Up north take 2

Kerm here,
Still up north and currently have no plans on when we will head back south.  There are still several projects that should be taken care of and I have not caught any fish yet.  Sister Mary came for a couple days along with her husband Cecil.  Cecil and I replaced another section of hand rail, beefed up a falling stringer under the deck and he and Chris got rid of a pile of old lumber in an area that we call the swamp.  A portion of the wood was burned in a wonderful bonfire last night and we probably have enough wood for a couple more fire nights.

 Last night we went over to cousin Janet's cabin and had cocktails before dinner.  She and her husband Norman have been up for most of the summer and will probably stay until fall when they will go back to their new retirement home in NC.  Cousin Bill Johnson came up on Monday to his cabin and has had great luck fishing out on his boat.  For us, we just fish from the shore on the point which has been non productive.  We need another boat as dad's boat, that is in storage, is too big to muscle around.  14 feet is all we need, something we can pull up on shore and doesn't require putting in the dock.

I also got the old Alice Chalmers tractor running yesterday.  It will be needed as we plan to fill some of the pot holes in the dirt road.  How that thing continues to run I will never know.  It has sat outside uncovered year after year for decades and still starts.  The same storm that took out Chris's fishing boat also blew a tree down on it and damaged the seat and one fender.  It just keeps looking worse and worse.  For people who know tractors, it is a WD model made some time in the late 40's or early 50s.  It has a tricycle front end and a hydraulic bucket with a manual dump.  At one time it was red but right now it's a combination of rust colors with spattering s of green moss.  

Another project that I have been working on is to clean out the storage shed.  Dad has been accumulating junk for years and it was to the point where it was hard to get to anything in there.  What does a guy want to do with 35 screwdrivers anyway?  Oh, and nails.  Coffee cans with nails, bottles of every shape and size with nails, plastic butter containers with nails, cardboard boxes with nails, new nails, rusty nails, used nails, railroad spikes...  Let me see, there is a manual cream separator in one corner.  I guess if we ever get a herd of cows it might come in handy.  3 ammo boxes from WWII, empty.  A spittoon made out of what looks like stainless steel.  Dad never touched a tobacco product in his whole life and I've never thought much of chew.  And the list goes on.    

We seldom go out the back door and today when I did I just put my hand on one of the rails and it fell apart.  As it is a safety item it looks like another trip to the lumber yard for some more treated wood.  I will say one thing about the projects up here,  yacht quality is not required.  This ain't the Hamptons.