26 July - 4 August, 2012 - Kayaking, Dust and Camper Mods

It doesn't seem like we've accomplished much the last nine days but we've sure been busy.  There've been several trips to Eureka and Kalispell and we've both done quite a bit of writing.  We purchased/signed up for a jetpack so we're hoping to have internet access more often when we're out camping.  That should make it easier to keep up with our writing and blogs without needing to drive into the nearest town.  We expect it to be especially helpful when we head south for the winter.

We've had a couple of small thunderstorms move through which has helped keep the fire danger down (we actually got rain with them ... sometimes we get thunder and lightening and no rain!).  My book should be done in September.  The final editing on the galley is finished.  I like the way Paladin put it all together.  Susan added one more book to her Kindle books and her sales keep climbing.  The garden is doing well.  We had our first raspberries a couple of days ago and we have peas ready to pick.  We've had so much rain that we haven't needed to water the garden yet this summer.  That's a first in the nine years we've been here.  We had some problems when we were gone too which leads to the first photo. ...

We had an understanding with our neighbors that there'd be no road work done across our property without our permission.  This was hammered out in court after one of them widened the lower road one day while we were gone.  They are from California and seem to believe that they had/needed a 20 foot wide right-of-way through our property.  At one point we had a bit of a stand-off with me parked in the road at the corner of our property and the neighbor wanting to get through with a backhoe.  The sheriff's dept. finally arrived and told him to wait until we went through the court.  They lost.  We are not against them having a smooth road but we are against them widening it.  The agreement was that they could put down all the gravel they wanted but no blade was to be used on the roadway without our presence and permission.  While we were gone this last time the road was graded but no one is claiming responsibility.  The guy who did it was paid through a landowner on the other fork in the road and denies knowing who paid what.  We have one part time resident who was involved and I've talked to him and his story is that he only paid to have his driveway graded.  We're all going to get together next time he's up here and we're going to straighten things out.  To say we were a bit angry would be a huge understatement.

One of the problems we have with new out-of-state residents is that they think they need a wide, smooth road to travel on.  They buy their property knowing the road is bad then try to "improve" it  without regard to private property rights of the current landowners.  Most of us just drive slower.

To compound the problem they try to build roads like they do in the flat lands.  That doesn't work in the mountains.  The road itself needs three to six inches of crushed rock to make it gradable.  The rock that's on it is large so when they try to smooth the road they pull in dirt from the edges and fill in the holes.  Then we have both potholes and mud.  When it rains and the snow/ice melts in spring the mud washes down to the low spots then you drive through mud that may be 12 to 18 inches deep.  In the summer we end up with huge clouds of dust.  Plus the idiots drive faster and beat the potholes out larger than they were before.

It amazes me that people say they like the laid-back life out here then live it at the same intensity they had when in the city and drive like morons on the road.  Why didn't they just stay in the city.  I have a complete chapter in my book about this kind of garbage!

Rant off!

Our daughter driving behind us.  We came in at 5 mph and still had clouds of dust.

We had to run the river once more before the season ended (meaning the water level dropped) so we left Scott with his parents and Susan and I took the kayaks out again.  It had dropped about a foot but was still a lot of fun.

Some of the locals.  When we rounded the corner there were five deer (two were fawns) in the meadow but three ran off before we could get pictures.

When you have chickens you get some odd eggs now and then.  This one is large (jumbo size at the store) but the shell is wrinkled a bit.  It's still good eating though!

This one is small.  All of our chickens are full size (no bantams) and have never laid an egg this small.  Our little chicks are too young yet so I don't know if one of the older hens or one of the younger hens had this biological malfunction.

We spent some time in Kalispell visiting kids/grandkids.  Scott and his cousin Anna always get along great. They are about the same size even though Anna is older.     

We have the money so we bought some things to spruce up the U-Haul camper and complete a little more of it.

Susan has been in a painting mood and painted the front bumper with a coat of black paint.  It looks much better now.

She painted the roof white to keep it a little cooler inside.  It made quite a difference.

We bought some more lumber to complete some more of the inside.  I use a lot of 2x2's in the camper but they cost more than 2x4's so we buy 2x4's and rip them down to 2x2's.  It saves us a pile of money.  My table saw is better for ripping wood but it's down in the shack so I used the radial arm saw.

I'm marking one of the shelves to cut relief holes for the shelf framing.  I always unplug any tool I've been using in case Scott wants to try them out as he's doing here with the sabre saw.

Scott has been an active participant in the latest round of improvements.  Here he's making sure I have the screws driven in all the way in the shelves.

Here he's reminding me that I still have some paneling to install at the end.

Now he's checking my notes to see if I've forgotten anything.

Mission complete ... for now anyway.  We have more to do but we're doing this as we have money and time.  Susan put some shelves up this morning while I'm working on the blog.  She painted them yesterday.  The buckets you see contain a six (plus) month supply of food.  Should we ever need to leave in a hurry (probably due to a forest fire) the camper is completely stocked with food, clothing and other necessities, and ready to go.  Hopefully that won't ever happen.

16-25 July, 2012 - Fishing, Kayaking, Biking and Eagle Watching

Ugh!  Back to mosquito country!  We took some more time off and spent it along the shore of Lake Koocanusa (or maybe along the Tobacco River depending on where they draw the boundary line).
 

I actually remembered to bring some wood with us this time.  Although it was warm and we never needed the stove it was nice to have some on hand for the camp fire.

We found a developed camping site with a great view of the lake/stream and mountains so we unloaded everything and set up camp.

This was the view to the east.  The channel is filled with water because the lake is at full pool.  Normally there's a river channel out there.

It was hot in the camper so Susan turned on the fan as she placed things on the shelves as she wanted them.  A lot of stuff is taken down and stored in boxes while we're in motion.

These are wild (Oregon) grapes.  They're everywhere around here and make good grape juice, grape jam and, I'm told, wine.  They're about the size of large peas.

One of our river friends perched in the tree.  I didn't know these long-legged critters perched in trees.  I'd only previously seen them in shallow water.

Diapers and plastic pants!  Susan washed them all by hand (with some help from Scott).

She decided to wash his pants too so he obligingly took them off.  (He's much better at taking his clothes off than putting them on.)

Now he decided to help wash his favorite cams.  Actually he'll take any excuse to play in the water.

We left Scott with his aunt for the afternoon and Susan and I took the kayaks down the Tobacco River.  The water was up a little and much faster than normal.   We loved it because we didn't hit bottom anywhere.

You have to watch ahead.  White water like that in front of the kayak usually mean buried obstacles.  Going directly over them will get you upside down. 

I had to stop a couple of times to dump the water out of my kayak.  I forgot the spray skirt and some places were rough enough to splash water over the front and into the kayak.

One of the placid stretches with some nice rock cliffs to look at.

Those cliffs are nothing but clay. The water has cut some interesting features into it.

We took some narrow channels out to the main part of the lake.  We came back on the main channel where the skiers and power boats played.

Susan making pizza from scratch.  We eat well when camping (and at home).

We had omelets with eggs, cheese and bacon.  The bacon was home canned and tasted great.

Getting Scott down for a nap was a real challenge.  The best way was to take him on a stroller ride.  Of course we usually had to walk about 45 minutes before he went to sleep.  Here he crashed with one of his favorite night time teddy bears.  We covered the stroller with a blanket to keep the sun off of him and he'd sleep a couple of hours usually.

He found a comfortable place to "read" where he'd get a good breeze coming through the window.

Some one spun their tires here and mounded up the sand.  I saw it on a morning walk and brought Scott up there with his shovel.  It kept him occupied for about an hour.

I took him on a 45 minute walk and couldn't get him to sleep then as soon as we got back Susan got him to sleep in about five minutes.

The fishing was good ... not!  We saw only one fish caught the entire week and it was only abut three inches long.  (And I didn't catch it!)

The eagle did okay though.  We watched this one catch two.  The first one went well but the second was larger and almost drowned the eagle before he let it go.

Same eagle as above. There was another immature one flying around the area also.

You got to be careful around these parts!

Odie rolled in some very smelly stuff so we went down to the lake to give her a bath.  I had Scott watch and I let him wade out into the lake about two feet.  It was water so he had a blast.  The water temperature was about 55 degrees so we didn't stay too long.

Odie, on the other hand, didn't care for her shampoo and rinse at all.  She sure smelled better though when Susan was finished.

Scott and Susan got back from a bike ride about the time I finished washing dishes.  Scott wanted to play in the rinse water so I left that tub on the table.  He rinsed out the jars I'd already rinsed out.

Then he decided to go wading!

We had some thunder storms move through the area.  We were pretty sheltered at our campsite but a lot of trees got blown down and a few power lines bit the dirt.  The only damage at home was this large poplar tree.  We were very happy.  I've been trying to work up the courage to take it down all summer because it was leaning towards a storage shed.  The wind sheared it off about 15 feet above the ground and dropped the trunk exactly where is would do the least damage.  That was a relief!

Now we just had to do some cleaning up with the chain saw to clear the driveway.

We had several friends come visit while we were out there and one neighbor came out with their tent and spent the night.  It was a good time and a great place to camp.

Now that we're home we have lots of work to do.  The galley for my book is ready so we need to go through that.  The finished book is scheduled to be in print around the first of September.  They've done a nice job on it.  The cover is a collage of photos taken during our time here. 

Susan has another book almost ready and I've got a couple of queries out for books and articles. 

The grass needs mowed again.  We have another mower now.  It's a small gasoline powered mower we were given.  It didn't work.  They'd left it outside for a long time and the safety cable was rusted through so I bypassed that.  The gas tank had water and very old gasoline in it so I cleaned it out then took the bowl off the carburetor and dumped the water out of it then fired it up.  If started on about the tenth pull and ran well for a while.  It's going to need some more carburetor work to smooth it out but runs okay for now.  I tried a round of cutting with it and while it did okay I thought the blade probably needed sharpening.  It turned the mower over and it had a brand new blade on it but someone had installed it upside down.  I turned it over and it cuts great now.  It'll get a good workout the next day or two.

Now, where should we go next week?

Watch the garden grow ...

It's been an interesting week.  We had several days of scorching heat (up in the 90's - okay, that's hot for us!) followed by three days of cold rain.  The main water storage tank is full as are those in the garden so I fired up the generator today and pumped 200 gallons out of the main tank and into barrels. 

Our son is back from fighting wild fires in eastern Montana.  He said he didn't like the snakes there.  Especially those with the rattles on their tails.  It was his first time working as a wlidland fire fighter and he said he learned more in a week in the field than he had in all the classes took to qualify for the position. 

I took  some pictures of wild flowers on the property.  I'm no expert on what kind they are.  I just like looking at them.

This one was growing in the garden so I suspect that it's a weed of some type.

Susan spread some old sheets over the U-Haul to keep the heat down inside during the day.  These are some of the sheets we use for row covers in the garden in the spring and fall when the danger of frost is high.

With the rain giving us a break we had some major weeding to catch up on in the garden.  Here Susan is weeding some of the onion plants.  The weeds are thrown into the compost pile.

Just a comparison photo.  The left side is the one she just finished.  The right side hasn't been weeded yet.

Scott got up from his nap so Susan brought him out to the garden to see if he'd entertain himself while we worked.  He played on the tiller for about fifteen minutes then began wandering.  Susan left to take care of him while I continued working in the garden.  Having small children around sure cuts into your productivity.

Our corn adored the hot weather and doubled in size in just a couple of days.

The potatoes like the heat too.

This photo was taken on the 10th right after I tilled between the rows.

This one was taken on the 15th after a day of rain.  See how much the plants grew in 5 days?

The potatoes are starting to put out blossoms.

The little chickens are growing fast.  I let them into the fenced run this week now that they're big enough that they can't escape through the wire.

We heard a noise and saw some grass move under the chicken house so I stuck my camera down and snapped this photo.  (The camera was upside down!) 

I weeded the peas and mulched the rows.

They're putting on some blossoms too.

The raspberries are doing well.

The woman who runs the food bank called us and said she had some things for us to take so we stopped by while we were in town.  This is all food that the dates have expired on and they can't give it away.  The pasta will be rancid and the paper packaged food will be inedible so we'll give it to the chickens. Any suspicious cans of food or any that have been expired too long will also be used as chicken food.  We'll use the rest for our own consumption or give it to those who need it and don't mind eating food with expired dates.