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| With boards turned over, followed by power washing and sealed, the deck is ready for another summer of use. The next "house chore?" Painting the white trim and storm door. |
May 11, 2014 - Mother's Day
55 degrees/partly cloudy/calm
Pentoga Road
Happy Mother's Day. I feel badly for all the other children in the world because God gave me the best Mom of them all. I'm sure there are a few billion people who would disagree, and well they should, but you can't convince me that I'm not the luckiest person alive.
I saw the following earlier today and thought it was one of the most honest, yet funniest videos I've seen in a long time concerning Mothers Day. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Since I've written last, my time has been totally consumed with finishing the deck on the back of the house. Somewhere during the process, I mentally calculated that there were around 1,600 screws holding the boards onto the frame. That's 3,200 times I touched each, either taking one out or putting one in.
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| The old boards in the front. |
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| I installed chicken wire between the crawlspace under the living room and the deck to keep out the skunks and porcupines. Brutus is inspecting my work. |
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| I had difficulty seeing where to place the screws, so I would go ahead on my hands and knees and place each one, then come along later, steady one with my left hand and drive it in with my right. |
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| The wind was howling on Saturday. I heard a huge crash and entered the house to find that one of the storm windows had broken and shattered sending shards of glass into the living room. It'll be one more chore to complete before next winter arrives. |
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| Just after sealing |
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| I got out the patio furniture and pressure washed each piece. Some needs repair and painting. After several years of very hard use, it may be time to think about new furniture. |
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| Pentoga Lake is slowing receding for another year and I'll be mowing out there in another week or two.You can see by the line of debris in front how much water there was at its highest. |
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| The first wild flower I've seen this spring |
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| Saturday was spent cleaning all the raised beds in the garden making them ready for planting. |
Sargie's been working some long hours and closed the past two nights putting her home well after 9 PM. Thankfully, she has today off.
I'm enjoying the respite from grading and reading papers. I've finished all the work that is necessary to begin teaching the summer session (that begins in two weeks) and find with the warm weather, I seldom look at my computer.
I've been tracking the progress of my backhoe as it was shipped from Chula Vista, California, last Monday. According to the shipper's website, it should currently be in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and ought to be delivered Tuesday or Wednesday. I hope to immediately begin moving some heavy boulders on the other side of the garden and make more raised beds yet this spring.
There's been no slack in walking my five miles, but I'm fearful that I'll have to quit until I can have a growth that is attached to a nerve in my right foot attended to. It's called Morton's Nueroma. I had it in my left foot years ago and a simple shot of cortisone resulted in enough relief that I've continued hiking since. Hopefully the results will be the same with my right foot. I have a doctor's appointment this coming week with my primary physician and since I've "been there/done that," hope he will just give me the shot rather than sending me on to a specialist.
And so life remains good on Pentoga Road. When Brutus isn't with me, he spends most his time chasing those little red squirrels up one tree or the other. Sargie's working some long hours making us appreciate what time we do have together. After a long winter, I'm very happy doing my thing outside, toiling over those things I love to do. Hey, that garden's not going to plant itself.
But then I'm not surprised. After all, a man's work is never done.
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| All those hours spent helping me work on the deck can take a toll on a big ol' bulldog. |
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| Our local lake finally became ice free three days ago. |
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