Looks Like We Made It!

Mother's Day came early this year up here ... my best gift arrived on Thursday. Imagine my delight when George called that afternoon to let me know that the road had been opened! I was skeptical at first, thinking that perhaps I would be allowed to drive in, ditch my car load of luggage, sleeping bags, and dirty laundry, and drive out again ... perhaps the gate would only be unlocked for the rest of the afternoon. I said, "You mean unlocked forever?" To which George replied, "Well, until next winter." After 137 days of walking, snowmobiling, and walking again, we would finally be able to bring the truck in ... all the way in ... forever!

I timed my last walk out so that I could pick Garrick up from the bus stop. Adie and I headed out, walking stick in hand and bear bell attached, in a misting rain ... much better than the pouring rain that we'd been having for the past few days (can you say "foreshadowing"). The weather wasn't going to get us down though. I did the Happy Dance (also known in these parts as The Open Road Dance) and "sang" the whole way ... luckily most of the neighbors have not yet arrived for the summer and those who have seem to live down the North Road.

Garrick arrived shortly after we did, hopped in the truck, and we headed down what Adie deemed to be her walking trail, little did she know it was actually a road, toward home. About 2/10 of a mile from the camp, the truck slid off the road. I looked at Garrick and asked, "What happened?" To which he replied, "Either you sunk the truck or you lost a tire!" Well the mud was so deep, it seemed as if I had lost the tire. He got out and directed me to back it up. No go. I tried two wheel low. No go. I tried to put it into four wheel low but had no idea how to go about getting it in there. So, I turned off the truck ... did I mention that I was low on gas - very low ... got out the owner's manual and read how to work the truck that I have owned for 9 1/2 years now. Ground the gears a bit and decided that I wasn't getting it into four wheel low. Garrick then played around with the gears for a bit before I went back for one more try in two wheel low before calling George to see if he had a come along to use to winch me out of the mud. Finally, I got it out of the mud and down to camp. Needless to say, we've been parking 3/10 of a mile from camp these days in order to avoid carving any addition canyons in the road. Hoping to be able to bring the truck all the way in tomorrow as we need to get our four weeks of trash out to the dump. And, there is no way I am carrying it all to the truck ... parked 3/10 of a mile away.

So, we have retired the woodstove (although we are still burning some fuel oil), the bike, and the snowmobile. And now, it is time to also retire the blog. As painful as it has been to write, I am sure that it has been even more painful to read. So, I will put us all out of our misery so that we can enjoy summer in peace.

Thanks for coming along for the ride -
Karyn

Poor Planning

Well, Adie has wasted no time in celebrating Ice Out! Every day we go for our walk, every day Adie manages to find the biggest mud puddles to sink into, and every day Adie washes off in the lake before returning to the house. The water can't be much more than 40 F but that doesn't seem to stop her; she wades right in and has a little swim while lapping up a drink at the same time. Yesterday we hiked over to the neighbor's farm and happened upon three deer grazing in the not yet green grass. Luckily, we didn't happen on any coyotes as we did see several traces of them on the way over. I continue to carry my walking stick wherever I go and even took the liberty of extending it to its full length yesterday after we passed the third pile of coyote scat!

In the afternoon, I headed out to pick up some of the many sticks that seem to have fallen from the sky over the long winter months. In my infinite wisdom (or not), I decided to let Adie off the leash while she was in the yard with me. Well it took her less than a minute to catch the scent of a grouse and she was off. I chased her for ten minutes before Caroline, still in her pajamas, came as reinforcement. After another ten minutes, Caroline was able to cajole her and snap on her leash but not before Adie managed to find a particularly prime water hole, filled with mud I might add, that she layed down in to cool off ... back to the lake again! Her mission was successful though; she managed to flush out a grouse or two before she was caught and contained.

While most of the walking we do is for pleasure, Garrick, on the other hand, has been walking and biking for purpose. Every morning, he heads down the long road to the busstop and every evening after baseball practice, he heads back again. At first, when there was still a fair amount of snow, he walked the entire way. Then, as the snow began to melt, his trip became a combination of riding with a bit of walking over the soft spots. Lately, with the snow almost completely melted, he has been riding. For the past few days he has been having a bit of trouble with the bike chain though ... it has been falling off the gears. (I suppose this should be expected when you get the bike for free ... from the dump no less.) So, yesterday he headed off to school only to have the bike chain come off at a very inopportune moment ... as he was riding down 'the big hill'. At the bottom of 'the big hill' is a small hill ... going up. Garrick has it engineered so that he can pedal extremely quickly, while standing up, when going down 'the big hill' so that he has to do no work in order to get up the hill on the other side. (He has been practicing this for a few summers now.) Just as he reached top speed, the chain came off, jammed the bike and Garrick went flying over the handlebars, into the dirt, followed by the bike which to make matters worse 'ran over him'. Luckily it was cold enough out that he wore his ski gloves that morning as it prevented his already scabbed hands (he was doing wheelies the previous weekend at his aunt's house in Ohio ... on a borrowed bike ... and also flew over the handlebars) from opening up. Somehow, he didn't miss the bus!

This morning, because it was pouring rain when he left ... really it had nothing to do with his previous two biking experiences ... he decided to walk. As you can imagine it takes quite a bit longer to walk than ride (downtime for repairs not included) so he left at 6:40 for the 7:15 bus. As I had planned most everything ... but not everything ... to a tee, all three umbrellas were ... in the truck ... in the parking lot. So, he set out in a downpour, wearing his red LL Bean raincoat that I purchased for him to go to camp almost three summers ago and his snowbaording pants. Wish I had thought to get the camera out for that!

Hope you're staying dry -
Karyn