Bluegills at the boat ramp

July 16, 2013 – Tuesday

76 degrees/clear – hazy/calm

Pentoga Road

I stepped out onto the front porch a few minutes ago and thought I was in Florida. The humidity is 92% and the thermometer is already registering close to 80 degrees. For the southerners who read this, please keep your heat and humidity and not send it this way. We northerners are built for ice and snow, temperatures plummeting way below zero. We laugh at a bit of frostbite on the end of our noses or earlobes and giggle at the thought of a wind-driven snowstorm dumping a few feet overnight. Simply put, it’s hot. The cycle is to break sometime tomorrow and temperatures registering highs in the 70’s are to move in.

Brutus and I started our Monday by riding with Sargie, on her way to work, a mile and a half up the road to the lake. After allowing Brutus to pretend he’s a sleek and smooth retriever of some sort, we walked home.

The knee did well. Mostly it was the muscles of my left leg that were hurting, those that haven’t been used properly since last spring. Brutus and I will take another walk today, probably this evening, and continue this process of healing and conditioning.

I worked in the garden for a while, spraying herbicide in the fence line and around the posts. It should be good until next spring.

There was a bolt that had fallen out of the four-wheeler; one that fastens the luggage rack onto the machine. Try as I may, I couldn’t get to the thing. Heck, I couldn’t see it, let alone touch it, let alone put in a new one. In the end, about a dozen other parts had to be removed, including the muffler. The actual process of inserting and tightening the bolt took less than twenty seconds of my valuable retirement time. The overall job, two to three hours.

I tried carving, but it was simply too hot to sit in the doorway of the barn. The flies were biting and the sweat was dripping into my eyes. I thought how I’d waited for years to finally have a place in which to carve and now that I did, it was miserably hot.

The next several hours were spent indoors. Even Brutus opted to lay in front of the fan inside rather than explore the normally cool and shaded woods. I spent no small amount of time on a chair reattaching a piece of trim around one of the kitchen lights.

I ventured back out around 5 to mow. As long as the tractor kept moving and I was in the long shadows of the spruce trees, it wasn’t bad. Remaining in the sun made me feel like the Wicked Witch melting after Dorothy splashed the water on her.

Sargie arrived home before dark and we had supper. After, she cleaned here and there while I watched a survivor show on television. The girl later went outside after dark and worked in the flower boxes. We slept last night with the air conditioner running in our bedroom, something we rarely do.

Guarding the upstairs bedrooms. Actually, he was climbing the steps and suddenly decided to take a break. A bulldog's work is never done either.

Mom arrives today! We’ll pick her up at the Iron Mountain Airport shortly after noon. I’m disappointed with the weather as I suggested Mom visit during the hottest part of the summer so she might enjoy our cool temperatures. I just received an email from someone in Atlanta, Georgia, saying it is hotter here than there. How’s that work?

Sargie just asked me to do a few chores around the house before we leave to get Mom. It’s tough, all this preparation, but I’m used to it. After all, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…