January 1-10, 2017 Winter fun...

Winter can be a lot of fun but this year there was a definite chill in the air.  We were almost into the third week of January when we finally edged up above freezing for the first time in about five weeks. We've had cold snaps before but this is the longest one I remember.  But, we still found fun things to do.

This photo was taken about 13 years ago while we still lived outside of Columbia Falls, MT.  In those days we'd go camping several times in the winter and we did a lot of snowshoeing and cross country skiing as well (all out in the woods and not on groomed trails!).  We didn't use a tent.  We just put a tarp on the snow then threw out our sleeping bags and covered them with a tarp and slid into the bags.  There were times we greeted the morning with six inches of new snow on top of us!  For Susan and Tristan the snow was as soft as a feather bed.  For me it was a different story.  I'd usually wake up early in the morning feeling like my bed was filled with boulders.  I put out a lot of heat when I sleep which would melt the snow under the tarp into my form.  Then it would freeze and I was sleeping on a bed of ice.  The cold wasn't the problem.  The problem was that there was no give to the lumps and as the night wore on my bed became even lumpier!  We still had many good nights of camping back then and did it with a minimal amount of equipment.  One of our favorite camp outs was to have Susan and Tristan meet me at work below the Big Mountain ski area then we'd ski the back roads home after a night of wilderness camping.  It was about ten miles of skiing on untracked (gated) logging roads.

Scott liberated an ice cycle which them became a sword for slaying imaginary snow-drift dragons. 

Scott and Susan making donuts...

...with a slight twist!  They were purple!

But still some mighty good eating after cooking hem in the deep fryer.

The ice cycles finally stretched clear down to the ground on the west side.

Slumber party!

This was not an uncommon sight through most of December and on into January!

Susan made waffles using her cast iron waffle iron.

They came out pretty darn good!

Susan got a deep fryer you use on the stove top for Christmas and she's been giving it a workout!

This time it's home made barbecue burritos.

That's the deep fryer that needs no electricity.

And those are some good eating.

Scott working on school work.  He groans about doing it but really enjoys it once he gets going.

We decided to head for town for some fun at the bowling alley.

Notice that Scott's feet are up in the air as he bounced up and down like he was on an invisible pogo stick.

Susan's turn.

And my turn.

Scott always watched excitedly as the ball rolled toward it's objective.

This was the sky outside the bowling alley when we left.

From there we met Tristan at Jerry's in Fortine for dinner.

Where the road drops off in front of us is the northeast corner of our property.  There's about four inches of new snow since it was plowed last.

The view in my mirror as we travel south on Highway 93 on our way to Kalispell.

This is one of about a twenty piles of snow in the Walmart parking lot.

Scott seems happy with his donuts.  We ate some the day they were made and we kept the others outside (they were frozen) and had a few at a time until we ate them all.

One of our evening snow storms.

Scott trying out his sled on one of our snow piles (from shoveling snow off the driveway).

And, he made the turn at the bottom.  I had stomped out a trail for him with my snowshoes.

We took a little trek on his new snowshoes.  Mine are new too.  My Sherpas broke and my wooden frame traditional shoes had a bad place on the frame so I bought a pair of modern snow shoes for me too.

Scott breaking his own trail.  If you've never been on snowshoes on deep soft snow you still sink in quite a ways if you're the one breaking trail.  Each person behind you has it easier than the one in front of them.  If you don't rotate and take turns breaking trail you can really get worn out fast.  In this case Scott is just getting a feel for his new showshoes.

Susan cleaning snow off the roof of the U-Haul camper.  It's been a never-ending job this year as we clear the snow from five outbuildings (not counting the cabin!) and keep the driveway clear.

Scott "working."

Scott "meditating."  we have no idea where he got the idea for this!

Our garden is covered in a thick blanket of snow.

December 16-31, 2016 Winter life on the homestead.

Can you say, "snow, snow and more snow?" I'm not really complaining about it though.  The temperature has been cold enough that the snow is still useful for snowshoeing and sledding.  What we hate is when we get a bunch of snow then a few days later it warms up and turns to slush and/or ice.  Then it's a real mess to deal with.  The snow this year has been almost perfect.

That's my breakfast smiling up at me.

I bought wood from a neighbor who had a log truck load brought in.  It was much better than slogging through the snow to get it.  There's about a half-cord there. I've already unloaded part of it.

My two main chainsaws.  The Stihl is larger (24 in. bar vs. 20 in. bar on the Poulan) but due to the angle of the camera it looks smaller.  It's also about 16 years old now and isn't always reliable.  This will probably be it's last year.  I'm thinking seriously of getting a new one next spring.

Scott decided to give us a hand on shoveling snow.

But then he heard the trampoline calling ...

And decided to give it a whirl!

Our annual pilgrimage for a Christmas tree.  I thought the sled was pulling kind of hard.  I didn't think about Scott applying the brakes back there!

Snow has only one purpose when you're Scott's age ... It's for playing in!

Especially if you can do it while grandpa is cutting the tree.

Our icicles are in the formative stages in this photo.

Susan made us a pot pie for dinner.

We like the reflection in the window on this photo.

A deer came to look in the window while trying out our shoveled path to the outhouse.

More pie (strawberry!).

We have a bit of a cornice to knock down.  I used the snow rake to pull it off before it got any larger.

Scott playing on his tablet.

I went through my arrows to see which needed repairs.  The fletching is bad on these.

I have three sets of fletching jigs.  The lower fletching is helical, the upper is offset. Both will make the arrow rotate in flight for added stability.

I'm using a roof (snow) rake to pull the snow off the outbuilding roofs.  I bought this one at a yard sale in southern Nevada.  I paid about 1/4 the price for a new one.  I buy tire chains in yard sales down south too.  The snowbirds move south for retirement and after a couple of years decide they no longer need tire chains, snow rakes, etc. and you can pick them up cheap at yard sales.  I've bought several sets that were brand new.  They make good gifts and barter material in Montana!

Time to shovel the snow off of the shack roof.  It's about 20 to 24 inches deep.

When the snow lets up you can see the nearby mountain range from the roof.

The paved road going to our place.  We have three miles of mostly uphill road left to get home once we turn off this one.

One of the icicles hanging from the rain gutter.

It's time to make Christmas cookies.  Emily and Stephen are rolling out the dough and cutting out cookies.

Meanwhile, I'm clowning around.

Decorating time.  We use pans of colored frosting and toothpicks to decorate.  Theirs tend to be somewhat artistic.  The cookies I do have only one requirement ... the frosting must be equal to or greater than the thickness of the cookie.

Meanwhile, Scott and his little brother, Ben, are guarding the presents under the Christmas tree.

One of the cookies Emily is working on.

Finished cookies ...

and more finished cookies.  Since we are on a diet we send most of these with Stephen to share at work. (We filled about four trays.)

More snow!

Scott placed himself in charge of putting bows on the packages.  It was fun to listen to him as he evaluated each bow and it's appropriateness to the person the package was going to.

Potato soup and cornbread ... one of my favorites.

We kept some of the cookie dough to make more cookies later.  Here Scott is rolling it flat.  In the cookie sheet next to him you can see that we've already cut some out.

The view south of our cabin.

Christmas day at our cabin.

We had Christmas dinner at our youngest son's house.  He lives next to a golf course.  The Stonehenge monument is an exact (size and orientation) replica of the original in England.  They also have a museum filled with mostly WW 2 aircraft.  Some are very rare! 

The food line begins here!

Uncle Tristan entertaining his nephews.

One of our gifts was a game of Twister.  Scott in particular, loves it!

Our icicles get longer every day!

Pizza is one of our favorite foods!

My  breakfast cooking on the wood stove.

And another load of firewood.  My old Dodge, one-ton, holds about 1 1/3 cords when fully loaded.

I cut this batch in 8 foot lengths to load the truck faster then I'm cutting it up at home.

The van is going to need more work than I'm willing to do right now so I began the process of getting the U-Haul camper going so that we can take it south soon.  It hasn't been running since August (?) of 2015.  The battery had been taken out for use in another vehicle so I put the battery out of the van in the U-Haul.  I primed it with starting fluid and it fired right up.  Then soon died!  I restarted it several times with the same effect.  I had Susan come out and start it while I ran gasoline into a jar to check the flow rate.  The flow was good but when I hooked everything back up the truck wouldn't start at all.  I finally figured out that the distributor cap had drawn moisture so I dried it out with a shot of WD-40.  It then fired right up but died every time I tried to rev the motor.  Turns out that the accelerator pump actuator rod is seized up in the housing.  I've also been suspicious that the power valve in the carburetor is leaking internally so I just ordered a carburetor rebuild kit and a new float.  The parts are in so I just have to go get them.  I've been stalling a couple of days due to the cold.  I don't really like travelling when the temperature is below zero.

I put the battery charger on it to recharge the battery.  Batteries can freeze when they are drawn too low in cold temperatures.  Since we've had several days of lows in the minus 20 range I thought it prudent to top it off with a good fast charge.  The generator needed a little shot of starting fluid to persuade it to run!  

I got the tag number off the carburetor but it was still kind of a pain to get the parts.  Seems like when a vehicle is as old as this one the parts get harder to come by (it's a 1977 with a commercial 330 ci. engine).  I've rebuilt literally hundreds of these carburetors over the years and could do this one with my eyes closed! I'm kind of looking forward to working on this one.

The last sunset of 2016!

Hope you all have a great 2017!