16-18 Sept, 2010 Thursday

Lots of rain the last few days made it difficult to get things done outside.  I did get time to write and I have another article nearly finished.  I need to do the final editing and write photo captions then get it all printed up and mailed.  Thursday we had some sunshine part of the day.  After writing for awhile then having breakfast I took some more pictures for the article then went to splitting and stacking firewood.  I worked on the load that was still in the truck.  Some was green so I stacked it to the side.  The rest was split and stacked in the wood shed.  About half was from a tree with a lot of limbs and was a pain to get split.  It took me several hours to get the job done.  Susan laid linoleum in the bathroom, tightened up the rain gutters where they were sagging and washed window blinds.  We also tied the goat out to browse.  I had to move him to a new area because he ate everything in the old one.  We've been getting five or six eggs a day from the chickens.

Friday we shot into town to get the mail, dump trash and fill water jugs.  Some books we ordered finally came in.   It seems that everything we order from Amazon books takes forever to get here.  I printed up some pictures and we mailed them to my mother and former mother-in-law.  Susan and I diced more onions to dry them.  We had a lazy afternoon and watched the first of a series called "Fringe."  It isn't really our type of show but isn't too bad.  We ran the generator while watching the movie and charged up the battery bank at the same time.  The solar doesn't put much out on these coudy rainy days.  Tristan brough home a pizza from Euerka.  It was good.

Saturday we were expecting company but they cancelled out.  I washed dishes then me and the dog went to the shack.  I fired up the stove there and did some cleaning up and re-organizing.  I checked traps, stretchers, etc. to see what I need to do to get them ready for the winter season.  Susan has the pathroom furnishings in now.  I need to hook up the vent and drain for the composting toilet.  It's an "envirolet" that we bought a few years ago and just now have a place to put it.  I still need to build the frame for the wash tubs and wringer and get them hooked up.  Tristan went to Kalispell earlier in the day but came back in the afternoon and played Halo online.  He had his generator running so Susan ran a load of onions through the dehydrator.  When he brought the mail in I had another check for an article I'd sold.  We watched a couple of episodes of Fringe in the evening.

This is our toaster.  We've tried different kinds (store bought and home made) over the years and this works better than anythng else on the wood stove. 

You just take a sheet of aluminum foil, fold it in half and put the bread inside it.  Check it and turn the bread over when you're ready to toast the other side.  If you don't have the foil folded over the top the bread dries out and curls on the edges.  It makes the best toast I've ever had/\.

The last of our spaghetti squash from last year's harvest.

These are fresh from the garden.  Tomatoes are always an "iffy" crop unless you have a heated greenhouse.  The summers are short and the nights cold.  This summer has been one of the worst for our warm season garden crops.

This is a tomato plant we started from a clippping after reading John's post.

Summer squash from our garden.  Susan is cutting some of it up to dry as I write this.

The composting toilet ready for me to hook up the vent and drain tube.

Susan tightening up the end of the rain gutter.  The snow is hard on them in the winter.  When it slides off the roof it rips the gutters off.  We plan on taking them off this year before it snows.

Cleaning blinds in the water tank.

 She made me smile for the picture. I'm not normally this "smiley" when washing dishes. 

I took hot water out of the kettle for washing dishes and I'm now refilling it so we'll have hot water when we need it for the next task.

Time to feed the stove.

Apple pie Susan made from apples from our garden.

The mountain is framed in the clouds.  This is a few miles from home on the way into Fortine on Friday.

Dog outside, cat inside, each wants to trade places with the other.

15 September, 2010 - Wednesday "Fixing" the cat and the car ...

Susan and our neighbor took our cats in to get them fixed this morning. Susan marked our cat's ear with ink to be sure we each got the right one back. They are both male litter mates and are nearly identical. We thought for awhile that our cat was a female but it finally started growing some ... well, you know whats. The thing was they were small (don't tell the cat, we didn't want to hurt his ego) and even the vet remarked that it was a little more than "somewhat" under developed in that area ... so the cat is now an "it."

While they were gone a neighbor came over and we looked over the steering linkage on his pickup. He had it narrowed down to the steering gear box and was right but he had a drag link going bad too so that added another unexpected $30.00 to the repair bill. While the ladies were in town they picked up a starter for the Cherokee. It's been causing problems lately and it seems you can't buy just the bushings to fix them anymore so we bought a rebuilt one at the parts store. Right after he left Susan got back with the starter for the Cherokee so I put that on. Susan got up on the roof and put silicone sealer around the screws holding the metal roofing down until she ran out of silicone caulk. I'd moved the goat to a new area to browse and it didn't like it so I moved him to a different new area and told him to shut up and eat. I checked back later when he was sounding distressed and he was standing on three legs under the slide rope. He'd somehow got the chain tangled in the upper rope and under his front leg and couldn't figure out how to extricate himself. I freed him up and he continued gorging himself until we left to bail out the cat.

I went in for the second trip to get some parts and finish up some things in town. I went to the saw shop and had them make up a couple of chains for the Homelite saw then took the chain I bought previously (that was the wrong one) back to the hardware store. We took the old starter back to the parts
store to get our $49.50 core charge refunded then went to the farmer's market. We didn't buy anything there because we already had everything they were selling. From there we went to the gas station to fill the two one gallon cans I use for the chain saws and from there headed home. Once home I mixed oil in the two cans of gasoline. One is 40:1 and the other is 50:1 to cover the different saws and string trimmers we have.

The motor has been making a strange noise lately and it wouldn't do it when I had time to look for the problem until last night. It sounded like someone pounding with a hammer in the distance but it wasn't rythmic or related to engine or vehicle speed. It turned out to be the clutch on the AC compressor is occassionally grabbing and releasing. That's pretty remarkable since it does it with the electrical connection unplugged. Something else to fix!!!

Susan made sloppy joes for supper and we watched a netflix movie before going to bed. The cat was a little more subdued than normal for some reason!

I'm hooking up the battery tester to check the battery again on the Cherokee.  I rana battery test and starter load test to be sure the starter was bad before I replaced it.  The battery passed,  The starter failed.  It was drawing 300 amps when the maximum should be 175.

The dog is learning that it doesn't come in the house unless invited.

Susan was sealing the roofing screws with silicone caulk.  The gaskets on the screws didn't last long.  They're already brittle and cracking after the first year.

Outside the veteranarian's office there were hundreds of birds descending on a tree with small red seeds.

The two cats, happy to be going home.  Ours is on the right side.

The farmer's market.

We had our friend take this picture.  It's unusual to have someone else along who can take pictures so we can both be in the same photo.

12-14 September, 2010

Our cast iron waffle maker at work on top of the wood stove.  It's below freezing almost every night now so we have the wood stove going most mornings.  When that's the case we usually cook our breakfast on it instead of the propane stove.

And yes, they were delicious!

Susan drained one of the puddles on the road Sunday.  It's unusual to have water in them this time of year but it's been a wet summer/fall.

My 800 cc Suzuki getting new seal on a front shock and a new front tire. 

The dog thought I should be paying more attention to her.

The dog and the goat are learning how to play together.

At least goats are content to sniff noses.

One of the apples on our tree.

Susan had a squirrel come to chatter so she took it's picture.

Sunday, Tristana and I cut a small load of wood this morning then he headed into Kalispell to spend some time with his brother.  I mostly wanted to put the Stihl chainsaw through it's paces to see if the coil fixed it.  The Stihl worked great but we couldn't get the Craftsman to start.  I unloaded the wood then worked on the Crastsman chain saw ... again.  Later in the afternoon a neighbor came over with his new acquisition so he and I and his son spent some time on the rifle range making holes in things near and far.  It's the first time I've ever used a Trijicon scope.  They're fast on target and work great in low light but they are not a target scope for pinpoint accuracy.  We we're shooting at 100 yards and he wanted to sight it dead on at 200 yards so I got the chronograph out and we checked the muzzle velocity of his ammo.  We then went to some bullet drop tables and sighted it the appropriate height high at 100 yards to give him a dead on hold at 200 yards ... we hope!  I told him to use the gun club range to check for sure.  

Monday, I finished up working on the Craftsman chainsaw.  I didn't find anything wrong with it except it seemed to be severely flooded.  I tried to start it and it smoked severely and ran poorly for about a minute then smoothed out and ran great.  I ran one tank of gas through cutting up some trees I had down for firewood about 50 yards from the cabin.  It ran great.  I used the wheel barrow to haul the fresh cut wood to the woodshed and then began on my motorcycle.  It had a leaking front shock most of the summer last year.  I got the seals for it but never put them on so it was an oily mess.  I also have  front tire for it.  I've never replaced the shock absorber seals on a motorcycle before so I downloaded a service manual for the bike.  It's still going to be a learning experience.   I have a new front tire to install also.

Tuesday, cut more wood.  I took the dog and the Stihl chainsaw and the Craftsman chain saw.  The Stihl quit before I even got the first tree down.  The Crafstman worked great for awhile then I began having problems getting it started.  I had about a half load of wood cut and decided to eat lunch.  After eating I tried the Stihl and it fired right up and cut until I had nearly a full load of wood. I shut it off and loaded the wood into the truck but when I tried to start it to cut a few more pieces to top off the load it wouldn't stay running (A new problem!).  I decided enough was enough and the dog and I headed for home.  Susan had beans cooking outside in the solar cooker but the sky clouded up and they didn't get very hot.  It was one of those situations you get into sometimes.  I was about a mile (as the crow flies)  from the house and when the clouds rolled in I loved it because the temperature cooled off.  However, she needed bright sunshine to make the solar cooker work.  Susan has been busy with digging potatoes, harvesting  and drying squash and onions, picking and drying herbs, cutting back the rhubarb for winter, washing clothes and dishes, sealing the floor in the bathroom and trying to keep the garden growing to get a harvest from the late season crops when the temperature is below freezing almost every night now.

10 - 11 September, 2010 Anniversary, dog, and chainsaw part.

Our anniversary was on the tenth so we decided to do a stealth trip into Kalispell to go out to eat, do some shopping, and watch a movie. We didn't quite follow the plan.  When we got to Kalispell we stopped at the theater to see waht time the afternoon movie began.  After that we went to eat at a favorite Chinese restaurant.  Our next stop was at the county animal shelter to look into getting another dog.  We ended up with three favorites and finally narrowed it down to one.  (It was hard to not take all three.)  The deciding factor was that when you put your hand into the cage with this one it would lean against the wire so you could pet him better.  She had some other good traits too but this one was unique to her.  She was a stray picked up on the highway.  Estimated age is one-year-old.  I think she's a little younger than that and will still get bigger so we'll see who's right.  She was adopted out once by an older couple but returned the next day for being to "wild."  She's young but has had some experience riding in a car before and someone has worked with her a little bit.  We think someone got her as a puppy and dumped her when she got past the puppy stage.  Once we got her home and let her run a bit she's not quite as hyper.  She's extrememly affectionate and comes when called even when she's chasing the cat.  She seems to get along well with the chickens and goat although we'll be watching her close for awhile to be sure.  She's already taken up ownership.  When our son got home later in the evening she almost chased him back into his truck before we made some introductions.  We spent quite awhile at the animal shelter and never did get to the movie and didn't make as many stops in town either.  It wasn't just the dog.  The starter is going out on the Cherokee so we stopped at the reloading supply store (Brass and Bullets in Kalispell) and I bought more powder, primers and bullets.  We filled the car with gasoline, made two other stops and headed home.

The dog kept wanting to drive.

Susan finally got her to sit still long enough for a picture.  We named him "Odie" because when she's panting her tongue almost touches the ground like the dog in the Garfield cartoon.

Dog meets goat, goat meets dog.  The goat got scared and all the hair on his back stood up and he just kind of puffed up like a cat.  I didn't know goats did that.

The dog did whatever the goat did.  When the goat reared up the dog did too.  When the goat got down low the dog followed it's lead.  It would have been good on a video camera.

Cat and dog meet ... from a distance.  The cat wants us to take it back.

The upper picture is of the onions we diced before drying them.  The bottom phot is of the onions in the same bowl after dehydrating them.

The two pictures above were taken within less than a minute of each other.  This cat sleeps in the oddest positions.

This picture was taken this morning.

Our son took part in the fire department's tribute to those who died on Sept. 11, 2001 today.  He and the volunteer firefighters with him spent several hours out there on a cold cloudy day.  (He's the tall one.)

Susan got the future bathroom walls painted today.

I ordered the parts for my Stihl chainsaw over the internet.  The local saw shop wanted $110.00 for a coil.  I got this one on ebay for $40.99, shpg. included.

This is the old coil.  It's located under the cover for the recoil starter.  It's easy to find but but nt so easy to get out!

I couldn't find my set of brass (non-magnetic) feeler guages (I think my oldest son borrowed them.) so I tried different thicknesses of paper to arrive at the air space between the coil and flywheel.  It turned out that an index card was just the right thickness.  I didn't have the right specifications so I measured the air gap on the old coil and will set the new one the same.

I had to disassemble the saw to change the coil.  You can see the magnets in the flywheel from this angle.

The new coil installed and the air gap set.

The plate between the carburetor and cylinder head installed.  I used a gold tee to plug off the fule line so it wouldn't leak while I was working on it.

The handle housing and carburetor installed.

The safety bar mounted to the frame and the handle housing screwed in place.

The bar and chain re-installed along with the muffler.  It's now ready to start.  It started easy as it should so tomorrow I'll give it a good workout if it isn't raining.

Air filter and cover installed.  This picture should have been before the picture above.

The Stihl started and ran great so I decided to put a new chain on the Homelite.  Only problem ... the new chain we bought is the wrong one.  I took the old cahin off wrapped it in a paper towel and put it in the car.  We'll just take it with us next time we're in town.

Saturday, Sept. 11

We headed in to Eureka this morning.  We checked the mail on the way through Fortine and we had checks waiting for a couple of articles we wrote and also had an envelope from Primitive Archer with five copies of the Oct./Nov. issue in it.  An article I wrote on making the Flemish Twist bowstring is in this issue and when they publish an article they send five copies of the magazine to the author.  One f the things I like about this magazine is that they do a very good job with the pictures that accompany/support the article.  This one is no exception. 

We bought a bag of alfalfa pellets for the goat for the times we'll be gone all day and need something to feed him when we can't let him out to browse.  We can't leave him out unless we're here becasue he sometimes get tangled up in the lead rope and we worry about predators getting him if he's alone outside the pen.  It isn't unusual to have coyotes, bears, mountain lions and wolves in the area and all of them like the way goats taste.  We've had friends lose livestock to large predators (usually wolves or mountain lions) and would rather not have that happen to ours.

We went to the grocery store.  We were interested in the bananas, ice-cream and hamburger they had on sale.  When you can meat you miss out on grilled hamburgers so we buy hamburger on occassion. I tried to get starter bushings and brushes for the starter on the Cherokee but the parts stores in town can't even get them anymore.  They'd be happy to sell me a remanufactured one for $73.00 and up though.  I could fix this one for $10.00 if I can find the parts.  I'll check on Ebay tomorrow.  We stopped at the hardware store and bought a new chain for the Homelite saw.  It was the wrong one so we'll take it back and they'll hopefully have the right one.  The hardware store in Columbia Falls could make up their own chain which made life easier for their customers.  We made a quick stop at the health food store for some stuff then headed for Fortine.  We made a stop at the Fortine Merchantile (a small  grocery store or large convenience store depending upon how you look at it) and I bought some files for sharpening saw chain (they have the best price around) and Susan got some tortilla chips.  We then headed for home.  We had the dog with us this morning and had to do some training on manners.  She seems to thin she should get out every time the door is opened and wasn't waiting to see if anyone was in it.  We had her doing much better by the time we got home.

After getting home I replaced the coil on the chainsaw and Susan painted the room.  We are suscpicious the dog may have stolen and ate some eggs from the chicken house.  I was sure the lower nest box had several eggs in it when I let the chickens out but when I went to gather them later the lower box was empty.  I got three out of the uppoer box but there were probably six or more in the lower box.  I think from now on when I let the chickens out I'll collect the eggs then.