Archive for the ‘Chronicle’ Category
Lake Fun
We enjoyed wonderful weather for anything we wanted to do at the lake yesterday, starting with a run to town to buy a replacement screen door for one that wasn’t holding its shape anymore. Yes, we measured first but upon arrival back at the house, we discovered they sawed an inch off the old one to make it fit.
Had to borrow a saw that will allow us to complete the installation today.
Gave us a chance to hop on the pontoon and venture out on the lake for a picnic lunch.
After some beach time and swimming, we played cards out on the deck. I built a fire in the firepit for cooking a flank steak dinner.
That gave us a chance to finally sit on the benches I built from wood left over after our deck rebuild at Wintervale, which Mike helped us accomplish.
Topped off the evening with a triple-game that Barb introduced as, “Fishbowl.” Each participant writes a word on three pieces of paper and tosses them in a bowl. You form teams and take turns playing “Taboo,” charades, and “Password,” reusing the same batch of words each time.
You’d think that would make the solutions easier, but the belly laughs came from how many times people goofed up despite the obvious answer if we don’t stray from the 15 choices we created. Simple pleasures.
We are having tons of fun! Now it’s time for a waffle breakfast before cutting the bottom inch off the new screen door…
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Nature’s Best
Stormy skies can be a scary thing for some people but rainclouds also provide the backdrop for one of nature’s best spectacles. The weather pattern yesterday was a little chaotic with many periodic episodes of rain rolling by amidst hours of otherwise sun-bathed summer scenes.
It was the perfect recipe for a rainbow and that is precisely what we got.
Another highlight of the day involved multiple viewings of videos captured when Joni Mitchell surprised the world by showing up at the Newport Folk Festival. What a triumph at 78 years of age, after her brain aneurysm in 2015.
Joni is another one of nature’s best.
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Not Kidding
I wasn’t kidding around when I described the drama of my getting stung on Tuesday. Whatever it was, there is a chunk of flesh missing from the middle of the large inflamed area on my back.
This is how it looked last night, over 24 hours after the bugger got me:
I should probably have been researching anti-venom or something. On the other hand, maybe it will give me a super power. I mean, a new super power, different than the other ones I already had.
Cyndie suspects it could have been a horsefly bite. I’ve already been bitten on the back by a horse and that didn’t give me any new senses. I’ve never experienced this reaction from a horsefly before and now I’m thinking I don’t ever want to experience it again.
As luck would have it, I can soak my back in the lake for a few days again, starting this afternoon. Due to Cyndie’s good sense to plan well in advance, she locked in multiple weekends with our house/farm sitter throughout the summer that have us up north two weekends in a row this month.
Actually, I will be enjoying three weekends in a row because I plan to join two of Cyndie’s brothers and a bunch of their golfing pals in Hayward the following weekend. I will be biking with anyone who chooses to skip one of the rounds of golf, most likely in the woods on my mountain bike. No battery to save me on that machine.
That would be a good time for the insect bite to give me a super dose of extra stamina and climbing ability. On one hand, I hope the residual effects of the wound are long gone by that time, but on the other hand, I could use all the help I can get when pedaling the off-road bike on the hilly trails in the Chequamegon National Forest.
This weekend we are driving up with Cyndie’s mom and will meet our friends, Mike and Barb Wilkus for a few days of water worship and good eats.
Further progress on the driveway shoulders will have to wait.
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Low Shoulder
I have a new appreciation for the road work signs that announce a “Low Shoulder.” We have almost 1600ft of low shoulder up and down the length of our new asphalt driveway. At one point I had visions of attacking the project with a vengeance to get all the edges finished in as short a time as possible.
Now I am thinking about doing small sections at a time and letting the completion drag out to as long as it takes. Preferably before we reach days of freezing temperatures.
Yesterday, I worked to fix the edging at the two turnouts of the loop around the hay shed. I got about one and a half done.
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The gravel of the base layer that remains visible beyond the asphalt has dried and gotten rock hard already, making it a struggle to scrape up and relocate. It would be great if we could simply rake the small rocks up against the asphalt edge without needing to muscle through breaking them loose from concrete first.
A quick onset of fatigue is one of the reasons I’m now thinking it will be accomplished in small portions over a long period of many weeks. I blame the unseen insect that stung me in the back yesterday for stealing my motivation to power through and get a lot done.
It’s funny how I can stoically maintain my poise while being stuck by a needle when getting a shot at the clinic but when that burning sensation of a sting hits while walking near the barn my arms start flailing, tools go flying, gloves get violently shaken off while high-stepping and wailing, hat and glasses get unceremoniously tossed, and shirt comes flying off.
It wasn’t clear whether whatever stung me was inside the shirt or out but I knew having the shirt in my hand instead of wearing it would give me something to slap my back with to address the pain and hopefully thwack any possible insect that still happened to be in the vicinity.
I don’t blame Delilah and the horses for staring at me like they were seeing a world class tantrum spectacle of epic proportion. The evil creature got me low on the back side of my shoulder where it is impossible to reach.
Poise was not an option.
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Staying Longer
There was a lot of energy this weekend among a large number of visiting guests who happened to be between the ages of newborn to 14. Suddenly, by late afternoon yesterday, everyone had left to return to their homes. It was Sunday night and Cyndie and I didn’t need to go anywhere. The immediate surroundings suddenly took on an entirely different ambiance with the change from squeals and giggles to nothing but ripples on the lake murmuring against the shoreline and the buzzy fluttering of hummingbirds outside the deck door.
As glorious as it is to experience the community of families that are Wildwood, it is a priceless privilege to know the serenity of this place when we are able to be here alone in the unrivaled north woods environment.
We only stayed one night longer than everyone else. This morning we will drive home to spend a few days at our other paradise.
Counting our blessings all the way.
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Feeding Frenzy
Yesterday, Cyndie captured this video of the incredibly heavy traffic we’ve been witnessing lately at the hummingbird feeder. How they navigate without colliding is beyond me.
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Scenic Cycling
Being up at the lake isn’t all about the water. I did get in a swim yesterday afternoon shortly after we arrived but soon after, I hit the road on my bike to ride through the wooded countryside of Sawyer County.
I made my way through the Chief River State Wildlife Management area enjoying the cool air of the forest wafting out onto the hot pavement as I rolled in and out of shade. I didn’t see a deer on the side of the road ahead of me but I suddenly heard the sound of branches and spotted the animal standing broadside and looking at me calmly through the foliage it had just stepped behind.
As I try to write this now I am constantly distracted by coverage of the time trial stage 20 of the Tour de France.
Such fun!
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Lotta Landscaping
Enough already with the driveway subject dominating my posts of late. I’m as ready to move on as anyone but there is a lot of work left to get the new driveway to the level of completion we seek. Bear with me for just a few more days. There will be a little break from this topic starting tomorrow. We are leaving this morning for the lake. I get to watch live coverage of the Tour de France for a few days! I can write about how great swimming is in that precious Round Lake water.
When we return home, our plan is to begin cleaning up the edges. It is going to be a big job but we are looking forward to it. Achieving that level of finish will be a very pleasing accomplishment. I know this because I have taken a couple of stabs at what it might involve.
Before:
Old folds of sod from when the original asphalt was dug up need to be picked up. The gravel will be raked up and shaped to cover the exposed edges of the new asphalt.
Here is a section where I did just that:
As we finish them, along the lengths of both sides, I will be visualizing what it will be like when I am trying to plow snow beyond the edge of the asphalt, which needs to happen to maintain a full drive-able width through the full winter season. It will be good to have the gravel base along the edges for that purpose.
A few days of lake life bliss will help us to be fresh and ready to go for a few days of landscaping next week. I’m looking forward to both.
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That’s Done
We are thrilled to have a new driveway and even more thrilled to be able to enjoy some peace and quiet today. While the paving crew was working on Tuesday, we needed to choreograph access for the regularly scheduled delivery of a pallet’s worth of 50lb bags of feed for the horses.
Yesterday, it was allowing access for the farrier to get in and trim the horse’s hooves. All this was achieved under a constant soundtrack of propane burners, diesel engines, and backup beepers. We ended up using a back route through a few gates and across the hay field to move some people and equipment in and out.
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Actually, we’ve decided to use the back route across the hay field from now on and not let any vehicles ever drive on the new asphalt. It looks too good to mess up with traffic driving on it. It’s like having a brand new car and freaking out over the possibility of the first scratch or dent happening.
It was very rewarding to see the new asphalt laid all the way to the road. Maybe the township will notice the road is beginning to look as bad as our old asphalt did and schedule repair/replacement sooner than later. I’m beginning to feel like a pavement snob.
Honestly, even though I’ve longed for this new driveway for years, I’m suddenly becoming aware that I now have to adjust my attitude from complete disdain and intentional neglect to actually caring for it. I shudder at the thought of rolling the big tires of the Ford New Holland diesel tractor over the pristine surface of asphalt on a warm, sunny day.
If a parked delivery truck has an oil leak, I’ll become distressed. Most of all, I’ll labor over deciding when a new seal coat is needed.
Ah, but that is not living in the moment. Today, I will focus on the present. The project of getting the old driveway fixed is done. Well, mostly done. We could only afford to have the asphalt applied. The landscaping of the edges remains for us to do.
I may dabble with picking up loose big rocks today, but most of all, I hope to allow time to enjoy the comparative quiet of having no big machines rumbling for the first time all week.
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Million Bucks
It was an asphalt ballet as workers seamlessly moved around obstacles and each other to wield their specialty tools or switch them out with another to work the hot material into the perfect final form.
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In the areas by the house and the shop/garage the new asphalt was overlaid on top of the old driveway surface. We were able to do that because the base in these sections had stood the test of time and not fallen apart like so much of the rest of the driveway. I had no idea how they would start the process and was duly impressed to see what they could achieve using just their hand tools.
The Bobcat would deliver a bucketful of loose hot asphalt and the crew then made quick work of shaping and packing the first edge with their “T” poles. The big machine would then move in and set up directly over what they started and slowly roll away leaving a perfect layer of pavement behind it.
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At every seam or corner edge, the guys wordlessly collaborated to fill gaps, shape edges, and perfect the finish of the surface. They all demonstrated an impressive attention to detail.
The garage gained a new piece of equipment.
Almost looks like it belongs, although I’m not sure I would be able to put it to good use beyond flattening all the mole hills and tunnels annoyingly prevalent everywhere we turn.
By the end of their workday, they stopped between the shop/garage and the turnout to the barn. Today, they won’t have to deal with any more corners. It’s just a straight shot to the road now. If all goes well, they should complete their work today.
Already, the portion they have completed has our place looking like a million bucks.
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Relative Something 