Lifting a mountain girl

Lee and her sister Diane finished staining a large cabin in Leetonia last week. They did everything except this back from ladders. At first Lee was a bit nervous about riding in the bucket, but once she got the hang of it she loved it. It reached the hard to reach spots near windows over 30 feet high without the need to move a ladder or worry about it falling.
I am afraid the one downside to this rental was that now Lee never wants to use a ladder again. Something I think the people at the Wellsboro Rental place secretly know before they rent these addicting machines out. Although, this unit was nice on this camp it is limited to places you have enough room to set it up. They have another unit which is larger and is self-propelled eliminating the space needed for the truck to move the unit. Lee painted the whole back side in one long day(about 11 hours).
The summer has been bad for doing outside painting jobs until just recently when the weather changed and has been much drier. Now all we have to worry about is frost. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Heat and bugs Summer returns to Leetonia

Isabel is visiting this week from Rockford, Illinois and is getting to experience the heat of summer in Leetonia. During the last week summer came without mercy. Temperatures near 90 and humidity about the same has made work outside difficult. We have still been getting frequent thunderstorms keeping the creek high enough to canoe. I took Isabel and Diane down Pine Creek from Blackwell to Cedar Run. We started around 5pm and were rewarded with the moderating evening temperatures and a quiet paddle down the creek. Hitting rocks was kept to a minimum and the rapids were gentle enough not to scare the novice paddlers in the canoe. It didn't take more than an hour to paddle down, however, we extended our trip by stopping to talk to Brad
along the way. His house is just a mile from Cedar Run. Brad at 89, had just returned from a bike ride up the bike trail to Rattlesnake rock. He is amazing. He used to be a bicycle courier in the DC area during the Roosevelt Era. He actually met Roosevelt in an elevator while delivering a message. So much has changed since then. Text messaging has eliminated the need for such messengers as well as security issues would never allow such a casual meeting today.
The heat and rain allows the bugs to multiply and be quite annoying in the early morning and evening hours. The last pictures shows Diane and Isabel wearing head nets to take an early morning walk with the two pit bulls: Leo and Thor. The worst bugs are the no see-ums, named so because they are so small they go through the screens and when they bite you they are hard to see but easy to feel. They leave large welts on you without being noticed. They also seem to get into your eyes and mouth.. very annoying. It looks like we might get a little reprieve from the heat this weekend. I hope so. I am working on a roof job and it is unbearable in this heat.

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.