The week in review ... August 29, 2010 Our Hike to the Stahl Peak Lookout

Stahl Peak lookout in the distance...

A little telephoto applied and you can see the lookout ...

Now you can see it well!  All three photos were taken from the same place.

Just some of the views on the trail ...

Almost there ...

Susan's sister and I in the lookout.  The wind was cold!

You can see the big switchback in the lower center of the picture?  The Cherokee is in the trees where the road disappears below the switchback.  The trail follows an old logging road for a ways to the south then turns around to follow the contour of the mountain making a big "C" shape as it comes back up to the lookout.

Inside the lookout.  This one is open to the public to camp in on a first come - first served basis.  No reservations needed.  One thing we found out ... bring your own TP for the outhouse!

Snack time!  Man were we hungry!  According to my GPS, the elevation the car was parked at was 5669 feet.  The elevation at the lookout (ground level) was 7373 feet.  By the GPS measurements we hiked 5.43 miles each way.  As the crow flies it was a little over a half-mile from the lookout to the car.

See the little white spot below the  closer mountain peak?  That's the Mt. Wam lookout.  It's actually on top of another peak before the one that's obvious.  It can be rented in advance.  We've camped in it before as well.  It's absolutely beautiful at night.  Very quiet and on a clear night the stars blanket the sky.  There are no artificial lights to dim the view of the night sky.

This is a cable from the lightening rods.  It runs around the interior floor of the lookout to keep you from getting electrocuted in a lightening storm.   I've never been in one during a lightening storm but the people who have all said it is a very memorable experience.  Few ever seemed to want to do it again. 

More views from the trail...

A little lake at the bottom of the cliffs...

The cliffs above the lake ...

A boo-boo on my part for posting the same picture twice!

Fresh bear scat on the trail ...  It doesn't have any little hiking bells or smell like pepper spray so it must be from a black bear.

Susan and Margorie picking wild strawberries...

Red fingers from picking wild strawberries!

There will be more pictures from the week as I get more time to post them.

21 August, 2010 - Saturday - JB Weld and flat tires.

The JB Weld applied to the cracked float bowl.

I wheeled the compressor and generator out to the trailer to change and repair the tire.

There's a lot of rust in the rim where the tire's bead rests.

This is my favorite truck.  It's had a rod knocking for a couple of years so I've had it parked waiting to find another motor for it.  It's titled/manufactured as a 1/2 ton pickup but it's built stronger and will carry more wieght than my one-ton Dodge.  I had a load of sand on it once that weighed 3,995 pounds on a truck scale.  They don't make trucks like this anymore.

The U-haul being driven into positiion for it's next phase in life.

The cat is in training here to repel invaders.  Rule number one:  once you get a grip never, I mean NEVER, let go! They may come in walking on two feet but they'll leave with only one!

A doe leads her twins across the road at the edge of Fortine.

21 August 2010, Saturday

It began raining early this morning so I headed out to load the alfalfa into the wheel barrow and put it in the wood shed. Susan brought in the sheets and blankets she had hanging on the line and hung them under the porch roof. It was 39 degrees when we got up.

We were both a bit under the weather. Susan was having a tooth problem and didn’t sleep well so she took some Ibuprophen and went back to bed to catch up on her sleep. When she got up later she moved some windows out of the U-haul so we could move it to a new spot, and put away some more dried herbs and did some cleaning.

I cleaned the ashes out of the wood stove and washed dishes. I also mixed up some JB Weld and put it on the side of the carburetor where the crack was. I mixed too much and it was slowly running down the side of the carburetor and going to places I didn’t want it so I had to check it every few minutes for about an hour until it stiffened up enough to stay where I wanted it to. I let the goat out to browse when I started work on the carburetor. After washing dishes (first batch) I rolled the generator and compressor out to the trash trailer to fix the tire that was flat. I had to use a breaker bar and four foot pipe as a “cheater” to get the lug nuts lose. My impact wrench couldn’t loosen them with only 120 lbs of air pressure. When I put it back on I used the lug wrench. I was grateful I never had a flat while I was out in the woods! The tire went flat because the bead was leaking so I dismounted the tire and used the drill and a wire brush to clean the rust off the rim. The rims has a lot of pits where the bead seats so I used gasket cement when I put the tire back on. That will hopefully seal the bead. If it leaks again I’ll have to get a better rim for it. After using the gasket sealer I’ll never get the tire back off using my equipment. The tire is more-or-less glued to the rim now.

After I got the tire fixed I washed the last batch of dishes. Susan had put the first batch away so there was room in the dish drainer. After washing the dishes I ran some drain cleaner through the drain pipes. They haven’t been draining well the last couple of weeks. The drain cleaner didn’t help so I guess I’ll have to take the trap off sometime and clean it out. One of the problems we have is that we don’t use a lot of water and the drain doesn’t get flushed out like it would if we had unlimited water to waste. We’ll have to get in the habit of flushing the drain regularly with boiling hot water. We do that in the winter when we have the tea-kettle on the wood stove all the time but when you have to use the propane stove to heat the water we don’t do it in the summertime.

After that Tristan and I moved the Gut Shaker (my old International pick-up) from it’s spot and switched places with the U-haul. Tristan put a battery in the Gut Shaker (If you ever rode in it on a rough road you’d know where it got it’s name from) and dumped a couple of gallons of gas in it. I took a gas can and primed the carburetor in the U-haul to get it started. It had sat almost a year since we used it last and the carburetor was dry. I usually dump a little gas down the carb. to prime them. They fire up quick that way and get the gasoline pumping in to fill the carburetor. It’s a lot easier on starters than cranking on them long enough to pump gas to the carb. It fired up on the first try and I moved it into a different parking spot.

Tristan had the GS ready to go so I primed it’s carb. And started it up. It had one wheel sitting in a hole so we needed to use Tristan’s pickup to help pull it up and out of the hole. The GS has a rod knocking so I couldn’t push the motor too hard otherwise it would have gotten itself out without help. The hydraulic clutch on the GS had lost some fluid so I had to refill and bleed the air out of it. I started the GS and Tristan helped get it out then we unhooked the chain and I drove it over to it’s new home. Then I drove the U-haul into the GS’s old place. (After filling in the low spot.) We’re in the process of converting the U-haul into a camper/motor home and I need it close to the house to do the work. We have the windows now so I need to get them installed and finish the interior. We plan on using it this coming spring for our trip down to Nevada. We went last year using a tent and stayed for a month. We hope to stay three months next spring. (We’ll come back when the snow’s gone!)

When I finished that I spent some time on the computer then Susan and I drove into Fortine to get drinking water, the mail, dump trash and buy something for supper. I’d been having allergy problems and had taken some med. earlier. That meant that as soon as I sit down or quit moving I go to sleep. Neither of us felt like fixing supper so we bought some hot-pockets and had them to eat.

We saw two sets of twin fawns on the way in and back. We got pictures of one set just outside of Fortine. The other pair was about ½ mile from the house. I was tracking a set of fawns Friday on the way to feed the buffalo. I was bare-foot and had my head down looking at the tracks and got within about ten feet of them before we saw each other. They almost fell over each other getting out of there! It was great!

20 - August, 2010 Wood splitting...

We always start the day with a hot cocoa/french vanila mix.  After that it's breakfast and off to work ... sort of.  I got a B-Square scope mount for my MAK-90 a few days ago but it had low mounts with it which meant I installed a short, cheap, scope on it to shoot it until I could get better mounts.  I got a high mount the last time we were in Eureka so I installed the new mounts and a better scope on the rifle.  After getting it zeroed in at 100 yards this was my final 3 shot group.  The wind was gusting pretty strong from the right which I'd like to think was the cause of the high left hit on the target (or it could have been some poor shooting on my part!).  I think a trigger job is next.  

P. S. Don't listen to my wife if she tries to tell you that the target was only 25 yards away.

We had some wood left over from last fall that still needed to be split.  When I cut the tree down it had no needles on it but when it fell water started leaking out of the base.  We got the chunks loaded up and brought home then covered them with a tarp to split them after they dried out.  When the wood is wet like that the splitting maul just kind of sticks instead of splitting the wood as it should.  Plus the grain was twisted which added to the difficulty. It has been seasoning for a year now so it was time to get them split.  This photo was taken at 11:12 AM.

This photo was taken at 12:52.  Note thte photographer's feet sticking up on the edge of the hammock while she took the picture? 

Finished at 2:47.  This is the west side of the pile.

This is the east side.

I stopped splitting wood a couple of times for breaks, once for lunch and once to turn the alfalfa so that it would dry faster.  It was sunny and windy today but the alfalfa will still need a couple of more days to dry enough for storage.  We planted this plot several years ago just to see how well it would do.  Hopefully we can eventually get enough ground cleared to plant an acre or so.

She thought I was sleeping!

Susan putting the green onions (now dried) in the bottle for storage.  The cat was supervising.

Susan stripping the leaves and flowers off of St. John's Wort to store it in the bottle.

Three squash we've harvested the last couple of days.

This is what it looks like at night here.  We use reading lamps instead of overhead lighting most of the time.  The lamps are 3 watt LED's.  In the winter the two lights and the two netbook computers and the DSL router would be our only power draw after dark.  During the spring/summer/fall we also have the refrigerator plugged in and running off the battery bank at night.

We got the Sept/Oct issue of Backwoods Home magazine today.  I have an article in it beginning on page 36.  I have two articles in the current issue of Modern Survival magazine and articles sold to Fur-Fish-Game and Primitive Archer magazines that will be published in future issues.  Susan had one in the last issue of Modern Survival Magazine and has one coming up in Countryside & Small Stock Journal.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

I began draining the last five barrels as soon as I got up this morning (about 6:30 am).  We began the day with huckleberry pancakes and a trip into town to fill up two of our 100 lb. propane bottles and four gas cans.  On the way through we stopped at the post office and I had a contract for an article sale to sign and send back in.  While we were in Eureka I bought my deer and elk tags, bird license and a trapping license.  That set us back $65.00.  I also picked up a set of high Weaver rings.  (I know you aren't supposed to carry propane bottles that way but we had no choice today.  The Dodge is deadlined for carburetor repair and we haven't put any insurance on it yet.)

When we got back we had lunch then I started the generator so Susan could begin watering the garden.  I siphoned the last barrel into the tank as she was watering the garden.  While we had the generator running Susan ran both electric dehydrators and I put a battery on the fast charger.  I let the goat out to browse then started to work on the Dodge.

I mentioned in a previous post that the carburetor was leaking on the Dodge.  I was going to get the numbers off the carburetor to order a kit for it but wanted to check the gas leak out first.  I found out that the previous owner had put some sealer over a crack in the float bowl and the sealer had come lose.  I drained the carburetor by pinching off the fuel intake line to the fuel pump and running the motor until it died.  Then I brought the air compressor over and blew the gunk off the side.  That's when I found the lose sealer and the cracked float bowl.  I looked for an hour trying to find my JB Weld but never did.  It will have to wait until the next time we go into town.  The yellow marks are to show how far out I want to go with the JB Weld when I fix the cracked bowl.

I re-shot some of the carburetor photos just before posting this.  The cat decided to come supervise.  It started by checking out the cartburetor then decided to explore inside the front fender.  When I took the second photo I was finished with the picture taking and the mosquitoes were trying to drain my blood supply.  I called the cat and we retreated to the cabin.

Susan had finished watering the garden and was filling the last in-garden water tank when the hose started blowing air.  I jogged over to the pump and shut it off.  The tank was definitely dry!  At least it will kill off any mosquito larvea that were in the water.

There were four chickens trying to all drink at the same time from the water bowl but two walked away before I could get the camera out.  It was comical to watch as one at a time they'd take some water then lift their heads up to swallow.  It was almost like a dance they were doing.

While Susan was watering the garden I cut the patch of alfalfa and laid it out to dry into hay.  I get a big hand full of it near the ground then use a hand scythe to cut it.   

You can see some of it laid out to dry behind me.  I have another row I'm putting this batch in.  We only cut it once this summer.  We should have cut it twice.

After the garden work was finished we sat in the living room to do some things.  Susan is pulling the dried mint leaves from the stalk and crushing them to store in a jar.

I was shelling peas.

The cat was supervising.

There are few small forest fires going in the area.  Our son was called out to one north of us a few miles.  They got it under controll quickly using Forest Service helicopters (2) and one plane plus the ground crew.  The Forest Service has done a fine job getting the fires out quickly the last couple of years.  We hope that they keep it up!

We had ham and (multiple) bean soup for supper.  Susan made it in the solar cooker.  She made huckleberry muffins for an evening snack.  (She makes the world's best huckleberry muffins!)

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Did I mention that it got hot today?  This is the temperature in the shade.  My black dog just kind of walks from one shady spot to the next on days like today.

The goat trying on his pack.  Notice that I'm gripping the lead rope with my toes to keep him there.

He didn't seem to be real concerned with it until it started to slip up over his shoulders.  I'm going to have to lengthen the breast strap and butt strap to get it positioned right.  That'll be a good project for tomorrow.

I couldn't tell if the cat was asleep or had passed out from the smell.

Now that's a nice strawberry!

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Had the normal stuff … feed the chickens and gather the eggs, feed the dog and cat, let the goat out to browse awhile. I spent the morning putting stuff up for sale on Ebay. We’ve been reorganizing and getting rid of the extra stuff we have cluttering up the place. I put an old camcorder up for sale along with a “car wash kit” that was given to us as part of some promotional thing, an antique doll high chair, and three take-down bows. Someone has already met the minimum price of $100.00 on one of the bows within an hour after posting it. (The bows are pictured on yesterday’s blog.) Hopefully we’ll get rid of it all. I took the goat and dog over to feed the buffalo this afternoon. I put an old dog pack on the goat to get it used to carrying a pack but had to take it back off. I’m going to have to lengthen the breast strap and the butt strap. Evidently the goat is longer than a dog would be. I also put a second coat of seam sealer on parts of the tent that are prone to leaking. After dinner this evening I took the truck over to a neighbor’s and filled the barrels with water. We’ll need to water the garden tomorrow. I have the first barrel draining tonight. I’ll get the others draining first thing in the morning.

Susan has been busy with washing and dehydrating huckleberries, cleaning, cleaning and cleaning, she labeled jars and put away dried potatoes, peas and huckleberries, then fattened up the mosquitoes while working in the garden picking peas and harvesting squash and strawberries. Our raspberries haven’t done too well this year. We had to thin a bunch of the bushes last year due to cane borers. Most of the mature vines were cut out and the new growth won’t produce much their first year.

Now we are inside and the mosquitoes are outside … which is the way things should be! (Unless we can figure out how to get rid of the mosquitoes outside too!)