Weekend Updatia

First up, for those who don't stay up late or scroll way back through lots of stuff, Episode Six of Monday's Thirteen made it up with nearly two hours of Monday left to spare. And today, when updating, it lost the icon and the subject. I think it might be an issue with the older Safari down here. Anywho.

Saturday, there was volunteering and some work - details posted soon. Sunday was Easter festivities - details posted soon, pictures posted here, here, and here.

For the last month or so connectivity has been iffy and getting progressively worse. Thursday was Almost Dead, Friday was Mostly Dead, Saturday was Buried, and Sunday was Unplugged, until late in the day when I found out what it was. Maybe.

Monday, which gets lumped into the holiday weekend, involved Brandonisms and the installation of a new lawn ornament.

Today will involve some online work for the business that I wanted to do last Friday and much of the same for the household which was also supposed to be done Friday. Oy. It will also involve chainsaws and removal of aforementioned lawn ornament.

Saturday Updatia

Saturday, Justin and I spent the morning forking around with over-ripe compost and seed mix - maybe fifteen to twenty wheelbarrows worth. And this wheelbarrow, we joked, was bigger than the other crew's pickup truck...

...not quite, but it was 8 cubic feet of heavy crap (pretty much literally) and mushrooms. Very heavy. After about eight or ten trips, we were joined by one of the members of the board. This made it much easier to get up the steep, soft bank to where we were spreading the stuff. Thankfully, we had two wheel drive - a single-wheel wheelbarrow would have bogged and flipped with what we were putting it through. Of course, the fun part was the scent of amonia that steamed out when you ripped into the stuff to load it.

We wrapped up with a single load of wood chips, to assist the singing wheelbarrow, split between a garden bed at the Osprey House and a bench overlooking the pond. Then it was pizza, donated by one of the other members who was volunteering, and we were done.

After that, we headed over to deliver and review the three detailed designs with the customers. We added a few things to one of the design, and should get approval mid-week.

Sunday Updatia

Easter morning, the kids woke me up bright and early. Well, Rachel did. She started it.

I groggily headed out into the hall and noticed it was a mess - something was spilled all over the floor. I instructed her she'd have to get Kirby and get to work cleaning that up, and I had her wake Justin up so he could get some coffee going and get to work on chores. For some reason, they tried to convince me that the mess was just jellybean trails left by the Easter bunny, but I wasn't buying it. They woke up Deb and Mr. B, and me and the little guy discussed how it couldn't be Easter, because if it was there'd be a basket and the start of a trail outside his door, and that couldn't be... and finally he woke up enough to see exactly how silly I was.

Turns out there *was* a basket sitting outside his door and a trail of jellybeans (and, to be fair, robins' eggs).

The kids followed their trails, which led to large plastic eggs, each with a folded piece of paper. "TIME TO" read Brandon's, "GO OUTSIDE" read Rachel's, and "AND FIND EGGS!" was Justin's. So we suited up and out we went.

Brandon found his dozen eggs first, so he was able to help Justin and Rachel with their searches. Rachel wound up finding the last one for Justin, and then we all went back in to thaw and put together some clues. Brandon had twelve puzzle pieces which formed the picture of a stove, with a large X over it. Rachel had some fragments, which puzzled out to: "THEL" "OOTI", "SNOT", "INTH", "EDIS", "HWAS", & "HER." Justin's read: "THEL", "OOT", "I", "SNOT", "INT", "HEW", "ASH", "ING", "MACH", "INE." Rachel was the first to realize that meant the loot was in the dryer, and so it was. Tricky Easter bunny.

For breakfast, after an appetizer of malted milk robins eggs, jellybeans, and Peeps, we had some popovers, eaten hot and fresh with lots of butter. Good stuff! Later in the afternoon, we had a delicious meal of ham, fresh kielbasa, Hilshire Farms polska kielbasa, mashed potatoes, and corn. Yum!

Top Sekrit Messages!

...to kay_brooke... #8 is not quite accurate... close, though! And that movie is around someplace...

...to belgatherial... Your guess for #1 was the same as kay_brooke's #8, but it is also in the wrong place!

Funny thing, you both nailed #4...

Owwwwwwwwwww...

Ever pick up a 60' tree with a diameter of about 16" diameter?

Yeeouch.

I have a timberjack, so that makes it easier - it makes the small bits cake.

Since the saw was new, only started by the manufacturer, the dealer, and once by me. Back in the Autumn when I first got it.

Took longer to get the saw running than it did to do the work. That actually wore me out a bit - especially when I had the compression set wrong (i.e. so it's impossible to pull the damn cord I was pulling. Or attempting to.) New power tools are so much fun! =)

Got it up and running, finally, after 5 minutes of fighting the compression, 2 minutes of reviewing the manual (the advantage of a newer, better saw is all the extra features Phil's saw - which I started a few times the other day - didn't have), about 10 minutes of struggling, and about 10 minutes after giving up.

The smaller section of the lawn ornament was done in 10-15 cuts, in about five minutes. The larger bits took about five minutes, most of which was spent wrangling the remaining log (diminishing from 30') so we could get it up on the jack and off the ground. The last 10' were murder to manipulate. Oy.

After that, it was a matter of clearing the stuff in the driveway - of course, the thickest sections of the trunk. We rolled 'em aside, chopped the top of the other trunk (it poked out into the driveway), and cleared those limbs, raked the debris, dropped the snowplow back off, parked the truck, and brought my car back up to its normal spot.

Deb will be able to zip right in when she gets back from taking Rachel to karate. Tomorrow, we'll clear the rest of the lawn ornamentation and maybe cut a bit of the other tree - it's not critical, but I don't want it falling on anyone or knocking over one of the smaller trees that caught it.