September 7, 2010

We missed another promised storm - the high winds never showed their ugly faces and I for one am not complaining! We did wake up to an incredible day though...a sunny sky, cool air and a wonderful breeze ~ now add my coffee and the fire that Carlo started and I am H-A-P-P-Y!

This was another trip with minimal wildlife activity. A couple of very active hummingbirds were in the back and a woodpecker was in the front but the seed feeders have barely been touched. The critters eat the corn cobs in the same pattern in which I do! The treats out by the stump have been picked at but still are not completely gone. The family of turkeys stopped by several times during this trip. I wonder if all the flooding we've had has relocated the homes of all our previous visitors.

Some guys from the power company stopped by and after talking with Carlo agreed to cut a couple of extra trees along with the ones they were scheduled to cut. Their visit was to check out the ground condition and the river; we're glad we were there too (wink, wink)!

We hit Norm's up for a tasty breakfast and then found An Siopa Eire to be open. Got an awesome watch and met the owner. It was like a double lucky treasure hunt! Meeting the owner was not part of the treasure hunt but I am glad she was there on this day!

After we got back we put on our lumberjack gear and hit the fallen tree at the easement. Moving what we could, we cut and carried branches and limbs - repeat - repeat - repeat; for 3.5 hours. The winds started picking up and in an effort to avoid calling out for Auntie Em, we decided to quit for the day.

Overall, it was a productive day...so a high five on the lumber jacking!

We took a ride to Paul and Betty's to give them a water cooler and to visit our tractor. Betty was shopping so we chatted with Paul. The tractor is fixed, so now we have two - we just cut the lawn cutting time in half! Carlo carried in the groceries for Betty and we chatted with her for a bit as well.

When we got back, I cleaned the gourds and filled them with feed to put in the Arbor Patch. This would be the place where our pumpkins were suppose to grow which is near the arbor - hence, Arbor Patch! We did find a huge hole next to, but going under the slab that the swing sits on. A short time later we spotted a huge critter in the Arbor Patch eating our newly laid treats. He heard us and then scurried off into the hole - this critter is similar to one that we thought was a woodchuck, but now we're not really sure - maybe it's a vole or maybe it's a mole or maybe it's a gopher or maybe it's a ground hog. We consulted our homemade "Animal Pictopedia" and it wasn't much help. But it's a critter that bores holes...as in all of the aforementioned animals!

I took some pictures of flowers (okay, weeds), trees, our nature-esque art sculpture, the cabin and even Carlo posed for one - there were lots of "c'mons" but he still smiled!

The winds got out of control and there was all sorts of tree snapping noises going on. It was cool to watch the trees bending and we were very happy to have missed any damage that could have been caused by the high winds. The winds were about 35 miles per hour (a guess) down to almost 0 miles per hour (not a guess) before the sun set.

The rest of the evening went by quick, most likely because we have to work tomorrow night. Carlo watched TV and I had some work things to finish. We were in bed (again) by 9:00! Aren't we just the night owls???