Late Spring

Spring is fast coming to an end, and Summer is right around the corner. It is amazing how quick time passes by as we get older. Seems like only yesterday we were insulating, or putting the snowmobiles away and now it is time to cut grass. It takes a little longer for the grass to green up here, but boy, just stay away for a few weeks and -BAM- it is close to 4 feet tall and even more in some places. Now Ryan stands about 5 ft. 10 so you can get an idea how high it was. It was a really beautiful weekend, with just a short shower on Sunday, but we still got things accomplished. We worked on removing more sticks and stones from the yard, and actually cut some of the grass. I also removed a large pipe from the front yard with Ryan's help so we wouldn't run it over in the future. Yard work was also on the list this weekend, so worked on trimming the weeds -er- grass a bit until the lawnmower decided to take the rest of the day off. Add to that a little chipping of the smaller trees and brush, and it makes the day go by pretty quickly. Always a lot of work to do never enough time.
We did work on some other things too. A small bridge recycled from an old bench was unceremoniously laid across the moat out back and tested for durability, and passed with flying colors. OK so its not the biggest but it beats jumping over all the time! The ground is still a bit soft there so you tend to slip a little. Just need 2 more and the snowmobiles will fit across too. We also worked a bit in the garage, installing Oriented Strand board or OSB on the walls in the garage portion. Karen painted them gray and we installed almost the entire back wall, which neatens things up and opens up options. I opted for the OSB because too many times I have seen the holes in the Sheetrock in garages, so we wanted something a little more durable, and the cost wasn't all that much more than Sheetrock. Plus you can feasibly put a screw or nail anywhere in it to hang things, instead of always looking for the studs. This was the first weekend we spent staying on the land instead of the local hotel, and it was quite a change. Sleeping with the windows open one night closing them the next because it was cool-like 40's overnight. We even made several meals up there too. You know the place is ready to go when you have your gas grill running! We had a quick rain storm Sunday evening, nothing heavy, just enough to wet things a bit and cause a little mist on the roads. Afterwards there was the most beautiful sky! The colors were so vivd it was really amazing!

Karen attempted her first gardening this weekend as well. These are called Lupine and seem to grow all over New Hampshire and Maine, and Vermont as well. Although pleasing to the eye I am told that these attract aphids-otherwise know as plant lice, which will promptly dine on anything in the general area of the flowers, so they should be planted away from any plants you would like to keep... (A big thank you to George Africa from the Vermont Flower farm for helping me identify these plants, and providing a good bit of data on them- If you are up this way please stop in at his shop on Route 2 in Marshfield-if you can't make it you can always check out his blogs listed on this page. He is a wealth of information concerning flowers and always has an enjoyable blog)

And of course we did find a little bit of down time. We took a ride one afternoon, and while looking for a place to stop for lunch on the back roads we saw a beautiful fox. Now I guess I couldn't drive race cars as my reaction time was pretty slow. I saw him coming over the hill in the field, and we stopped, and backed up, but it was like he heard the lens popping out of the camera, because he looked at us and scampered away. So sorry no picture-maybe next time. We saw a few deer in a similar fashion, along the side of the highway but never could have stopped safely and gotten a picture. But there are plenty of tracks in the back so maybe some morning we will come out and run into a few. In the mean time stop by and sit and read the paper sometime.