Some rain last night and gusty winds at breakfast time, but nowhere near the monsoon that NOAA was bleating about. So Chree and I had a great workout this morning moving 3,850 pounds of hemlock boards into the woodshed and putting them into a neatly ricked stack. Well over half the boards are 12″ wide… and currently weigh a plump 35 pounds apiece! Calculated that the pile actually contains well over 850 board feet of lumber, which, by the time it finishes drying, will lose over 1,600 pounds of water. While it does so, the woodshed will be smelling absolutely heavenly! When all was done, Chree and I took the surveying gear down to the waterfront to stake the 6 foot riparian buffer that we want to leave between the lakeshore and the excavated area that the dock building will occupy. Then, while Chree was doing teacher summer homework at the Brandon Free Library after lunch, I used the backhoe to start leveling out the path that the electrical conduit will follow between the top and bottom of the walkway. Had to dig almost to China to get out two stumps that were in the way. When Chree returned, we tried to take the Ranger down my new “road” in order to pick up brush. (At this point, read the blog for 4 August 2012, the tale of last time we tried to take the Ranger down this way to pick up brush.) You guessed it! At almost the same spot that the Ranger got hung up on a rock last year, we (I have a mouse in my pocket) hung it up on another rock this afternoon. Unlike last time, however, now we have a tractor. Hooked a logging chain to the towing ball on the stern of the Ranger, ran the other end to the backhoe, gave a hydraulically-assisted gentle pull, and presto change-o, the Ranger was free of its precarious perch. No harm, no foul!
