Rain, Rain, Go Away

In the last post I forgot to mention that as I was driving south on US-23 from Rogers City yesterday, a large black bear crossed the road directly in front of my car.  I was passing Thompson's Harbor State Park, just north of the Hwy. 638 turnoff to Presque Isle, when the bear appeared on the left (east) side of the road.  He must have seen the oncoming traffic, because he came up out of the ditch, loped across the road, and vanished into the brush on the right (west) side.  I say "he" because I assume this was a male, but I didn't stop to check!  I can't estimate the bear's weight, but he filled one lane quite adequately.  Thompson's Harbor includes a lot of marsh.  I'm told such territory makes ideal digs for bear.  In any case, I think I'll scratch Thompson's Harbor off my list of places to picnic.

Today's task was to protect the parging from further splashed dirt caused by rainwater runoff.  If the current forecast holds, we have a 70% chance of thunderstorms tomorrow, and this would simply add to the load of dirt thrown up onto the basement walls.  So I first brushed as much dirt as possible off the parged areas.  The uniform light gray is gone; those areas which suffered from the rain are now a mottled gray-brown.  But it still looks OK.  After the clean-up I put down strips of 6-mil plastic sheeting weighted with rocks and/or fire logs as protection against the wind.  The plan is that roof runoff will fall onto the plastic.  The parged areas will get wet but not dirty.  I know... build a better mousetrap....

The street side of the house is now sheeted.  Those three
pavers at the front door are a temporary fix for the mud.

You can see what a difference a little dirt makes.  The
south side (facing the camera) is darker than the lake side.

Finding rocks to weigh down the lake side
sheeting was not difficult.  The topsoil here is
full of rocks which I'll soon have to rake out.

What I need now is 3-4 days of warm, sunny weather.  The parging should be dry when sealed with concrete sealer, and then I should allow the sealer to dry before raking soil against it.

When I took a break from hauling rocks and fire logs, I contemplated my woodpile.  The pile seems to be growing like some extra-terrestrial blob which plopped down in my front yard!  I'll be burning this wood for years, and splitting it to stove size almost as long.

"The Blob" crawls across my south lot line.

At lunch I looked over the instructions for the new grill.  The first 6-7 pages are all about safety.  "Warning!! Failure to follow these instructions may result in explosion, burns, serious injury, or death!!" OK, but can you cook hot dogs on the thing? •••