Eavestroughs...

We had talked about taking the bikes out for a trip to the park (A Ride in the Park 7/8/16). but then the rains hit. Last week we got over an inch and yesterday, almost another. This reminded me that the gutters, or eavestroughs, as I was once told: "gutters run next to the street, it's eavestroughs that are fixed to the roof," needed repairs. So on the next sunny day, we got out the extension ladders to fix the "eavestroughs."

While we originally had wooden gutters, they didn't like the winter's ice and snow load, so eventually replaced them with plastic. While the gutters hold up reasonably well. the support brackets are the weak spot and often fail when the snow and ice cascades off the roof in the spring. It's always a bit of a chore to replace them.

Andy volunteered to clean out the down spouts after all the repairs were finished. It takes a real knack to disassemble and clean the down spout while hanging off the top of the ladder.

Ninety Footers...

When the line crews came through last summer and dropped the trees, they commented on the bigger ones, the "ninety footers" as they called them. I didn't think too much about it at the time, but now I realize how much work it takes to buck up, haul in and split the wood from a tree that big.

The chain saw has just an 18" blade and the tree's over two feet thick, so it takes some manipulation with the saw to get it bucked up.

The bucket on the tractor is six feet wide, but only two feet high, so it's hard to get in a decent load of logs.

Finally it's almost all stacked up; another load or two and we'll get'er done!

One Trick Pony...

Tamarac was left at the local shelter (dog pound) with some of his litter mates. By the time I went to check them out, all the rest had been adopted. Since they had said he was shy, I stopped at the local Freddies (Kroger store) and picked up a box of dog biscuits, then put some in  my pocket before I went to see him. While he did seem shy, he readily took a biscuit from me, so I figured, well how shy could he be? So we adopted him. Then I found how shy he could be. After two years, he still won't come to me when I call him and he freaks out whenever I move too fast near him. But he did learn to give paw! We teach the dogs to sit and give paw so it's easy to put on their harness when getting ready to hook up for a sled run. Tambo, as he's called now, is a star with his paw.

Whenever he's feeling friendly, he'll come up to me, as long as I'm sitting down, sit next to me and give me a paw. Then the other one.

He'll just keep doing that until he get's a dog biscuit, then go off on his way. He won't come back to me when I call him, but when he wants another biscuit, well then he's a one trick pony.

Thermidor!

The French once had their own names for the months and July was Thermidor (The end of Thermidor 7/31/14). It means heat, I guess, and it sure has been hot. Not as warm as in Canada, the official temp at the airport here was 87° (that'd be 30° C to the French), but it was up over a hundred in the sun.

The garden's doing great in Andy's capable hands, tho it'd sure be nice to get some rain.

The birch that's being split now has a wicked twist to the grain, so not only does it hang up and not split cleanly, it'll sometimes twist sideways when splitting and one time even knocked over the wheel barrow. Too much fun!