Another three inches of snow was blown from the drive Wednesday morning.

April 5, 2018 - Thursday 

12 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga road

I'm sure glad I took the snow plow off the four wheeler last week. At the time, I was certain that it wouldn't be needed anymore and what fell would quickly melt. 

Yeah...

I've moved more snow in the past few days than I did all winter combined. Thankfully, the trusty old Toro snowblower, a vintage model from the early 1980's, still does a decent job of cleaning our drive and deck.

There's an inch or two of snow forecast for this evening into Friday and tomorrow's projected high temperature? Twenty-three degrees.

While waiting for the satellite internet installer to arrive Wednesday morning, I substituted cleaning the drive for my usual walk. 

I was pleasantly surprised when he arrived shortly after 9 AM. The boy had to get up and leave Escanaba fairly early to navigate the bad roads and still be here by that time.

Don the Installer worked for better than two hours hanging the dish and setting up the electronics. I didn't envy him having to work barehanded outside, but he said he was so used to it that it didn't bother him a bit.

We're beginning to look pretty high tech on Pentoga Road, two satellite dishes and a bank of solar panels. The dish on the right is for television. The internet comes through the one on the left. Oh, and the cord dangling from the roof onto the solar panels? That's the parachute cord used to hang the hummingbird feeder. Like I said, we're pretty high tech around here.

I'm really happy how well the new system works. We're supposed to get a maximum of 25 mps (megabytes per second) but it far exceeded that speed throughout the day.

Even after we reach our data cap for the month, and we will, the 1.5 to 3 mps that we'll be throttled back to will still be faster than our old service at it's best. We've done well to average .5 of a megabyte for the past several years. I won't miss the old provider. 

All of Wednesday afternoon was spent in the shop where I worked on the latest scroll saw piece, that of a country church.

The work is in two pieces that will connect side-by-side. Today was spent working and completing the tree on the left.

Many of the cuts were small and intricate forcing me to use a very thin crown tooth blade. 

Growing tired of sawing, I began work on the hickory bowl until I hit a snag and it tore the tenon completely off the wood.

I'll fasten a face plate to the hickory and proceed that way.

I talked with the animal shelter today and though I was approved, I'm not going to adopt the rag muffin dog that I liked so much. Seems the previous owners stopped in after dropping him off and made mention the pup doesn't like young children and had, in fact, nipped at their young son several times. They'd failed to disclose that very important fact when they surrendered the dog.

All I can say to that is, I've been there/done that. I want a dog that is Grady/Isabella/Aubrey/Marley/Brielle/Piper (and any other munchkin who might visit) proof.

I'm thinking of possibly purchasing a Yorkie. Taylor and Nikki have one, a male, that weighs all of three to four pounds, tolerates the nieces picking him up and carrying him all around, barks very little, loves his belly rubbed, and best of all, loves and sings to country music. My kind of pup.

Taylor's a manly man and if he can talk to a pint sized pooch and not fear being teased, then so can I.

I'd sure like a four-legged companion, especially one that likes and sings to country music, so I'll keep looking. Somewhere in the world, there's a little kid-proof dog that isn't an ankle biter or yipper, that's looking to adopt a nice couple. Hopefully, he'll find us sometime in the near future.

I took a tour of the maple woods late in the afternoon and found another twenty gallons of frozen sap. It's to be warmer next Tuesday and Wednesday and regardless of the weather, I'll start boiling then. I'm tired of dragging the maple season out, especially since it keeps snowing almost daily.

That's a forty gallon barrel filled with hunks of frozen sap

Sargie arrived home during the early evening last night and we enjoyed a meal of leftovers and watched television. 

Thankfully, she doesn't have to work today. I'm going to sneak out to the shop and start the heater. Hopefully, there'll be a couple of hours working on the scroll saw piece. Otherwise, I'll leave the rest of the day up to Sargie.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...