9 July 2012

Awoke at the usual hour to discover that Shlomo, normally perfectly house-broken, had had a brown and stinky “accident” on the main cabin rug.  Bad doggie!!!!  However, judging by the number of trips to the woods that he made today, either somebody thought it would be "cute" to slip Shlomo some people food at the picnic or he found something yummy down by the lake yesterday.  Do they make Alka Seltzer for dogs?  Tammy Walsh showed up with her backhoe at the stoke of 7, as promised, and got right to work widening and deepening the Galliard Cut, aka the top section of the wooden walkway path.  She moved, in an hour and a half, twice as much dirt and rocks as Chree and I had pick axed and shoveled in a week of grueling effort.  After Tammy left we spent an hour trimming roots and generally smoothing out the pathway.  Then we finished taking apart a few pieces of the old stairway where nails had to be cut (vice pulled) in order to liberate 4x4 posts that we plan to reuse.  Just before and after lunch, Chree cut 4x4’s into railing posts while I used a router to cut a lap joint into the ends 2x4 walkway longitudinals.  The adjustable dado blade for the radial arm saw that would have made creating those joints much easier is, of course, in Virginia.  Story of my life!!!!  We installed three railing posts and the RTB22 connectors that will secure the longitudinals to the first three sets of walkway stringers.  After nearly a week of unreturned phone calls, finally got hold of the technical service representative at the company who provides warranty service for my new Lifan Energy Storm 3600 generator.  He explained why my circuit tester is showing an open ground when, in fact, the generator is grounded and working perfectly.  Cross one major stress inducer off the list!  Chree made a fantastic garbage soup for dinner from all the leftovers we have accumulated in the last week plus 2/3 of a bottle of Chrysalis 2005 Norton Estate Bottled that was somewhat past its prime.  Then we attended the annual meeting of the Lake Dunmore / Fern Lake Association, sitting in the back row so we could escape early when the presentations got too boring.