Fall Has Arrived!

 Fall, by far our favorite time of the year. The changing of the leaves, the cooler temperatures, crops being harvested and of course, hunting season! This past week brought a significant change in the weather going from highs in the 90's to the 70's in just a matter of two hours when a serious cold front moved in. Over the next several days the highs were in the 60's and lows in the 40's. Absolutely beautiful weather! Although I have not been out hunting yet, I do have my trail cameras out to see what is running around out there. The bucks have lost their velvet and the fawns have lost their spots.

I probably will not get out hunting until late October when the deer get closer to their breeding season (rut). In the meantime, we are continuing to try to get as much done outside before the snow flies. This means more stone. 

Very slow going as I am only doing one wheelbarrow of mortar a day. I start out the day by spending an hour finding the perfect stone to fit each spot I need to fill. Then I mix the mortar and put the stones up. A total of probably two hours each day before I move on to another project and let those stones dry. 

What other projects you ask?  I have been cleaning out the garage getting it somewhat organized for the winter. Our garage has never been this clean and likely never will be again!

Then there is the driveway. The entire driveway is about 1/4 mile long, Graveling the whole thing would be about $10,000 so we have been working on it slowly over the years. Thanks to my neighbor Jim who has an awesome dump trailer, we added 20 more tons of gravel, and I would say we are probably 85% done with it!

Barb is continuing to heal and says she is probably about 80%. She still cannot lift her arms over her head and lift anything over 7lbs. But she can do pretty much everything else. For some reason she is not carrying on with my genius ideas from last week.

She is even sleeping back in the bed! She is starting to get out of the house more and more. On one adventure we went over to Kevin and Cheryl's for a saddle fitting. Kevin is looking for a new saddle for his horse and like shoes for a human, they need to fit perfectly, otherwise it is uncomfortable for and can even injure the horse. It is best to try several saddles before spending $1,000-$2,000 or more on a new one. We tried several different ones before we found the right saddle that fit him the best. 

As I mentioned last week Barb kicked me out of the house for a few days when Kevin and I went up to North Dakota for a couple of days to help another friend of his with a concrete project. Tom, lives in Wisconsin where we used to live but also has a place in North Dakota and wants a garage to store his boat and other things in.

Unlike our other two recent concrete project recently, this pour was from the ground up. Meaning we had set the grade, put up form boards, dig in the plumbing pipes and set the rebar all before the pour. This process took pretty much all day. Then we got out fishing for a couple of hours. Kevin may be a great house builder but when it comes to fishing....well, lets just say it is a work in progress. Tom and I each caught a walleye and Kevin managed to foul hook one perch!

The next day the concrete arrived at 7:00am and was completely done in about 3 1/2 hours. 

After all the concrete work was done for the day (about 6:30) we went back out fishing. Over the course of the next few hours we boated over 20 walleyes with even Kevin catching 2! 

We made it back home on Wednesday in time for burger night with Dan, Bonnie, Kevin, Cheryl and Kevin's friends, Earl and Sharon who are out from Wisconsin.  

When I got home, laying on the bed was the Sitka hunting jacket I have been looking at but just could not get myself to spend the money on. Barb said she appreciated everything I did while she was laid up and bought it for me!

Friday Earl and I moved the windmill down to its location and we bolted the base to the upper section while it was laying on the ground. That night, our neighbors to the south, Greg and Sandy came over. They are from Southeast North Dakota but are going to be moving down here fulltime in the next year or so. 

Saturday, I spent the majority of the day replacing the cross-bracing wires, filled it with oil and got it ready for the big raising the next day. 

The girls even came down to see what I was doing!

Once that was done, we went out to Hill City to surprise our neighbor Carmen for her birthday. I am told that it is not polite to tell how old someone is so I will not tell you that it was a milestone birthday that has an "0" in it. We went to the Alpine Inn where we were joined by our neighbors Doug and Debbie as well as a neighbor further down the road, Chris.  Good times with good people. 

Sunday was windmill day! Earl and Kevin came over about 1:30 and by 2:30 we had it standing and bolted in place! There was one sketchy moment where it went sideways on 2 legs but other than that it set done perfectly. 

The other sketchy part was when I had to climb up 30 of the 36' to take the strap off. It doesn't seem that high until you are up there and look down!

If you look closely, you will see the hook for the boom hovering there next to the windmill. Well, since the ladder does not go all the way to the ground, that hook was my ride up to and down from the ladder, I don't know what was scarier, that sketchy ladder or being at the mercy of Kevin riding that hook!

Once that was done, we were joined by Dan, Bonnie, Sharon, Cheryl and of course Barb where we watched the Viking beat the Packers. Everyone there was a mix of either Minnesotans or Wisconsinites so there was a lot of ribbing back and forth. In the end, the Vikings were victorious, so Kevin, Earl, Sharon and Barb were left sulking. 

Monday, my last day here for a while, was spent over at one of Kevin's house build jobs installing windows. He can do pretty much everything himself but there are certain parts that he needs another body, and on this day that was me. 

That slider weighed a ton!

In just over 8 hours we got 7 windows, one slider and two doors installed. All that is left to get this building weather tight is a couple more windows that were on backorder.

Last but not least here are a couple of pictures of the pups. I got chastised last week for not including a picture of Dakota (no, it was not Harry) so here are a couple for the dog lovers out there!

Whew, I am tired just writing about everything we did last week and am ready for a break! So, tomorrow I head to North Dakota for 4 weeks for some rest and relaxation. And by that, I mean 8-to-12-hour days in the tractor helping Farmer Bob, Chris and Dylan get the last of their harvest in. And maybe, just maybe, get a little hunting in!