... an enterprising beaver had gnawed a tree alongside john's camp to the point that it was in danger of falling, so john asked me to tag along on a little forestry expedition ... a most charming location, perhaps made a bit more so by the fact that environmental protection laws require that new camps cannot ever again be located this close to the water's edge ...
... before beginning the festivities we took a little stroll out onto the frozen surface of the pond ... these two were on a trek to visit the ice fishers at near the far shore ...
... after getting his chain saw to work (not good to leave a 2-cycle engine unused for months), and cleaning up the lower limbs and tangle of brush at the base of the tree, john began to cut ... as he did so a group came over to enjoy the entertainment ...
... the beaver had done an efficient job, so after only a tiny bit of notching the tree came down ...
... one of the nice things about living in maine, neighbors came over to help john reduce the trunk to firewood ...
... delighted with the assistance, john happily allowed them the cut wood for their camp's fire pit ...
... after we wandered up to skowhegan to see the giant rotating "ice disk" spinning in the swirling waters where the water pours from the same narrow gorge that benedict arnold negotiated his troop through on their "ill-fated" march to quebec ... by the way, notice the suspended "widow maker," hopefully a town maintenance crew will remove it before it earns its name ...
... on a different note, this afternoon i completed the preparation of our model construction area ... i could have bought a really fancy paint booth for a few hundred dollars—right, as if—instead i built one from a heavy-duty cardboard box ... works perfect, using enamel paint there wasn't a hint of odor ... with the acrylic we're using, which is water based, i'll put a filter in front of the fan and we should be able to paint indoors ...
... construction begins ... !!! ... on the right is an untouched set of the pieces necessary to put together one of the car's wire wheels ... on the left is a bag containing a set that is fully prepped and ready for assembly and painting ... removing the pieces from the tree, trimming off excess plastic and mold marks, carefully drilling out the two deformed screw holes, sanding, and, finally, detergent scrubbing the parts with hot water, it took me almost an hour start to finish ... what fun ...
... danny and walker spent the night with me ... we had pizza, watched a movie, enjoyed pancakes and eggs and bacon for breakfast, then took a sunday morning drive to august for a wanderabout and lunch inside of sams club ... here's the kennebec river in augusta ... still open water, a sign of the relatively mild winter we've experienced so far this year ...
... so odd, that at one point in maine's history cutting and shipping that ice to places as far away as india was the most important segment of the state's economy (coming in second was the sawdust used to insulate the ice) ...