Two apples, this year's total harvest from a Wolf River apple tree planted five years ago.

September 22, 2015 - Tuesday

50 degrees/clear/calm

Pentoga Road

I awakened shortly before 4 this morning and looked out the window. The stars! They were as bright as any I witnessed in the Arctic Circle. The constellations and planets were brilliant and the Milky Way looked like a solid white band stretching across the sky. Beautiful.

I made it to my doctor's appointment in good shape on Monday morning. Other than being reprimanded for forgetting to take my blood pressure medication, I was pronounced fit and healthy. It's time for my yearly blood work and a colonoscopy appears to be in my near future. Actually, I kind of enjoy the anesthetic administered for the procedure, but could do without the preparations. 

A quick stop was made at an outlet to pick up Yooper Brother Mark's new windows. There was a very nice young man who helped me load them and I was soon on my way home.

Other than spending an hour-and-a-half adding another line onto my cellular plan and procuring a new iPhone for Sargie, the rest of the day was spent working on the shop.

I am down to one last outlet to measure and cut out, then it should be a simple matter of putting the sheeting on the walls.

I was off yesterday by an inch on one piece, but can cut off the leading edge of the 4x8 board and make it work without wasting the entire sheet.

I thought I'd not have any apples on the Wolf River tree this year due to a late hard freeze early this summer, but Neighbor Mike spotted two this past weekend. This is the first year the tree has produced any.

Both apples are quite large and I hope there'll be many pies, apple sauce, and cider, made from future crops.

I was saddened to hear of the death of one of my former coworkers, Danny Madore, a junior high teacher from northern Maine, whom I taught with for many years. Danny and his wife had just celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary this past summer and though his death was unexpected, I'm told he went very quickly. The education world lost a good teacher yesterday.

Seems as if the old guard is beginning to fade away. My former principal and good friend, Kermit, went a couple of years ago. Now Danny has joined him. I recently heard of another teacher and friend with whom I taught for years, isn't doing all that well in his fight with cancer. In these dark, early-morning hours, I miss them. We were a professional family, most of us quite young with families, full of life and energy, hard working, in debt, and hanging on for dear life. 

I've come to realize that as one gets older, the passing of friends and loved ones makes life and mortality become more real. When we're young, we're going to live forever. As we grow older, we're too busy to worry about it and death only happens to someone else. As we enter our twilight years, it becomes obvious that someday, we all will pass on. It's called life.

Speaking of life, it's about time to wake Sargie for the day as she opens the Vision Center this morning. I'm going to take my usual stroll then hope to spend the rest of the day working in the shop. I can see the beginning of the end and am anxious to get my tools moved into their permanent places.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road... 

Still growing and getting uglier by the day