(no subject)

The horse function yesterday was rained out as we got a whole summer's worth of rain in two days. *sigh* Tash said that they are having a trail ride next weekend, which might be worth pursuing. We'll see what the weather looks like. I think it'd be educational for the IRH to spend some time not-with-her-friends on an out and about event. (The IRH does not know Tash's horses and so forth, so it'd be like going out on her own, only not exactly with strangers.) La & co. have things planned for that weekend, so I'd be needing to be hauled by someone else, possibly Tash. I'd kind of like to go... we'll see.

In the evening, I visited with Joe & co, who'd come up for the picnic today. Gwen can now stand up. She's a LOT more interesting than she used to be, has a fine grasp of peek-a-boo. I also worked on the mitten (You all remember the mitten, right? I know that it's been months since I talked about the mitten, but you're supposed to be paying attention. There was a mitten. There still is a mitten. I'm still working on it.) and came up with a scheme for the top decreases that didn't irritate me. Huzzah! It's about done. I need to hit another round or two and then graft the edges together. After that, I have to pick up the stitches around the thumb and knit that, but I feel pretty good about the whole thing. Once that's done, I have to make another one that more or less matches the first one. This would be easier if I'd taken more notes on how I did the first one. Oh, well. I'm not morally opposed to fraternal-twin mittens. Patterns are for sissies.

(no subject)

The picnic was today. The summer people, who were initially very enthusiastic about the new-and-improved road, suddenly became far less enthusiastic when they found out that the answer to When are you going to do the rest of it? was As soon as you people pony up some money. It's a lot easier to spend other peoples' money. The parts of the road that we did, some thousand feet, cost approximately nine thousand dollars. We have about a mile of road to do, which is 5,280 feet. About 1,000 feet of it is done. To do the rest as the first thousand feet were done would cost around 38K. To do the rest AND put tar-and-chip on it (much sturdier and longer-lasting) would cost around 75K. There are approximately 30 summer people, so this is not a particularly cheap undertaking any way you slice it.

This is a win-win situation. No matter what the summer people decide to do, we are going to win on some front.

If the summer people decide that the road project is too expensive and that they don't want to do it, then there will be no further bitching about the road that I have to take seriously. Since I was a sprout, the summer people have bitched about the road. Hell, it wouldn't be the picnic without having the summer people ask the age-old question Why don't you do something about the road? So now we've offered a solution to the road. There is going to be an ANSWER to the age-old question of the summer people. The answer is going to be either "We have done something about the road" or "Because you didn't want to pay for improvements, you just wanted to whine." And that, my friends, is going to put an END to the age-old question of the summer people. Huzzah! In and of itself, this is going to be a mighty victory.

If the summer people decide to have the road done and pony up the money in full, up front, then we don't have to lay out a chunk of capital to have the road done. New road, no outlay of capital. Yay!

If the summer people decided that they'd rather finance the road work, then the corporation will borrow the money from another corporation of ours and we'll wind up getting nine percent for ten years on the road improvement money while it's being paid back by the dues of the summer people. Er. Nine percent. AND a new road. Yay!

I'll probably be composing the letter to the summer people laying out their options here in a bit. Should be fun. I'm currently off to do some quickie reading on the durability and expected upkeep and probable lifespan of tar-and-chip.