Oct 12 - oh my aching back

This is no surprise.  David and I worked a chunk of the morning getting the big dock moored close to log, it's normal winter resting place.  At the moment the Whaler is tied up there and the small dock to the front of the gazebo, but that's temporary.

To start, I tried using the 4-wheeler winch to pull the dock in.  That went fairly well albeit the crib about 1/3 of the length out was dragging on the sand.  There were two sizeable rocks in the way and so I pushed the dock back out and angled it to the inside of those rocks, intending to pull it in diagonally and then pull the gazebo end over.  I misjudged how far I'd have to pull it in and didn't go far enough, causing us to juggle back and forth a bit.  Oh well.

The procedure also involved using the big bumper jack to get that crib off the sand.  Basically we'd tie the trailer hitch on the 4-wheeler to a tree, attach the winch cable either directly to the dock or to ropes, put some tension on it, jack up a spot on the dock, apply more tension until the jack falls over and then re-jack. 

The jack weighs a ton and I was working all this time in the cold water.  David manned the 4-wheeler. 

Was it worth it ?  I guess that I won't know how the dock might have fared tied up somewhere else.  I probably wouldn't do this again. 

If I did opt to do this again, it would only be if the water was a tad higher.  All this dragging has to be hell on the sketchy condition of the wood and the floats.  I'd love to be able to tip that dock up and do some work on it, but I'm sure that it weighs a ton, literally, if not more.  Some of that wooden undercarriage is mushy.  I'll definitely do something with the small dock next year.  It's at the stage where you can barely stand on a corner of it without getting wet feet ... except that the water is so low that when you step on it, the dock is resting on the ground. 

So ... that done, we tackled the tarps and Christmas lights.  That went fairly well and was quickly done but I really should replace those tarps.

We were almost finished that process when Bob Simms came down the concrete ramp asking if we knew about the break-ins.  Oh oh.  Long story short, Don & Claudia had both of their garages broken into; Jason as well and Troups.  Don didn't seem to be missing anything; Troup lost an ice auger; Jason lost his two new dirt bikes (motorcycles).  Ugh.  Did they come into our barn and/or garage ?  We'll never know.  I don't appear to be missing anything and the Stihl chainsaw and weed whacker would have been obvious targets.  Perhaps they saw my security monitoring signs and passed us by ?  We'll never know, I guess.  Neither was locked.  Don's were locked and thus broken.  The small door on Jason's garage was ripped off its hinges.

I'll see if I can do something with Jason's door, even if it means simply screwing a plywood cover over that spot that he can remove when he gets here on Thursday.

An OPP officer came from Britt and first met with Troup's, then Claudia and then me.  Jason has to call them and confirm any losses once he's here.  I went with the officer and we checked out the rest of the cottages between here and the end of the road, but there was nothing else broken.  Tim Reddick and his Mom were in; no issues there.  A friend of Carter's was in, but no issues there, even though their new garage is close to the road and would have been a likely target, similar placement to Troup's and Jason's garage.

This is the first issue that we've had, to my knowledge, but wait, I remember that long ago Davies cottage was broken into and a TV taken, or something like that ?  My memory is foggy on that one.

I wonder if I should reconnect the motion sensor activated light at the garage and perhaps set something like that up at the barn.  They make someone think twice, but of course that's only if they're doing their nasty deeds in the dark.  A horn would also create a stir ... hmmm ... but at some times of the year, that's like the tree falling in the forest with no one around -- does it really make a sound ?  I'll ponder this one.

Late in the day, before it started raining, I had a sudden surge of energy (not really) and cleaned the lower gutters.  I really should deal with the uppers as well but doing that on a wet roof isn't a good idea.  Speaking of which, just as I typed this sentence, we had a sudden mini-downpour.  I guess that David did the smart thing by not going hunting this a.m.  I think of all the times when Alex and I sat out in the rain ... even getting ducks sitting in the rain ... but it wasn't fun.  

We had ribs for dinner; Sandy now uses Kim's recipe whenever we have ribs so they don't hit the barbie.  It was accompanied by squash that wasn't quite ripe or something, quite dry.  Had it been cooked and mashed with a little olive oil, that would have made it better; oh well.

This is our last full day here but we won't have to rush out tomorrow.  I've got some stuff up in the trailer; mostly bikes and biking stuff at this point.  We'll be leaving that at Stef's along with a couple of suitcases and such while we go to Reading; picking those up when we return to pick up the puppy (yes, still yet-to-be-named !).

David will head home today after dinner or at least that was the latest plan. 

Onward !