That's me many years ago holding my oldest granddaughter, Abigail. I was down from the arctic for a visit at Luke's in southern Maine.

June 16, 2019 - Saturday evening

59 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I'm so tired tonight after getting on and off the tractor, doing the same with the backhoe, crawling down the hole, back up, onto the backhoe, moving dirt with the tractor, and so on and so on.

Still Diggin'

I began working on the pond first thing Sunday morning. After moving a huge pile of dirt, I decided to begin cleaning out the bottom which is ten feet deep. Since the backhoe won't reach more than seven feet, I had to lower the bucket, climb off the backhoe and descend into the hole, fill the bucket by hand, climb back out of the hole, dump the bucket, put it back in place, and climb back down. The cycle was repeated over and over all day long.

I've cleaned a great deal of fill that has fallen from the above terraces, but still have more to go. The biggest chore for tomorrow will be moving a huge boulder that fell into the trough while I was digging a terrace above. It weighs in the hundreds of pounds and will take some calculating and a bit of engineering to relocate it to the surface ten feet overhead.

The boulder is ten feet down in the bottom

 The plan right now is to remove all the dirt before circling and cinching it with a tow strap. Since it's too heavy to lift and way too deep to reach with the bucket, I'll try to gently drag it out the opposite side using the backhoe. 

Sargie arrived home tonight with a huge two inch thick New York Strip steak along with two smaller ones. Grilled, it was one of the best cuts of meat I've enjoyed in years. We had steak, baked potatoes, and cole slaw for our Father's Day meal. For desert, I pigged out on my favorite pastry, an apple fritter/donut. It was delicious.

Thank you Sargie for a great meal.

Tomorrow's our wedding anniversary. Since Sargie has to work all day, we'll celebrate together on Tuesday when we drive to Green Bay. Meanwhile, I'll celebrate by myself tomorrow by climbing back down the hole bright and early and try to get as much done as possible. Other than a small area at one end, the hole is dug. I'll be cleaning out any dirt and rocks that have dropped into the bottom along with shaping the terraces. Once that's complete, I'll be ordering the underlayment and heavy rubber liner.

It's all a process.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...