"I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent." - Edith Sitwell

At 4 p.m. it's triple digits outside and 91 degrees inside. We have a fan blowing right on us but there's just no way to feel comfortable when it's this beastly. We'll be down to just plain hot in three or four hours, into the 80's outside and the same inside. In between we just sit here and sweat.

I did 5 miles down the hill and back, leaving early enough to be home by 9:00. Then I went right to work on the wood pile, cutting up logs into 18" rounds and using the wheelbarrow to get them up closer to the house. If I rent a splitter that's where it will be, and if I decide to split by hand this just puts it all that much closer to the woodshed.
That wood cutting and hauling is hard work, and doing it after a 5 mile run may not be the best personal scheduling.

Here's a pic of the bark from one of the logs, a dead tree. The holes tell the story of a pretty extreme beetle infestation, the problem that led to this whole mess operation.  Each of those holes is the entrance of a beetle.

Dave, the big timber guy from the coffee shop stopped by yesterday to see what had been done. (When I say "big timber guy" I mean that he still owns and harvests thousands of acres of forest land and is a player in the local industry.)
He said he'd get me some Douglas fir seedlings this winter. That's when foresters do their req'd replanting. Homeowners don't have to, but we want to. He figures 36 seedlings will fill the area we want to cover - the area between MoHo and Fred. The area to the right will be fruit trees and goats.

Anybody else watching Shetland on PBS? We record it and watch it at a more reasonable hour. It's British, set in Shetland (haven't seen a single pony yet), and can't be a favorite of their Chamber of Commerce. We like it, but their brogue is so thick that we don't understand about 25% of the dialog; have to infer it from what we do get.

I've reserved a U-Haul trailer for Tuesday that I'll use to pick up the supplies for the goat pen. Field fence, treated 4x4's, cement, T-posts, and some misc. hardware. Then all I have to do is dig 14 post holes, set the posts, drive 15 T-posts, and string 250' of field fence. And build a gate.
I should have that done by lunch Wednesday.
Or not.