Trip #9: October 10, 2024 – November 2, 2024
Utility trailer brush load count: 3
1-Thursday, October 10/Friday, October 11, 2024
I spent a couple hours carefully packing the truck. We had quite a bit to go down, and some bulky items, starting with a drop-leaf oak table I built 30 years ago or thereabouts, which we weren’t using anymore and would be a good fit beneath the living room window at the Lodge. This was the first thing to load, and didn’t really take up that much room up at the front of the truck bed since I could stow other things “inside” the table. I eventually stowed everything I wanted to bring, except for a set of rough stairs that Heidi uses for the dog grooming table; these would have to wait till another time, or maybe just build a new set down there.
After an early evening, we got up and departed at 2322, unencumbered this time by any trailers or excess luggage racks. The exit ramp from 405 to 290 was closed; this had been under construction for a while, but had reopened earlier in the summer, so this was a surprise. I should have just gone another 10 or so miles down to the intersection with the Mass Pike, an easy detour, but instead I followed the supposed detour signs that instructed me to get off at the next exit. Well, this led me the opposite direction on whatever road 290 E becomes when it ends at 495, which was frustrating, but it turned into an undivided 2-lane road shortly and I was able to pull a U-turn and head west on 290 as planned.
Made the usual stops at Charlton, MA for required personal reasons and Middletown, DE (0710) for fuel and such. No traffic issues on the way down, but for a brief stretch on the NJTP, which at the northern end is divided into a “Cars only” and a “Truck” section, we were surrounded by trucks (in the car section) for several miles, then no more. Not sure what that was about, but there must have been a reason they were diverted.
We arrived at the Lodge at 1034 on the 11th, clocking 738.9 actual miles and 27.6 MPG average for the trip. The Lodge was in good shape, and none of the closed-up “Lodge” smell we’d gotten used to. Weather was great, in the 60s, so I turned off all the AC (we left the AC on at a high-ish temperature mainly to limit moisture inside) and opened windows, turned on the water supply and water heater, and we were back in business.
In our absence, the contractor had completed the new dock. As you may remember, this work had begun at the tail end of our last visit, but we had to leave before they actually did any new work. I’d been able to check in through the waterfront Ring camera to see the progress, and Radek texted me photos each week of the build progress, as shown below. We loved the new dock and were thrilled to finally have the work done after such a long and frustrating wait. Radek and Perpetual Marine did a good job for us, with only the usual types of minor delays that one might expect (and which would hardly be noteworthy if not for our bad experience with Iseman and his constant lack of realistic or concrete information).
While unloading the truck and putting things away inside the house, I got an Onstar notification about a low left rear tire–14PSI. Checking the tire, it was clearly low. I used my small compressor to add air to bring it back up–the gauges in the truck now read 29 PSI (should be 34), and my cheap tire gauge a bit less. My portable compressor/jump pack didn’t seem to be reading correctly on the air display, and I didn’t have an air fitting for my plug-in compressor. But it seemed to be holding, so we drove to town for dinner and paid close attention to the pressure readout, which started at 28 and quickly dropped to 26, where it held most of the way before finally dropping to 25 PSI, which triggered another warning light. We also picked up a compressor air fitting that I could have on hand for the future. I couldn’t see any obvious problem with the tire, though it’s easy to miss it if a nail or something got into the tread.
All the local tire shops/garages were closed till Monday, so there was no rush to square away the tire for now. I thought we’d leave it overnight and see if it was still losing pressure, and make a decision on the morning what to do. Bed 1930.
2-Saturday, October 12, 2024
Dark till 0700. Onstar still said 25 PSI on the tire, but it was too dark to go out right away to confirm. A beautiful morning, and forecast to be 75. It turned out the tire had gone completely flat overnight, actually sort of a good thing because it removed all doubt about how to proceed: the tire obviously needed to be swapped with the spare and then patched (hopefully). Heidi contacted AAA and, as a non-emergency call, they arrived in an hour or two, about 1030, and changed the tire for the spare. Yeah, I could have done it, but why, when one has AAA and nowhere to be? The last time I changed a tire was in 2005 when some fool on a 4-wheeler drove out in the road in Richmond, ME, where I was driving on my way home from some work in the then-under-construction shop in Whitefield, and hit the side of my truck in two places, one of which was the front tire, which went flat. 20 years later, I had no interest in changing a tire if there was an option available. We learned that the key fob contained an emergency key hidden within that is required to unlock the spare tire carrier under the frame–this truck had a push-button start, like most vehicles now (why?). Good info to have, in any case. Once the tire was off, we found a screw imbedded in the tread, fortunately in a place where patching seemed like it would be possible. I’d take the tire in on Monday since everything seemed to be closed for the weekend.
I worked inside the house, getting some stuff put away and the kitchen reorganized from where we’d thrown it together at the end of our previous stay. I raised the lazy susan discs in the corner cabinet so there was room beneath for storage in the bottom of the cabinet–a great idea from Heidi.
Later, I mowed the “lawn”, otherwise known as the ivy on both sides of the driveway heading out, and trimmed around trees and stumps. Many of the stumps from our cuttings last year seem to have grown, or the ground receded away from them, as most were becoming too high for the mower to pass over even on its highest (raised) setting. I vowed to come out and trim these down. Anyway, all things considered the property looks pretty good. Still work to do, for sure.
3–Sunday, October 13, 2024
As is our wont, we took an early trip out for groceries, with breakfast on the way. ON the way back, we stopped and looked at a pontoon boat we’d passed on the way up, in painter. It was a decent boat, about 20′, with a Mercury 75 (circa 2000 or so), and the asking price was $8500, which might have been a fair price, but it was more than I wanted to pay given the age of the outboard. Knowing we’d be around for a while, I thought we’d keep an eye on it and maybe go back for another look later. (As it happened, the boat disappeared a couple weeks later.)
Anyway, as would be the general theme of this trip, there were no big goings-on to report. It was 1100 before I knew it. I installed a wall-mount folding lamp in the alcove where the couch was slated to go, once our new chairs arrived for the living room. Great weather, around 80 with a nice SW wind that kept things pleasant. I did a few odd jobs, went on a dump run with cardboard and kitchen trash, and then picked up some windfall and some leftover pieces of the pine tree that the dock guys had left behind after trimming the limbs for us. We enjoyed some time sitting on the dock and patio.
4–Monday, October 13, 2024
I had a text from Radek at 0700, wanting to know if we were around so he could come by, presumably for his final payment. I said no problem, and we expected him sometime in the afternoon.
I went out at 0800 to Coastal Tire to hopefully get the truck tire repaired and remounted. It was a semi-holiday, so there was just one guy working there, but as usual he immediately took the tire for repair, and by just after 0900 the tire was patched and back on the trunk, and the spare re-stowed, for $60. Another great experience at this little shop.
Back home, we laid out and hung some pictures on the walls, and relaxed on the patio for a spell, before playing with the dogs on the dock, throwing their floating Korby in and letting them jump off to retrieve it.
I had another Ring camera to mount looking out the other end of the house, towards the driveway. We got this partly to hopefully get a notification when someone came in the driveway, since many times our little fortress of a house had completely insulated arrival sounds, leaving us to be surprised by someone at the door out of nowhere, but the camera would also be nice to keep an eye on things when we weren’t around. This one was just a basic plug-in model, and came with a nice long cord that I could bring down to the outlet we’d had installed on this end during the electrical work.
One of the cheap plastic chairs we were using on the dock blew off in the wind, and I found that instead of sinking, it sort of floated right below the surface, which meant it wanted to float away. So I quickly retrieved a long pole with a hook on the end that we’d found somewhere on the property and was able to rescue the chair.
Later, Radek came by with the contract (useful now that the work was done, eye roll), and we paid him his final amount and talked about about the dock, the process, and possible upgrades in the future, like a boat lift (nothing we are going to do soon, but at least we had some idea of future cost–$15,000 for a 10K lift with 4 pillings, all installed–if we want to).
5–Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Around 0900 I painted Kilz on the various knots and stains forming on the exterior trim, preparing ahead for eventually repainting the house sometime soon. Then, we headed out to the gump (trash and recycling) and hardware store for house paint and the right exterior trim paint, plus a quart of the off-white trim paint we used inside the house so we could finish painting the couple of doors that needed it.
The big event of the day was our new recliners arrived, which we’d ordered during the summer. These looked great and would be functional, opening up the space a bit and giving us the chance to move the couch to the alcove beneath the double window near the kitchen.
6–Wednesday, October 16, 2024
Our neighbors had a crew over filling in their pool, which made Heidi distraught (she really wants a pool). I don’t know why they were doing this, but there you are.
We left around 0900 for a trip up tp Chincoteague, just for a look around. Off-season, of course. Overall, it was nicer than I expected, despite being very built up, less honky-tonk and with many nice houses. It was certainly tight, and obviously would be busy during the season. We drove to both ends, enjoying the scenery and forests of dock pilings, and had a stop for the dogs at a nice, deserted waterfront park on the north side. Then we drove out to the bridge to Assateague, but didn’t try to cross because we knew how strict the Virginia side of Assateague was about pets–no pets, even in cars.
Afterwards, we headed up to Pokomoke for a few errands: miscellany at Lowe’s, and Harbor Freight to pick up an inexpensive 10×17 shelter that I wanted to set up. Home by way of the MD liquor store and Taylor seafood. No photos from today!
7–Thursday, October 17, 2024
Gray and cloudy, with a cool north wind. I assembled new shelving with casters in the pantry (back room)–the room is so small that I thought being able to move the shelves around would be helpful, particularly since the attic stairs needed room to come down. These shelves would help us to continue slowly optimizing the storage between the kitchen and here. I installed a hose hanger and new hose out on the patio side of the house (the hose still very much retaining its packaging memory for the moment). We had quite a high tide, but the new dock platform remained comfortably above the water level that was submerging some of the other docks in the creek.
Later, I worked in the shed to do some organizing, as it had become a catch-all for everything we couldn’t fit somewhere else. I installed a shelf/hanger for the bikes to get them off the floor, and installed some brackets from which I could hang chainsaws and such, all designed to get the floor clear. It’s still a very full shed, and building another shed is on our list for next year.
I’d been meaning to remove and dispose of some concrete caps from one side of the patio, along with some rough concrete blocks that had been outside the front stoop: now was the time.
After picking up that screw in the truck tire upon arrival (though who knows where we actually picked it up, truth be told), I thought it’d be handy to have a magnetic “broom”, and had purchased one. Now I assembled it and, over just part of the dooryard and in a short time, I picked up quite an impressive pile of ferrous nails and so forth, most of which were very old.
8–Friday, October 18, 2024
Now that I’d purchased the paint for the house exterior, I found I didn’t really feel like doing it. But with a sense of obligation, I got to work getting set up and prepared to paint all the trim and also the siding again. When I painted the house a year ago, I’d not painted much of the trim, because our goal then was just to spruce up the house with the new and fresh color, and most of the trim was in decent shape. But now was time to do it “more right”. Setting up, which included getting ladders, a small work table, all the painting supplies, and removing the shutters from the north and west walls, took from about 0830-1045.
Next, I painted the north gable trim–the “worst” and highest part of the house, and also intermingled with the electrical wires and such–along with the window trim on that side, corner boards, and then the roof and window trim on the west side of the house too. I’ve learned that it’s better to paint the trim first, and cut in the siding, versus the opposite order, as it’s too easy to drip trim paint on the new siding work. When all the trim on both of these sides was done, I continued with the siding paint, and got through the north gable end by quitting time. This time, we used satin finish, which was what we’d intended to use originally, last year, but the paint store had only flat in stock at the time. This was fine for a base coat, but I missed the light shine of the satin finish. Now, the paint looked much better.
Another very high tide. The photo shows one of our neighbor’s docks underwater.
While I was painting, Heidi worked to cut lots of cedar branches off a couple of the trees out near the road, continuing our limbing project, plus the ever-present vines and small stuff, which she stacked to await loading into the trailer.
Back in early September, when our neighbors invited us over for some pizza, we were astonished to find that one of the pizza places in town that we knew about would actually deliver. Now, I’ve never lived anywhere that offered food delivery, so this was a first, and therefore inordinately exciting. Tonight, we decided to order for delivery ourselves, and did so. As we were sitting around awaiting the delivery, which thanks to the wonders of technology we could track fairly closely on online, the phone rang, and it was the pizza place telling me that the delivery driver had hit a deer, and could we meet him and pick up the food? It took a minute before I actually understood, but then we headed out to meet the poor guy. He’d almost made it, but the deer around here are really a scourge and extremely dangerous on this road. We found him and his (probably) totaled car not far from home, along with some looky-loos who had stopped to help after witnessing the collision, and the poor driver was quite shaken. I felt like the biggest asshole who ever lived as I collected my food, wanting nothing more than to disappear. I mean, it wasn’t my fault, but I felt responsible. Help was on the way, and there was nothing we could do. This poor guy was just trying to make some extra bucks, and then this. I’d already tipped when I paid online, but I gave him all the cash we had on us, which was $20. Then we slinked away as soon as possible.
9–Saturday, October 19, 2024
Another beautiful day, around 70 with a light north breeze. First thing, I picked up and put into the trailer as many of the branches from Heidi’s work yesterday; since the trailer already had a fair bit in it from last time, I only got about half the pile in. Now that we’ve spent so much time decluttering the property and picking up piles, I’m loathe to leave any piles at all, even for a short time. Best to get the picked up and dealt with.
With the trailer filled, I got back to work painting the house, this time the siding on the west side. Now the two “money” sides were done. I used a roller on the field, and a brush in the grooves and to cut in as needed. By now I’d used up 1-1/2 of the two gallons of the blue paint we’d purchased (they’d only had two gallons of the satin at the store when we bought it). I planned to get more paint and continue work on the remaining parts of the house soon. Late in the day, I put the shutters back up on the two completed sides of the house to finish things off.
It was another very high tide in the middle of the day, but our dock remained high and dry.
While this was going on, Heidi had been working on digging out an annoying stump from the NE corner of the house, which stump kept growing suckers at an alarming rate. She’s good at doggedly digging away to expose and cut roots, and once it gets far enough I can usually come along with the tractor and push it out the rest of the way, which is what happened now. The hole had more bricks in it too, from God knows why.
10–Sunday, October 20, 2024
We took the full trailer to the dump in the morning (load #1). While unloading and pulling branches down the ramp, Heidi lost her balance and ultimately fell; I tried, and almost succeeded, to save her three times, but she kept falling into me, unable to self-correct, and in the end I couldn’t finally keep her up. Fortunately she’s a good faller, but it hurt to fall on the pavement. Back home around 1100, I picked up what was left of the pile near the road before parking the trailer for now.
After an early lunch, I got started assembling the new shelter I’d bought for the tractor this winter, and worked on it on and off through the afternoon.
1130-1145: Open box, lay out roof frame
1215-1245: Assemble roof frame
1300-1340: Assemble remaining frame
1340-1430 Attempt to install anchors (huge things with a single thick augur at the bottom that one was supposed to turn into the ground–no chance here, with our rock-hard, dry ground after a rain-less summer, then go to HW store to pick up alternative anchors that might actually work
1515-1615: Install newly-purchased anchors. I drove long, big landscape spikes through the holes in the ends of the frame, and later planned to use some tent stakes that I’d also bought to futher secure things. Some info online had suggested that a 32mm socket would work to fit on the top of the originally-supplied anchors, and I bought one to test, but it wasn’t even close. Without some mechanical means to help drive and spin these original anchors, there was no way. But now the entire frame was assembled and semi-secured to the ground, and I finished up by installing the first side–the door end. Here, the directions weren’t as good as they could have been, and I lost one end of the webbing that secured the door to the frame inside the stitched pocket. Fortunately, I was able to fish it out and get the job done, having learned something useful before I continued with the remaining canvas parts. Since the door end had taken quite a bit longer than I’d expected, since I had to disassemble the frame to fit it (this would have been nice to know beforehand) and then because I lost the webbing and had to retrieve it, I didn’t get as far as I’d hoped, and decided to leave the back wall for next time.
11–Monday, October 21, 2024
We’d promised ourselves that on this trip, we’d actually get out and around and do some exploring of the area, and today we’d planned to head south across the Bridge Tunnel and scope out the world on the other side, mainly Virginia Beach. While I’d been across the bridge tunnel a number of times in the past, we hadn’t ventured that way since we’d owned the Lodge. It was a beautiful day and perfect for an adventure.
Once across the bridge, we pulled into a state park at Cape Henry for a facilities break, and took the dogs down to the beach, which was basically deserted. Saw some dolphins or porpoises playing out in the swells, and a dead puffer fish washed up on the beach.
Then, we continued through downtown VA beach, gaping at the build-up, and eventually wound our way well south to some beach facilities and an animal refuge through which we’d hoped to drive. But alas, at the entrance there was a “no dogs allowed, not even in your car” sign (VA seems a bit hyped up on this particular subject), and though the booth was unmanned, we decided not to push the rule. Instead, we drove a short distance back to some beach parking areas–mostly deserted–and took the dogs out to this part of the beach, near a large pier. Big swells were coming in, so there wasn’t much water play for the dogs. There was no wind, and fairly far offshore we could see several sailboats motoring on their way south for the winter. It was a beautiful, seemingly endless beach, and I could only imagine what it’d be like in July. I like beaches off-season.
We drove back along the dune-side of Sandpiper drive, where the packed-in houses were almost exclusively short-term rentals. Fascinating to see all this (I know, what a bumpkin I am). After lunch in VA Beach, we came back across the bridge tunnel, and decided on impulse to turn right into a marked nature preserve, which turned out to be very nice, with a nice boat ramp and kayak launching area. We drove the long way home, up Seaside Drive all the way back to Exmore. Back home around 1530, where our neighbor was still burning brush he was cleaning up from the woods, something he’d been at nearly constantly for two weeks…getting old. At least today the wind was keeping the smoke blowing a different direction, rather than right at us.
12–Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Another beautiful day. After a casual morning, I wandered out to continue work on the new shed around 0900, after some Korby with the dogs.
0915-1020: Install back wall and top cover. The back went much better thanks to my learning experiences from the the other day, as I’d learned to thread on the ratchet ends to the webbing first, to keep the webbing from disappearing into the pockets. I did make a mistake and put the wrong corner (of three) of the pocket over the top part of the frame, so I had to unbolt it again and correct the error. The top cover was pretty easy to pull over with a pair of lines, but I found the process to secure it from within, with poles in the pockets and clamps at each frame member, rather tedius and tough on the knees–Id brought the kneepads I’d used during the summer for flooring back to Maine, stupidly. But it didn’t take that long, and all in all the whole shed construction wasn’t bad at all.
Afterwards, I “moved in”, putting the big sawhorses in the back to store the kayaks, and with plenty of room left for the tractor. I had two eight-foot 4×6 pressure treated beams that had been on the property, and now I laid one on each side of the shed, on the flaps that extended out, to help hold things down.
Later, I used the trimmer to clean up around the sheds, around the house, dock, and between the shed and house, after which we took a quick dump run for household trash and other, like the remnants of the box the shed came in. Quitting time was early, around 1500.
13–Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Ho hum, another day with perfect weather. It was time for another early morning trip out for breakfast and grocery shopping; we were home by 0915. After unloading, I got set up to paint the trim and siding on the south (water) side of the house. I removed the shutters, then painted all the trim. The gable trim on this end was covered in metal, something that was done earlier in the year when we had the roof replaced, so no need to paint the gables on this end. I’d like to get all the roof trim covered in metal, but for now we’d used up our “other people” budget. Once I’d painted the trim, I continued with the siding, starting at the gable and working down. I finished up around 1330, not hurrying the job because it was just so nice out. Later in the afternoon, the paint had dried enough that I could reinstall the shutters.
After putting the paint stuff away, I collected some cement blocks from around the property (4) to weight down the corners of the new shed. I had one regular block on hand, and thought there were three more acting as a “step” to the old gray shed; these turned out to be 2′-long wedge-shaped things half-buried in the ground, but the tractor got them out. (No pictures.)
14–Thursday, October 24, 2024
The weather was changing, with a north wind and becoming breezy, and getting cooler. We took a fun 4-hour trip roughly to Onancock via Harborton, Schooner Ridge, and various offshoots along the way, just exploring for the fun of it. Found several nice and interesting boat ramps that could be fun sometime later (when we have a boat). No other accomplishments of note, if even these are of note.
15–Friday, October 25, 2024
More great weather! I worked from 0930-1130 to set up and paint all the white trim on the last sides of the house, including 2 coats on the bathroom roof trim, which was new, bare wood, having been replaced during the roofing project in the spring.
After a break for lunch, I painted the siding, working till I used up all my available paint: I had about 1/2 gallon left, plus roughly 1/2 gallon leftover from painting the shed a year or so before. This got me along the long side by the kitchen and living room, and one short wall of the bathroom wing; the rest of the bathroom, and the corner by the pantry/back room would have to be done later, after I got more paint.
While I was doing all this, Heidi worked on the front (west) side of the house, pulling the ever-present roots, raking, and cleaning out along the edge of the house. I finished around 1415, after which we hung out on the patio, played with the dogs on the dock, and so forth. Heidi gave the dogs baths thereafter. I went around with some orange spray paint and marked many stumps around the house that needed to be cut to ground level or removed, as they were at “tripping” height now. I picked up from painting, and moved the heavy concrete blocks I’d pulled up earlier to the four corners of the tractor shed for some extra weight–done around 1600.
16–Saturday, October 26, 2024
It was gray and cloudy, and it seemed to take forever to get light. Joe from next door (the neighbor who filled in their pool and was burning constantly) stopped by unannounced to mention that there was a brush pile out in what we call the clearing, out beneath the electric wires, that was actually on his property. This pile pre-dated our ownership and was there when we first arrived in April 2022, but admittedly I had pushed some stuff onto it here and there, always meaning to get it cleaned up. I was embarrassed to have this come to light–I knew it wasn’t our land, but it hadn’t seemed to be a priority and I kept meaning to get to it. I promised him we’d take care of it, in any event.
The small lawn tractor kept losing air in the rear tire, and I’d patched one known hole several times–but this didn’t seem to be the source of the leak, as I could find no air coming out around the patch during a soap test. I planned on getting a tube for this tire, and noted the tire size so I could pick something up.
We went to town for another gallon of blue paint for the house, and a quick stop at Food Lion. Back home, I got to work on the painting around 1120, just finishing up the bathroom wing and the last corner around the utility room. That area is tough to work on because the ground is sloped, and the heat pump is right in the way of where I might set up ladders. Anyway, I got it done by around 1245. I had lunch break, then reinstalled shutters and cleaned up from the painting job.
Later, I went around with the battery chain saw and cut all those stumps and stubs around the house that I’d marked, and more. Satisfying, if unpleasant.
17–Sunday, October 27, 2024
Another beautiful morning–quite a bit cooler. Dee’s friends (and now our friends), Wallace and Debbie, who had done such Yeoman work when he was ill–they’re the ones who organized clearing the driveway clearing for the ambulance, and did the initial partial cleanout of the house in 2021 so Dee could come home from the hospital–came by at our invitation to check out the reborn house, and we enjoyed a nice visit with them and some refreshments for a couple hours. Later, I decided to go out and see if I could clean up that debris pile that Joe mentioned yesterday, which had been bugging me ever since. I brought the trailer down, and used the tractor to pull the pile out of the woods so I could pick through and put the larger pieces in the trailer for disposal, and the concrete bits and pieces into the bucket so I could dump them for now beneath the gray shed, where I could deal with them when we tore the shed down later. The remaining duff and small bots of wood and stick I brought to a new dumping area down in the gulley. This took a couple hours, and I was glad to take care of it quickly.
18–Monday, October 28, 2024
Yet another beautiful day-cooler in the morning, and highs in the 60s later in the day, and some sea smoke on the creek before sunrise. After a slow morning with just a few casual tasks, we went to the dump to get rid of accumulating trash and some lumber I’d pulled out of the brush pile yesteday. After lunch, I marked and cut many stumps in other parts of the property, many of which I thought I’d cut flush when originally cutting down the trees or shrubs, but they were too high for the mower. This was slow and hard going with the battery chainsaw and an old chain–I hate to use good chains cutting stumps–but eventually I was forced to change the chain, as I was just wearing through batteries and heat overloads (and wearing myself out too). I half-filled the tractor bucket with stumps, with many more to go. I took it nice and slow, just enjoying being outdoors on a find day.
19–Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Awake around 0230 or so, I found myself listening to loud chewing in the kitchen. After checking that Heidi was still in bed beside me, I went out with some trepidation to investigate. I didn’t find anything immediately, but later, once I got up for real, I discovered a partial bag of leftover chips had been compromised, spread over the counter, and hidden in various places behind books on the counter, behind the jar of cooking utensils, and in Heidi’s knitted drink cozy. Then, I saw a mouse on the counter, and it quickly disappeared, running behind the couch. I pulled the couch out and, with Tilly assisting, we frightened the mouse into the bathroom, where it disappeared into the wall through a gap in the molding next to the sink.
Later, I was reading on the couch and having coffee, and motion in the kitchen caught my eye: it was back, the bold little thing. So I set some traps we’d purchased, one under the sink and a couple on the countertop, and about 10 minutes later I heard the one under the sink snap shut: one down.
Another beautiful day. In late morning, after some household stuff, we headed out to try and pull down a dying pine branch off one of the trees; it was going to come down sooner or later anyway. We managed to get a line over it (it was too high to reach with saws), then used the tractor to pull it down.
Afterwards, we trimmed a few other branches from some of the trees near the border with the Prettymans (I’d mentioned the branches to them and checked they’d have no issue with them being removed), and more work on the trees and bushes still along the roadside, which we were slowly thinning out and clearing. We effectively filled the trailer again, then took it to the dump (#2), stopping for lunch at the taco truck on the way home.
Home around 1445, we decided to do some more work at the roadside, and cut more of the cedar branches, small stuff, and flush-cut some stumps in the area and weedwacked the ivy, filling the trailer again. Good progress.
During cocktail time, I saw another mouse in the kitchen and set some more traps, catching the mouse soon under the sink again.
20–Wednesday, October 30, 2024
No mice in the traps this morning. We departed around 0815 for breakfast, then continued up to the Assateague state park in Maryland. This is a beautiful place, with endless beaches, all deserted today, well off-season. Dogs weren’t allowed on the nature walks that we’d planned to do, so we’d come back another time for that. We saw maybe a dozen of the famed Assateague “wild” horses during our visit. A fun time.
We took a detour through Ocean City on the way home, which was awful, as I’d expected (I’d been through there before). Sometimes you just have to gape at the hideousness of what man likes to create, and there are few better examples than Ocean City. I can’t imagine going there on vacation, but it takes all kinds, I guess.
After Ocean City, we decided to take a flyer to Captain’s Cove on the way home. We’d seen this across the bay from Chincoteague when we were there earlier, and wanted to check it out. However, it wasn’t really what I’d expected. I’d expected a rather grandiose, classless, cheap-but-expensive kind of development, but intead, the extensive development, with many offshoot roads and a lot of non-waterfront properties, was kind of low-end–new homes from the 200’s–and the waterfront homes, all of which were raised a story for flood protection, were not at all what I expected. But we love this kind of touring and are always happy we don’t live in these places.
From there, we took a countryside detour back home through some surprisingly open and nice farmland–Stockton, Girdletree, Rt. 12. Scenic and interesting. Returned home around 1500, having driven about 200 miles.
21–Thursday, October 31, 2024
Mid-60s in early morning, and more humid–summery, with a SW breeze. at 0930 I decided finally to paint the master bedroom and bath doors with the off-white paint to match the rest of the trim. These were still just plain white, and didn’t stand out, really, but they looked better with the new paint done. 2 coats, and the setup and prep takes the longest.
After playing some dock-throw with the dogs, we headed out to do some more work at the end of the driveway: Heidi cut more limbs and vines, and I kept flush-cutting stumps, and eventually used the trimmer to cut back the vines and undergrowth from the next section we were working on, as we continued our long-duration project to keep clearing the property from unwanted undergrowth and vines. As I finished work in this section, I stumbled over one of the annoying protruding stumps leftover from some previous cutting and fell, landing on two nearby 3/4″ diameter stumps. This hurt a lot, but I was lucky I didn’t get impaled or hurt something important. As it was, it was just a couple very sore spots on my arm and torso where I’d landed; these spots formed some beautiful and colorful bruises later.
For cutting these vines and small brush, I’d earlier found a plastic blade head for my trimmer, and these things worked extremely well. The blades get slowly worn away with use (see the two photos below of new blades and after an hour’s work on those tough vines and underbrush seen in the photos).
22–Friday, November 1, 2024
Warm again in the morning. I’d just sat down for coffee when the power went out for no apparent reason (0556). It came back on at 0625. Later, we headed out for a trash run and a little detour to Hardees for some biscuits, home by 0830. Afterwards, we continued work out on the property on the stumps, vines, and small trees from the area currently underway. The little battery chainsaw was causing issues and not cutting well, and kept stopping. I started to wonder if maybe the bar itself had some damage, as it seemed the chain just wouldn’t spin ’round it properly. I finally switched to my smaller gas chainsaw to finish up the stumps and brush in the area where I was working.
We finished filling the trailer and took it to the dump (#3), home by 1245. Then, it was a quiet afternoon, as our trip was nearly at an end. I put tools away, stowed the trailer, took dogs for a walk, and made some videos about the property.
23–Saturday, November 2, 2024
Our final day: We planned to depart later this night around 2300, as usual. It was cooler, with a north wind.
Ducks are hilarious. We’ve been enjoying watching many ducks in the creek. They have cartoon quacks, except they’re real, and something about the way they swim around, with their little wakes, just is always amusing.
Typical last day, a bit loose-endy. Did some light packing and prep, packed away the patio cushions and covered the chairs, organized the fridge and freezer, and packed food. Stored away the tractors, disconnected batteries, and eventually packed up the truck with the chainsaws and other tools that travel with us, and stuff from the house, and other pre-trip checks and procedures.
After an early-to-bed, we got up and, after final packing and getting the house ready for a several-months-long slumber, departed for Maine at 2314, and were home in Maine at 0957 after travelling 2566 miles during this three-week trip.
