August Work Party

The 3 weeks of haze and thunderstorms finaly passed, and Saturday August 4 had the prettiest azure skies of the whole summer. As the morning went on, the view of the Holyoke range to the east got sharer and sharper.

By the time I got to the hill, Dan Carnevale had already weed whacked the area around the barn. When I got to the top of the hill, Bruce Blanchard was hard at work at the Gaertner making drawings for counterweights and brackets for the finder scope.

When Steve Pielock showed up that ment it was time to take out the big stuff... the tractor. After a "three stoges" routine, Steve, Bruce, and I had the backhoe off and the mower attachment ready to go. (Next time maybe we'll remember how the three point hitch mounts... chains on the outside.) Steve was soon off happily mowing everything in site. Amazing how the tractor can mow the same amount in 15 seconds as it takes to mow in 1/2 hour with a push mower.

Barry Hervieux and his daughters Steffanie and Samatha arrived on the hill and got to work burying the rest of the conduit between the clubhouse and the storage shed, then took over the push mower from me. Barry also ran some mice out of the shed. Seems like we haven't quite completely gotten over our mice problem.

Ray Burk also helped out, including a run to "Friendly Fred's" for 10 gallons of diesel for the tractor.

Some of us had to leave in mid-afternoon to get to the STARS Club picnic in nearby Buckland, even though this was going to be a fanatastic night on the hill.

Thanks to all those who helped out out. With only 5 weeks to Arunah Hill Days, we've got the place looking good! The road weathered the recent severe thunderstorms just fine, and we had minimal blow-down around the clearing. Driving up though Rt. 112 in Worthington, I saw a 200 year old oak tree took some major damage.

For those of you not going up to Stellafane this year, I hope to see you up on the hill for the Perseids next weekend

-Ed