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.
No comments:
Post a Comment