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In Reply to: Charlie - you're alive! posted by Acheick on October 27, 2006 at 01:07:53:
I've been to the moon just to see if Space City really was there! But it wasn't! So I came back down to earth and built an addition and, other than that, I've been extremely busy keeping the wolf away from the door.
One of my boys and I bought a woodchipper in the spring - a 27hp that takes up to a 6" log. The boy, well, young man, got his arborist certificate and learned all his climbing skills. Now he's teaching me what I taught him years ago - how does that happen? We were looking at all the wood we have in the woodyard today. Whoa! Not only do we get paid well for taking a customer's trees down, we split up the wood, season it and sell it. The tree side of the business took off so much that last year, we (Fran and I) bought a rider-mower and a trimmer, a wagon, etc.. I decided to give her the lawn cutting part of the business. She putt-putts all over town now and everyone thinks I have such a wonderful, hardworking wife. I still do all the plowing of gardens, building of decks, fences and other odds and ends, usually after the tree work.
My three ponds were wonderful bird attacters this year. I built the ponds so I could sit beside them after work and relax. I built three cause I really needed to relax - hee hee! I was especially interested in learning to identify the warblars that frequent this province. It only took me three years to realize that I had to move my chair from the edge of the big pond, which is somewhat out in the open, to the edge of the little pond (60 feet away) which is right along the bush edge. That's where the warblars hang out - duh! I got a really bad case of strep throat in August and, since August is the month to be be birding up here, I sat along the bush edge for days on end and ended up having wonderful warblaring. - they love bathing. At times, some didn't even get into the water - they were bathing in the spray that the others were creating. For a while there, I was beginning to think that Space City had come down to my yard. Most of the birds have left for the south now. I flooded the big pond, yesterday, right up to the top so that when it freezes I'll have a great place to skate and play hockey. I'm working on a plan to keep the water level high under the ice during the winter months as ponds tend to draw down (seep away) causing the ice to sag in the middle.
I'm scrambling to finish up the soffit and the facia, the brick-mould, perhaps the siding, etc before winter sets in. Once that's all done, I can work inside. I built a heated pumphouse ( so that the pump doesn't freeze in the winter.) Up until I got over coming out of the Fam, I had to scramble just to eat. Things really went ahead for us, though, once I did get over coming out of the Fam. The pumphouse was something I wanted to build 15 years ago - my healing took a long time! I used to just throw a bunch of insulation around it (it sits outside,) some bales of flax straw and then pile heaps of snow on top of it. That worked, but it was always just temporary and had to be re-done every fall.
I damaged something in my knee on the long weekend in August, just before Id got the strep throat. I was at a fishing derby in the boreal forest and they were having a sports day. I entered the shoe scramble figuring I could take the dozen or so young gold miners. I did, but I had to dive across the finish line to do it. I won a cap, a tee shirt, a cassette carrying case and a couple of frizbees and had a guy come running out of the crowd to give me high fives and explain, "Oh man! That was SO AWESOME! That was SO COOL!" I didn't know I'd hurt it at the time, and I didn't feel it until 4 days later, but I'm still limping today. It'll probably heal when I go south for a month or two and quit working.
Fran is borderline diabetic now and has to be careful. Fortunately her garden work burns up a lot the exess blood sugar. We went out for a glass of wine and some pizza tonight. We like doing that weekly if we can.
My prodigal son who left home in a huff last spring has returned to, not live here, but make restitution. He's genuine so I've gone out and killed the fatted calf. If you and Bob want to get in on some of that, we'll throw it outside for the night and let it freeze until you make it up here.
How about you? How are you and what have you been up to?
