Mist is rising over the garden pond on a chilly Saturday morning

September 19, 2021 - Sunday morning

53 degrees/partly cloudy/calm winds

Pentoga Road

Unlike Saturday's low of 39 degrees, this morning's reading of 53 seems almost balmy. With a high of 82 forecast for later today, it appears summer isn't quite over.

Saturday morning's walk with Yooper Brother Mark was a good one. I found myself continually squeezing my fists to ensure good circulation as my fingers kept getting cold. Severely frostbitten in the arctic, (which time?) I was warned by the doctor that they would be overly sensitive to cooler temperatures. At the time, I inwardly laughed. After all, I was the Alaska Mountain Man who was impervious to those maladies that plagued the mere mortal. 

If he knew, the doctor would definitely be having the last laugh.

Returning home, I bade Mark goodbye and along with Sargie, began preparing the old Blazer for a trip to Rhinelander or would that be to Iron Mountain? Regardless, the relic needed to be made as roadworthy as possible to take exterior door shopping.

Sargie tackled cleaning the interior.

Having hauled multiple barrels of wood chips last spring, the large vacuum hose became impossibly plugged. Somewhere in its twenty five feet of length, a tight clog of wood chips had developed as solid as if we'd been sucking wet cement. Only one solution.

The sewer snake came to the rescue.

With the hose free to suck again, I resumed my maintenance chores on the Blazer.

The spare needed to be inflated and one tire was down to ten pounds pressure. A mouse nest was removed from the air filter. 

I almost forgot. The passenger side rearview mirror was reattached using a thick epoxy. Tiring of holding it in place while the thick glue dried, I employed the use of a broom stick propped tightly against the mirror.

While waiting for the epoxy to dry and Sargie to finish on the inside, I loaded the power saw onto the four wheeler and made my way to the woods where I cut a small dead maple tree that had fallen two weeks ago during a heavy storm.

Sargie learned that Home Depot in Iron Mountain had a clearance sale on exterior doors. We decided to aim the Blazer in that direction.

Hopping in our newly cleaned vehicle, I turned the key.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

Oh for cryin' out loud. The battery was almost dead.

I retrieved the portable battery pack, attached both poles, and listened as the motor turned over, but refused to fire. Along with fifty or a hundred other things, the Blazer needs new fuel injectors.

A quick shot of starter fluid sprayed down the throat of the air intake found the old beast roaring to life. 

Whee haw Sargie Pants! We're on our way to shop for a door.

Only one problem, a small one, but still, one that warranted my attention.

The power steering went out earlier this summer meaning I had to strong arm the Blazer the forty miles to Iron Mountain and back. 

No problem. I was wearing my Clark Kent glasses which meant under those spectacles of plastic was a person capable of navigating the roads of the UP without any assistance from a few drops of hydraulic fluid. 

We were on our way.

Luck was with us Saturday afternoon. Sargie found two doors she especially liked that were on sale.

 

Evidently, the wrong doors had been sent to Home Depot and not being listed in their regular inventory, the store was anxious to get rid of them.

The kid with the pretty mask who was supposed to load the door into the Blazer was dumber than a box of dirt. Pulled from his cash register position, it was obvious the boy was allergic to physical effort. Initially, he tried lifting the heavy door from the bottom end all by himself despite the fact that I told him to get on one side, I'd get on the other.

From there on, his efforts were for nil, so much so that I wanted to slap him alongside his pretty little head and tell him to pay attention. (I didn't. They tell me that's not allowed.) In the end, I manhandled the thing into the Blazer by myself.  Obviously the boy didn't earn a degree in common sense prior to working at Home Depot.

Weighing somewhat more than a fully outfitted Sherman tank, once home, Sargie and I wrestled our new acquisition from the Blazer and stood it along a wall in the barn. I've promised Mississippi Brother Garry that I wouldn't attempt to install the thing until he arrived, so it looks as though we already have a project in the making.

It was such a nice evening that Sargie and I made our way to Iron River to take advantage of a two day sale on hamburger. She uses a lot of the ground beef during the winter months while making soups, chili, and other delectable goodies in the kitchen.

Our outside day ended by feeding the fish and pumpkin. I'm fearful our short days and colder nighttime temperatures are slowing the growth of our largest vined fruit. It'll be a stretch to see it reach 500 pounds.

You have no idea the promises I had to make to get Sargie to sit on that pumpkin.

Other than pumpkin sitting, my bride also made a swing through the green bean patch and plucked enough for a meal. 

I fell asleep last night around 7 in my chair and didn't wake up until 10. Making my way up the steps, I fell into bed and slept soundly until 5 this morning. I'm not sure why I slept so soundly for ten hours, but the sleep was welcome.

I think I'll finish cutting up and hauling in that maple tree today before storing the wood splitter away for another year. It won't be used again until I return home next summer from trekking the AT. It's time to clean the bark and small wood chips from in back of the wood shed and start to button everything up for the winter.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...