Day two of rain!

Yippee skippy, happy dance happy dance!

This is day two of a stalled low pressure system, which has brought us rain, glorious rain :)

You won't hear me complain one bit about it either, because we seriously need a good soaking. We've had only one light rain in the past month, the rest of the month has been sunny and breezy. Which has meant extreme wild fire danger for most of the state, Southcentral included of course. Up near McGrath (sort of western central Alaska) a lightening strike sparked a wildfire which was originally estimated at about 500 acres-and overnight, it blew up to 5,000. Yikes! There has already been one wildfire on the Kenai Peninsula too, which is thankfully out.

Probably the biggest threat to the residents here (aside from spring flooding of course) is wildfire. One of these days, the Anchorage Hillside is going to torch off, and it's going to be very very ugly. The muni and forestry are doing what they can in the way of mitigation, but it's a large area with tons of fuel (underbrush, grasses, and beetle killed spruce) and a great number of very expensive homes up there. Access is not very good, its very tough terrain too-sure am glad I am not a firefighter.

On the home front, I managed to get the caulifower and broccoli planted. That leaves brussel sprouts, squashes, cabbage and dill. Whew. I should be able to get those in tonight when I get home, it's always best to transplant when it's cloudy and cool. Less stress on the starts. The baskets and containers are hardened off now, so they can be set out and hung where they need to go any time now.

Last night we drug the arena in preparation for delivery of sand today. The new drag worked pretty darned good if you can go slow and steady on the four wheeler. The drag is simply a heavy steel I beam with chain attached, much better than the lightweight chain link we had used before. Naturally, the drag loosened a whole bunch of rocks, so we spent about 40 minutes tossing rocks out along the sides. And, I really underestimated the size too, which means we will need another 10 yards of sand for sure. With luck, I will get two loads delivered per hour, and will stay within my budget.

We have reservations on a Bobcat (with auger) for the weekend. We'll use the Bobcat to help spread the sand, and then the auger to drill holes for the woodshed posts. It seems that will be about 18x24, which should provide us plenty of cover for a winters' worth of firewood. And maybe space to park our Dakota too, we'll see. Not looking forward to setting the posts, since they are going to be six by sixes, by at least 14 foot. Ugh! But gee, we will surely need some of those rocks we just picked up, right?

I keep thinking we are making headway on our list of improvements, and while that may be true, there is still the dirtwork to be done down below where the greenhouse is, and then the matter of the deck at the house and repainting the house itself. Maybe next year! In the meantime we are sure to come up with other projects that need attention in the meantime, lol