"If you smoke after sex you're doing it too fast." - Woody Alen

Some days my ambition exceeds the realization.
But I did get the right front fender installed, including new emblems that go behind the wheel well.
As I do this work I'm evaluating the paint job. So far it gets a massive meh. It's is much better than what I had before starting, including the repair of body damage from the PO's encounter with a tree. Is it comparable to a professional body shop job? Or even this amateur's job on the '59 Chevy truck? No.
So I have to decide to be OK with what it isn't and think about what it is. I think it will help when I start driving it and get what I *hope* will be positive reactions. As long as you stay 10' away it's all good. And my goal was a 20/20 car (looks good at 20' or at 20mph).
Maybe someday I'll have the money and inclination to have it stripped and repainted professionally, but probably not. I'm not sure this car warrants the expense. And even this 20/20 is fun to drive.

Today I started on learning the most basic verb in any language: to be. In Portuguese it's even trickier than English because of all the irregular verbs that take unique forms. But again, I figure that even if I use the wrong form they'll forgive this gringo.
I also learned today that nouns in Portuguese have gender. In English we have professor, which gives you no idea whether it's a man or a woman. In Portuguese it's professoro or professora. Then the verb has to be conjugated to match that gender.

There's a grape vine up by the weaning pen that was there when we moved in three years ago. It hadn't been tended for years and was very overgrown. As in runners that went out for 20-30'. I waited until late December and then hacked off all the growth about about 12". The next spring I got no growth until almost the end of summer when I got short runners before cold weather moved in and I cut the runners back.
Last spring I got great growth but not a single grape.


This year I have two clumps. They're closer in color than these pics show. I don't know why, or why only two clusters, but it seems like progress and has me optimistic about the future. I'll cut it way back again after the first hard frost and hope for more clusters next year. At this rate we're about 50 years out from making one glass of wine.

I don't know what kind of grapes these are. Concord? I'll wait a couple of weeks and taste one or two of the grapes and see how sweet they are. There's a winery about 2 miles from us and I might take some in to them to see what they say.

When I put weanlings in the pen it takes them about three hours to discover the grape vine. Two days later all the runners below about 4' are gone! Turns out goats are winos.

My "Read through the Bible In a Year" class only has four weeks leftto finish out the NT, then a party on 9/15. We'll start a new round on 10/6 so I'll get a one Sunday break. Pam and I are going to try to get away for a few days to go to the north coast. It may be in a tent, an Airbnb, or a guest house that may be made available for us.
I can't remember the last time we did something like this. I'm looking forward to it.