Hey There! It's 7:57 AM EDT, 41°F, sunny, Wind 2 mph NE
Here it is, just about the middle of May, and we are still getting frost and freeze warning. Rain has held off for the last few days, but we're still not getting temperatures above the mid-50s during the day. There seems to be promises of warmer temperatures by the weekend.
Yesterday was another of those days with enough to keep me busy and out of trouble. In the morning I decided to discontinue mirroring this blog at another site, not because the site was so bad (it's actually pretty cool), but because here I get a tad more options. If you happen to have been directed here from the mirror RSS site, you can just take the RSS feed from this site as a replacement. You can also subscribe by newsletter. Both options are at the end of each post.
I got myself washed up and then collected all the various gear I needed to head out and mow my campsite. I own a 20-acre piece of property about 20 minutes away, and I use it as a cabin campsite. I really only use maybe one acre for the actual site that I upkeep; the rest is just forest. Once I got there, I surveyed the winter damage. Not too bad. One small tree was down, one trailer was still covered but full of water, and the other two trailers were slightly exposed, the cover having mostly blown off. I opened up the cabin, and it looked fine - no dead animal bodies, and it looked like nothing had really entered the cabin over the winter. I opened up all the window and doors and aired out the place.
I got the battery in the riding mower and cranked it up. It started fine. This is different from other years, when I had used mowers and had to fight each spring to get them going. I bought this one new last year, and I am so glad I finally did. It takes about two hours to mow what needs to be mowed, and by about 2 PM I was done. I love mowing. It's quite peaceful. The ground was fairly wet in places but I never got stuck in the mud, although I did avoid one or two areas. There is a lot of tree trimming to do, I have to saw the fallen tree into pieces, and probably do a little more branch cleanup. But all in all, it really survived the winter well.
I sat out on the porch for a bit, taking in the nice day, opened up the secondary shed used for storage, and set up the cabin about halfway for summer use. I did not set up the cot or the solar. I have ordered a set of solar panel mounts to try them out and see if I like them. If they work well, my plan is to set up a portable solar array this summer with the stands.
I got back home about 4:30, and DW had a friend over, so I said hello and went to my back office to take care of negotiating our new purchase - a Nissan Leaf. We took a look at this Leaf late last week, and after looking it over and doing a bit more research, we made an offer $1000 less than they were asking. They took the offer. I like to think my fabulous negotiating skills were the reason (I gave them a few reasons for my offer), but I think they also wanted to get rid of it. It passed inspection, so that's a plus. I made our offer when I got back home, and within 30 minutes the guy said OK. I now have to get the paperwork together, and hopefully over the weekend I'll have the car here.
Dinner was pasta primavera, which I don't care for all that much, but DW likes to cook meatless meals here and there, so I ate it. The baseball game was on at 6:30, so I tuned in. Another loss. This team runs hot and cold. I dithered on YouTube for the rest of the evening until bedtime, which was around 10:50 PM.
Notable deaths: Rex Reed, noted film critic, 87.
'Til We Meet Again!