September 20, 2021 - Monday morning

64 degrees/partly cloudy/calm winds

Pentoga Road

The phone rang mid morning on Sunday. It was Macrea on the other end saying Cheeks wanted to come visit Grandma Sargie and Pawpaw. Seems Mel and Hambone went shopping for day and Sargie's youngest son wanted to get some meaningful work accomplished while the coast was clear.

Keep Cheeks? Heck yeah.

Sargie met Macrea halfway to Iron Mountain where the munchkin exchange was made. I remained at home to work up a couple of trees. With winter approaching, I'd like to get sawing and hauling the firewood finished, the splitter put away for the year, and the bark and small wood chips behind the wood sheds raked and cleaned up.

I had just taken a break from sawing when Mark texted and asked if we'd like to go out on the pontoon boat for the afternoon. The temperature was in the low 80's accompanied by plentiful sunshine. For the second time in one morning, Sargie and I both exclaimed, "Heck yeah!"

Though Cheeks loves water, she wasn't into boating Sunday afternoon. In fact, the baby girl closed her eyes and slept for almost the entire time we were on the water.

Sargie kept her covered and out of the sunlight as she slumbered away. 

We saw a leg kicking from under the blanket just as we were heading towards shore. Grandma Sargie lifted the covering and there she was, Cheeks, all smiles and giggles.

We four big people had a lot of fun while on the lake. At one point, Mark pulled into a protected cove and anchored. He and I, both, hopped in the water and enjoyed a half hour swim. You may ask if the water was cold. Uh huh, mighty nippy, but refreshing on such a warm day.

Docking and telling Mark and Sheri goodbye, we made our way to town for Sargie's Coke. After sleeping for three hours straight, Cheeks, well, Cheeks fell asleep once again in her car seat.

Back home, I headed to the woods and cut a dead ash tree near the maple where I'd been working. 

Neither tree was very big which made cutting easy and working it up even easier. I even sawed some of the smaller limbs into burning size pieces to use as kindling this coming winter. We have the room to stack the little stuff, so I figured why not.

Grandma Sargie and Cheeks had a good time while I was cutting and hauling wood. Between trips to the woodshed, I found them on the front porch swing, talking and laughing a mile a minute. After sleeping most the afternoon away, Cheeks was eager to entertain.

We met Macrea halfway last evening for the Munchkin exchange and drove back home. Needless to say, with all the outside activity yesterday, I had no trouble sleeping. In fact, never having to get up once, last night was the first in a long time that I slept straight through. 

Sargie has her annual physical this morning. I think I'll stay home and finish the wood before the forecast rain and storms arrive. It will feel good to have that done for the year.

OK, it'll soon be time to wake Sargie and I want to be out the door to go for my walk at first light.

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

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...