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.

1-8 November, 2012 - Black Bears, Taters, Tires, Fires and Splitting Wood

We had a visitor last night.  The dog was barking her fool head off about 12:30 so I went to investigate.  I expected another skunk trying to get at the chickens but it was a large black bear that had dumped out the chicken feed and was enjoying his feast.  (At least he left the chickens alone.)  The dog was smart enough to just sound a warning and not engage him although the bear was pretty much just ignoring the dog.  When I arrived with the flashlight and shotgun the bear ran off about 30 feet and stopped to look me over.  I kept walking toward him and he took off for good. He was a pretty bear.  His back and front third were jet black and the middle section was chocoloate brown.  He was so fat he was almost as wide as he was long.  He'd better go find a place to den up before someone puts his hide on the wall and the meat in the freezer.  Maybe I should load one side of the shotgun with a slug from now on.

Winter is closing in and we've been playing catch-up since we got back home.  The weather has been overcast most of the time with some light rain so we had to run the generator once to fully charge the battery bank.  If you've never lived on solar power it's not good to run the batteries in a consistently undercharged state.  If the sun hasn't fully recharged them after a couple of days we run the generator to top them off. 

I called the Forest Service and we now have open burning so I torched three of our brush piles.  It was too wet the first time and I couldn't keep the fires going so I waited a couple of more days to try again.  They still didn't burn completely so I'll have to hit them again next spring.

The nice thing about winter weather is that we have the wood heating stove going and we can cook on it.  I just fried up some bacon and I'm now cooking eggs in that skillet while I make toast next to it.  When making toast we fold the aluminum foil over the top.  Otherwise the bread curls.

We finished digging potatoes in the garden.  We were fortunate that the ground hasn't frozen yet.  The harvest wasn't great this year.  We should have watered it a couple of times during the summer.

These are some of the spuds laid out in a storage room to cure a few days before being stored in the root cellar.

These are some that are sorted and ready to be placed in bins in the root cellar.

Susan's peeling potatoes for supper while I put a patch on a tube.  It was too cold outside to apply the rubber cement.

The patched tube, ready to re-install in the tire.  This is off one of the wheel barrows.  We have two wheel barrows and often consider buying a third one.  They are the workhorses of the homestead.  Garden carts are okay for many jobs but wheel barrows are more versatile.

It's time to get the winter tires on the Cherokee.  Usually we run studded snow tires in winter but this year they're just snow tires without studs.  We plan on spending a lot of the winter in places where there is no snow or ice!

I have my own tire machine (purchased from Harbor Freight Tools) so I mount/dismount our tires myself. These are used snow tires in almost new condition that we got for free (almost).

I had a fair sized stack of firewood from last year left over so I put most of it in the wood shed without splitting it (I didn't have room there last year).  I split this batch because it's what I call "trash wood" (it burns fast and not as hot as fir and larch).  I want to get it burned soon before it gets real cold.

Finished!

Each row is 2/3 of a cord of firewood.  I filled up one row and part of another then had enough left to fill a wheel barrow before I quit for the day.

These are from one of our kid's garden.  It was their first attempt at gardening and they had more than they knew what to do with so we brought these six pumpkins home with us.  They'll make great pies and pumpkin bars.  They had a good crop on everything that they planted but learned some important lessons as well.  The most important will be the new fence they'll put around it next year.  Deer are pretty to see but they love fresh garden produce.  It tkes a good fence to keep them out.  They estimate a 50 percent loss to deer over the summer.

31 October, 2012 - Roto Rooter, Electric Chain Saws, Home Again ...

It's nice to be home again although we miss the warmer weather and friends and relatives down south!

One of the trophies I got building the deck.  The drill slipped and I ran the screwdriver bit into my thumb.  It's healing nicely.

The joys of home ownership!  While we were at my mother's house the sewer pipe became clogged with tree roots so Roto-Rooter was called in to fix it.  One of the tiles about thirty feet from the house had partially collapsed and the tree growing overhead had plugged the drain pipe.  He got it opened up again but recommended that some repairs be made.  Estimates put them (new pipe and double clean-outs) around $800.00.  It should be done within a month. 

Small children love to follow the examples of adults.  Here Scott picked up a section of the newspaper and joined Susan in "reading" it.  Pretty soon though, he was snuggled in her lap while she read the paper.

I've never owned an electric chain saw and my stepfather had three of them so I gave them a test run.  The first one is run on 19 volt batteries.  It wasn't impressive at all.  A bow saw would be faster by the time you change the batteries every couple of minutes.

The two saws that used a power cord did well.  This little McCulloch cut like a champ and was difficult to bog down.  It did make more noise though than the saw shown below it.

The best one was this 3.5 HP, 16 in. Craftsmen saw.  It was fast and comparable to the majority of gasoline powered mini-saws in that size range.  Of course you're limited by the power cord but if you're looking for a small saw to use around the home place it wouldn't hurt to keep in mind one of these electric models.  They're much easier on the ears!

We headed for home, stopping once more at Paladin Press in Boulder, CO on the way.  I took a few photos while there.  We picked up another 30 of my books along with a few written by other authors.  I get a substantial discount due to being one of their authors.

This is coming over the pass between Livinston and Bozeman, Montana (heading west).  I used to live about four miles south of where this photo was shot. We were six miles beyond the closest power line.  It was my first experience living off-grid. 

This is Scott in his bee costume and his mother getting ready to hit the streets trick-or-treating.

His mom and dad are swinging him between them as they walk down the hill.  Scott loves it!

After making the rounds, Scott was busy as a little bee checking out DVD's and Computer games.  He had a blast once he figured out that people at the houses would give him candy.  He'd hold onto whatever they gave him until he got to the next house then he'd drop that handful of candy to make room for whatever they gave him there.

Now there's more wood to be cut, split and stacked, and I need to put the winter tires on the Cherokee.  Hunting season is in full swing as well with trapping season open for water trapping (beaver, otter, muskrat, mink).  We're way behind and are playing catch-up now.  I guess boredom won't be a problem any time soon!

25 October, 2012 - Garden Tilling, Tree Cutting, Ramp Building

My stepfather is improving with the physical therapy and while we've been hanging around we've found some things to do to occupy our time.

This is my mother on the ladder cleaning leaves out of the downspout in the rain gutter.  Scott is on his way up the ladder to help.

Scott noticed that the wood burning stove in the camper was empty so he decide to fill it up.  He did too!  I didn't get a photo of it when he was finished but he didn't stop until you couldn't shove any more wood into it. 

My stepfather started working up the garden (tilling under the stuff left over after the harvest) before he had his stroke.  I finished it off last Sunday.  He has a Craftsmen rear tine tiller so I got to try it out.  It's a smaller one and was barely adequate for the job.  The primary problem was that the ground was hard so when it was running the tines in reverse it didn't have enough power and when you switched the tines to forward rotation I couldn't hold it back. 

I finally got the job finished but it was a workout for me and the tiller.  I had to stop once and reset the governor spring.  I was sincerely missing my Troy-Built Horse model.

After a meeting at the hospital with the doctors and nursing staff we decided to build a ramp to make it easier for my stepfather to get in and out of the house after he came home. I extended the flat landing area to make it easier to open the front door while using a walker.  I also raised the level up to just under the door.

They had some left-over lumber on hand so I drew up some plans, made a bill of materials and headed for the lumber yard.  Approximately $250.00 later I returned with a loaded truck and went to work. 

Scott helped whenever he had a chance so the job only took twice as long as it should have due to endless searches for my hammer or the square or nails/screws or a pencil or ...

But we finally got it finished and Scott tested it out.

There were some dead trees that needed to be taken down so I started on the easy one first.  I had a rally nasty surprise waiting inside the hollow trunk!  A squirrel carried a rock inside the hollow portion and I hit it with the chain.  I saw sparks flying but by then it was too late.  It nearly ruined a brand new chain. 

They didn't have a saw large enough to cut through the big tree.  I have one with a  24 inch bar but it's in Montana so we bought a Poulan Pro with a 20 inch bar.  It's not my Stihl but it was enough to get the job done.  I tried to get a skip chain for it but they didn't have them here.  I guess I'll stock up on chains when I get back to MT.

I took off one lower limb first.  I was going to take off the other fork as well but the wind was blowing very hard so I just cut down the tree with the bigger limb attached.

I wanted a good, deep notch because the tree had a lot of weight on that side.  (A good recipe for a barber chair.)

It's down, no cars crushed, no smashed signs, no power lines down, and no one hurt.  I call that successful!  Now it's time for clean-up. 

Susan helped with stacking the wood and clean-up.  We piled the wood near the street with "free" sign on it.  A couple of days later it was gone ... hopefully to heat someone's home.

My mother stomping down the small limbs to make room for more in the bed of the truck.  (Have I mentioned that she's in her 70's?)

October 18, 2012 - Vacations, Family, Funerals and Assumptions

This isn't exactly what I anticipated writing on my blog. We've been on vacation since September 23 and expected to be back home by now (October 18). Taking our camper (a converted U-Haul truck), we drove from our home in the northwest corner of Montana to Boulder, Colorado where we met the folks at Paladin Press and picked up some more of my books. From there we went to Kansas to spend a week with my family. After a great visit we headed south to Texas to meet up with some friends there.

While in Texas I received an email from my son to call my mother in Kansas. My youngest sister had died. My sister had heart surgery to replace a valve they'd put in many years ago but the second surgery had gone well and many months had passed without problems. News of her death was a complete surprise and the last thing I expected when I called my mother. We drove the five-hundred miles back to my mother's that day, arriving just before midnight. The funeral was held four days later and we all bid a final farewell to our youngest sibling.

Two hours later, back at my mother's home, my stepfather passed out. An ambulance was called and he was rushed to the hospital. He'd had a stroke. He's been in the hospital since that time as they ran tests then began treatment and physical therapy. He's recovering well but it's going to be awhile before he gets back to normal.

In one short week my mother has had to deal with her daughter's death and her husband's near death from a stroke.

Now everyone has gone home except my wife and I and our two-year-old grandson, Scott. I have one other sister that lives nearby and is in contact quite often.

It is times like these that give us pause to consider the lives we lead and the assumptions we make. We are thankful that we had our earlier visit so that we got to see my sister just prior to her passing. We had no idea that this would be our last opportunity to spend time with her. We assumed that we'd see her again. We were wrong.

Our stepfather's stroke was another unwelcome surprise. Again, there had been no warning signs or signals. One day he was getting along quite well for a man who was on the wrong side of 80. The next day he was laid up in a hospital and couldn't walk, could barely talk, and couldn't write his name. Our assumptions regarding his future and his assumptions regarding his future were both wrong.

This would be the place where a deep thinking person would insert some profound statement putting this all in perspective. However, since it's only me, there are no profound statements … just a few thoughts: Cultivate patience. You may never get a chance to apologize for harsh words or thoughts. Do not put off opportunities to do things for others. The chance to brighten their lives may never come again. Spend your time wisely. Hug your children, your spouse, your parents and your siblings. Finally, life is short and very uncertain so be thankful for every breath you take.

Steve

Welcome to Texas?

Got up this morning and was thoroughly enjoying my morning walk/play with my grandson when we met a very grouchy, temperamental, sour tempered resident about twenty feet from the camper.  He's about 3 1/2 to four feet long.

• These were taken before I ushered him out of the picnic area using a long stick.  Don't know if they're always so grouchy or if he just got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.