Snoscootrs Wild Ride: Summers going fast....

It is so hard to believe that it is the middle of July already. By my estimate, we have ~156 days or so until the snowmobile trails open up for the winter. The last several weeks have kind of been crazy and there has been a lull in activity. I was up a few weeks back with dad and we worked on one of the walls and stairs, and this past weekend we were up and finished the stairway and put a handrail up.

Also another chore on the list was to put up a pegboard-after all whats a work area without a pegboard! (And I got such a sweet deal on the pegboard too!)

Karen decided to paint the outside entry door green to match up with the roof, and it came out pretty nice!

Cutting the grass has been an interesting experience this year. As previously shown, the grass was non-existent, then suddenly took off to towering heights. While cutting the last time, the riding mower promptly died part way into the job. This resulted in a request to our plowing person who also cuts grass to come and take care of the hay field which was our yard. He was able to cut a good portion of it, but with an over abundance of ruts and tree roots in the back he couldn't do a portion. While we were up this weekend, we did some root removal and tried to cut with push mower this time, while waiting on the rider parts. The results were pretty much the same.

This was the before shot. Very time consuming and not too fun, with the ruts and other foreign objects. I was able to get the biggest portion done where they were unable to trim the previous try. It came out decent, all in all. Except the lawn mower died. Not to start again. So we brought it home to tinker on and see what the malfunction is this time.

The pile of wood in the picture on the left is a pile of the roots and branches we have pulled out of the front yard so far. We plan to light the pile up at some point in the future, and enjoy a nice bonfire, once we fill a few buckets from the stream for safe measures. As you can see it is a decent size pile and only represents a little less than 1/4 of the sticks in the yard.

Of course we don't like to work the entire time we are there. We found out there was a really bad fire in St. Johnsbury, the next ton over, late Thursday into Friday. For the full story click here: http://caledonianrecord.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=145&ArticleID=46115
This was literally 2 1/2 minutes from our place so we took off after working for the day, had a bite to eat, and stopped by to see the devastation first hand. It is said there were 130 + fire fighters from 17 communities in Vermont and New Hampshire that responded. Amazingly no one was seriously injured.

The last picture is the bank being aired out. No money was harmed in the burning of the adjacent building, however smoke and water damage were present. With all the towns being much smaller than we are used to,one would think this is a major loss to the town, not only physically, but I would imagine historically as well.

Sunday brought some cleanup chores, and a visitor. We had a turkey "trot" by through the yard and across the driveway and Karen was able to get a great shot of the bird from the upstairs window. We still have yet to see any large animals on the property, but they are around to be sure. We found a few different, distinct tracks that had been made recently, the biggest being this: A little comparison shot for size estimate. Someday we will catch them (photographically of course). And overnight brought a heavy rain, so the stream was flowing in the morning as well.All in all a productive weekend, with a little downtime too. But the weekends, much like summer, seem to be flying by way to quick. We just got there and it was time to leave to come back to work. I will have to take a few days off and spend up there working on a few more outside projects before it gets too late.