Visitors and more rain

Yesterday, Thor's sister, Denali, came to visit. She took a while to make up to him, but by the time they left they were good friends. Scot and Sarah who own Denali originally found Thor shot and brought him to us to take care of last November. They rescue Pit Bulls and Rottweilers and have quite a menagerie of animals at their house. They only brought two of their dogs with them Denali and Marley(a very small pit bull). There were five dogs running and playing at camp all afternoon. By the end of the day they all collapsed into a deep happy sleep.
This is going to be remembered as the summer of the rain. We have more rain today and Pine creek is up above 2.5 not common for July. In fact, I might even take the canoe out tomorrow. I haven't been canoeing
for a couple years. Seems like when you move up to paradise you don't do any of the fun things you used to do when you came on vacation. The summer is full of work, and sawing wood.
The hummingbirds are happy with the rain they are always more active during a rain storm. It amazes me that the rain doesn't knock this little guys out of the sky. But during the rain and cool mornings and evenings they are the most active.
Well its off to work for the mountain girl. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Dam Project "Fish Enhancement structure"

Well, I thought I would share one of my more interesting projects. This is the repair of a dam on Cedar Run. I had hemlock 12" x 12" x 21' beams cut to replace the old rotten ones. I would like to have you think I lifted them all by hand, but I don't have superpowers.
We hooked the old ones out with an excavator and trimmed the new ones to press fit into the existing space. The only problem we encountered was that the far pillar had been undermined by the last hurricane a few years back and the bottom of the creek scraped down to the bedrock as much as two feet below the original first beam. We were able to hang one beam from the bottom of three keyed in on both sides. The bottom one is keyed into the far end and timber screwed and plated on both sides with 1 x 12 hemlock. Then we ran vertical 2" thick hemlock on the up creek side of the dam down to the bedrock screwing it to the timbers. As we finished more and more boards the water got higher, but initially would not overflow dam. We back filled with as much gravel as possible still the water leaked enough to stop the overflow. Finally with a quick flash flood, mother nature fixed our problem bringing enough mud and gravel downstream quickly to plug the leaks. Now it is flowing very neatly over our top board. I am told the fish jump 3' during spawning season so the dam fall is limited to that height. It will be interesting to watch them jump.
The beams you see on top of the dam are to be removed as soon as it stops raining and dries up enough to get back on the grass. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off.

Lost and found in Leetonia

Whenever I remodel an old house there is always a chance of finding something from the past. I uncovered two such treasures when remodeling one house. Under the carpet in the living room was linoleum and under that newspaper from 1933. I copied a few pages for you to see. It appears often the world has changed a lot and changed very little. Prices are definitely different, but peoples worries and concerns the same. They worry about finances, weather, and relationships with the opposite sex. They are interested in sports, politics, and the markets.

It appears you can buy a pair of shoes for as little as $1.50, but you were lucky to make $15-$20 in a week, so it is all relative. Newspapers were often used in the old buildings to stop drafts in the walls and used in the floors to level things up a bit. By far the most interesting thing I found was a letter shoved under the upstairs linoleum. The letter was dated, September 21st, 1940 and had a 3 cent stamp on it. I can't figure out why anyone would stash a letter under a floor and it is a mystery that may remain unsolved. I couldn't tell if the letter had ever been opened since the glue holding it had long dried out and it had not been cut open. Surprisingly enough the person to who the letter was written is still living and it has been forwarded to them. They wish its contents not to be disclosed here, but did agree to let me tell you I found it. How a letter stays silently in place for 69 years just amazes me and the fact the person is still living is even more amazing.
Finding such a letter sounds like the opening to a great novel or love story. I guess that we all can make our own story up about the Lost in Leetonia letter. I hope you all enjoy a little bit of the past pried from an old floor in Leetonia. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Well, one thing for sure things are never boring in Leetonia. Lee's sister, Diane, has moved in with us and we set up the trailer for her to have some personal space in. Diane has had a campfire almost every night since she came. She is enjoying the benefits of living in the woods. Diane will be helping us with painting, cleaning and odd jobs during the summer until she finds other employment. I think she is starting to like being up here and leaving may be harder then she thinks. That just about covers the good.

Now for the bad. I was asked to cut down four trees that were dying and dead. The first two went flawless in the direction I intended. The next one was leaning towards the power lines and I thought I could get it to go the other way. As you can see I was wrong. I believe trying to cut a 30" tree with a 16" chainsaw was my first mistake. I couldn't come in evenly in on the back cut and the tree spun and fell neatly on the lines causing some sparking and the end to power for about three hours. Also causing me personal embarrassment. The guys coming to fix it weren't too pleased with me, but so far I haven't gotten a bill. That was the bad for the day.

Now for the ugly. The injured bear was spotted again by Pettits last night in downtown Leetonia. She said the bear appears to be healing well enough to eat. The bear is the ugliest bear in Leetonia, but it is alive and apparently doing okay. Well we cleaned most of the tree mishap up and it is time for a little R&R in front of the fire. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

4th of July Celebration at Slate Run

This year I drove down to Slate Run to check out their fireworks. It was a clear cool night and the turn out was good. The fireworks has a major benefactor, Mitch and JoAnn. It is Mitch's birthday on the 4th and he celebrates by contributing the largest part of the donation to buy the fireworks. The rest is given by public donation and money raised at the small stand selling roasted banana splits. The banana splits have mini-chocolate chips, marshmallows, covered in whipped cream. A real diet buster.
The show started around 9:30pm and lasted about 45 minutes of a
stream of light and sound. They sang the Star-spangled banner to start it and since they were standing on the bridge at Slate Run it echoed off the mountains. It was a very unusual sound effect. I am sure there was at least a hundred cars parked around with 300-500 people watching, although it was difficult to tell since they were spread out so much. I probably took 50 pictures of the fireworks, and I am sharing a few with you here. Hope you all had a great 4th. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Progress and visitors

While working over last weekend, I had a couple of visitors who read the blog stop in: Ken and Peg Karsetter. They used to snowmobile around the Leetonia area and enjoy seeing the pictures and stories on the blog. They got to see a little of the mess and work I create on a daily basis. I am glad they enjoy reading.
The second picture shows the room I gutted out a couple weeks ago all knotty pine paneled. It is waiting for some carpet to be here in about ten days for the finishing touches to be added. I always enjoy seeing the improvement from a water damaged mess to a beautiful room.
Looks like the weather may cooperate for the 4th celebrations as they are calling for a clearing off over the next couple days. It is long
overdue. Everything is growing fast and green with all the wet weather. The worst part is the bugs are bad with all the moisture. Looking forward to seeing a few people over the weekend. Hopefully get some good pictures. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off.