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"Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful."
- Unknown

"That which does not kill you, makes you stronger."
- Handed down through the ages.

"Life's tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid."
- John Wayne



It was raining, as usual, this morning so I took care of the bills and budgeting while Tom took the old pickup truck into town to gas 'er up and run a few errands. He surprised me with a beautifully brilliant pink geranium when he returned home: the "discount" seasonal greenhouse has returned for the summer!

Last night we attended a lovely soiree in town with a friend from Duluth who has a cabin about 4 miles up the hill from us. Another friend was hosting an open house to celebrate the completion of his business' physical renovation. He's done a big addition and tied it all together seamlessly. The catered food was truly yummy, and freshly picked lilacs (they're finally blooming) filled the rooms. After everyone else had left, we and a handful of close friends retired to the rooms upstairs that overlook the big lake. We drank wine, ate leftovers, caught up with each others' news, and listened to the waves. What a nice night!

But, today, once I was done with my deskwork and Tom had returned from town, we headed up to the property since it had (for a while, at least) stopped raining. I must say, though, that the moisture has made the vegetation lusher than ever. It is green, green, green along the roads!

We focused on felling and clearing the trees and land where the 16-solar-panel bunk will go. It was miserable-sticky out, but you couldn't take many clothes off for the bugs. Poor Tom soaked through two sets of work clothes out there. But, he got all the trees cut down, and I got a bit of brush cleared and into a burn pile. We're probably about 1/3 of the way through that job. Then our electrician/solar system installer will be able to come over and start building the bunks. We're hoping to finish it up in the next couple of days.

I thought we'd see some critter activity today, but nothing. We did see a beautiful blue heron rise out of a swamp and fly across the road in front of us. Don't you ever wonder how they can manage to be so graceful in the air with those long, gangly legs? And, I forgot to mention that the last time we were up we noticed that a big piece of moosehide that Tom had nailed up on the south wall of the trapper cabin had been cleanly ripped off. And he had NAILED that thing on! We did see some bear scat on the driveway, though, so we're suspecting the bruin was the culprit . . . or a moose who took egregious offense! Oh, we saw a turkey vulture that day, too. Neither the heron nor the vulture are creatures you see all that often up here, so they were both treats. We did wonder what had attracted the vulture, though.

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