Deer lying in the shade escaping Sunday's heat 

April 13, 2018 - Sunday evening

74 degrees/clear skies/breezy

Pentoga Road

Mother's Day is winding down in a quiet fashion, but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy.

I started this morning changing the filters in the garden pond.

I think I'll buy another hose for the waterfalls pump so I can finally bury everything in an effort to make the pond look as natural as possible.

I wish I could hide the filters, but since they are homemade, there's not a commercial box or ornament in which to conceal them. I'll come up with something. There are several designs I've thought of fabricating in the shop.

I continued repairing the garden beds. 

First thing was to reattach the box to the little four wheeler. It's been my official pickup truck during the summer months for several years.

Multiple boards are replaced every year on the raised beds. 



Between the giant sunflowers pushing them out, the weather rotting some, and the frost heaving them every which way, adding new boards is a yearly process.

Once assembled, I used the small electric tiller to mix compost into the dirt and loosen the soil.

Things were going well until the tiller suddenly went dead. There was no warning, it simply quit.

Before leaving the garden to celebrate Mother's Day with Sargie, I planted this year's hot peppers.



Peas and green beans were also planted.

We had a wonderful Mother's Day eating ham, chicken fingers, and sipping Cokes, while cruising around and looking at the area lakes.

Midsummer Sam has been changed into his spring attire.

Sargie and I drove onto our favorite bluegill lake.

Hopefully, we'll be fishing in the next week or two.

We visited another lake or two before coming home.

Back on Pentoga Road, I began the process of elimination trying to find out why the tiller quit running.

It didn't take long to discover that the switch had gone bad.

After reading about the model of tiller online and of others who had experienced the same problem, I found that a new switch would cost almost as much as what I originally paid for the tiller. 

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Why not install a normal light switch?

It works like a charm and I'll devise a way to mount it onto the machine in the morning.

We enjoyed grilled burgers, macaroni salad, and sweet corn, for our Mother's Day meal.

Salted caramel brownies will be our dessert once we've digested our supper.

A REAL summertime meal, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, and hamburgers. All we needed were garden fresh tomatoes.

Sargie's back to work tomorrow. I plan to work all day in and around the garden. My goal is to have it completely finished by week's end. There are so many other springtime chores that there'll not be enough hours in the days ahead.

An osprey soaring overhead looking for an easy meal of fish.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...