The new campfire thread...ooooh purrrrty!!!!!!

[Fenlason]

We have "stuff" going on. I Somerset county sheriff was shot and killed.. the shooter stole his cruiser.. and robbed a store.. then abandoned it. They have not found him and don't know where he is. This is close by.. Not super close to us.. but close enough. Many schools have been locked down.. and people are nervous.

Our rain didn't start to later in the day.. and so far it's intensity have varied. I did get a bit of work done earlier.

[toypusher]

WOW! Had not heard about the killing. That is pretty scary to have something like that close to you.

We have sun today and breezy, but tomorrow back to rain again, So, we have to get yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's yards done today if at all possible. Probably be a 9 or 10 hour day for me.

[Fenlason]

Today is rainier than they first said.. I am guessing this storm was just delayed a little. It started later yesterday than they said. It is pouring out now.. and is supposed to be pretty heavy through the day. It sound wet through the weekend.

There is no real progress on finding the killer... or at least anything they can tell us. They say there are 175-200 officers on the task... local, state, federal.. and out of state officers. They do know who they are looking for which is of course a big help. They have video of him from the cruiser dash cam.

[toypusher]

That is a lot of manpower. Hope they find him soon.

Rainy day here today. We ended up skipping a bunch of yards yesterday, but got the most important ones done. We will mow Monday and then do a big mulch job on Tuesday. Normally that would be reversed, but the boss waited to long to order the mulch and it will not be delivered until Tuesday!

[Fenlason]

They of course aren't telling us everything... but they think he is still in the woods.. in the rough area where he ditched the cruiser. It is a BIG chunk of woods though. They are being extra cautious and escorting school buses etc. It almost sounds like he has corresponded with someone.. who has talked with the police.. for he is scared... Although from stuff I have heard.. he had better hope the police find him, before someone else does.


If he has been outside.. he has to be pretty miserable.. we just received several inches of rain.

I am not feeling all that great today. Laurie took the afternoon off. We are riding with Angela at 4:00. We just got the new cover on our instant garage installed. I picked up some 3/4 inch black pipe this morning.. and had things set up for when Laurie got here. It went fairly smoothly.. and it's good to get this cover on.. before the other disintegrated. The older one still underneath will add some strength [at least in some places] and it made pulling the other one up and over easier. It still needs to be stretched out tighter. We will let it sit a little and then on a warm day.. tighten it up some more.

[Fenlason]

They just got the "suspect a few minutes ago. It appears he was in the woods where they were looking [their overall search area was a 25 miles block of woods.. but] but head had gone in the Bear Mountain area.. headed toward Rt 139... itself a fairly big chunk of rugged terrain. [We winter trail ride through there].

It was believed he would not be taken alive.. but that seems to not be the case.

[toypusher]

Yeah, good news that he was caught. It was really nice here yesterday until about 3:30, then rain rolled in and it dropped from 75 degrees down to mid 50s in about an hour or just a bit more maybe. I did get my lawn mowed though.

Sunny this morning but breezy and in the upper 40s. Should only hit upper 50s today I guess.

[Fenlason]

Sunday we worked in the woods. Each year we talk about cleaning up along the brook... and we never get to it... or much of it. We have a lot of downed trees in the brook.. stuff growing along the banks that is bent over hanging down into it. We are hoping some clean up will cut down on some of the flooding. As well as be better looking. We worked on that Sunday.. till mid afternoon.. when it started raining.

Yesterday Dave hinted at wanting some help. I went down to the woods for a couple hours before joining him.

I was anxious to get out there today.. and while eating breakfast.. it started raining..

[Fenlason]

The days are starting to blend.. I did some work around the house.. We have had some great weather.. but no extended nice stuff. I have that plastering I want to do.. and a forecast of potential showers isn't great for that. I have done some prep work on the small section of barn wall that we ran out of time last fall. We have continued to do some work on the skinny farm.. as well as working in the woods. Laurie took Wednesday afternoon off.. It was HOT.. well hot for this time of year and hot for what we have been used to. We had temps in the upper 80's.

We had showers again this afternoon. I worked in the woods this morning.. then did errands this afternoon. One of my chainsaws doesn't oil the chain any more... The oil pump is plastic and they wear out. This saw has had a few problems.. and it has had too much money put into it so far. In my errands I did go shopping [just looking]

[toypusher]

Rainy here today! Need to do some laundry and run some errands after a while I guess.

It was a long and difficult week at work. Long hours and lots of problems this past week. Equipment problems and truck problems causing havoc for us all week. Sure hoping this week will be a lot smoother.

Went to my orthopedic surgeon on Thursday and she says my only options besides just living with the pain is to get knee replacement. No hurry, bu will eventually have to be done. Having back problems too and afraid at this point that it means more surgery also. Just have to see how it goes for a while at least.

[Fenlason]

John had asked about helping us with trail work this weekend.. saying he and Dan wanted to help us... and without that knowledge Bruce also offered. .. and then Dave and Angela the same.

Bruce helped us Friday afternoon. Laurie was able to take the afternoon off.. and help. Bruce was back Saturday.. and we got a bit more done. We were expecting a lot today, but Dave went to a race in NY instead.. Angela decided to not help.. and Dan got called into work. Bruce thinking we would have plenty.. we told bruce he could skip Sunday...

Laurie and I were pretty beat from Friday, and Saturdays work.. but while we had help wanted to utilize it. We did get a LOT done.

Yesterday we had gorgeous sun.. it started cool.. and was very windy.. today was very cloudy.. and is supposed to rain this afternoon.

[Fenlason]

We got quite a bit done Sunday.. quitting not long before some light showers started. I was pretty toast come Sunday.. I think Laurie and I quit before our help was ready to. I actually ended up with an injury from all work over the 3 days. I have a painful case of golfers elbow. It has limited what I have been able to do since.

We have had a nice stretch of decent weather since.. I would love to have done some plastering but not with my bad elbow... plus the black flies are currently horrendous. .. and plastering would not be a great project in that.

I have puttered around the house.. doing a lot of little neglected projects. While we have a ton of stuff overall to do. Not worrying about what I get done between work days.. is really nice.

I miss work.. and have some anger over all of it [not that I would want to work for the new owner anyways].. but mostly I am loving the freedom.

[toypusher]

Yesterday we only worked 3.5 hours due to rain so today will be a long day for sure. But it is supposed to be a sunny and very nice day with high of about 72.

[toypusher]

Well, my work truck broke down on us today and left us beside the road on a very, very, very busy road.

Gone set us back a bunch for the week.

[Fenlason]

Sorry about the truck.

We have continued to work on stuff here. I guess it's mostly been trail work.. but we have done some other stuff. We have had a fairly good stretch of pretty good weather, although tomorrow and Wednesday is supposed to be iffy.