News from the Country Estate July 26

Greetings from the Country Estate:

Summer made a cameo appearance this week with temps in the 80's and high humidity. The gloomy skies of clouds, fog, and rain more typical of this year's summer returned however, with today barely reaching 70 degrees and intermittent rain showers. On Friday we received more than an inch of rain in five hours during a 'nor'easter'. KT and I did some rainy day shopping and saw the latest Harry Potter movie for a matinee price. An ok film. Just ok.

During a break in the rain last week I was finally able to install some relatively hard to find shock absorbers on my sailboat trailer. They are actually snowmobile shocks, but they're just the right size for minimizing radial oscillation due to cornering. They were about $20/a piece and non-returnable, so I was pretty glad when they did the trick.

After strapping the boat down, I was ready to bring the vessel home. The drive was relatively uneventful and boat, truck and driver arrived in good spirits.

Now in storage under a tarp next to another in progress boat project, she waits for some more time and money to tackle a few projects before she is seaworthy once more.

The end is in sight for the building project that never seems to end. Here we see the 34'x51' timber frame home after two days of raising work. There are only about 8 lifts left, just four dormer assemblies, four rafters and a dormer truss on the far side of the building. The second floor has 19 feet of headroom at the peak of the roof. That's a great height if you are going to house the raptor exhibit at the zoo....We'll build whatever they want.

A hen left a peace offering of a single egg on our deck after both roosters spent the afternoon digging up my tomato patch and fouling our deck. I immediately fried the peace offering to over-easy and partook of it with salt and pepper.

Probably the freshest egg I have ever eaten.

Inspired by my fresh egg experience, I went out to the garden and harvested a bunch of lettuce, some scallions, and a turnip for a mid-afternoon feast. I chopped and fried the turnip and scallions, adding two fresh eggs to make a country scramble.

I regret not planting four times as much in the garden, but who knew the weather would be this wet?

I spent the afternoon studying poultry slaughter techniques in preparation for the next time the roosters decide that its a good idea to hang out and crow by our window at five in the morning or dig up the tomatoes again.

Tomorrow its off to work again thankfully and hopefully all week.