Long Day of Everything

Started the morning with an attempted paddle. The plan was to drop Jen off at Reeds rd to paddle down the Brandywine then meet Abigail and I on the bike at the dam first then the park to play. The bike path parallels the creek most of the way, so it could make for a nice trip.

Yes. Jen’s 7 months pregnant.

We got her in the water ok, then Abigail and I drove downstream to park and get on the bike. We moseyed our way down the trail and stopped at the dam. I knew we’d be ahead of Jen, but when I started to see walkers we’d passed at the beginning of the trail, something wasn’t right. There wasn’t a whole lot we could do, so Abigail and continued gathering rocks and throwing them off the dam.

Finally Jen came paddling into view. I could tell from a distance by her bent paddling elbows she was tired and didn’t have quite the trip she planned. Apparently there were some obstacles between the point we put her in and where Abigail and I started our ride.

She couldn’t go under and couldn’t go around, so she got out. She was soaking wet head to toe, which pretty much concluded our little adventure. Now a new adventure began and that was getting the boat and us to the car which wasn’t really accessible from the dam. After some ferrying and a quick paddle across to the other side of the dam, we got things loaded up and headed home.

Back at the house Jen made a quick change and headed off to an outgrown sale, while I setup the guy cutting out our downed tree.

Abigail did her best to just look cute.

My plan for the day was to get the pool closed or at least get started on closing it. This meant cleaning the cover finally. Preliminary inspections after leaving it wadded up in a pile in the sun all summer, say it’s not really in any shape for using. We’ll see.

In the middle of all the pool stuff I also stood for a while looking into the bowels of my neighbors septic tank. What a joy. Apparently he needs some upgrades and is looking to offset the cost a little by doing some of it himself. After paying 2k to watch a guy dig up my distribution box and put a new one in (something as simple as digging a hole and burying a plastic box in it), I can’t agree more with my neighbor. His first task was simply finding his distribution box, which he wasn’t doing too well with. He had a long metal probe, but it didn’t have a T-handle to really get a feel for what he was probing, so I offered to weld one for him. He was grateful until the handle broke, so welded it again – this time a lot better. Unfortunately he wasn’t feeling well and had to quit for the day. Maybe today we’ll find out if the tool is a success.

Meanwhile Jen got some great buys at the outgrown sale. This was the first time they had this particular sale, so turn-out was low and the deals were great. Now Abigail’s got enough winter coats to donate a few this winter (her start into philanthropy) and Jen got a really nice glider for the new baby’s room.

So far I’m not sure where I’ll start today. At the very least I’ll have to do something with the pool and clean up the mess left from the tree. Too bad we’re not having a bonfire this year. We’ve got tons of wood.

– b