At the Bolt Hole for the weekend. The ride up went smoothly with only one longish construction zone on the NYS Thruway.
As soon as I arrived, I went right to work. Already filled the holes in the ceiling and applied one layer of spackle. I had to. There was a stream of heat pouring out of those holes into the bedroom. (Tin roof on a sunny afternoon. You get the picture. The patches really looked like crap when I put them in and covered with one coat of compound, but I put a second coat on the areas before I went to bed and they're looking better.
While waiting for the first patch cover to dry, I replaced the lawn mower blade. The one that was on there was NOT made for the machine but a quick replacement Mark had made to finish the job after he had hit a stump and mangled the old blade. Should be okay now but it will be a bit before I can give it a try. I got the gasoline last evening, but it's presently raining and will be for much of the day. (One report I saw said 1.5 inches is a possibility.) Cutting knee high grass when it's really wet just doesn't work.
I made arrangements for the propane company to pick up their two 100 pound tanks--when you're at a part-time camp and you only use it to cook on the stove, you only use about ten gallons A YEAR! Not worth their time or my $99/yr rental for the tanks. I do a lot of cooking in either the toaster oven or the microwave. Only bacon and eggs and the occasional pan fried pork tenderloin or chicken breast or boiling water for spaghetti require I use the stove.
Oh, and the blackflies are every bit as bad as Mark said they were. I've NEVER seen them this thick. Then again, the grass IS knee high. The rain has done wonders for the mosquito population, too.
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A buddy of Mark's who likes to tinker with small engine repair has offered up two (!) riding lawn mowers for our use. They work but need belts and/or batteries. I've got the space in the garage so why not? Hopefully, they will be dropped off either today or tomorrow. Still won't be able to cut the grass in the rain, but when it dries out it will cut the time of cutting considerably.
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So, here I am. Saturday morning at the Bolt Hole. And it's raining.
I'll do one more coat of spackle on the patches this morning. Hopefully I'll be able to get it as smooth as a baby's bottom so as to minimize any sanding that will need to be done.
Can't do anything outside because it's too wet to cut the grass and too buggy to do much else. Don't enjoy walking in the woods in the rain in any case.
Guess I'll have to do some house cleaning/straightening/sorting. Lord knows there's a lot of junk here to sort through! Some of it is just that: JUNK! Bag it and tag it for a trip down to PA where it can be discarded. Some just needs to be...well...organized. Organization would allow me to find it when I need it so I don't have to go out and buy some more of it.
Sound like fun?
Later. As long as something doesn't fall on me, the bugs don't drain me dry, or the drip, drip drip of rain on the tin roof doesn't drive me insane.
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