Circus Smirkus and Waterville progress

It's been awhile since I've posted. We worked quite a bit over at Waterville and also have been doing some real estate. Caroline has a closing tomorrow and I hopefully have one at the end of the week. Not much else on the horizon but at least we will have some funds coming in.

We got the first line of posts completed towards the end of last week. The weather cooperated and things were moving along well. I also got the first hole for the second row of posts dug after much calculating and measuring to make sure we had things squared up. Hopefully we do. Then Disaster struck over the weekend.

I had taken time out from the building to put in a culvert up in the woods. It's been an ongoing trouble spot, always wet and difficult to traverse. They were predicting rain for Sunday so I wanted to get it in before things were too wet to get it done again. While working I noticed a bolt on the ground. Looking around I couldn't figure where it was off but then I noticed some leakage from the rear axle. I quickly took the tractor out of the woods to the shed to make sure if it died it could be towed out of there. I then took a closer look. It appears the frame for the backhoe lost a number of bolts and finally came down on top the rear axle. I think it displaced it enough that hydraulic fluid is leaking out of the transmission. Actually, I don't have a clue but that sounds good. I called the kubota dealer today and they are going to go pick it up. I suspect we are looking at big bucks.

Unfortunately not having the tractor is going to slow things down quite a bit. Much of what we do requires the tractor to make it feasible. The ATV ("Red") can help but doesn't compare with the work the tractor can do. Hopefully it won't take too long to get it repaired.

Last night we went to see a Circus Smirkus show over in Greensboro. We've talked about doing it for years and finally Deb, who Caroline works with at Food Share, got us tickets. It was a lot of fun. Pretty amazing that these kids put on 70 shows over the course of the summer after only 3 weeks of rehearsals. Very impressive. It was the last show of the year so I think there was more passion in the performance than usual. Definitely worth going to see. Bring dinner if you go. They had some food but a picnic would have been better before the show.

Habitat and Posts

Last Saturday we went down to White River Junction and helped with the Habitat for Humanity House. It was interesting but entirely too many people and too few places to nail. Caroline and I finally stepped back and let the people who were rushing around do things. We actually ended up leaving early (not until after lunch of course) because we felt like we weren't accomplishing much and the day was too nice to just stand there. It was an interesting project. Basically we helped build the framing which then was taken apart and shipped off to New Orleans. The Realtor organization is going to help put a bunch of houses together in November during the annual meeting in New Orleans. We won't be attending but it sounds like a good idea. That's Caroline with her hands on her hips if you didn't recognizer her.

We've both been busy with real estate for the last little while. Moving some transactions along and showing property to clients. No new contracts but hope springs eternal.


We have managed to do some work over at Waterville. I'm having a couple of adjustments made to the sawmill at the local welding shop. Basically adding some strength to the log dogs which have bent.

We actually got the first post in for the sawmill shed today. One down and 14 to go. I buried it as deep as I could before I hit ledge. It's down about 4 feet. The plan is to put all the posts in then we'll mark the elevation for the tops and cut them off in place. With the differing depths I know I'm going to end up being able to dig to I can't think of any other way to do it. The weather will hopefully cooperate for the next several days and we can get all the posts in place. The next step would then be getting stone to bring the ground up to the proper level. First we'll put in some drain pipe and geotextile cloth.

O What A Tangled Web We Weave

I went outside today to spend some time with the goats and noticed that the large lilly in the "well head" garden was blooming so I grabbed the camera and snapped a picture. Also took pics of the other lillies currently in bloom and I noticed a large yellow marked spider with a web between a number of flowers. She was very cool just hanging out upside down waiting for breakfast. I had to snap some pics of her which you can see below. The markings on her back reminded me of an alien with it's hands on it's hips. I posted a question as to what type of spider it was on The Electronic Naturalist site and was told it was an Argiope spider. Apparently it is literally a garden variety spider. I hope she doesn't catch one of our humming birds. That would really bum us out. Apparently if they build their webs out in the fields they are great eaters of grasshoppers.

We spent some time over in Waterville this afternoon cleaning up brush and chipping. I started working on a large stump behind the shed but still have a long way to go in order to finish it. Also started putting a culvert up in one of our swampy areas in the woods but ended up spending more time getting the tractor out of the muck than putting the culvert in. We'll have to wait until things dry out a bit more to finish that job. We also are having some problems with our hose to the pond. I suspect it is just too small and is getting clogged with crud. We'll have to figure out something else.

Tomorrow we head down to White River Junction to help with the Habitat for Humanity house they are going to ship off to New Orleans. Should be interesting. I'll try to get some pics to show the progress. Putting together a whole house in one day is going to be a hoot. Or maybe we'll be too tired to drive back tomorrow night.