Sargie's filling sandbags Tuesday morning

July 16, 2019 - Tuesday evening

79 degrees/partly cloudy/calm winds

Pentoga Road

It's a tired boy who's writing tonight. After a day of shoveling sand and carrying close to a hundred sandbags that weighed fifty pounds each, I'm too pooped to pop. 

Remember that break I was going to take? That didn't happen.

I started filling sandbags early this morning to get a head start on the heat. Sargie was still in the house, so I had to develop a method of pouring the sand while keeping the top open.

I'm not bragging, but I became somewhat proficient holding the bag open with one hand and handling the shovel with the other.

Sargie soon joined me. When she wasn't holding a bag open for me, the girl was pouring sand in her own bags.

We worked all morning and part of the afternoon before the trailer was emptied. In the end, we filled and I carried almost five thousand pounds of sand.

One of the several piles of sandbags around the side yard

We made a quick trip to town early this afternoon. I picked up the parts for the backhoe and left them at the plant for Mechanic Dave to assemble. He was busy at the time, but called later in the day saying they were ready to put on the axle. I should be back in business tomorrow.

We finished the last twenty-five bags by mid afternoon. Sargie fared better in the heat than I did. My back was spasming and I was sweating gallons. To quote my bride, "I was feeling off."

Sargie volunteered to mow the lawn and spent all afternoon on the rider. Initially, she was only going to do the immediate lawn around the house, but four hours later, the meadows, trails, and all the yards had all been groomed.

Thanks, honey! 

I retreated to the much cooler shop and and worked on a couple of projects. One involved laminating three boards which took, what seemed like, forever to set up.

The latest rain, coupled with the hot and humid weather, has jump started the garden. I'm tickled to see that we should be eating cucumbers in a week to ten days. 

This particular variety has only female flowers which means each forms into a cucumber. 

After much needed showers, we enjoyed grilled hamburgers along with mushrooms tonight. Sargie and I are in agreement that fresh sautéed mushrooms deserve to be their own food group.

Sargie opens the Vision Center on Wednesday. I'm going to town fairly early to pick up the parts for the backhoe then return home to assemble everything. The water in the pond disappeared by half today and with any luck at all, I'll be able to begin repairing the trellises in preparation of installing the underlayment in the next few days.

The liner and underlayment are to arrive via freight at the plant sometime Wednesday. When it does, I'll make another trip to town with the trailer to bring them home. Things, they are a movin'.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...