We Love Company!

Now, don't get us wrong. Most days, we do really, really well having only each other and Nick the Dog to talk to up here on Flat Top. But we DO love having company, and this weekend, we had our first "outsiders" visit since June.

Former co-workers Kathleen (see photo below) and Chris (that's headless Chris, above, in full relaxation mode, which I've never really seen him in before) added their names to the list of brave souls who have ventured to see what the hell we've done with our lives. It was great to catch up with all of the latest in the Twin Cities news media world, and even better to enjoy Kathleen's laugh and Chris' great sense of humor. Hilarious, these two! And in a bonus for Nick, they love dogs. Even one that begs for food a whole lot.

It was a busy (and beautiful, see that sunshine?) Saturday, with more weekenders up here than we've ever seen in one non-holiday weekend, and we were pleased that Chris and Kathleen got the full exposure to the Flat Top gunfire experience, including 50-caliber ka-BOOMS! in the not-too-distant distance. (It seems we have new neighbors: a Florida couple with toddlers who bought the cabin at the end of the road so they could come up and "shoot guns." Friendly folk!)

Any more of you Northerners dare the wilds (and the dirt road into Flat Top)? Come on, show us your adventurist spirit!

And as a final note .... the night before the Clontses arrived, Mason thought it was a good time to clean the firearms.

Me? I polished the silverware (or at least four knives, spoons and forks). I found that kinda funny, in a Southern "Garden and Gun" kind of way. (OK, maybe it's just me.)

P.S. Notice that super green new front lawn behind Mason in that photo?? That's mine!!

Back to Our Usual Antics

Summer is about over, more or less, so our month of piddling is over and we're back to work here on Flat Top, cutting down trees so we can install a solar panel to augment our own little power grid.  (Minneapolis friends, please note that it's still low-80s and terribly gorgeous here.)

Our tree-taking-down technique calls for a steel cable tied as high up as our 16-foot extension ladder lets us (or should I say, lets Mason). The other end is looped around another tree for directional leverage, then tied to the trusty (and rusty) old pickup. Insert chainsaw. The end result? Big tree go BOOM. Right across the road:

You can also see there some of our stockpile of firewood for the coming winter. That's right, this year we won't be scavenging the property in January for dead scraps to burn. At least, we hope we won't.

We've also been busy re-seeding the front "lawn," if you can call it that. That involved lots of roto-tillering, raking, backbreaking rock clearing, and then even more raking. We're finally down to the watering phase, which should bring little green sprouts in a week or so:

With that, we'll leave you with photos of our greatest loves: Nick the Dog and my slowly growing garden: