A couple weeks ago, a woman called me who didn't even have my name, but some friend of hers had told her that I could use lilac wood and she had just cut down a lilac bush. I told her I would ask my friends and see if I could find someone going to Halifax who cold pick it up for me. Some friends did go, but they didn't get time to go get the wood. But sooner or later, I will get it. A woman I have known for many years also told me she had cut down a lilac and would give it to me, but I haven't got it yet. I guess I could just drive over there and get it.
I just decided I should post here about that wood, but I see that I haven't posted about the Christmas fair I went to the 3rd and 4th of December. I sold over $2300 worth of spoons, but not so much lilac, because I don't have much lilac wood left. If I added up how much was lilac, I forget how much it was.
I have spent the last few days cleaning up the scraps, making little spoons and spreaders out of the scraps I saved from making bigger spoons and spatulas, and a good many of those scraps were lilac. So I made a bunch of lilac spoons, but they are all pretty small, or even tiny.

They did work. Timmy is back for a couple weeks from Alberta and he and John K. came and hauled gravel and spread it on my road into the area where I want to make the labyrinth. They spread 14 loads of gravel and billed me a $2100 for the gravel, $315 for spreading it and $150 for haulin the dozer over here, plus tax. Timmy said 15 cm of snow is predicted for tomorrow, which probably puts an end to the project til spring, but I won't be able to afford any more til I sell some more lilac spoons and things anyway. He thinks it will take about that much more to get the road clear across the bog. Fooey, I was hoping to be able to finish it this fall so I would be able to plant in the spring.
I need some more lilac wood, I think, to be able to make enough more things to raise that much money!

November 22, a sunny day, and the equipment operator has come with a truck I can hear down at the road and has walked up and started the bulldozer and is driving it down there. Has he come to work, or to take the machine away? We will soon know, I guess. He didn't come talk to me.

Pouring rain all day. No sign of the operator, but then it's a holiday. But it rained enough it may not dry sufficiently before it snows. It was warm today though. I wish I'd looked at the temperaturein the afternoon.

As you can see, if you look at the dates of these posts, it has been over a month since a heavy equipment operator I've dealt with before promised to come look at it, but nothing happened. I called him and he said again he'd come but I didn't hear from him. So I called again and he said he had come but it was too wet. He said he'd come again. He did and wanted to know how much mony I was willin to spend before he brought the equipment back from wherever it was. I told him and he said he'd call Timmy, who owns the machines.
Yesterday I went early in the morning to take my car to have a rear wheel bearing replaced but they never got to look at it that day, so I had to stay overnight at my daughter's place, and they got it done sometime in the middle of the day. I went to a store and a gas station and came home, and I find the dozer here. So he is finally ready to begin. But heavy rain is predicted tomorrow and tomorrow night and rain the next day, so we will see how far he can get.
Delays and mechanical problems have been plaguing my effort to get enough spoons made for the Christmas fair I'm going to the first weekend in December, too. One of those delays is that a woman who promised to bring me a piece of lilac she cut down went to the US so I will have to wait til she comes back to get that. As I said last post (or was it the one before?), I am almost out of lilac wood except for small scraps. I wish I had some for this fair coming up.
Terron

I thought it was a while since I had deposited money in the savings account in which I am putting money for the lilac labyrinth, so I looked up in the passbook and found the last time was 22 July. I went through my record book and added up all the lilac ones I'd sold since, and it comes to $606. I wasn't sure I had that much. I find, on counting it, that I do, but not a great deal more, so I didn't put it in all at once, but something like $168, which was all I could afford from my wallet when I was at the bank. But I will get it in there sooner or later, and there is now over $3000 in the account. If I had realized I was going to make this entry here, I would have looked it up first.
One question on my mind is I have given a bunch of spoons on consignment this year to various shops, and some among them are lilac. I have lists of what went where, but how do I know which ones sold? At what point do I deposit that money, if I don't know which ones sold?
I guess I have to make up my mind on a system, but anyhow, I need to make sure not to forget those ones.
I am nearly out of lilac wood too. I have only scraps left, really, though a lot of those will make a little spoon or a butterknife type of spreader.
I'd better get to bed now.

At the end of the summer that wasn't

I thought it would dry out in the summer, but you could ay we didn't really have any summer. July was in the 50sF, 10-15C with frequent rain and August wasn't much different. My corn didn't grow to its usual size and doesn't look like it is going to produce anything at all. Some of the beans rotted in the ground, some grew, but have been behind. Peas, kale and lettuce did OK.
Anyhow, it never got dry enough that I thought it would make it certain I could get across the swamp. Timmy, who was the guy I called about the road before, is working in Fort McMurray, Alberta. But another guy is taking over for him here in the meantime and my son-in-law called him to do a job around the back of the house to change the grade a little and put in a drain to keep water from the driveway from running up against the foundation, so he came yesterday to inquire about the location of the water pipe and any buried wires he will have to avoid. I asked him to look at the road over the swamp to see what it would take to make it so I could get over with my 4 wheeler. He is going to do that. So I still have hopes of being ready to plant lilacs next spring.
I also got an e mail and then a phone call from a man who established a lilac-planting project in memory of his deceased daughter. He recommended I join the International Lilac Society and write something for their magazine about my project and I might get support from many people interested in lilacs. He also told me about a huge lilac nursery called Syringa Plus, if I remember right, and offered to help me with information, &c. So I did send in $25 to join that society. I haven't heard back yet, though.
Anyhow, that is all I have to report just now, but at least I have something to report, which hasn't happened for a while.