Wood smoke smell

I smell of wood smoke. Guess what I've been doing?

I started the morning with a phone call asking if I would be willing to serve as an election judge in Whitefish. That's not my precinct, but then again when I turned in my application they didn't promise me I would get my precinct. Whitefish isn't far away so I said yes. The next step is to get my information packet and then attend an education session in May.

A beautiful morning. I guess the temperature got down to freezing overnight but by the time I got up it was warming up nicely. It just takes a little sun.

I put a new toe strap on my bicycle's pedal. Then I took the good saw handle and put it on the good saw blade. Naturally the handle's holes didn't match up. I drilled new holes. Either the drill bits were dull or the blade was hardened well - or both.

The "girls" are continuing to warm to me. More will eat bread from my hand and the two bravest actually are aggressive enough they end up with the most bread. I have to remember to toss some pieces over to the more hesitant heifers.

One salt block is in small pieces. Each day I wash the dirt off the pieces. The heifers watch me and I wonder if that gave them an idea. Tonight I found one small piece of salt at the bottom of the water trough. Was the heifer trying to wash the dirt of it? Or just get rid of the salt so I'll bring a new salt block? I noticed the piece of salt in the water because I seen a small area of white "foam" on top of the water above the piece of salt.

My additional boards to the feeder seems to have done the trick as no heifers go into the feeder even though I do occasionally see one with her front legs in the feeder.

The answer to "green grass or hay?" is green grass. While switching the saw handle I noticed one heifer on her knees and her head under one part of the corral fence in order to eat as much green grass in the yard as she could - even though hay was in the feeder. This is a four foot section that is an odd patch section. I plan to put a gate here later when I have time. In the meantime I added another board to the spot as a temporary fix. I don't want a heifer to break this section in an effort to get that extra little bit of grass.

Then off to check on the nine tree stumps I burnt yesterday. I found one stump burnt down, one stump still smoldering, one stump's side roots burnt away with holes in the ground when the fire followed the roots and continued to smolder. The remaining stumps weren't smoldering, or were just barely smoldering on a small part of them.

I gathered more dead tree branches and grass and lit them anew.

One stump - the one where the prairie dog had its burrow - was an unusual shape. It has four roots leaving the center part where the tree stood; each root equally long before bending and going down into the ground. It was a "+" shape. The center part - where one expected a tap root - didn't have any root. Granted this entire root structure originally was in the ground before I dug then burnt the root. Still it was an odd shape. Reminded me of a spider.

I lit a fire around three of the four legs. The fourth leg was small enough I will cut it later; the other three I wanted to shrink, if not eliminate. With the "legs" gone I can remove the root.

This is one tough stump. This is the fourth or fifth time I burnt this stump. Originally the stump was a yard or more high and each year I reduce its size, but don't eliminate it completely. I checked before returning home tonight and my latest attempt didn't eliminate the legs. Maybe one leg was smoldering. I'll see tomorrow.

In addition to my re-burning the previous stumps I burnt an additional two stumps. I prepared burning material for two more stumps but held off on lighting them afire. It was getting dark and cooler and I decided I wanted the fire to be during the warmth of the day - it is harder for a fire to be hot enough overnight when the temperature is near freezing for the stump to catch fire.

It appears several of my re-burn attempts were successful at catching the stumps afire as they were smoldering nicely when I walked home. Their smoke rose a bit before a light breeze carried it off in a direction. The smoke looked like a sideways "L" as it hung in the cool evening air.

I wore gloves today and my hands thanked me for it. It is so much easier to pick up prickly pine cones when wearing gloves.

Under the big pine tree near the river the owl must favor one side of the tree as I found more "owl balls" (or whatever the name is for the fur and bones they regurgitate) on one side of the tree.

I also came across the nest for the pair of geese that stay here in the spring. Each year they have their nest at this location on the river bank about a yard from the water's edge. I found two halves of a shell so I believe the baby made it OK without a predator getting it.

Earlier the beaver skeleton got broken apart when I ran the harrow over the north pasture. I tossed the bones in a fire and it appears they were blackened and not burnt.

Tomorrow? More burning.