Grizzly Bears, Firewood Cutting, and more.

The bear came back ... but I had the game camera set up this time so I got a few decent pictures of him.  I put the chicken food inside the chicken house but there was still a little grain on the ground from where I'd scattered it for the chickens.  The bear finished it off and hasn't been back since.

We're still trying to figure out if it's a black or grizzly bear.  The claws are prominent and he has a bit of humped shoulder which both might indicate a griz.

And he has a somewhat dished face look about him plus the small ears.  The nose is a little long for a griz but the problem is that none of these features are all that visible and he could be a black bear.

And this, of course, doesn't give us a lot of clues either except that he hasn't forgotten where I kept the feed barrel.  Oh well, griz or black I'm not going out at night without at least my 44 magnum strapped on and only then after the dog has done some recon.

I set the solar panel angle at their "winter" position.  The sun barely clears the horizon this time of year so the panels need to be almost vertical.

I've probably posted pics of these before but they're an example of how water was piped when steel and PVC pipe wasn't available.

I stopped here for a short break while hunting.  It's about 300 yards from the cabin.

The deadbolt lock cylinder died so I had to replace it.  I had to do a little wood removal to fit the new one. 

Finished!

We've had a lot of overcast days and have run the generator a couple of times to fully charge the battery bank.  Unfortunately it takes gasoline so we had to refill some of the gas cans.

Victor brought his pickup over so we could install some used rear springs.  He bought new center bolts and "U" bolts so all we had to do was cut the old ones off and install the new parts.  The torch made that job a lot easier.

I used the circular saw with a metal cutting blade for some of the cutting to conserve oxygen and acetylene.

This tree has been leaning a long time so I decided to cut it down before it got too big. 

When they lean that far you have to be careful that they don't "barber chair" when you cut them.  A barber chair is when the tree falls prematurely and splits.  The danger is that the base may fall any direction including backwards so you need to be careful when cutting them down.

It's on the ground without incident.  The wood is green so I'll put it under a tarp to be used for firewood next winter.

These are some odds and ends of firewood we had laying around.  It was nice to get them cut, split and stacked.

Scott is holding his stuffed dino up to the TV to show it to Barney.