Holiday weekend.

Happy Independence Day.  The last week has actually had a couple of nice days in it.  I went out and grabbed a free TV and a rolling cart.  I have one in the shed with a broken grate that I might repair.  Or I might make an end table or something with it.  The TV isn't a good one; it is a 40" Westinghouse (aka cheap), but it gives me a TV for the second room making replacing the primary TV a much lower priority.

Saturday I thought would be nice, but it wasn't.  The smoke from Canada burning returned, combined with rising humidity (which I knew about, though it rose faster than expected) throughout the day made visibility rather poor.  Not realizing this, I bought some tickets to take the train to the top of Mount Washington.  I ended up picking some of the worst seats on the train though.  Oh well, maybe now that I know better, next time I will get good seats and check visibility conditions before purchasing them.  All of those pictures can be found here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/2rX7JSesuRKfXpYX6

Here are some of the highlights though.

In truck news, it appears that the abnormally high gas mileage coming back from Aunts was not an aberration: I did really good going up there this weekend as well.  Not quite as good since the traffic was insane and I was going a lot faster (most of the drive up I was doing almost 80).  But still over the EPA rating (the truck is rated for 24mpg on the highway).

Sunday of course the rain returned.  I went to a cookout at Otter Brook.  I made a cheese ball (since it didn't require cooking).  I didn't snag any pictures while I was there, but Otter Brook looked like a river.  Compared the last time I went, Otter Brook is feet higher than normal.

And the rain continued into Monday.  And it rained some more.  My 5 gallon bucket is almost full.  This bucket was empty when I moved the house.

There are canals all over my yard and driveway.  

Even the flat part of the driveway is a stream.

My creek is raging.  It is feet deeper (and wider) than normal when it is running.  This time of year though, it is normally getting close to dry.

The other side of the culvert.  I am glad they upgraded the culvert when they replaced it.  It is moving more water now than the old 4" culvert could have.

I did get a nice sunset on Monday though.  The camera overexposed it a bit, but it is still pretty nice.