We did a very unusual thing on Wednesday, and enjoyed ourselves immensely: we traveled to Virginia to meet up with Jen’s childhood friend Raquel and her family to tour Mount Vernon, George Washington’s family home. The weather was gray and gloomy for most of the morning, but as the day unfolded and as we walked the grounds the sky cleared up and we got to really soak in the beauty of the location. I’d never been there before, so it was a new experience for me, and I enjoyed being with Finn to see it with her. From there we headed into D.C. for dinner with their family; they are lovely people and we would definitely like to see them again when they’re in town.
Saturday we traveled down to Bob’s house to keep things moving forward for him; while Jen cleaned the kitchen cabinets I rebuilt the surround to his bedroom door, sorted out a pile of random keys, finished his Ring doorbell install, and made a bunch of other improvements around the house. Having the Ring hooked up is another way for us to keep track of what’s going on, and it’ll be good to be able to check in when we need to.
This morning the ladies got themselves cleaned up for church and I got dressed to take Hazel out for a long walk. Our first stop was at the farmer’s market, where I stocked up on empanadas and found Jen some fresh yellow peaches; while I was there I ran into an old friend from my gaming days and walked the neighborhood for an hour or so in the sunshine, catching up. From there I headed back home to catch up on some housework. I’ve spent all spring and summer hauling tools to Bob’s house to complete long-delayed work at his place, and each project is involved enough that I’m pretty worn out by Sunday morning. That means our house is suffering from neglect and there are projects around here that I haven’t tackled at all.
At some point in the last six months, one of our wood cradles had a little too much to drink and leaned over onto its neighbor for support. I looked out there last weekend and realized the whole thing had tipped over into the neighbor’s yard, so I knew I was going to have to do something before the snow started falling.
After putting the hardtop on the Scout, I wheeled a bunch of tools over and started throwing wood into a pile on the lawn. When the cradles were empty, I rebuilt one and attached them both to a long set of feet, then screwed braces into each of the endcaps so that they have lateral and vertical support. Finn arrived home just in time to help me reload each cradle with wood, and when that was complete we put the tarp back on top to keep things dry. It looks janky but I’m not interested in aesthetics; I just want dry wood for the winter.