The flowers that Emmie picked last week for Grandma Sargie are still beautiful.

July 8, 2015 - Wednesday Evening

61 degrees/clear/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I thought I'd at least begin writing this evening. Tomorrow morning promises to dawn clear and calm and the urge to go fishing has been with me most of the afternoon. If I still have it in the morning, I'll hook the boat and trailer to the Blazer and go.

Wednesday was a mixed bag of activities on Pentoga Road. The weather was perfect for doing some outside work, sunny, cool, and a bit breezy.

The first order of the day was to remove the frost blankets from the plants in the garden. I spread them out in the orchard to dry.

I opened the door to the storage shed so I might fix the seal and was greeted by several angry hornets. I slammed the door back down, ran backwards as quickly as possible and retrieved a full can of Yard Guard. In the mood for battle, I opened a back window of the barn that looks into the shed and sprayed the entire contents into the closed building. 

I decided to give the bug spray a full hour to work and headed back to the garden. I tied some of the cucumbers to their trellis and plucked a few weeds.

The cucumbers are beginning to blossom

The male blossoms on the giant pumpkin are beginning to bloom. It appears the female blossoms will be opening sometime this weekend. I'll hand pollinate several at that time and later, decide which one will be kept.

Enough time had elapsed. I walked back to the storage unit armed with more spray, but none was needed. I'd gassed the hornet colony into oblivion.

It's kind of funny. I spent all kinds of time battling hornets, but the actual job of taking down the old seal and installing the new one took all of fifteen minutes. 

The new seal along the top

That job complete, I returned to the garden to put up a real pole, one that giant pole beans might climb. This one reaches upwards of twenty feet. I'm pretty sure a giant lives up there somewhere, at least that's what I'm going to tell our nieces, Aubrey and Marley.

Sargie says it makes the garden look trashy, but I think it will be neat to have beans closer to the clouds. As I told her, she can get out the extension ladder and pick them if she wants fresh beans for supper. I laughed. She didn't.

And why would anyone want their pole beans to grow twenty feet in the air? Simply because I can. It's the same mentality as growing the giant pumpkin. It's a conversation piece, nothing more.

I took some time to clean an area of brush and low-growing limbs so I could start another pile of firewood.

There was one log I didn't see and managed to trip over the thing and land square on my face. It didn't make my shins feel too good either.

Golly I get tired of tripping over things I don't see. Maybe I should start wearing shin guards like the soccer players. What would be next after that, football shoulder pads? I think not.

I hooked the trailer filled with wood onto the Blazer and backed it into place to unload. It was empty by mid-afternoon.

After a quick cleaning, I took the empty trailer back to Yooper Brother Mark's plant to be filled. This wood I'm getting now will be used the winter after next.

It was getting on towards late afternoon and I'd had enough. My legs were hurting and I had a headache. Two pain relievers were gobbled and after a shower followed by supper, I decided to relax by building a fire in the outdoor fireplace.

It was perfect; soft music playing in the background, a pleasant fire... all while I graded assignments.

Sargie came home from work and joined me. After she had supper by the fire, we decided it was time to make Somemores for dessert.

What we can't figure out is why they tasted so unbelievably good when we were youngsters and now, they are... almost too sweet. Still, we enjoyed them a great deal.

Sargie works early Thursday morning. As mentioned above, I think I'll go fishing. It's time to put some fresh meat on the table.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...