Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Pink Ladies Rule!


Even when we are gimp. Nothing will keep us from riding the trails, despite a broken ankle (which Sara fractured during the ride before this), and my on and off again messed up knee. We grabbed the crutches and cane, put on our pink riding gear, jumped into the golf cart (more like hobbled), and put the pedal to the metal through the trails. Of course, that's about 5 MPH on a golf cart, but hey, we're women and we can adapt!
"Girls just wanna have fun!"
This one's for you Hoppy!

Sunday, May 29, 2011

The Oasis

All the flowers are blooming here in my oasis at the edge of the woods. The colors are spectacular!







Thursday, May 19, 2011

Pour It On

And pour it did, both concrete and rain. This was an easier job for the guys though, because the concrete could go right from the truck, down the chute and to the floor to be spread. No wheelbarrows needed, except to store some of the extra concrete. Of course it's easy for me to say that it wasn't quite as difficult or complicated of a job...all I had to do was take pictures and pay the truck driver!







Thanks once again guys for all your very hard and much appreciated work!! What a team!

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Scope It Out

Dave has acquired a very interesting new toy....oops, I mean new tool.
His 'magic' scope is especially handy for diagnostics and getting into tight spots, like inside the motorcycle gas tanks he tumbles clean (colonoscopy anyone?). He originally bought it to see what the problem was with Hercules, and it was instrumental in discovering that unfortunately the crank is totally out of round, so major surgery will be involved.

Another, much more fun, purpose for the scope is to check out the multitude of bird nests we have on the property. While mother robin was out, Dave looked inside to find these perfect blue eggs.

Note the different size and shapes of the eggs.

Then I noticed that house finches were flying out from my new hanging plant on the porch. Checking it out, now I know why...we found 5 eggs there!

This ought to make it challenging to water the plant. Guess I'll have to use warm water. Oh well, we certainly are used to working around the wildlife here. It's just another day on our wild bird and game farm.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Oh Deer!

We had Peeping Tom at the edge of the woods this morning. It was so big, I thought it was a horse at first.


"Who, me? You don't really see me. I'm frozen and camouflaged in this spot. Oh well, just in case that square 'box' that you are holding up to your eye is taking aim at me, I better turn very slowly and amble deeper into the woods. Really though, you don't see me, right?"

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The First Pour

I'm not even talking about rain this time, I'm talking concrete! After 45+ years of a dirt floor in the original work shed on the property, it was time to turn it into a much improved storage and work area. Hollywood, which it is called because the front is just a facade over an old shed , is so large that Dave felt it best to do it in two pours. He prepped the area first by making the forms to hold the concrete, leveled it all up, and put in reinforcing.Yesterday was the big day that the truck arrived and we had our faithful volunteers to help us. They didn't know what they had in store for them, since the chute wouldn't reach inside the shed due to the overhead clearance of the facade doors. This meant that the guys had to transfer all the 5 1/2 cubic yards of concrete by wheelbarrow full after wheelbarrow full.

Luckily, as the concrete was spread out, their travelling distance became less and less. It didn't help that the pressure was on both our work team and the truck driver to get the job done quickly, because the driver was on a time schedule and we could have been charged overtime. The company was nice enough not to do that due to unforeseen circumstances. This gives yet another meaning to Rake 'n' Scrape. Jim and Dave leveled and smoothed off the top, and the end product was perfect (that is until a cat walked through it during the night!). We cannot thank enough Jim, James, John, Chris, and of course our ever present inspector Karl, for all their help. It was so much 'fun', we'll do it again next week!

Monday, May 2, 2011

High Water

This weekend we went up to make sure that the cellar at the Ticonderoga house wasn't flooded. Everything was fine, so we went out to see how high the water was around the area. With all the rain and continued snow melting in the mountains, the lakes and rivers are overflowing. Schroon River was way above its banks and the campgrounds were partially underwater. Even some of the houses had water lapping at their doors. Almost all the docks at Brant Lake were submerged, with water almost into the road in places. Lake Champlain was (and still is) at record high levels. On the way to see the construction progress on the new Champlain bridge to Vermont, the main road was flooded and Rt. 9N into Port Henry was closed. We have heard that they had to close the Essex ferry due to flooding at the approach, and the Ticonderoga ferry hasn't been able to open for the season.
Good luck parking at all!Dave even found a dead fish in the road. There were actually a few people trying to find the ramp to launch their boats.

The water level in Lake George, although still high, is regulated by a dam and water was rushing out of the huge culverts like we had never seen it before. As the water reached the LaChute River and went over the falls, it raised the level above the banks and into the viewing area at the base of the waterfall.
As it continued its way down to Lake Champlain, the water covered the launch ramp into the lower parking area, then went over the seawall and onto the walking trail.

We were in awe everywhere we went, and the flooding will probably continue for awhile. Once again rain is predicted for the next two days!