Almost the same time we got our new bikes, we suddenly became foster parents. It's been an adventure. my sisters family was out for a visit, we ended up going for a family bike trip, that's a lot of bikes for all of us, and my wife walked with the youngest child in a jog stroller. a visit to the park to enjoy the foliage enjoying a bike ride with my youngest Having the foster kids put a crimp on just going and doing stuff after work. The rules about who can watch who are way tougher, and it was like an act of Congress to get permission for my son to be able to watch the older one, who is the same age as our youngest. This has interrupted a number of the rides my son wanted to do, but he and the rest have taken it well and understood. flying through the woods on our new bikes flying down the trail on my new skates scenes from work
teaching him how to work on his bike, I gave him some upgrades for his birthday, and let him install them another toddler meant needing a bike trailer again, got this one for free, just had to make a cover for it got a tailgate pad rack so we could ride as a family. the older foster kid hasn't learned to ride without training wheels yet, still working on that, so I pull her on the tag a long, and my son tows the trailer the city donated the money for this patio roof to the nonprofit I'm on the board of, this part of the building is the cafe we have for anyone to eat free. The roofing steel is going on soon. life flight of Maine is our sister company, we see them in here fairly often. enjoyed having all 4 kids for Thanksgiving Managed to finish my pool storage deck that week as well my dad missed out on some of the family rides this summer due to his health, we went in as a family for an Ebike for him for Christmas. My son and I made a video of the assembly
2020 finally delivered enough snow to go cross country skiing, the week before Christmas... Which makes it the worst year in recent memory for snow. I tried skiing at the Georgetown Rowley state park, which is unique because it has a highway bridge over Rt 95 in the middle of it. This is the bridge just after Rt 133 and before the rest area going towards Boston my airplane in snow, a rare sight for the Boston area of course we went to the sledding hill almost every day making a real dent in the firewood for the year now. It's really nice having well built racks that can be refilled without needing to be rebuilt. had to catch this shot while out skiing at the local park beside Kenoza lake and this as well. The snow was as perfect as this picture Christmas caroling in the snow outside the nursing home down the street from us The day before New year's eve was memorable for different reasons. the Cafe for the homeless ended up with a heating system that wouldn't heat over 55. I'm the board member in charge of the facility, so I spent a number of hours dealing with that. In the middle of that my parents called and also had no heat. I got a repairman in for the cafe heat, and headed to my parents. My dad was struggling with explaining to the plumber over what his heating system is. It's literally a water heater that also does their baseboard heating. My own experience with heating my house in Maine with an outdoor pellet boiler I installed myself was very useful in describing what they needed. I left them some electric heaters for the night, and the plumber got their new water heater in on new year's eve.
all that snow ended in a pathetic rainstorm Christmas morning, so we didn't even get a white Christmas out of it, all that rain and snow made the river high, the bridge was throwing quite a wake. bare frozen ground is easier to split and stack on. Took on some of my backlogs and filled two more racks. I love having plenty and not feeling like it might not be ready to burn, or worried about running out. I got my covid vaccine booster shot the beginning of January, the first shot I had aches and chills the next day, the second shot I got a sore throat, otherwise, no issues to report since then.
I had a bunch of logs not cut to splitting length yet, fire up the saw and made some chips These plastic shelves are holding up perfectly, I like them better than the plastic pallets I'm always trying to get. I see people throwing the shelves out all the time around here. I'll be laying them under all of my wooden pallets next. They take the weight just fine. taking care of more backlogs views from either end of the east Boston rail trail, it runs right past Logan airport this is constitution beach looking over Logan airport
did some noodling to make the big rounds easier to split got two cart fills of noodles for starting fires almost filled the kindling bin with them
Foster kids. Even when they fit into the family pretty well, are a massive upheaval to everything. Especially a toddler when your youngest is turning 10. Going back to baby gate hurdles and diapers is a big switch. Things are looking up this year for all involved.
nothing like a little snow on the firewood racks two empty racks from January, got my work cut out for me this year. and another half cord down still enough of a backlog to keep me busy Took advantage of a warm afternoon for a quick hike up bow hill quarry right near the Lynfield tunnel on Rt 1. This is where the stone for the customs house in Boston was cut, you can see Boston from the top of the hill Finally got the steel roofing installed over the patio at the nonprofit I'm the property manager for, it doesn't completely keep the snow off, but it definitely kept the amount underneath down. Clearing our first big snow in years, finally winter here again, we also clear the doors and walks at the nonprofit. This storm was hard on the snowblowers, they both broke in the same day, but I was able to fix the smaller one. Ended up finishing with one of us using an electric snow shovel, which worked ok. My son has been big enough to help for a few years, but it's barely snowed in at least three years. cross country skiing at the Middlesex fells reservation bear hill tower skiing Georgetown Rowley state park again, lots of young trees with the tops bent over and stuck in the snow. I had to keep pulling them out so I could get through the trails I was the first person through most trails, and sometimes finding a trail in the snow is a big challenge since I've never been here in the summer yet. Sometimes I had deer tracks to follow, didn't manage to see any though My skis are back country ones, wider than regular cross country skis. They give the same flotation in deep snow as snow shoes. another beautiful sunset at our favorite sledding hill a view from the top
Rebuilt a firewood rack using some of my plastic pallets as the base, finally made a video of all my rack ideas as well All those empty racks need to be refilled as soon as I get through updating them, I only have a little over a year CSS due to elbow issues last year
April showers bring... snow? Being property Manager for the nonprofit I'm involved in interesting projects, this was an inspection of the new $40,000 roof with the owner of the roofing company. An interesting perspective on my city. Mrs Row and I brought home desert from the cheesecake factory, believe it or not, I don't like cheesecake, but their carrot cake is about the best.
family game night, and of course an airplane nut like me has Aviation monopoly scored a load of pallet liners, perfect for setting pallet firewood racks on interesting hexagonal 1 room schoolhouse I spotted while visiting my daughter at college in PA family bike ride on the rail trail in Toppsfield had to jump over and ride the edge of the Salem water canal, it draws water from the Ipswich river, pretty cool to ride close enough to talk to the people in kayaks first load of firewood for the year hit a good score in an easy spot, first load of maple home putting the pallet liners to use already second load of the day Plenty more to go
a bronze sculpture of the nubble light showing which direction it is from the summit The lodge at the top, my sister had her wedding reception in the top floor, now it’s a science center Managed to climb from the bottom to the top on some serious trails, there was downhill skiing here until the mid 80s The view from the summit of first hill looking towards the top of the mountain mt Washington in the background nubble light, and York beach If you think CAD is an expensive habit, stay away from kayaks and bikes! I haven’t even had my last mountain bike for a whole year yet and I already upgraded. This is a three year old bike that was used about three times on rail trails. It’s a 29 inch wheel bike and it really rolls over obstacles that would trip up my old bike with 26” wheels. I had to try it out so I hit the trails around Mt Agamenticus in York, ME. Last year at this time I owned 1 bike...
I added a dash/back up camera to my truck, mounted the rear camera right above the bumper, it’s really handy to see the trailer ball slide under the coupler on the trailer. Unloading the third load of maple from my nice scrounge fourth load about to head out I've discovered that my truck is very capable, even if ot has the 4 cylinder engine, this 2.5 liter engine seems to have way more power than my old 2.5 liter Ranger ever did.
from our first family bike ride of the year a month ago, the ice in the rock cuts on the Windham rail trail is always interesting first paddle of the year right here in town. Just beat the rain at the end. First drops fell as we pulled away for home family fleet is a little smaller now that our oldest is off at college
I just love the perspective from the top of the tail of my airplane. I only need to get up there once or twice a year, which is good because it is about 2 stories high.
fifth load unloading the whole pile is gone, I was even surprised at how fast it went sixth load was a little oversized, my friend with the small stoves lives right along the way so we dropped a bunch of short stuff at his house. my backlog is pretty full now, time to start splitting
