Hi, everyone!
When we had some days of dry weather the end of September, the tree people came back to take down the rest of the big tree by the kitchen at the bay! Grandpa had set up a camera in a bedroom window facing the tree, so we could watch from Fairport! The first trunk came down section by section, but most of the second trunk came down as one big piece!
I helped Grandma make an apple cider doughnut cake with our cider from Schutt’s Apple Mill to celebrate the tree people coming. Then, after dinner, Grandma and Grandpa took me out to the bay so we could be there for the second day of tree work. It was a little hard to get to the door because of all the tree sections on the ground!
In the morning, before the tree people came back, I went outside to get a good look at all the tree sections. There were lots of them! The second trunk piece was really long! Grandpa said we could count the rings on one of the trunk pieces to know how old that tree was! I was happy to see that the tree people tied the swing up out of the way, so it didn’t get hit with tree sections coming down!
When the tree people came, they brought a loader truck with a big claw for picking up tree sections! Carmine-san was very good at picking up the pieces with the claw and putting them on his dump truck! He even used the claw to hold up the long piece of the second trunk so his helpers could saw it into smaller pieces.
When the tree people left for lunch, all the tree sections were in the truck! Grandma said it was OK for me to go sit on the stump, since nobody was working around it.
Meanwhile, Grandma went kayaking in a new direction! Last year, the county did conservation work on the south end of Sodus Bay. They used a backhoe to dig some channels and pools out of the wetlands there. The water level is finally low enough that Grandma could kayak under the Old Ridge Road bridge to see the area. She said it was very pretty and very peaceful! There was a great blue heron perched on a beaver lodge! Grandma followed the channels all the way to a fallen tree that blocked the way. On her way back, she saw a young eagle on a tree at Grass Point. It’s beginning to get adult color feathers on its head!
When the tree people came back after lunch, they brought their forestry truck! That’s the truck with a boom and basket so the tree people can reach up high without climbing a tree. They used it to trim some branches on the tree by the front porch. Then one of the tree people helpers climbed the big tree in the front yard to take down a dead branch. After that, they used the chipper to clean up a lot of little branches from the front bank. The trailer was almost full of tree sections again when they finally left!
The first fall colored leaves were starting to appear the next day, on the Virginia Creeper vines. Uncle Steven’s family came out to spend Saturday with us. Thomas and I had a snack together, and James and I played Sonic in the loft. We were planning to go pick apples, but it started to rain! We still went to Burnap’s Farm Market for dinner.
The first day of October we had a record high temperature! It got up to 88 degrees F.! Two days later, the paving company came to start work on our driveway in Fairport! Grandma said I had to stay inside while the shovel tore up our old pavement, but I could watch from the windows! After the pieces of pavement were shoveled into a dump truck, a bulldozer leveled the gravel underneath. Then a loader dumped more stone on the gravel and the roller pressed it all down. The pavers said they’d come back on a different day to replace the top layer!
We stayed in Fairport last Friday night, so on Saturday Grandma and I could go to the Fairport Farmers’ Market. Grandma is starting to get ready for the church Election Day bake sale, so she wanted to get squash and pears and cauliflower to make soups. Guess what? The farmer who sold us squash recognized me! We always buy our Christmas trees at his farm! I made friends with the pear lady, too! It was fun to see Brussels sprouts still on their stalks!
Saturday was also the Scarecrow Festival, so Grandma took me to see the scarecrows after we put our vegetables in the car. This year, because the lift bridge is closed, all the scarecrows were displayed on the Fairport on the Rise trail! Most of them are north of the closed bridge. I made friends with lots of funny scarecrows! I think my favorite was the scarecrow minion!
I tried to see what was being fixed on the lift bridge, but it’s hard to tell just by looking, either close up or from the Parker Street bridge. The scarecrow festival certainly had a lot of people crossing the Parker Street bridge, because most of the scarecrows and all the activities were on Liftbridge Lane! On our way back to the car, we stopped at Skip’s Meat Market to stock up on lots of flavors of chicken sausage! Grandma let me choose one sausage link and I picked mango jalapeno!
In the afternoon, Aunt Kara and Thomas wanted to go see the scarecrows, so Grandma and I went back with them! Thomas wore his Spider Man costume! While we were walking to the Parker Street bridge, there was an emergency call and the fire truck had to get across the bridge. It’s only one way at a time for cars, so the fire truck had to wait for the cars coming the other way to get off the bridge!
I showed Thomas some of my favorite scarecrows, and he showed me some he liked best. We agreed that the minion scarecrow was our favorite! Thomas showed me how the scarecrow’s glove had two fingers sewn down, because minions only have three fingers on each hand!
On Monday, Grandma made lots of cauliflower cheese soup and Hungarian mushroom soup. On Tuesday, the piano tuner came and so did the pavers! Jeff-san, the piano tuner, was just finishing when the paving machine showed up in our driveway!
The paving machine lays down a wide, even layer of material, but all the edges and jagged borders need to be filled by hand. There was a lot of steam as the hot material was dumped on our driveway!
Then a dump truck refilled the paving machine and the rest of the driveway was finished! The roller came back to make sure everything was packed down tight! It will be three days before Grandma and Grandpa can park cars on the driveway again, but the new surface looks very nice!
After the pavers left, Grandma and I made curried squash and pear soup to celebrate another project being done! On Wednesday, I helped Grandpa set up for choir rehearsal at our house. Etz Chaim congregation needed to use the sanctuary, where the choir usually rehearses, for their Yom Kippur services. I’m glad the weather was nice, because nobody could park in the driveway for choir rehearsal!
Today we came out to the bay to get the powerboat ready for winter storage. Guess what? There was a big dead tree down across the road! Grandpa got his chainsaw out and cut off a big chunk. Then he and Grandma rolled it off the road. Don’t you think that’s enough projects for a while?
Love,
Lion-san
You had a lot to report so far this month, Lion-san! I enjoyed reading all of it. Today your Uncle Bill and I took a ride up into the Catskill Park region and saw lots and lots of autumn color on the mountain sides. Beautiful day. I think fall is a lovely time of year.
You had a lot to report as your aunt Betsy said. What with the tree coming down in Sodus, the new trail Grandma found, the Farmer’s Market, the scarecrow festival, the driveway being done, the piano being tuned and the choir coming. Wow! Nancy-san said she tried growing Brussel sprouts one year because they were interesting but each Brussel sprout had bugs on it. We liked the scarecrows. The driveway getting paved was another big project. You certainly had a lot of big projects to watch this year.