Thunder and Lightning

Week 3 has come to a close, and week 4 is less than an hour away from starting. Last week was our first crew where almost no one knew each other (except for a pair of cousins). We ended up with 5 boys, the one girl who had signed up dropped out once she found out it was all boys. Bummer. I figured I was in for a week of farting, burping, and inappropriate jokes. I was right. 

Our first day was spent closing a ton of trail intersections. About halfway through the day we could tell they were getting bored, and fairly. They're always excited to go when we say "we get to go make a huge mess then leave. Bigger the mess, the better." Doing that all day surprisingly gets pretty boring. At least I got to chop a big birch blowdown. We got the "boring" workday over with, but it turned out to be not such a boring evening. One of our kids started feeling sick, and it turned into a multi-hour ordeal on the phone. He left that night, and once again our crew dwindled in number. 

Being one short didn't stop us from tackling big projects, and we desperately wanted to get them on rock work. They were an athletic bunch and we figured a challenge would be good. We got to setting step stones on the most used trail of the system. Finding and getting our rocks to the worksite was much harder than the last time we installed stepping stones. Our last site had a nice slope to roll rocks down and plenty of great rocks, this site was totally level, dense, and had markedly less rocks to choose from. We made it work, and by the end of Tuesday we had all our rocks selected and one set in the ground. 

Wednesday brought the second day of high heat and higher humidity. I stopped looking at social media because I couldn't stand to see people complaining about the heat when all they have to do is go from their air conditioned car to air conditioned office. We work in long, heavy pants, helmets, leather gloves, and work boots, swinging tools for 8 hours a day. The heat meant we had to bring a lot of extra water, so my pack had an extra gallon of water + my usual 4L of water in it, which was another couple of pounds to haul around. In short, it was miserable. It was almost impossible to stay hydrated, and we all felt the affects. A storm started brewing, and our boss (who was visiting us and scouting out projects) told us to call it early. We got to watch the storm from the safety of the cottage porch.

Thursday was somehow just as hot. We had finished the step stones on Wednesday afternoon and revisited the waterbars we worked on in week 1 to install 2 gargoyles. The boys really liked rock work, which was good because they were able to get the gargoyles set in a decent amount of time. Actually, it was painfully slow because it was so damn humid. We quite literally couldn't go any faster or work any harder, or else everyone would have would have overheated and been severely dehydrated. Once again, please, complain to me about your air conditioned work life. See how I react. 

Thursday was cut short again by an impending storm. We hastily hiked out our tools as the thunder boomed, but unfortunately it was all bark and no bite. It turned out to be all bark and ALL bite about 5 hours after that. The storm got really bad as Adam and my family showed up for our 4th of July party weekend.

I was beyond excited to have my family and Adam here to visit. I hadn't seen my family since before I left in May. They rented out a whole wing of the largest cottage, so I got to live in the lap of luxury all weekend. I had a WOOD STOVE, for goodness sake! On the first night Adam finally got me to wear his socks and crocs, something I swore I would never do. It's the most stark example of how much I have digressed into a woodslady life. "Folks, we've lost her."

The group of all boys grew on me as the week went on, but I was ready to say goodbye to all the burping, farting, and inappropriate jokes. We went to dinner in Westfield Friday night after my group left.  We also exchanged gifts for Adam, my moms, and my birthdays, which are all within a week of each other at the end of June. Saturday was spent exploring Great Barrington, including my favorite cheese shop, pictured above.

 We took a dip at Russell Pond, just a few minute drive from Noble View. Our day ended with a big cookout back at the cottage before settling in for fireworks. Noble View sits high enough to see fireworks from many towns, so the sky was lit up with firworks big and small... Well, more like medium-ish to very tiny. It was pretty neat nonetheless.

All fun weekends must come to an end, including this one. Adam went back to Boston early this morning and my family started their long drive up to vacation part 2 in Maine. It was a tough week for me for several reasons, and it was hard to realize that it's not yet half over. I do love being here, though. I just miss folks back home. It was the first time I really wanted Adam to help me pack my stuff and go home, but not home to Boston. Home to somewhere less noisy. 

Well, enough day dreaming. We've got a crew of 9 showing up today, though I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow die less to 4 or less, as it seems like always happens here. Here's to week 4.