Oh Where, Oh Where Has the Summer Gone?

Summer "vacation" seems to have gone much too quickly!  I think it seems extra short because it was so wet and cold for the first few weeks that it really didn't seem like summer to me.  Nevertheless, here we are, just one short week from our first day back to school.  I will be working again with Ms. Myers in the Central Lee Elementary.  While I am looking forward to a great school year, I could use another month of summer!  I've also been offered an additional position as a bus driver, and after much consideration have accepted that role.  It's "long term temporary sub" for now and could become permanent.  I was very hesitant to accept a bus driving job again, but had no real good reason to refuse it.  Since I would be driving to school every day anyway, it will simply increase my income and add a couple hours to my time away from home.  I'm thinking this "extra" will fund my current project.

Our "Current Project":

Ours may not look just like this, but this is the general idea. A very ambitious project for one with no carpentry skills!

Earlier this summer, we were introduced to Cowboy Action Shooting.  It's fun, somewhat competitive, and it's something our family could enjoy doing together.  So, that's what we've been working on for much of the past few weeks.  We have a perfect location to set up some stages and a shooting range.  The site was quite overgrown with multiflora roses and quite a lot of poison ivy as well, so I did a lot of "clearing" with the chemical weeder.  After killing the nasty brush off, the boys and I worked at just picking up and burning the sticks and logs that were small enough to handle.

This was after I'd sprayed and we'd picked up most of the dead wood we could carry without cutting it up first.

 Last week, Dennis went down and cut up all the big stuff and we burned it.  The boys, along with Dennis and I, worked for two days clearing and cleaning the area. And what a difference it made!  We did take pictures of our work in progress, but they really show much.  Now that the area is cleaned up and cleared out, we are ready to start building the "stages" and targets.  That's my current "priority project", as I'd like to have it up and going yet this fall.

Zach and Wyatt helped haul several big loads to a ditch for burning at a later date.

While much was hauled off, we kept several fires going to burn the small stuff we had raked up.

Zach raking, and Wyatt ready to light up this pile of dead wood.

The coming weekend is going to be a weekend of celebration around here.  We'll be celebrating 42 years together and since Zach and Wyatt will be staying with us we plan to let them enjoy dinner at the Hotel Nauvoo with us.  The Hotel Nauvoo has become an annual tradition for our anniversary.  We'll also celebrate the "last free weekend" before school resumes. We plan to invite family and friends to a swimming party and wienie roast, weather permitting, of course.  If we were rained out we wouldn't mind a bit since we do so need some rain.