July 30, 2012

A gift

Friday it was my turn to climb the ladder and trim branches. JB also did a few, then I trimmed the large ones and took them to the pile to be cut for firewood. Took the small ones to the chipping pile. Then I cut some of the thinner firewood branches with my large clippers and stacked them in the wood shed.

Thursday evening JB had grilled chicken for dinner along with one of our favorite foods - zucchini slices wrapped in prosciuto. Oh, my! Haven’t had that in years. Then Friday we had pizza for dinner. It has been a month since we have made it because of JB being in Seattle. I sure missed it.

Saturday JB chipped three wheelbarrow loads and was able to cover the rest of the front yard. It certainly works to keep down the dust and mud. We still want to get more chipped and laid on the path from the house to the tipi and outhouse, but probably not before the BBQ on 8/5. Then, on Wednesday, 8/8, we are going to have the tongue-in-groove pine delivered to finish the great room. Hopefully that project will only take two or three days. On that Monday JB is going to run wire under the house and install a plug for the TV area so we don’t have to have the long extension cord that we are using right now. In September we plan to build a 16'X20' garage in which to store and fix MAX.  All that ought to keep us busy and out of trouble for a while.

And speaking of MAX, we drove him down to the game cam to re-install the card yesterday afternoon. Dinga won’t ride, but when asked, Jesse jumped right in and rode all the way down and back up. Yesterday morning we had all gone for a nice long walk down the road and taken the game cam card with us on the way back (no interesting pictures), so he probably figured enough is enough. We drive MAX a little each month to keep him ready for the snow. We don’t use him a lot though, as he is our only way in and out during the winter.

So basically we took Sunday as our day off since we have been working so hard lately. I had just finished The Drop by Michael Connelly. Another excellent Harry Bosch read. So I started Mystery by Jonathan Kellerman. Haven’t read one of his in a while and I am really enjoying it. Thank goodness my Mother-in-law likes the same kind of books that I do. She is an avid reader and sends me everything she has read. BJ came back with a large sack of them for me.

Just a quick note about the rattle snakes Up Here. The one RJ shot was green - a timber rattler. They have a bad reputation as being much more nasty and aggressive than the prairie rattlers which are brown. I have only seen the prairie ones at Rose Camp. I’m sure they come up over the south ridge from that hot side.

Thought for the day: The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it. H. L. Mencken