Road Trip!

I'm actually looking forward to the upcoming road trip.


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Unfortunately, there won't be much (any) time for sight-seeing and we will be towing a trailer (so no short cuts through the Adirondacks :-( ), but it will still be a road trip (aka scheduled down time with my sweetie). And, when it's all said and done, Turbo will have a backhoe for this tractor, Lorraine will have her new-to-her wood stove, and Mark will have a riding lawn mower to tinker on. Oh, and we must not forget the third deer head (Mr. Victor Jenkins) for the living room (joining Oscar and Billy), thereby securing Mark's presence in the household redecorating efforts. (Sad part: Victor's head cost nearly as much as my new couch and he's not nearly as comfortable to sit on.) :-)

New Couch!

	Before
	After - Mark style
	After - Lee style :-)

Weekend of Processing

The garden is overflowing with veggies. Mostly summer squash and beans, with cukes and tomatoes on their way. With the hot, hot, hot weekend, we spent quite a bit of time, indoors, processing food. We did 6 quarts of dilly beans a week or so ago and then this weekend we turned this:


into these:

We also took a loaf of zucchini bread and some cukes and squash to Shoreline Soup Kitchen dinner in Chester yesterday.

Wasps and Decks

This:


is keeping this:


from finishing this:

Zits & Wrinkles - Note to Self

Dear Body,

You're 30 years old now, and you have a choice to make: zits or wrinkles. Pick ONE and stick to it. You can go the adolescent route and give me all sorts of grief with acne on SMOOTH skin. Or, you can go the middle-age route and give me crows-feet and smile-lines on CLEAR skin. The choice is yours. While I was willing to tolerate your indecisiveness in your twenties, I simply will not accept both at the same time any longer.

I appreciate your prompt attention and quick resolution to this matter. Should you have any issue with this request, please direct it to Mother Nature. Hey, I don't make the rules, I just want you to start following them.

Yours truly (no pun intended),
~Lee

Wordle.net

Finally got a chance to check out wordle, the cool tag cloud art generated by IBM's own Jonathan Feinberg.

I made this one is for John and Phyl, in celebration of their new tats!


And this one is for Mom and Erin, seeing as training camp is just a couple weeks away!

Detaching the Porch at Camp

So, major decisions about my camp need to be made. The options are endless, limited only by time and money: rebuild entirely, start building next to existing camp, rip it down and bring in a house trailer, build a guest-house with a bathroom and use as is, or try to save the camp. We decided to try and see if we can save the camp, for a few more years at least, and then build a small bunk house with a bathroom. Terry had a contractor come look at the site, to see if it would be possible to jack-up the camp. He thinks it is, but said to take the porch off first. So, that's what we did this past weekend, with the intent of reattaching it later.


The Great Porch Removal Project from Lee Ives on Vimeo.

Back from Mini-cation

Guess I should be happy it wasn't one of those new, trendy 'stay-cations' and that we could at least afford to go up to camp for a few days. Ah, camp. I miss it already. I don't recall ever having such perfect weather. Photos coming later tonight.