Relative Something

It is a holiday weekend, but I am staying home. Cyndie still wants to make a one-day/one overnight visit to the lake place, but I am feeling like there is too much that I want to accomplish here. If I make great progress today, maybe she can talk me into it tomorrow.

Today, the crew that is ever-so-slowly building the hay shed for us, will start putting up the metal shell and roof. I need to finish bolstering the outside walls of the barn under the lean, and work on grading the ground in the paddocks. I also want to do some cutting with the brush hog, and move a pile of top soil, so I may spend some time on the diesel tractor.

We are behind on lawn mowing, too. I gave the Craftsman lawn tractor a little attention yesterday afternoon. Oil, grease, gas, and then mounted the grass catcher on the back. While waiting for Cyndie to get home, I started cutting the area around the hay shed. After that, I moved on to the area outside the first paddock. That’s when I hit a hunk of wood from an old root, which got stuck on the mower blade and seized it up.

I ended up jacking the front of the tractor into the air and after several wild attempts to get things unstuck, had to remove that blade. I succeeded in getting that situation resolved in time for Cyndie to cut grass after dinner. Then I moved on to working on the Stihl trimmer. The plastic line needs to be replaced, so I changed to the saw blade. I have abused that blade so much in the short time we’ve had it, that it hardly cuts anymore. I limped through trying to knock down tall growth around a couple of our culverts, then gave up and called it a day.

The biggest successes of late have been my ability to master some maintenance and repairs. That bolsters my confidence a bit. Unfortunately, that is offset by the limited progress I have made on tasks we are working on. Today I am hoping for better luck and big gains.

Maybe, deep down, I really would like to go up to the lake.

Gravel added around the waterer

Gravel spread over the new path behind the barn