Cloudy skies Monday morning.

When we were in Kalispell Saturday we bought some aluminum rivets so I finished

 riveting in all the windows in the Uhaul.

It was a cool morning!  Susan harvested more rutabagas and potatoes from the garden.  She brought the wheel barrow inside for the next step.

A chipmonk decided to take a look to make sure we weren't messing up his territory.

The squash plants are finished so she pulled them. They went to the compost pile.

The cat and dog can have gotten used to each other and took some time to play.

Our tomatoes stored in the house are ripening.  Susan cut up a bunch of them to dehydrate.

Some of the mushrooms I picked and dried.  These are a type of Bolete.

The chickens are getting used to the dog now.  Before they'd hang back until I called the dog somewhere else.  I let them out in the late afternoons to eat bucks or whatever else they can find.  I feed them chicken feed in the mornings.

Four eggs today.  They are slowing down on laying eggs as the days get shorter and colder.  Cloudy days slow down production too.

I'm cutting the rhubarb down for the winter.  We cut the stalks off at ground level.

Sunrise Tuesday morning.  It started off cloudy but cleared up during the day.

Susan is cutting the tops off the rutabagas.  Shell store the bottoms in the root cellar and dry the tops for use a goat food later.

I thought we had a bunch of 2X6's I could rip down for use in the Uhaul but after two hours of looking the pile was pretty pathetic.  We dipped into our stash and scrounged up some money to buy some supplies at Lowes and Home Depot in Kalispell.  There's almost $300.00 spent in these two carts.  We went through another hundred-plus at Home Depot.

We looked over panelling at both stores and decided on this.  It was a lot more than we planned to spend but we liked it better than the cheaper stuff.  Since we plan on spending several months a year in the Uhaul/camper we decided to bite the bullet and get what we liked.

We put the wood on the trailer and packed the insulation in the Cherokee and headed home.  We made it fine with the load but it was almost 9:00 pm when we pulled in the driveway.  Tomorrow I can start on the inside of the Uhaul.

9 -10 October, 2010 Rainy Days and Time in Town

We spent most of Saturday in Kalispell visiting kids.  We actually saw all seven kids, their spouses and all the grandchildren in one day at their own homes.  That's a lot of running around.  I spent the morning working on an article, taking pictures, etc.  I'm glad I took the outdoor pictures in the morning because it clouded up for the rest of the day.  Sunday it rained all day.  I finished up the article I worked on Saturday and got it sent (email on this one ... much easier and faster than working by snail mail).  I got approval close to deadline for this one so I was under a time crunch with kids coming on Thursday and Friday and going into Kalsipell on Saturday.  I had to have it in by Sunday evenng.  We went to our oldest son's place and swapped some CSI DVD's.  We had borrowed the first year so we took it back and picked up the rest of them he had.  It's the first time I saw his boat.  He bought a boat to use on Flathead lake.  It's a 16 footer with high sides and inboard engine.  A good boat for a lake of that size.  It can get pretty nasty in a hurry.  He bought a downrigger and a high quality fish finder and GPS system for it.  He's a lot more serious about fishing than I am.

Hannah, our second youngest grandchild.

I love grandma ... especially when she lets me chew on her cell phone.

Of course all this adult conversation gets a little boring ...

I think I'll play with her glasses ... opps, turn the picture!!!!

That's better!

I think I'll just look adorable for this one.

Bored teenagers with too much time on their hands ...

I found a friend!

I love iced tea (I think).

There were other people we saw during the day but they kept ducking from the camera...

6-8 October 2010, Wednesday through Friday

We had thick fog for most of the morning on Wednesday.  After lunch we drove in to the post office to mail a manuscript and fill water jugs.  Our oldest daughter and her family came on Thursday and stayed until Friday.  We didn't get  a lot done but had time to play with the grandkids and do some other things.

Fog on Wednesday morning.

We filled water jugs while we were in town to mail the manuscript package.

We cut up some Birch logs to make bow staves out of.  This is on the state forest land where they've finished logging.  Birch is considered trash wood so they don't sell it for lumber or pulp.

Our son-in-law brought his bow along to do some deer/elk hunting.  He saw plenty of deer but none got close enough to put an arrow in.  Saw some elk sign too but no elk.

They wanted to make a fire with a bow drill so I got out some of the materials I had on hand.  I used cottonwood for the spindle and base.  The hand hold is made from an hickory old axe handle.  With my hand still somewhat messed up it was real challenge to get the fire started.  I finally drilled a hole through the spindle and set it up like an Egyptian bow drill.  (At least that's what I think it's called.  I saw it in an issue of Wilderness Way magazine.)  It worked well.  It was the first time I did this and it took a few tries to get the kinks out.

It was an experience doing this with an injured paw!  I'm glad my life didn't depend on getting a fire going fast with this method.  I also showed them how to do it with flint and steel.

Anna (our youngest grand daughter) rode in the back pack while we shot bows on the archery range.

Everyone except me had a bow to shoot.  I had Anna which seemed like a good trade to me.

Tow of the grandkids climbing the rope ladder Emily and Tristan made a couple of years ago.

David swinging on the rope.

They headed home Friday evening.  We had another big day scheduled for Kalispell the next day.  More on that tomorrow.

Last Window and Grouse Hunting

We spent most of the morning on our computers writing.  It takes until 11:00 or so for the dew to evaporate and it sometimes takes even longer in the woods.  I installed the final window in the Uhaul this afternooon.  After that I fed the buffalo and then went grouse hunting.  It's the first time I've gone hunting for just grouse in a long time.  The archery season for deer and elk starts the weekend after the opening for grouse so I usually spend time hunting them and grouse are just incidental takes if I happen to get a shot at one.  They aren't hard to hit with an arrow if you see them before they fly.  I've gotten more with arrows than with a shotgun.  I've shot some with my 44 magnum just because that's all I had with me (head shots only with the .44).  They are very good eating!!!!  Unfortunately today I only saw one and he had too many trees between us before I could get a shot.

I walked about three miles through my main deer hunting area.  Didn't see a lot of deer sign until the last mile.  They're hiding out in the timber west of our house.  There was a lot of bear sign.  There are bushels of mushroom ready to harvest.  If I get time tomorrow I'm going to pick a bunch to dehydrate.  Susan worked in the garden this afternoon and did some plant identification.

The goat is trim and slim when I tether him out to eat.  After about two hours he looks like he's pregnant.

Inside looking out the new front window.

This is what it looks like from the front.  Before we put the insulation and paneling on the inside I need to run new wiring for the running lights.

This is the plant Susan was identifying.

I saw lots of mushrooms while hunting.  This one caught my eye because it went to so much work to grow!

A bear did this.  I found several other places where they had ripped apart logs and stumps.  It was getting dark and the pictures didn't come out on most of them.  There was a lot of scat of varying ages evident too. 

4 October, 2010 Doors, Porch Lights and Rain

I rode the motorcycle into Eureka to do laundry on Friday.  We couldn't find Susan's helmet even though we spent a couple of hours looking everywhere we could think of so I made a solo ride.  The wather was clear but a little cool.  It felt great to be on the bike again.  I also installed a porch light by the main entrance.  We've had it laying around awhile and I needed a quick project so I mounted and wired it. Saturday we had company and Tristan ran the generator most of the day so I cast a bunch of lead bullets and melted down scrap lead into ingots.  Sunday I went to church in the morning.  Susan and Tristan did some yard clean-up projects.  When I got home Tristan split about a half pickup load of wood and stacked it in the woodshed.  I worked on the back door.  This door has had an interesting life.  It was used when we got it.  It has steel outer skin on both sides, solid wood core with a large window. It was first used on the back of the cabin before we built the addition.  Then it was moved and fitted to the new back door in the addition.  We built a small entryway outside it then enclosed the entryway and I moved the door to the new location.  Rcently we decided to change it so that the hinges are on the right as you exit rather than on the left as it was.  So ... I turned it around so the hinges were on the right side.  It involved cutting the wood in the doorframe to fit the hinges then I had to modify the hinges to get more clearance.  I also had to inlet the place for the latch and fit the hardware for that and turn the door nob around so that the key cylinder faced outward.  For some reason I also had to shave some wood off the edge of the door to make it fit.  On top of that my chisel needed to be sharpened so I sharpened it and honed the edge then had to do the same to my Jack Plane.  Anyway, it took all afternoon to finish the job!  Tristan helped me take the ladder out to my tree stand.  It's about 400 yards from the house back in the woods.  Now it's ready for occupancy when I get the time.  We watched Tora, Tora, Tora on TV in the evening.  Today (Monday) has been rainy all day so we've been working on our writing.  I finished up an article and we're both writing books as we have the time.  Many of the chapters in mine are already written in the form of articles I've sold so I've been going through files and organizing them.  It's been a productive day so far.  I'll probably have to run the generator tonight to charge the battery bank.  The solar power has been dismal today.  The leaves are falling off the brush so I'm having a more difficult time finding good foraging places to tether the goat.

The jar on the left holds one gallon, the next one holds a half-gallon.  Both have dried huckleberries in them.  The two smaller jars are one quart and one pint for comparison purposes.  Susan has been drying onions and squash as fast as she can run them through the dehydrator and is still harvesting herbs and drying them.

Susan has squash peelings (and other things we'll use for goat food) drying on top of the Cherokee.  From the angle of the picture she must have been standing on top of the Uhaul when she took it.

She took this one standing on top of my pickup.  I wondered why I had people tracks on the hood of my truck then I saw this picture.

Dinner last night!  Susan makes good pizza!

We celebrated Stephen's birthday Saturday.  I like birthdays ... lots of good food!

And of course the cat doing what it does best ... sleeping in contorted positions.