Makin' hay, et. al.

We're seeing North Idaho in high speed these days. Nope, it has nothing to do with my Wild Blue and wireless installation which allows me to take my laptop anywhere in the house to do my work. It will take some time getting used to this, and I have to figure out what the sound problem is on my HP desktop relic, which allows me only silent videos.

All's wonderful on the laptop, though, and I'm sitting in the living room hooked up to nothing to do this first blog posting of the Wild Blue era. I'm also watching the dust pile up on the bookcase tops. There's roadwork going on in these parts and in a big way. Yesterday the loud, bangy dump trucks flew by and dumped dozens of loads of gravel for a new surface on our South Center Valley Road.

They packed down the north end of the road but haven't made it down this way yet, hence the dust. I think they're dousing the new surfaces with their magic dust abatement, so I don't mind the hyper-activity and noise for a few days. And when it's over, I'll do a thorough dusting inside the house. For now, I'll enjoy having an excuse.

When I took Lily to our first Tuesday night riding lesson at the Tibbs arena late yesterday afternoon, Center Valley Road was seeing some major action. Trucks, graders, rollers and a bunch of equipment I don't know well enough to name took up the road and several driveways for about a mile.

That included one of the driveways into the Tibbs Ranch, so I had to make a quick decision and turn into the first one, which meant a brief wild ride for Lily cuz one back tire almost fell in the ditch. Tibbs acres was a hot spot for big rigs, including Harvey Lippert's drill, two big tractors and his disk.

He's actually trying to make hay now that the field has dried enough for him to get his equipment on it. So, while horses were circling the indoor arena, Harvey was circling the field outside, getting it ready for seeding. By the way, my vet Cherise even gave Lily a spin last night.

Meanwhile, at the Lovestead, the big trucks and some semi-big equipment were busy too. Yesterday marked the beginning of construction on our new shop/storage shed. So, the supplies truck came in and dumped the items, such as trusses, poles, insulation, metal, etc. And, he literally dumped some of it.

There's a pile of lumber sitting katywumpus out there, and Phil, the contractor, wasn't happy when he came with his mini-excavator to prepare the site. Lucky the guy didn't break any boards when he dumped, or I think Phil would have been really upset. As it is, the pile looks pretty tacky out there right now.

That won't be a problem for long, however, cuz Phil says the crew's coming today and that within five days, dramatic things will happen. We'll take that. We're anxious to see the finished product and move on with all the other projects we have planned around here for the summer. That includes a white board fence extending next to the building and along the west side of the lawn.

This makin' hay, fixin' roads, and buildin' stuff real fast is one of the givens here in North Idaho, cuz there's never a guarantee that Mother Nature's gonna make it easy on us.

So, let the dust fly, the seeds sow, and the nails pound----gotta get it done and get it done fast.