Sunrise, Reserve Parachute, My Bouldering Area, Climbing, Fire, Pro...

I looked out the window around 5:30am yesterday morning and saw the colors in the sky to the north. They were just visible through the trees and the pinks and reds soon faded as the sun rose.

After getting the boys to school I FINALLY set about getting my reserve parachute packed into the front mount container. I've had the container for months now but never felt comfortable trying to make it fit. I did my research though and found the reserve only needs 4L of space and the container has 4.5L capacity. So IT JUST HAD TO FIT. I removed the reserve from my harness and in order to make it work I had to disconnect the pull handle from the pouch. That meant seam ripping the bar tack that held the handle to the pouch.

I'm SUPER stoked to have my reserve finally in the front mount. It makes it FAR more accessible at all times now. The harness has the reserve located under the seat which requires the right hand to go down to grab the handle, this way both hands can grab it if need be to deploy. I also now have the flight deck setup so my phone and vario are going to be visible to me in flight now. I so anxious to go flying and try it out!

Around 11am I headed up the road to my bouldering area. BOY is it overgrown. It's been a few years since I have been to it so it has not been kept up and trimmed back.

This is one of the main faces with some nice problems but a lot of lichen and moss.

There used to be a tree standing here but nicely it was cut down at some point. It makes more space and better visibility of the wall.

This is the middle of the Herp Traverse, so called because it snakes along the wall. It requires a ton of scrubbing to clean it up again.

Which is what I had to spend a bunch of time doing, scrubbing the rock. I have my full kit of brushes with just for this reason. I pulled out the wire brush and got to scrubbing the first problems.

I didn't scrub the whole rock, just where to hand and foot holds are. It makes it so you have to be precise and not just mash over the holds. I then climbed the two problems I cleaned.

Next I tried Birdy Bye but the top out was trash so I had to down climb the problem and then grab the brushes and clear the top.

There are 3 problems on this section and I managed to climb them all, not exactly how meant but I'm also not that strong right now. It felt SUPER nice to be back grabbing rock and with it only 3 miles from the house I have a spot I will be at least once a week all summer long. I'm going to take my weedeater and cut the trails again and clear the landings and down climbs.

I spent an hour scrubbing rocks and climbing problems before heading back to the farm. I had noticed the wood pile pallet that was nearly cleared had filled in with debris beneath it. I yarded the pallet up and then raked out all the debris and got the pallet put back. It's helpful that I put weed fabric down so it was easy to rake the debris without getting a pile of gravel with.

While waiting to go pick up J and C from running club I stood and threw at the board for a bit. Gradually I am getting better and finding the triples more often.

While the boys played I got the fire going in the pit for the evening. I was able to get all the rest of the pine needle pile thrown in then the pile of debris from beneath the pallet.

It made for a really hot fire that burned well into the evening without any added fuel.

R finished his puzzle and he was quite pleased with himself. I found it nifty that he was able to hold the whole thing in the air like that.

Got out to soak about normal time and I managed an hour though my hands were on fire. I swear I'm part reptile since each spring I molt. My hands freak out and explode the outer layers of skin off which makes them sore for a while.

Today the winds are out of east and not conducive to flying, then it will be raining for a few days so I'm outta luck till mid week most likely, but I will keep an eye on the group chat in case there is flying today. It looks to be cloudy all day and I need to get more grass cut, fence up for the peas in the pole garden, likely spend an hour or so at the bouldering area mid day, then will get a fire going this evening to grill again for dinner.