May 19 - leaves

A chunk of the day was taken up raking and moving leaves.  Sandy did the raking; I did the moving with the 4-wheeler and trailer.  Cassie ran and ran, up the hill, down the hill, over to Davies, back and round and round.

Lorraine was raking too; Kim and Jason doing the moving.  They also dealt with the downed trees in their yard, so his chainsaw got some exercise.

Cassie got out in the boat a couple of times as I tried to determine who owned two large white dogs, golden retriever-like but perhaps not quite.  They'd been wandering around our property, the male constantly barking and getting Chili and Cassie worked up.  I finally figured out that they belonged to Redicks and Jason talked to them on the road.  The dogs had been ranging from their place all the way to the cottage on the point, several past ours.  He has a lab and also wanted to know who owned the dogs.

At one point out front in the boat, with Sandy and Lorraine both out there raking, Cassie got worked up enough that she jumped out of the boat and swam to shore.  Later I was throwing a stick for her in the cove and out front of Jason's.  She's definitely a water dog !  The water, by the way, is 56F at best.

We gathered in the gazebo at the end of the day again, laughing at the black flies on the other side of the screen.  Thank goodness for that thing !  Looking around, I remarked that there's no way that I could build this thing now, with its 8x8 posts and beams and 4x8 rafters.  It really is massive.  Those dimensions are actual, not nominal and the beams were wet, fresh cut.  That was some engineering feat, if I do say so myself, lifting the side, front and back 14 foot 8x8 red pine beams up into place.  It's not exactly building the pyramids but I didn't have any slaves to help ! Ha !

I hope to get out on the bike again today, once it warms up. It's 41F now, the result of a clear night.  I should also use the weed eater on the hill before it gets too out-of-hand ... perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow.

I did get in some exercising in the basement - crunches and other upper body.

Onward !