No Breakdowns!

Yesterday was one for the record books.  Nothing broke, leaked, or got stuck.  Of course, we only worked in the afternoon because Earl had a medical appointment, but still...

The day started off with a great Pam-made breakfast of bacon and eggs, along with the last half of the Hand Melon.  Seriously, if you ever find yourself in the Saratoga Springs region of upstate New York, you have to try a Hand Melon.  They're pricey, but worth it.

Pam went outside to look for her two wayward cats.  She heard Leo Pard.  He was in the woods a couple of hundred feet from the cabin but couldn't find his way home.  She managed to find him by homing in on his pitiful cries.  I guess this cat is 1) not too bright and 2) has no sense of direction.  He'll have to be an indoor cat for the most part, at least until we get out of our rental cabin, which is surrounded by woods and berry patches.  No sign of Puss Puss.

Off to the property to work.

I decided to take advantage to the sand and gravel coming out of the foundation pit and scooped it with Bessie's front bucket, dropping it on the turnaround part of the driveway and smoothing it with the tractor's back blade, and then picking the rocks out of it by hand.  I had the blade set like a snowplow blade with the curve of the blade facing forward.  I learned that this is a mistake.  The blade snagged the tip of the rock in the pic below.

It took some doing, but I got it out, rolled it into the bucket, and it became part of the turnaround's little rock wall.

Rock wall probably isn't an appropriate description.  I'm doing this for the first time, learning as I go.  It's more of a linear pile of rocks.

I turned the blade 180 degrees so the blade curves away from the direction I'm pulling it so it won't snag any more boulders.

I was picking up rocks in the middle of the field for my LPR (Linear Pile of Rocks) and saw something bright green sitting on one.  It was a Yellow Sac Spider, mildly poisonous.

I carefully moved him to become part of the rock wall.  There's no prey for him in the middle of the field, which is a barren wasteland right now.  He'll have better odds in our little garden in the turnaround.

Earl arrived.  He had an appointment for an ultrasound on his heart.   Guy talk followed.

"Did they manage to find your heart?" jabbed I.

"It wasn't easy," replied Earl, who then got to work in the backhoe.

We're making good progress, I think.  Everything moves faster when nothing breaks, and when I don't get Dumpy stuck.  What's slowing us down are all the rocks.  You can see what Earl has to contend with in the photo below.

If you look in the middle right of the pic above, you can see a huge rock about the size of a Smart Car.

"Can't you get that one out, Earl?"

"Nope.  Might have to bury it.  But a bigger problem is another big rock sticking out of the side of the wall over there."  He gestured with his pipe.  "Might have to move the house a couple of feet that way," he grinned.

While Earl worked the backhoe, I worked the brush pile, the one in the middle in the photo below.  Firewood on the left, bonfire wood on the right.  This is tedious work.  I'm up and down on the tractor constantly.  Climb off the tractor, attach the chain to a log, climb up on the tractor, drag it out, climb off the tractor, unhook the chain, toss the log on the log pile, climb up on the tractor, and back up to another log in the brush pile.  Repeat.

I had all three dogs with me.  They enjoy being there.  I put them in the car when I move the dump truck though, to keep them safe.  Ruby found some ferns to relax in.  Ruby is such a great dog.

Olivia, the hunting dog, never relaxes.  She was up to her shoulders, digging a hole for who knows what.

"Leave her be," said Earl.  "She's digging the kitchen."

I don't know what she's after, but she does this a lot.  She rips out the roots with her teeth.

I came home tired, my ass really dragging.  The house smelled wonderful.  Pie!  Pam made a homemade blackberry pie, using blackberries picked all around our rental cabin.

Pam grilled a steak for dinner, with a twice baked potato and salad.  The potato was made with my Bleecker Mountain Atomic Horseradish, which I also put on my steak.   Mmmmmmmm.  I was hungry and finished dinner in short order.

"Would you like some pie?" asked Pam.

HAHAHAHAHAHA!  Sometimes she really cracks me up.

As she cut it, Pam said "This is really juicy!  It's not going to look like much."

I don't care what it looks like.

Yes.  It was that juicy.  And yes, it was that good.

I sit at the laptop in the mornings, writing this blog.  I was walking by the windows with my first cof of cuppee headed for the laptop and there, under the bird feeder, was Puss Puss trying to catch breakfast.  I called her.   She seems to love the outdoors.  I guess she wasn't too successful at catching anything because she came in and made a bee line for her food dish.

So Sassy is an indoor cat who you can't touch.  Puss Puss loves it outside but can't hunt, and you can't touch her either.  Leo is stupid and gets lost easily, but he's a love bug, following you everywhere and sticking his nose into whatever you're doing.

I have a feeling that Puss Puss will make a habit of going off on hunting expeditions on a regular basis.  Will she find her way back?

Oh, before I go.  Sorry yesterday's blog was so late.  For the second time, I published the blog but it didn't actually publish.  Blogger told me it did, and I could see the new blog, but no one else could.  Pam asked me if I wrote a blog when I got home from working.  I looked and it was there, hit my refresh button and it was gone.  I published it again last night.

If you can't see this blog, please let me know.