I'd heard rumors Hambone was playing the field at daycare. This pretty much confirms it. In fact, rumor has it that he's on his third girlfriend.

June 9, 2016 - Thursday

43 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

The old professor is going fishing this morning for the first time this summer. It's a far cry from that I enjoyed during my tenure in Alaska, but it's a whole lot better than not fishing at all. I'm ready!

Thankfully, the cold snap that covered the ground with a blanket of frost yesterday morning exited leaving normal temperatures. The covered garden survived Tuesday night's freeze in good shape with only a few uncovered potatoes getting their leaves nipped. They'll recover and should grow to give us pounds of great tasting spuds.

Ross and I had a wonderful breakfast and even better conversation in Iron Mountain on Wednesday morning. If we lived closer, I'm guessing we'd probably be getting together a lot more and having breakfast once a week rather than monthly. Ross is truly one of the good guys.

I miss the Coffee with the Grandpa days the boys and I enjoyed while living in Sitka. Meeting at the local McDonalds at 7:30, Uncle Bobby, Rod, Greg, and I, met daily to solve the world's problems. I'm very happy and content to call Pentoga Road my permanent home, but there are times I sorely miss Alaska. Every morning, around 7:30 AM, is one of them.

After saying goodbye to Ross and agreeing to meet again in July, I drove Sargie's car to the Jiffy Lube and had the oil changed.

I also made an appointment at another place to have the front end aligned next week before we take off for Mom's a week from tomorrow. 

Home Depot was my next destination. I purchased trim for the inside of the kitchen window, some hardware, and the lumber to (hopefully) finish the garden arbor. That's been an expensive project, but I think in the end, it will be well worth it. Someone asked me what it would cost to build another arbor. I told him considering my labor and the lumber involved, there wasn't enough money in the world. 

It was noon before I arrived home. What to do, what to do. Half of me wanted to head to the garden, the other to work on the boat. The boat won.

Most of the afternoon was spent hooking up the motor, working on the taillights, putting new line on the fishing reels, and cleaning the tackle boxes. 

I think the oars are older than I am and one needed to be glued. I've never used the oars, never needed to, but they serve as an insurance policy should the motor ever quit or the battery die while I'm on the water.

The last order of the day was to cut the cement mesh I'd purchased at Home Depot and make four new tomato cages.

The black cherry tomato plants, by far our favorite, grow large and by season's end, are heavy with fruit. Over six feet tall, each becomes so top heavy that it will topple a conventional tomato cage over onto it's side.

Sargie was home early last night and opens this morning. She's off the next two days and we're planning to go fishing at least once. She keeps talking about spring cleaning and washing the windows. Ah, that girl has no sense of priorities.

It's time to get moving. Those big ol' bull and cow bluegills aren't going to jump in the boat on their own.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Even as tall (four feet) and heavy as they are, the new tomato cages still need to be staked to the ground to prevent toppling over in the future.