The terrace by the barn was finished on Saturday. I hope to fill the planters with dirt this coming week and we'll be back in the strawberry business.

April 26, 2015 - Sunday morning

19 degrees/clear/calm/cold

Pentoga Road

It's another cold one this morning with highs reaching into the mid-fifties predicted for later today. I see temperatures are forecast to reach into the seventies next week. We'll take 'em!

Yesterday was another busy day on Pentoga Road. I'll let the pictures tell the story.

Requiring two trips, twelve trash barrels of wood shavings were filled at Yooper Brother Mark's plant. 

The area south of the barn was raked and made smooth.

Landscape material was stretched over the entire terrace to serve as a weed barrier.

After spreading the shavings, I went around the perimeter with a putty knife and tucked the black material between the edging and fill.

The strawberry pyramids and vegetable planter were moved to their new places.

So that was my day in a nutshell yesterday. I rode with Sargie five miles up the road first thing in the morning and walked home. That got the blood flowing.

The rest of the day was spent, non-stop, on the terrace. 

Late in the afternoon, I took Brutus to the lake for a bath. He was afraid of the waves that were lapping at the shore and wasn't wild about swimming, so I hurriedly scrubbed the little guy with doggie shampoo, rinsed him off, and we ran up the boat ramp to the parking lot.

Brutus tried to get into the Blazer (with my help,) slipped, and fell onto his hind right leg. Cry... oh golly, he bawled like a human baby. His leg hung limp and he looked at me with those saucer-sized bulldog eyes and had me convinced he'd broken a bone.

Dollar signs began flipping through my brain. I couldn't imagine what a broken leg might cost, but first things first, how to get him into the Blazer. I ended up wrapping my arms around his belly, right behind his front legs, hugged his wet and dog-smelly body close to my chest, and hoisted his 125 pounds into the SUV.

We arrived home. I opened the back door where he sat as if saying, "I'm injured and you expect me to let myself out?" I felt so sorry for him. What to do?

There wasn't room in the door opening for both of us, so I placed an old kitchen chair from the barn next to the SUV, making a step down for him. With some coaxing, he delicately walked onto the chair, then bounded down on the pavement, ran across the yard, grabbed his tennis ball, sprinted back, and begged me to play fetch.

To make matters worse, completely forgetting his, supposedly, injured leg, he made a running circle around the yard and found a bare spot and dove head-first into the dirt in an attempt to remove any scent of the doggie shampoo. When he was finished rolling and frolicking, he was dirtier than before his bath.

I could have killed the mutt. Talk about a drama queen. My next project should be writing a new children's book entitled, The Big Fat Dirty Ugly Con Artist Bulldog Who Cried Wolf.

So that was my day. Sargie was home early last night and we had a very quiet evening. In fact, both of us were fighting to keep our eyes open long before bedtime. 

I'm not sure what today will bring. I know Sargie wants to clean house, so no doubt, I'll be Floor Boy and run the sweeper.

The garage has to be cleaned. It's so bad that even I can't stand it. The list goes on and on.

But then, as we all know, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

I can hardly wait until the barn is painted "barn red" with white trim.