Wait a cotton pickin' minute.
What do these wild ducks think, that I run a wildlife sanctuary on Pentoga Road?

April 27, 2020 - Monday morning

31 degrees/partly cloudy/calm winds

Pentoga Road

Now that the weather has warmed and spring is upon us, I'm awakened in the predawn hours by the sounds of wild mallards wafting through our open bedroom window. They seem to be having a good time, quacking and splashing in the garden pond.

Thankfully, the noisy birds don't leave any mess and are usually gone shortly after sunrise. I'm wondering if they're using the pond as a safe place to spend the night away from any marauding foxes or other predatory critters?

These past few days have been near perfect in the weather department. Sargie and I have been busy in the yard or garden and with Hambone's help, have accomplished what we set out to do.

I did spend one rainy day readying the shop for the arrival of the new lathe. It will go where the old one currently sits. Part of one morning was spent making a chisel holder from two scrap pieces of PVC pipe, just something to safely keep them out of my way when I'm turning.

I've continued working on the inside and outside of the garden house, building this and fixing that. Jambo has been down to measure for siding and the Dutch door he's building.

Seems no matter what I do with the garden house, it entails (as Sargie says) ciphering. For a boy who flunked Algebra twice and finally passed sophomore Geometry the last semester of his senior year of high school, it's no small feat.

The giant pumpkin was growing in leaps and bounds and needed to find a new home.

The stem was becoming long and leaning every which way. Thankfully, the weather finally warmed enough that I could transplant it outside within the confines of the Walls of Water where it's quite happy and growing.

Hambone's been with us the past several days. Poor kid, stuck in the house with Mama and Daddy who are working from home, nothing to do but be home schooled and... sigh, whatever it is that a five year old boy can do when cooped up inside day in and day out.

Since our lives tend to revolve around the outdoors, Grady was more than happy to escape the confines of four walls and join Grandma Sargie and Pawpaw on Pentoga Road.

Getting the idea from Mississippi Brother Garry and Miss Jody, we tried to make a brick, one from concrete with Grady's name imbedded within.



Unfortunately, it was done on the spur of the moment and the only concrete I had was old, hard, and had way too much gravel in the mix. Still, we had fun trying and Hambone learned how to mix concrete and what makes it work.

Spring finally arrived last Friday and once the temperature reached 55 degrees, I sprinted to the house and changed from jeans to shorts. Let the good times roll!

Don't even go there

Grandma Sargie's been a raking machine these past several days and has the yard looking beautiful.

Thankfully, she had occasional help in the form of Hambone.

The boy's getting to the size and age now that he's really good help. Occasionally, his attention span waxes and wanes, but he isn't slow to pitch in and help either of his grandparents.



We were playing Question of the Day one evening on Alexa and Grady learned about the Earth's three layers, the crust, mantle, and core. When the boy wasn't helping one of us or trying to net goldfish from the pond, he was digging a hole in the garden, in the "Erf," as he called it. 

Hambone has it all figured out that once the core is reached, he and Pawpaw will build a heat exchanger to pipe the warmth into the pond (making for warmer swimming) and the house.

I keep wondering, where does a five year old come up with that? I was sixty before I learned there was such a thing as a heat exchanger, let alone know what one does.

Speaking of a cold pond, it didn't keep Hambone from dipping his piggies in the water.



Required to wear a life jacket at all times when within the confines of the garden, he loves playing around the water's edge. What kid doesn't?

Sand, a pond, dirt in which to dig, plucking worms from the ground to feed the goldfish, trucks, buckets, and other boyhood tools of the trade, Grady's the happiest when he's outside and busy. He seems just as content to be with his grandma or me or if we're busy, he entertains himself with one project or the other.

Watching Grady and how happy and inquisitive he was playing around the water, I quickly realized that last summer's efforts while digging the pond were all worthwhile. That big ol' hole in the ground paid for itself many times over this past weekend.



With near perfect weather, I raked and landscaped the large berm that goes around the backside of the garden.

Boy oh boy, that was some chore, but I finished it after two full days of shoveling and raking. We purchased grass seed, both annual rye and perennial bluegrass and fescue, when we took Grady home late Sunday afternoon and I sowed and raked it in last night, finishing just before dark.



The circulating pond pump needed to be adjusted as the output was pushing against the four inch intake pipe that feeds it. No matter how much talking I did, I couldn't get Sargie to wade into the very cold water to move the pipe.

Hambone was willing, but he lacked the strength. It was time to strip down and put Pawpaw the Claw into action and use his super hero powers.



The trick was to make the adjustment while standing on the edge of a sloping shelf in three feet of water without continuing on into the eleven and a half foot abyss. 

No thanks to the laughing Sargie and Hambone, I looked cold water in the eye and escaped unharmed with only my delicate ego slightly damaged. 

Sargie spent much of Sunday working around the  the pond, placing the rocks that I'd raked from the berm, around the edge to make it look more natural.

Before we're finished, there'll be logs, plants, planters, and natural growth mixed in with the rocks and around the sides, but we have to begin somewhere.

There's been a boulder in the front yard that when I first bought our home, barely stuck above the ground. I could easily mow over it without nicking the blade of the mower.

As the years have progressed, the frost has pushed the boulder upwards and finally, we've had to mow around it for the past two or three years. I tried to dig it out several years ago and found the other end was buried somewhere around the Great Wall of China. 

It was time to bring out the big guns.

 It took well over half an hour to even budge the thing and was so heavy that it brought the rear of the back hoe several feet off the ground while lifting it from the hole.



Rather than bring in load after load of fill, I dug the hole even deeper and buried the boulder well under the surface of the ground. As of now, the area is raked and grass seed sown. It won't be long before the boulder is forgotten and Sargie's lawn is back to normal.



I'm heading out for my walk before the rain begins. With a hundred percent chance of precipitation over the next forty eight hours, it looks as though it's going to be a shop day. I want to remake the window grids for the panes on the south side of the garden house and there's a bowl I've been turning to finish.

Other than that, without the energy of a five year old boy who is his Pawpaw's shadow, there could be some real potential for an afternoon nap.



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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...

Today's random Alaska picture:
Taken from the bow of my Nimble Nomad boat, one of Southeast Alaska's many snow covered peaks.