"A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running." - Groucho Marx

We enter the stretch officially termed "fire season" this Wednesday. That designation means a number of things, including no more burning of yard waste and no chain saw use after 10 a.m. I have several dead trees on the other side of the creek I want to cut down and split for firewood, so after Wednesday I'll be at it pretty early until the cutting part of that job is done.
#RuralLife

It looks like the kids got rained on yesterday up on the north coast. Today is a sand castle contest at a nearby beach they're going to, and while the temps will only be in the mid-60's the overcast shouldn't produce much measurable precipitation. I hope so.

By the end of the day yesterday I was OD'd on Ali coverage. Yikes. Pam's comment: "I hope they have an intermission in that service 'cause all those old guys are going to need a potty break."

Tim the timber guy came this morning. He's an easy, nice guy, probably close to 70, but still running a crew.
Long story short, he's too busy to get a job this size on his schedule before the end of the summer, and appreciates my desire to get the problem taken care of before that. He's going to talk to one of his old logging friends who's now retired but does small jobs on the side. He doesn't have much equipment now, so Tim will loan him what's needed and add him to his insurance policy for the duration. Tim said this guy is as good as they get at dropping trees and this situation requires some skill because of the creek and MoHo.
Tim will talk to this guy in the next day or two and get back to me. "Call me if you haven't heard from me in a week."
Tim comes so highly recommended by everyone I've talked to, including Robin from the Dept. of Forestry, so I trust him to steer me right.

All the drywall is installed in the loft. Now begins the mudding and taping process, which isn't my favorite part of construction. This will be extra fun because a 60+ year old cabin built by someone who doesn't seem to have owned a square or tape measure is anything but symmetrical. I have some larger-than-usual gaps that will take some more-than-usual amounts of mud, and some of the gaps might require some backer material. Oh well. It's a loft in an old cabin. Plus, there's this wonderful stuff called molding. (I hope to avoid that worst-case scenario.)

Do you ever get to the end of a day and feel like you really need a cup of coffee and something sweet?
Me too.
Almost every night.
I'm headed out to the kitchen.