The only drawback to taking all the pictures is that I never end up in one! I downloaded pictures from Dad's camera tonight and found one of me on the new toy...

 

 

My nieces Christie and Mandy, and their friend Ashley spent a week of their summer vacation at the cabin. They helped clean up the grounds by gathering branches and chopping roots. Later on, they celebrated with a little campfire and some Smores. It's so nice to have a little help around the house!

 

Thanks girls!

What a weekend! I am sore and sunburnt, but we got a lot accomplished. Went out Saturday and bought a lawn tractor. I have been researching various products for a while now, and had narrowed the choice down to Cub Cadet and Husqvarna. Since I have been very happy with my Husky chainsaw, they had the edge going in. I read a lot of reviews and finally found a forum at http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=37.

 

I settled on the LT1045SE which is a 46" cut (3-blades) tractor with a V-Twin Kohler Courage motor. It was delivered Saturday morning, and by Sunday evening I had run it through the guantlet. It took no time at all to mow all of the landscaped areas. This has been a task that took me about 3.5 hrs with a gas-powered string trimmer every weekend. After about 3-4 weekends, I had finally covered the whole area and it was time to start again. I think I spent about an hour this time and it looks great!

 

Not only does this lawn tractor mow, but it hauls too! Stephan and I hauled about 10 loads of NC red-clay soil from the pile next door to fill in some eroded areas on the side and back of the house where the rain water runs off. After cleaning the gutters out last week, it is no longer running over the top of the gutter and creating more ruts in the front yard. The downspouts run into a flex pipe which goes under the driveway and empties out on the other side. We put grass seed on all of the repaired areas, and with a lot of TLC we hope to have grass coming up in a couple of weeks.

 

All of the grassy areas are filling in nicely - as you can see from the pictures this week. I also got some pictures of Stephan and Grandpa having a water fight. I don't know who got the soggiest, but an expensive camera kept me out of it for the most part.