I debated with myself about going to tonight's coalition meeting for a different river than mine. I always learn something at these meetings, but I've lost a lot of the incentive to go because I realize the people running the coalition I'm involved in don't want good ideas, so I'll have to keep them to myself. What tipped the balance was the realization that if I miss one meeting it will be easy to start skipping them all, and they are a good excuse to get out of the house.

Tomorrow my friend Diane, who is no stranger to car troubles, is going to help me start the tractor. It's a skidsteer with a front loader bucket. The name skidsteer comes from the way the steering works: when you want to turn, the wheels on one side stop turning, while the other keep moving, and that causes it to turn. It tears the heck out of a lawn, but they get good traction.

We haven't started it for two years.



Once I get it going, I can do all kinds of scoopy projects around the property here, and I can wrap a chain around some of the debris to pull it away from the trees.





This weekend some fishermen are coming to help with projects, and it will be nice if we have the bucket loader to assist.