Sunday, April 30, 2017

Ramping up for Spring


Early spring weekends are for to-do-lists, very long lists in many cases and one can only do so much on a weekend without burning out. The best thing about such lists are that I'm outside if the weather holds or can do somethings in the garage if it's wet out. Last weekend among other stuff I lined up our three vehicles for vacuuming out the debris of winter. Cars and truck are much enhanced to sit in traffic without looking around wishing the inside was cleaned out. I also spent time removing the rotting wood structure of the wheelbarrow rusted bolts and all. Need to get back to that project with the replacement pieces, would have been easier just to go buy a new one but I do like to salvage what I can. On another note I Carol set me up with reservations for air, lodging and car rental for a short 3 day, 4 night visit to Florida to visit my older sister and do some sightseeing. This will be part of a vacation week that on my return and a day at home we'll be heading out for our Memorial Day weekend camping trip. Check back then for any photos I post.


Another bonus - broke out the grill

This weekend's big event was retrieving the camper from storage. Nice to have it back in the yard. Bonus task for today was staining the deck and rails in preparation for possibly setting up the screen room. Still plenty of yard work to do, going to be a busy spring.

Sunday, April 09, 2017

Otherwise

As we carried on with the weekend Carol and I headed to the RV and Campground show in Auburn stopping for lunch on the way at the Longhorn Steak House, The Steak & Bacon Cheddar Melt was terrific. The RV part was disappointing as I thought there should have been more rigs and more variety. The number of campgrounds with booths there was impressive, seemed to be more there then in recent years, many from Vermont.

After a short stop at home we drove north aways to attend the final show of a high school production of "The Mouse That Roared" that a niece of ours had one of the leading roles, "Gloriana". She and the rest of the cast were splendid and the production itself was great fun to watch.

Today we visited Lois and Jim for a birthday Boiled Dinner lunch, cake and ice cream - I may be putting on a little weight.

Good bye to a terrier

One of the busiest weekends I've had in a long time began on a downer. A little over a week ago I decided it was time to have our Airedale E'owyn euthanized and scheduled it for yesterday morning. I wanted to be able to inform Ian in advance as I thought he'd want to be here to say good bye and have time to arrange coming which he did the night before. He, Carol and I together took her to the veterinarian's And stayed with her until the end and awhile longer. The vet was very good and handled the procedure with compassion and maintained E'owyn's dignity as she deserved. Even though we had plenty of time to to prepare ourselves nevertheless it was a very difficult much as it had been when we had 3 years ago to let Patches go. E'owyn would have been 14 next month, average for an Airedale is 12 years old. We brought her home from a local animal shelter when she was 2 years old. She was a gregarious, hardy, comical, stubborn, mischievous, brave, happy go lucky dog, all terrier and will be greatly missed.

Saturday, April 01, 2017

April Fools Day isn't fooling me

First day of April and instead of noting how quickly the snow is melting away I'm watching 8 to 10 inches of snow accumulating. No surprise as the weather forecasts pretty well nailed it almost a week ago. Projected to wind up this evening so it's yet to be determined when I'll begin the snow removal festivities. In spite of the weather the birds are quite active about the feeders including a new arrival a Red-winged Blackbird. Must be 8 to 10 of them. From the "Birds of Maine Field Guide" within the notes about the Red the author states "It's a sure sign of spring when Red-winged Blackbirds return to marshes." Looking like spring isn't happening today but there are no marshes close by either. Otherwise there have been some Bluejays, Juncos, Morning Doves, Crows and the Cardinal pair coming and going.






28 days until camper out day.