After three inches of wet, heavy, snow early Thursday morning, the world looked like a picture postcard.

February 24, 2017 - Friday
25 degrees/cloudy/breezy
Pentoga Road

You might know. We've been looking forward to this coming weekend for the past year and as luck would have it, a winter storm is approaching the area. Local schools have been cancelled and Carl the Weatherman is saying conditions will be deteriorating throughout the day. 

Hey, I didn't just spend several hundred dollars on the Blazer to see it sit in the barn. We'll be putting it in four-wheel drive and leaving home around 8:30 this morning. As mentioned yesterday, I once traveled thousands of mile a year across the arctic, alone, on snowmobile, year in and year out. You think I'm going to let a few inches of snow deter us from participating in the annual big person Milligan Family Sister Winterfest? Think again.

Plan B - If the roads are absolutely impassable, I'll drive the snowmobile and pull Sargie on Grady's sled behind. It's only seventy miles and Grady won't care.

Plan C - Pick my head and teeth up off the ground after I suggest to Sargie that she ride in a plastic sled for seventy miles.

Plan D - Use some common sense and hopefully, road conditions will allow us to go as planned.

Despite the smattering of snow, Thursday turned out to be a fairly warm and absolutely gorgeous day. I rode with Sargie several miles towards Iron Mountain and walked back home.

Bye Sargie! See you tonight.

The trees were flocked with wet snow and with the sun so bright, the world seemed animated.

I plowed the drive and cleaned the patio after arriving home. It wasn't difficult and didn't take long.

The rest of the morning was dedicated to laundry. I'd love to tease Sargie about all her dirty clothes, but I had just as many. Between her work and me playing in the sawdust and dirt, it seems we have no problem finding plenty of clothing to wash twice each week.

I headed to the shop and cut out a parrot on the scroll saw.

I'll paint the bird next week and get it out in the mail to yet another munchkin. 

I was tired of making puzzles and doing the usual projects in the shop. It was time to think outside the box, to let the artistic inner me branch out and try my hand at something different, unique if you will. The last time I felt so artistic, I ended up building umpteen pyramid strawberry planters. With my sensitivity meter spiking and thinking a deep thought, I quietly approached the lathe.

I'd seen a picture on the internet of a candlestick that was off center, really off center, earlier this winter. After several months of pondering, I came to the realization that it had been mounted twice in the lathe, once in the middle, the second time off to one side.



And so it began. Once I mounted piece of wild cherry off center, the lathe shook, rattled, and rolled, and I feared the entire thing would either break or come loose and fly at my head. 

It didn't and in the end, I had a strange looking candlestick.

I was surprised that it stood solidly on its own. I guess as long as the top and bottom are centered, anything in the middle is irrelevant. 

There's still a lot of sanding (by hand) to be done and I want to shape the top so flows a bit better, but by and large, the pop art candlestick holder is done.

It's certainly not a puzzle or bowl

We took the Kia to Mechanic Dave's last night and left it for the weekend. At 170,000 miles, we decided to have the timing belt changed. Now that the Kia is officially broken in, we'd like it to last another 500,000 miles or more.

Sargie and I made a big bag of popcorn to take with us this weekend, watched a bit of television, and ended the evening packing our suitcase. 

I have two shirts, a pair of jeans, clean underthings, and my most important article of clothing, my swim trunks. I'm looking forward to Ross, Boyd, and I, gliding through the water of the large indoor pool, barely making a ripple. No doubt we'll be swimming laps, enjoying good natured competition and undoubtedly, the spirits of Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller will be with us.

Okay, I lied.

We'll be the three old guys standing belly button deep in the shallow end gabbing a mile a minute. Our biggest decision will be if we ought to move from the pool to the jacuzzi or skip the hot tub and rejoin the ladies sitting around a huge snack-laden table.

It's time to get Sargie up. We'll leave here a bit earlier than planned so we can navigate Pentoga Road before it becomes drifted and possibly blocked. Currently, a heavy snow is falling. Our first stop will be to leave Brutus at the kennels, then to get gas in Iron Mountain, and finally, drive to Holly and Ross's house. We'll follow them to the resort.

So until tomorrow, just remember, a man's work is never done, even if it means standing belly button deep in a warm, olympic-sized pool with the spirits of Esther Williams and Johnny Weissmuller weighing heavily upon him.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...