Four day weekend – of sorts (part 2)
Categories: Homestead, PhotosHere’s the second part of this double entry – scroll down for part 1, which was posted yesterday.
Ok, now on to my sort-of four day weekend. We actually headed up to the homestead on Friday afternoon to take up some of the stuff we’d need. It’s a good thing we weren’t staying that day, as there were some pretty powerful storms and downpours moving through. We were caught in the middle of one of the downpours, but we easily escaped to the shelter of the shed. Before the rain started, I took some pics of the storms moving in, including this one of some ominous clouds hanging over the house:

After the storm passed, we came back out and were greeted with some beautiful after-storm sunshine. Here’s a pic taken from almost the same spot/angle as the one above:

We’ve been seeing a lot of rabbits on the property lately. Here’s one that was in the backyard before the storm; it took shelter in the forsythia:

We started our weekend on Saturday, setting up the tent and doing some yard work. For me, “yard work” also meant winding up with the end of the pole saw (saw blade part) embedded in my leg. Yeah. That was a little bloody and such. After rinsing it with rubbing alcohol and bandaging it, though, I was back at it. I won’t post a picture of the newest homestead war wound…but I did take some.
Dinner for the first night was hot dogs cooked in cast iron, and baked beans done in our small bean pot. (We’d like to get a small cast iron pot of similar size for the beans, but this one will do for now.) As with last year, they were cooked on the fire pit, which did a great job…it was delicious!

We were actually pleasantly surprised on Saturday night after dinner, when we got to see the fireworks (real ones, not the supermarket variety) set off by a neighbor/business owner. Sounded like they had a fairly loud crowd there, but we were lucky enough to be able to see part of the show – once we realized where they were coming from – from our upper yard!
On Sunday, we did some more yard work, but we were plagued by rain showers off and on all day. We decided against sleeping in the tent, which we’d discovered had a small hole in the corner. Instead, we opted to come back to town and sleep in the house. Since the weather was supposed to be iffy for the next few days, we decided to put away the air mattresses and such. It was a good thing we did, because when we went back on Monday afternoon (after a day of shopping and our first visit to Five Guys – best burger and fries ever!), there was water in the tent and on the tarp underneath. It must’ve rained pretty hard overnight.
The weather ended up being pretty nice on Monday, so I decided to go wading while we were there. I discovered that the jewelweed down by the creek is now flowering:

I also saw plenty of creek life, including minnows, crayfish, and as with last year, lots of ebony jewelwings (Calopteryx maculata). The male jewelwings seemed particulary fascinated by my trekking pole and tried to land on it a few times. They were also fine with posing for photos once they got used to me being there. Here’s one of the more curious males:

We got the tent put away and came back to our in-town home on Monday and decided to just stay home all day Tuesday after doing our regular shopping. Unfortunately, that means it’s back to work for me tomorrow. *sigh*


















































































