Tales from Pentoga

Cheeks on Valentines Day

February 16 2021 - Tuesday morning

2 above zero/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

I meant to get Cheeks' picture posted two days ago, but it slipped past me. Oh well, she's just as cuddly and cute now as she was then. Cheeks' other grandma is a professional photographer and took some amazing pictures of our newest addition. No doubt, you'll see them in the days to come.

(Cheeks', Cheeks's, Cheeks? Where's Miss Jody, my Editor in Chief, when I need her? Oh, there she is! Thanks Miss Jody!)

Two ABOVE zero? It's a heat wave. Run for the hills! Actually, all silliness aside, this is the first morning in several weeks that I haven't awakened to the sound of the oil furnace running. Maybe there is hope warmer temps will spring eternal, or at least arrive in the next six or eight weeks.

Home from the usual walk and drive, yesterday was spent removing the snow from the wood shed and barn. Using the electric power shovel, the wood shed was a walk in the park.

I can't say the power shovel is any less work for ridding the roof of the light powdery snow. It's just different.

The machine is made to throw up to six inches. I had to make several passes removing yesterday's two and a half feet from the roof.

I moved from the shed to the barn. After taking a twelve foot tumble two years ago from the slippery metal roof, I manufactured a thirty foot pole to fasten onto the roof rake.

Cumbersome and awkward?

You bet.

Safe?

The best!

Both sides of the barn were cleared to within four feet of the peak. No way in God's green earth am I going to crawl up there ever again to clean that. Mother Nature and the heat of the sun can take care of the rest.

Last evening was a quiet one. Following a dinner of pork steak done of the grill and a huge salad, I spent time texting back and forth with my former graduate student, Joanna, in Thorne Bay, Alaska, on the Prince of Wales Island.

Joanna sent some beautiful pictures that are certainly calendar worthy. I'll be featuring those, plus some of her humorous tales of running a very remote, small island school, in the days to come. The first picture will be at the end of today's entry.

I also emailed back and forth with my Appalachian Trail hiking partner, Pokealong. I mentioned earlier that Pokealong will be turning 75 on the trail around the same time I celebrate my 70th birthday.

Evidently, his daughter was giving him a hard time about undertaking a 2,200 mile trek at his age, but thankfully, I'm told she was somewhat relieved to find he'll be hiking with a partner.

Pokealong and Tbuster (that's my trail name) will be kicking off from the top of Springer Mountain in northern Georgia around a year from now, give or take a day or two. After fifty years of dreaming and planning, a year seems like nothing, mere days really.

On the other hand, with everything I have to do between now and then, it better not come too fast.

Just watch, wait, and see. Hopefully, if you live in the eastern US or have the urge to take a road trip, you'll come and meet Pokealong and me somewhere along the trail.

We'll be easy to find.

Simply ask for the duo of The Grumpy Old Men.

On today's agenda is an 11:30 appointment with the local chiropractor. There's a nerve that runs from my right hip, down my leg, and onto the top of my right foot, that has been bothersome. I'd tell you what it's called, but I can't spell it. However, it's pronounced, Seye- at-ic.

At any rate, I'm hopeful the good doctor will crack, adjust, and manipulate whatever it is that's against that nerve so I can run free and unfettered in this warm, springtime, weather.