19 December, 2010 Cross-Country Skiing

  We decided to have some fun Sunday and go skiing so we headed to a couple of small lakes above Murphy Lake.  The temperature was about 20 degrees which is almost perfect.  The snow is cold enough for good skiing yet it's warm enough you don't freeze!

First step of preparing ... get your feet nice and warm by the wood stove while eating breakfast!

Susan made my gaiters out of the leg bottoms of an old pair of wool pants I had.  They had holes and tears above the knees in various places due to hard use so she cut the bottoms off, sewed in an elastic cuff at the bottom along with a zipper, tie string for under the boots and a hook on the front.  Then she put a drawstring on top to finish them off.  They work great and are as good as the $35.00 pair I was going to order.  She made a set for herself out of the arms on an old coat we found.

On the way to the trailhead.  Can you see the mountain peaks above the low, lying clouds?  We'll be skiing just below them.

At the trailhead.

This is Martin Lake in it solid state.  It's close to the trailhead and makes a nice short 1/2 mile hike in summer or ski trip in winter.

Susan

Me and the dog.  The pack contains a lightweight, fleece jacket for me, ham radio, GPS unit, extra batteries, 22 handgun and ammo, small hatchet, sheath knife, some food and drinks, cordage, Gerber multi-tool, compass and few other odds-n-ends.  We both carry basic materials like fire-starting stuff, pocket knife, etc. in our pockets.

Hagadone Lake.  Looks like someone drained it!  We've been going through several years of a drought cycle and a lot of the smaller lakes are dry now.

The dog in her usual mode of travel ... full speed.  When we got her at the animal shelter they said she'd been returned by the last couple because she was too hyper.  They'd tried to make an indoor dog out of her.  That'd be a very poor fit for her.  She just has too much energy and has to run it off every day.  Even around the house she'll suddenly take off running and make large loops outside to burn off energy.

Me

You can just see the outline of the sun through the clouds in the upper center of the picture.

We went from Hagadone Lake on to an old logging road and followed it awhile.  After a couple of hours skiing we stopped to take a break.  The dog wanted to share my food so we played a game of catch.

This was actually taken on the trail to Hagadone Lake.  It just got placed in the wrong order.

On the way back to the trailhead now.  We travelled about five miles round trip.

 

18 December, 2010 Three below zero (F) this morning.

It feels cold after our balmy weather in the 30's and 40's. The snow that got rained on and turned to slush so that when you drove on it the tires dug trenches is now frozen solid and become like upside down railroad tracks. When you fall into the ruts you can let go of your steering wheel for the next mile or so.

Been a busy week but not outside busy.  I've been doing a lot of writing this week.  I need to get one article in particular finished and submitted.  One thing about writing magazine articles is the lag time.  For print publications you need to be working six months to a year ahead on seasonal articles.  This one is about gardening which means I need to work from pictures taken last summer.  It makes it harder to get in the "spirit" writing about warm weather subjects when the temperature outside is below zero and everything is buried in snow!  I try to plan things out well ahead so I at least have the photos on hand.

Susan spent a couple of days in town with our youngest grandchild and his parents and also spent time with the other grandchildren and kids. I kept the fort at home here. In winter we have things that need to be done every day. We feed the buffalo (one mile round trip walking), feed our own critters (dog, cat, goat and chickens) and give them fresh water, bring in firewood and of course, meal preparation which we share. We also melt snow for water (as needed) in the two kettle on the wood stove. We leave a couple inches of water in the bottom of the kettle, get the water boiling hot then add snow. Depending ujpon how wet the snow is it might take anywhere from three to eight buckets of snow to fill each kettle. We then bring them to a boil again before using a half-gallon pitcher to dip the water out of the kettle and into the funnel and strainer on the water barrel. It can be time consuming. The other morning I had to wash dishes, melt enough snow to fill the barrel (about 15 gallons of water), and feed and water the critters. It took about four hours total. Fortunately it was a balmy 25 degrees outside.

Susan is pulverizing our home dehydrated eggs.  We'll add hot water and make French Toast with them.

It tastes as good as fresh eggs.  The bread is home made also.

Susan's making cloth Christmas ornaments for grandkids.  She cuts them out using the favorite colors of each kid for their ornament.  Then sews and stuffs them and sews loops to hang them on the tree.

This is what they look like when finished.

This is my home-made snow rake in action.  It's a ten foot section of 1 1/4 PVC pipe screwed into an adapter that's bolted to the 1/2 in. X 4 in. X 4 ft. board.  It costs a bunch less than a commercial rake and works just as well.  I can add more 1 1/4 pipe if I need to reach farther.  We don't usually have to rake this section but we had about a foot of snow then rain for a couple of days so I thought I'd get some of the snow load off in case it turned cold again.

This is our coffee maker.  It can be used as a percolator on the stove or you can dump hot water through it to make it like a "drip" type coffee maker.  We use it the second way.  We use coffee filters in the bttom chamber but it will work okay without them.  You put in the filter and add the correct amount of coffee.

Then put the bottom part on the canister (it has a groove to lock it in place).

You then set the works inside the coffee pot and dump the correct amount of hot water into the top chamber.  When the water has all drained through it's ready.  We got this froma couple who were "downsizing" and have never seen one like it anywhere else.

We went into town to help get the food bank set up to give away their Christmas "baskets."  The food is portioned out according to how many they have in the family.  Numbers varied from one up to seven in the families.  We've also helped cut, split and stack firewood on several occassions and helped pack and distribute Christmas and Thanksgiving food baskets and helped a few times on regular distribution days.  You meet some interesting people helping there. 

We stopped to fill a few water jugs on the way home.  Only three since we've been melting snow and didn't use much out of the jugs.

Susan had some requests for camo. hotpads so she's putting together an order for them.

She also had an order for pan handle covers.  This is one of the prototypes we're testing.

And back by popular demand ......... the cat!

"My toes are freezing! Hello, anyone there? I'm ready to come back in now!"

"Oh sure, they think this is cute and they're taking pictures,
but who's going to help put my hips back in their sockets?

"If I just had opposable thumbs I could hold a book and a latte!"

12 December, 2010 Fresh bread, boiling traps and rain ...

What do you get when you add rain to 18 inches of snow?  A slushy mess!  This is what we went through last winter ... snow, then rain, then cold (turning everything to ice), then another repeat of the cycle.  Yuch!

Breakfast Saturday - I made extras then re-heated the leftovers Sunday morning.  To re-heat them without a microwave and to keep them from turning to rubber we set them on a plate on the upside down kettle lid as shown in this picture then cover the plate and pancakes with a lid.  It takes about 15 minutes or more if the water in the ketttle is boiling hot but the pancakes don't dry out or turn to rubber this way. 

The little red berries are from asparagus plants.  Susan crushed them and picked the seeds out.  We'll save them for planting this spring.

I need to get some more traps into service so I spent Sunday afternoon in the shack melting water and derusting/coloring traps.  This is the stove I use for heating the shack.  It's a barrel stove kit in an old pressure tank designed for a well.  They have a thick rubber diaghram in them that must be removed.  I put the tank in one of our brush piles and lit the pile on fire.  The heat melted the rubber diaghram out of it so I could use the tank for a stove.  It's heavier steel than a barrel and should last longer.  It's also shorter than a barrel which is a little more convenient. I'm melting snow in the can and pan.

I put a pot of water with the dye on our outfitter's propane stove.  It would have taken too hot of a fire to keep it boiling on the wood stove and I spent about four hours doing it.  If the temperature had been -30 (F) that would have been okay but it was about 40 degrees outside yesterday.  I have about two hours more to do today to finish up.

A closer view.  The instructions said to keep it just below boiling but I like to have a little "roll' to the water to keep the sediment stirred up.  I have to add water periodically to replace what boils away.

One of the finished traps compared to one awaiting treatment.  These are #3 double-long-spring traps I use for bobcats and coyotes.

Susan was busy cooking Sunday afternoon.  Here are 1 1/2 loaves of fresh bread.  We ate the other half loaf!

Fresh, hot biscuits and pumpkin pie (made from summer squash and spaghetti squash.  You can't tell the difference between it and real pumpkin pie. 

Split pea and ham soup cooking on the stove.

The cat annoying Susan.  The only time he wants to lay on your lap is when you're doing something else.

10 December 2010 Empty traps and rain

Been a busy week.  Most days are routine.  Around mid-morning I take off to checkmy traps.  I only have a half dozen sets since I do this line on snowshoes.  The snow (and weather) has been warmer the last few days so snowshoeing has it's problems.  When the snow is warm the snow gets stuck in the snowshoe webbing and the ends of the harness straps.  Soon every time you take a step you're getting hit by a golf to tennis ball size of ice.  Gets annoying after awhile.  Sometimes it will swing around and land under your foot when you take a step.  That gets annoying too.  If I can get it against a stick or tree trunk I hit it with the pole end of the hatchet to break it up.  Otherwise I have to take the shoes off to break it against something. 

This time of year we get most of our water by melting snow.  With dry snow that takes awhile.  We have one kettle on the wood stove most of the time and sometimes add another of equal size (5 gallons) when we're melting snow.  It works best if you leave about a gallon of water in the kettle then add snow until the kettle is full.  We let that melt and keep adding snow until we have a kettle full of water.  We bring it to a boil to purify it.  After that we pour it into the barrel that feeds the tank over the sink.  When we pour it into the barrel we filter it using a funnel and coffee filter (shown on previous posts).

This is how I put together some of the cubbies I use when setting traps for bobcats.  I start with an "A" frame, lean-to like you'd use for a debris shelter.  After making a "skeleton" I add branches over it then pile snow on it.  I usually tie the bait to the ridgepole before adding the framework.

The snow is piled on here and I'm ready to set the trap and feathers.

The trap is set slightly off-set in the entrance.  I put a trap cover made out of waxed paper over the pan and under the jaws to keep the jaws from freezing down and the snow from filing in under the pan.

After sifting snow over the trap (I use a snowshoe and let the snow sift through the webbing) I place guide sticks so the critter will place it's foot on the trap pan.  My biggest enemy is the weather.  A warm spell can turn the snow to ice and then an animal has to jump on the pan to trip the trap.  The cubbie helps keep new snow off the trap.  I tie some feathers to a string to provide a visual attractant.  I use a heavy thread so that the gentlest breeze will make the feathers move.  Ideally a cat coming by will see the movement then be drawn to the bait inside. 

This is one of my sets this morning.  I think I either had a small wolf or large coyote in it.  The tracks leading up to it were bigger than my dog's tracks but not as large as a full grown wolf.  Whatever it was it put up an epic struggle before it pulled out of the trap.  The photo only shows part of the damage.  To the left of the photo the ground was torn up like someone had used a roto-tiller on it.  The trap is a #3 double long spring which should have held a coyote but wouldn't be enough for a wolf.  I haven't seen any cat tracks there for over two weeks now so I was going to pull the traps and move to a new area tomorrow anyway.  I sure would have liked to see what was in the trap though.  What little bit of hair that was in the trap looked more like a wolf than a coyote.

This is some of the material Susan is using for the hot-pads she's selling after Christmas. 

This is a typical afternoon or evening.  Susan working on her sewing while I'm on the computer writing.

We have three rubber bowls we use to give water to the goat.  I'll stomp one full of snow and set it by the wood stove to melt.  When it melts I take it to the goat and fill the one he drank dry with snow and set it beside the stove to melt.  We use the third on for the dog and/or chickens.  The chickens seem to get enough water from the snow when they're eating the feed we scatter.  At least they never drink any of the water we set out in winter. 

Susan had a flashlight in her mouth to illuminate the music as she played.  The camera's flash overpowered the light from the flashlight.

We bought the ham but the eggs are some tat Susan dehydrated during the summer and the spuds are from the garden.

The biscuits are for supper and breakfast.  The pie is from peaches Susan canned.  In the center are peanut butter cookies fresh out of the oven and in the skillet on the right is our supper (stir fry).

Some of the icecycles hanging from the roof.

Susan spoiling our youngest grandchild this afternoon.

3 December, 2010 New addition...

Been a long time since I made my last post!!!!

It's been a busy week.  The newest addition to the "clan" was born the evening of November 27.  Susan spent several days in Kalispel while I stayed home to keep the critters fed and played in the snow.  The trapping season for bobcats, martin, fisher, and wolverine opened December first.  I spent the previous day out in the woods getting some cubbies ready. On the second Tristan was here a short while and helped me get the snowmobile trailer (with snowmobiles) out of it's parking place and in the drive where I can get them going again.  (He's been house sitting for a neighbor while they were out of state.)

I had to rake the snow off the storage shed and wood shed since it was accumulating too much heavy snow.  I bought the materials to make my own snow rake last year then we never got enough snow to use it.  I finished it up and used it to get the snow off the metal roofs.  It's a ten foot section of 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe with a  pipe thread adapter on one end screwed into a base plate whis is bolted to a 1/2 X 4 X 4 foot board.  I'll get some pictures tomorrow and post them.  It was a lot cheaper than those they were selling for $30.00 at the hardware store and works just as good.  It also took me awhile to get the snow blower going.  Mush longer than it usually takes.  I'll get some pictures taken of that as well.

The snow is anywhere from 6 inches to two feet deep in the woods so I use snowshoes when I go out in the woods.  I enjoy snowshoeing and love being out in the woods when everything is covered with snow.  This is my favorite time of year.  I've only got about 6 sets out at this time.  I'll get some more out as I go but for now that's enough.  The total trail length is about 4 miles round trip.  I need to get my endurance up a bit before I extend it much farther.

The icicles hanging from their faces didn't come out as well as I had hoped here.

The snow has been pretty warm which makes snowshoeing a bit of a chore.

  WWhen the snow's warm it gets packed into snow and ice balls under your feet.  It feels like you're walking on slick rocks.  I sometimes had to take the shoes off every hundred yards to get the packed snow knocked off. 

I took the sled with me and had my short axe (Estwing), machete and bow saw with me in addition to traps and bait.  It was a long day on the trail because of all the downed trees I had to cut out of the way.  This is a short section where it was really bad.  It's an old skidder trail west of our cabin on timber company land.

One of the long straight stretches I go down.  This is a nice logging road that's gated off so I have it to myself.

Haven't seen any bobcat tracks yet but the only make the loop about every 7 to 10 days so it might not be time for them to come through yet.  I saw tracks from a pair of coyotes this morning.

The newest grandchild home from the hospital and dressed in the official state (Montana) color.  Susan stayed down there a few days to help them get settled in.