I just kind of puttered around on Saturday, not doing much, just chores. I didn't go anywhere, not wanting to deal with the Halloween traffic since all the small towns go to Keene to trick or treat in the afternoon and I slept in. I didn't get any trick or treaters, which is no surprise and why I only buy a single bag of dollar store candy. I have only gotten trick or treaters once in my 7 years in Sullivan, and I am guessing that was just neighbors booting their kids out of the house.
Sunday though it was back to work. I went to the gym in the morning. I stopped by the brand new rail trail extension that they just opened on the way there. It is kind of nice. Some of the old train stuff is still there, though most of it is long gone.
You can tell it just opened, there isn't any graffiti on it yet, as sad as that sounds.
If you look for it, you can see some silly stuff they screwed up, like some of the pavement was clearly not hot enough when it was laid down, you can see where it was sticking to the roller when it was rolled, and someone was too careless with the skid steer and hit the trees on the side.
My biggest complaint is that they spent probably millions of dollars on this, and didn't fix the biggest problem with the existing detour on the road. It doesn't go all the way out to connect to the rail trail on the other side of the road (right behind the trees in this picture). That makes this whole project rather pointless in my opinion. The road it was detoured on is a very low traffic road and it isn't like it was a big deal. This new trail is more in line with the original path of the rail, but you can't continue on the rail trail from the new section, you have to go back and detour on the road anyways. The bank at the end of the road detour has a really tiny path that it looks like someone dug out to get through. You can't ride a bike through it, but you can get through it.
All you get at the end is what I assume will eventually be a picnic area (I can't think of why else they would have cleared and smoothed this area). And a placard for a bridge that is half across the state, which I have no idea why it is here.
Once I got home, it was time to get ready for winter. I got the walk behind snowblower pulled down. I noticed that the gas tank looked like it had melted. I don't remember that being there.
It also looks like something fell on it and cracked the housing for the second stage. That is new too. Ugh. A little gorilla tape will fix it, but still annoying.
I also had told my charger to recondition the mower battery that I had left the ignition on overnight. It seems to have worked. We will find out in the spring I guess, but it is back up into normal voltage ranges.
After that it was time to test Dad's saw I got back from Barry earlier in the week. Since I am not experienced felling trees (this is only my second time), I decided to pull the carport back a little to try to make sure it was completely out of harms way. I tried to anchor it to the bucket and then just drag it with the tractor, but it ended up being more efficient to just push and pull each side; with the base boards I attached, they acted like runners and it slid on the leaves easily enough.
I also moved some of the other stuff out from up there. My big outdoor storage thing got moved into the back yard. It will eventually end up on the deck if I ever get that built.
The saw worked great; I got everything cut up and it didn't even take a half hour. That saw is a bit quicker than mine. The trees I cut down went where I wanted them to too, so I didn't have any carport damage.
I got everything cleaned up, and got the carport slid back where I want it to go. I will do the final positioning this week after I pick up some cinder blocks to help with the unevenness of the ground. I have some logs to bring over to Barry if he wants them. Most of what I cut up was rotted, but there were a few decent ones.
I didn't get it finished before dark, but I also got the carport reorganized. There was a lot more junk in there than I thought. The snowblower on the tractor is still sticking out, but unless I want to put a board or something to put the tractor bucket on so I can pull the tractor further in and rest the bucket on without it crushing the Craftsman that is as good as it is going to get. Or finish the carport up the hill so that the riding mowers are completely out of this carport (ha!).
With the clocks rolling back it is dark before I get off work, but for the most part I am ready for winter. I still have to grease the snowblower, but if push came to shove, I would be willing to turn it on and use it without greasing it should it be necessary. I did want to put a little bit of gravel down before winter, but my driveway isn't nearly as bad as it was in prior winters. Just a few small inconsequential things left at this point.
