out of the south......mostly cloudy today with a forecast high of 74° F.  On this date in 2012 TLE and I were bicycling by Spokane Falls in Spokane, WA......↴

This week Thursday was our 'Friday'.  I've always loved Fridays, even back in my workaday life, because you know on Friday morning you won't be working the next day, so you can sleep in if you wish, and no one will have any claims upon your time.  Frankly, it is the same today, 10 years into retirement....I still love Fridays, even if they occur on a Thursday....lol.

Each workday morning TLE and I have our routines.  I'm usually the first one out the door, with TLE locking the door whilst I take the cover off Club Car #20's seat.  On the way out the door I always grab my keys, but on this morning I didn't.  While I'm removing the seat cover TLE begins her walk to work.  By the time I realized I didn't have my keys she was out of sight, and probably almost to work.  I thought we had a spare key under the Norcold refer, but when I looked it was not there.....doh!  I purposely leave the Norcold bay door unlocked so we can access the house key if we get locked out, and now I'm wondering how long the house key has been missing, and how long I've been leaving the bay door unlocked to no purpose.  Anyway, I had to walk down to the Clubhouse to get TLE's keys, then walk back to unlock the Newell door, and retrieve my keys.  I don't know about you, but when my routine gets interrupted like that I feel like the rest of my day is completely out of sync, and that is how I felt on Thursday, which was my 'Friday'.

Instead of messing around with just putting out 5 carts, I put out `15 (the 5 electric Club Cars, and 10 Yamaha gassers).  Of course, wouldn't you know it, we only rented 9 carts the entire day.  Well, at least I didn't have to worry about putting out more carts as I headed out to drive the golf course to be sure there were no issues.  While I was stopped on hole #15 I spied DeWayne down on the 17th hole mowing the fairway in the big Jacobsen mower......

.....by the time I returned to the Clubhouse I found Dennis filling a 5 gallon bucket with water, and then dumping a bunch of used golf balls into the water to soak.  He's been picking up 'lost' golf balls on his daily walks for months, and what we do is clean them, and then sell them in lots of 20 for $10, and 50 for $25, or 50¢ a ball.  There must have been a couple hundred balls in that 5 gallon bucket!  They are all in pretty good condition, but there are no matched sets.  For customers it is a chance to try out different brands such as Callaway, MaxFli, Nike, Titleist, Top Flite, Bridgestone, Sriston, etc.  At any rate, I spent the next hour cleaning those balls to ready them for resale.

Once that was done it was around 10:30 am and time for me to close the driving range, and pickup a few hundred hundred range balls to be cleaned, and returned to the large trash can in the Clubhouse for future customers to 'rent'.  Usually it takes me close to 90 minutes to finish that task, but on this Thursday it only took me one hour.  Once I had the range cleared of golf balls DeWayne arrived to mow the driving range once again.  I put all the balls into two 5 gallon buckets, added some dish soap, then water, and let them soak for a few hours before I cleaned them.

Following our two lunch breaks I returned to weed whacking up on Hamel Way for about an hour....I hauled away two trailer loads of weed debris, and by the time I was finished I was in need of a shower, but that was still two hours away.  The rest of the afternoon was spent cleaning, and returning the 9 golf carts to the cart shed, and dodging rain drops.  It would rain hard for 5 minutes then stop.  This sequence repeated itself for over an hour.  Naturally, when it was raining I took shelter in the cart shed, so it took me longer than usual to finish cleaning, and putting away the carts.

John and Wendy, the owners of the home on Hamel Way where I was weed whacking, invited TLE and I for drinks after work as a show of appreciation for my labor, so after dropping off the cash tray to Kathy who will man the office for the next four days, we stopped off and spent about 90 minutes getting to know John and Wendy.  They are very sweet people, and have lived in this area for their entire lives.  John was a third generation rancher back in his workaday life, but when it came time for he and Wendy to retire their kids had no interest in continuing the ranching legacy so they sold the ranch.  In the winter they live in Cedarville, and in the summer they live at Likely Place.....it is a nice life they have.  I wish I had taken a picture of the view from their deck....it is gorgeous!

Well, that was our 'Friday', which was really Thursday....thank you for stopping by!