2007 Creston Auction

I attended the Creston Volunteer Fire Department's auction again this year.

The auction started at 9 am instead of 9:30 am like last year. If you remember my post's from last year (and if you do not, click on "Last of March" and "Creston Auction"), you know that the 2006 auction went until almost 10 pm. This was before Daylight Savings Time was moved earlier. Last year it got dark by 7 pm.

Also in 2006 a front came through and it rained and sleeted and the wind blew by the late afternoon. This year the sky was overcast and the mountain tops where in clouds. Occasionally it would sprinkle rain for a few minutes at a time. Fortunately not long enough to get the ground wet and muddy.

In addition to the earlier start, there were 5 auctioneers this year. Last year there were only four. And there may have been a little less stuff. I also noticed most auctioneers tried to keep going and not drag every sale out to the highest dollar.

Another difference this year is the "buyer's premium". This is an extra 10% added on to your winning bid. I don't care for this concept. The "buyer's premium" is like a sales tax, and like a sales tax a person can forget it when deciding whether to buy the item. Even more so in an auction when a person has to decide on the spot whether to bid higher. The "buyer's premium" is forgotten at that point.

I only bought a few items. One which I waited to buy and the other items because they together went for $1.

The item I waited hours for (actually I waited for a few items but did not get the other items) was a maul. My current maul has a fairly short handle now as I have broken the end numerous times over the past 5 years. This occurred when I split my firewood. I wanted this maul as it had an excellent handle. It is hard to buy replacement handles for tools, and when the stores sells them they are almost the cost of a new tool. I bought the maul for $10 ($11 counting the darn "buyer's premium").

I had started the bidding at $5, another guy bid $7.50, then I bid $10, then he dropped out. I can't buy a new handle for $10. So I am pleased - especially as I had waited hours.

The other items I got were a box of canning jars, rings, and lids and a small roll of used field fence. I don't need any more canning jars, but I can always use more fence. I hesitated on bidding because I had driven my car and it was iffy whether I could fit the fence in my car.

It was a sight watching me putting the fence in my car's trunk. Naturally it was nowhere close to fitting. Putting the fence in the backseat also was out. *sigh*

Then I got the idea to flatten the roll. In the parking lot I jumped up and down on the roll of fence to flatten it some. Eventually I got it flat enough where I could wheedle one end into the car's trunk.

Most of the fence stuck out. That won't do. Now duct tape is known as an essential item. I have another essential item: bungee cords. I hooked several over and through the fence and the fence stayed secure in my trunk - even at miles of highway speeds of 70 mph. *whew*

Several times snow fence were sold. A newer roll might have fit in my car's trunk (I hadn't bought the field fence yet), but I didn't bid $7.50 and the roll sold for $5. Later 6 large rolls of used snow fence sold. I didn't have my pickup so I didn't bid and they all sold for $10. That was a good deal. The winning bidder said he bought it to fence his kids in the yard.

A small box of comic books sold. It appeared there were several dozen comics in the box along with an old metal Cinderalla-style lunch box and some other item. I noticed a couple comic books that were worth money and decided to hang around to potentially buy the box. Who else would know what the comics are worth? Well... a couple of guys really wanted the box and kept bidding. The winning bidder won at $375 - and that is before the "buyer's premium". Immediately he checked the comics over. I hadn't looked at all the comic books earlier so I don't know if there were more than the few valuable ones I seen. Some of the others I seen were old, but not that valuable. I kinda of doubt they all were worth almost $400.

Later the losing comic book bidder bought an old very long wooden handle pole with a metal hook on the end. I am not sure what it is used for, but could see it being handy to pull down the top hay bales in a tall stack. The winning bid was $55. If they are still made, I am sure you could buy a new one for less money.

A number of cross-country skis were sold - all with the 3 pin binding style. Only one pair of skis had boots, and they were too small for me. I saw one person with a beautiful pair of the skis - the finish and color looked to be natural wood and not some painted color. I also saw what could be an antique pair of cross-country skis. The wood looked to be boards and the binding system was a metal spring contraption to hold the feet on the skis.

There was a nice pair of snowshoes. I also saw a number of other people carefully looking them over. In the past I have seen these old snowshoes sell for well over $100 so I didn't make an effort to keep track of when they sold and never saw what they sold for.

Several old-time cast iron stoves were sold. All needed work to clean up to look nice. I spoke with a woman who bought one for $350. She also bought an old wooden wheat mill that was weathered but still has the original red paint and all the pieces. The company name was still on the mill, and while I forget the company's name, I remember it was from St. Paul, Minnesota. Refurbished it could look nice, but where would one place it? The pieces stacked together were almost 5 ft tall and a yard long.

This woman moved from California to live closer to her sister who has lived here 8 years. The odd co-incidence is that she formerly worked as an accountant for a company that had an AS/400 and knew it well. In my IBM career that is the computer system I worked most on. This woman said their AS/400 was great and they had no problems.

Why we got on the topic of AS/400s is that a Sperry Unisys midrange computer was sold at the auction. I wasn't there to learn the winning bid, but as I spoke with the California woman the new owner was wheeling the computer to his pickup using two pieces of plywood laid over and over on the ground as other men pushed the tall rack over the boards. The computer stood almost 6 ft tall. This is not a computer for the home and I was curious why anyone bought it, much less why anyone would put it in an auction of mostly garage sale type of stuff. And it was a Sperry... ugh!

A kettlecorn stand was up wind and it smelled so good. Many people carried large plastic sacks of the kettlecorn. It was just me so I resisted buy any. The hamburger, sloppy joes, etc. grill was down wind so that was easier to resist.

I seen my neighbor Wyatt at the auction so we spent some time catching up since last year.

The auctioneer Bobby Roshon was auctioneering again this year. I wandered over to listen to him while I gave time for my item's sale tickets to reach the payment stand. Roshon is a very good auctioneer. I like his speaking rhythm and he is knowledgeable on a wide variety of items up for bid. I noticed he has grown a bushy mustache since last year.

I also noticed the woman (wife? girlfriend?) who clerked for Roshon in the past was absent. She is memorable as she has a blond crew cut with a long mullet. Unusual on a guy much less a woman. Maybe she changed her hairstyle and that is why I didn't notice her around.

While waiting for my items to come up for bid I people watched. I noticed people from last year's auction. I also watched a man and woman who looked to be in their late 30s. He wasn't dressed like a cowboy but he had that taciturn look. He didn't seem to be a guy who made much conversation. He was over 6 ft and was with a woman who looked to be 5 ft 5 in. She was the more interesting person to watch.

She wore a baseball style hat and her long brunette hair was in a ponytail out the hat's back opening. Her hands were in her coat's pockets with her arms by her side most of the time. She wore jeans and work boots. Nothing fancy. They looked to be practical typical clothing to her. She stood still much of the time, more than average for a woman, and seldom looked around as she focused on the auctioneer and what was being sold.

She was slim and attractive. But that was all that was feminine about her. Her clothing - while not a man's clothes - were practical and not feminine. The way she stood and moved was more masculine than feminine. But she didn't look like a lesbian. That was the odd thing about her. Now-a-days with lesbianism being "in vogue", any women with masculine traits can easily get a lesbian label attached. This woman was not feminine, but probably not a lesbian. Perhaps her father treated her like the son he may never have had. Maybe she was a cowgirl or horsewoman. I don't know as I never heard her speak. But she had a unique look.

Otherwise I noticed most people at the auction looked like they would have fit in at Deadwood, SD in 1876 when gold was discovered there. I have been watching on DVDs the first season of the HBO TV series "Deadwood". (Excellent show!!) The people in the show have a rough and unpolished look to them. That fit many of the people at the auction today.

It was almost 6 pm when I left the auction. I estimate the auction would have gotten over before 7 pm. I had arrived after 11 am. I was there over 6 hours. My legs are tired from all that standing - and they were still recovering from all that hiking yesterday! From time to time I would walk between the various auctioneers just to keep moving. Good thing I like auction sales!

Willow... crash!

All my former girlfriends have asked me, how did I ever get along without them?

I reacted differently at times. Sometimes I got annoyed as I have done just fine, thank you, prior to meeting them. Usually I would shrug and smile as it was a valid question usually posed after something goofy or dumb that I had just done. I had no good answer then.

Now I have an answer: without them I would put a hole through my garage roof.

Yup. I have been cutting on my willow tree some more. I just don't know when to quit, do I? Now this is where the girlfriend would come in, she would have something more important for me to do on her 'honey-do' list and would advise me against trying to cut the top branches of the willow tree.

Due to the difficulty in reaching the dead branches on the north half of the willow tree I was more concerned about falling out of the tree than where the branches would fall. The branches were over the area in front of the garage, and the power lines were far enough east and west that I didn't think the branch could reach them. Finally I would have a cut where I didn't have to worry about where the branch would fall.

You've seen the pictures from before, and I've included them again below, the problem is the ladder didn't reach high enough. Yesterday I solved the problem when I got some two by fours and nailed a few to the tree above the ladder. I could climb to the top of the ladder, and with my feet on the second highest rung, I could lean against the tree and the two by fours. While the tree trunk is large, it is also round. I was concerned about slipping off one-or-the-other side of the trunk without the two by fours to lean on and balance.

I also put a board below the ladder's highest rung to help hold the ladder in place. Partly so the ladder wouldn't slide sideways, and partly because the ladder has only one catch to hold the extension. I didn't mention this before as I didn't want you to worry. The second catch had broken in the past. I have glued the catch to provide some support, but it fell off last Fall and this year I can't find it. The company no longer makes the ladder and therefore I can't get a replacement part.

One catch works, but I don't care to stand on the extension part of the ladder and also cut. Too much stress and tension on the ladder when I do. I don't care to fall from 20 feet in the air. With the board nailed to the tree the ladder was solid.

With my pole saw fully extended I could just reach the branches I wanted to cut off. Last night I started the cut, and cut for an hour.

This afternoon I cut off and on. It is tiring on my arms to cut with the pole saw fully extended. It is hard on the feet and legs to stand a long time on the ladder's rung.

In between cutting I got my harrows from the north pasture over to the yard so I can work on fixing them. I also rode my bicycle uptown to check out computer printers and digital cameras and also run an errand.

On the way back home I stopped by the Badger Store to check their discard pile. As I mulled whether I could use a couple steel structures and a few wooden structures the owner came out of the yard and locked the gate as it was closing time. He commented he has seen me hauling off discard stuff in the past and encouraged to take the stuff tonight. It saves him from hauling it to the landfill. So I came back with a vehicle and hauled the stuff home. Now to figure out how to use some of the items.

Then I was back at cutting on the willow. I was over 2/3 cut through the branch when it started to lean over slightly. It leaned just enough for the partially cut end to trap my saw blade in the cut. Great, just great. No way I can get up there to free my saw.

Then I got the idea of tossing a rope up over a side branch, and from the ground, pull the branch down.

After a handful or crazy throws - including one throw where the rope wrapped around a power line (carefully... unwrap the rope carefully) - finally my weighted rope end went over the branch. I fed the branch rope until the rope's ends were on the ground. I had a very long rope.

From the ground I pulled down on the branch. The branch came down more but only to rest on lower branches. Between the lower branches and the still attached end, I couldn't move the cut branch any more.

Again! Up the ladder I climbed. The good news was the cut end had shifted enough to free my saw blade. Again I cut. And cut. Won't this branch ever fall down?

Suddenly the branch fell!

The full weight fell onto the lower branch. Instead of breaking off the dead end of the branch as I expected and hoped, the lower branch acted as a spring. Once it could bend no more it sprung back as the rest of the falling branch's weight shifted.

I held onto the tree trunk as the huge tree shook and swayed first from no weight of the branch, then from the weight of the branch on the lower branch, then from the absence of the branch's weight as it fell towards the ground.

When the lower branch sprung back it flipped the end of the cut branch over to the garage. Oh no!!

I never expected the cut end of the branch to strike the garage. The cut end was south and the garage was north, and the tips of the cut branch had barely reached over the garage.

The flipped cut end fell on the garage roof and went through it tearing a large hole.

When all was said and done the branch came back out of the hole and off the roof to lay on the ground against the garage door.

Pieces of branches were everywhere.

Oh my goodness! What just happened?!

What a mess.

Pieces of the garage roof and shingles were strewn about inside the garage.

I hauled off a wheelbarrow fully of little pieces. I cut and filled a wheelbarrow full with parts of the large branch. By then the sun has set, and with our dry air I could feel the temperature rapidly drop. Still I was soaked in sweat from all my cutting.

I moved the rest of the branch aside to finish cutting another day.

The good news is the weather is nice and it is not raining. No rain is forecast... until Saturday. I have plans tomorrow as my hiking group is getting together for a hike near Joyce's ranch, then a potluck supper while we all decide on the list of hikes for this year. A busy day. Then Saturday is the annual Creston auction. *sigh* You can bet that it will rain with a hole in my garage roof!

You know, this was my last branch to cut on the willow tree. I can't reach the dead end of the branch so I planned to leave that to fall off on it's own, else wait to see if the branch dies more and get to a point where I can reach to cut it.

My last branch to cut, then I could get to my other Spring chores. Now I have another chore: repair the garage roof. Just what I need - more work. As Tony told me tonight when I borrowed his camera again - you always have something to do and never get bored.

Yup. A girlfriend would come in handy right now. First to save me from myself. Second, to rub my sore and tired muscles from all my cutting and lifting today. Oh well, to paraphrase the Rolling Stones, we can't always get what we want.

*sigh*

Before and after photos:

View from under the north branches... notice the top branches are gone. See the two long dead branches that remain? Those are the branches that acted as a slingshot as they bent down then up and flung the cut branch over to the garage roof. They don't look that strong, do they?

The cut branch and the garage roof. ...why me?! At least the branch didn't stay stuck in the roof! It is so heavy I wouldn't have been able to pull it out.

Montana county growth and decline

Here is an interesting map of population growth and decline across Montana between 1990 and 2000.

Even before 2000 Flathead County was growing. Since 2001 the growth in the Flathead has really taken off. If we had 20% - 28% growth before, we certainly have had a higher percentage since 2000.

NW Montana used to be a sleepy area, out of the way, and unknown to most people. I remember back in the 1970s when the locals made fun of, and were annoyed, by the North Dakotans who moving here in large numbers. The locals even published and sold joke books about North Dakotans similar in style to Polish or Norwegian jokes. I remember being out for a bicycle ride when I met a pretty woman and struck up a conversation with her. When she learned I was from North Dakota she launched into a series of North Dakota jokes. I never saw her again.

My father even had a joke book, and he was originally a North Dakotan. North Dakotans have the ability to laugh at themselves. Today the locals have forgotten the North Dakotans as we have assimilated but the locals are annoyed by the many Californians (or as some say: Californicators) who are moving here. The difference is that there are no joke books and the Californians often get defensive.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Robins!!

Darn wildlife! It seems I can't enjoy any wildlife.

This morning I heard a bird on my house's fiberglass entryway roof. Looking up I could see that the bird was under the house roof's overhang and its feet were scratching on my fiberglass roof as it hopped around.

I was afraid the bird somehow got stuck under the overhang as the fiberglass roof goes right under the house roof's overhang creating a small area with a small entrance/exit point.

I went out to the lawn to get a better look. I could see the bird - a robin - under the overhang. Seeing me the bird hopped down the fiberglass roof until it could fit under the overhang. Hopping on the open fiberglass roof it then flew away.

Hmmm?

Then I noticed a piece of pink fiberglass insulation on the ground under the roof. Then another. And another! Dozens of little pieces of the pink insulation were scattered around the yard.

Argh!!!

Those darn robins! They are making nests right now and I've noticed in the past they like to feather their nest with bits of insulation. Somehow the robins found that under the overhang they could access the insulation stuffed in my house's attic. Reaching into the open rafter section used for ventilation they were plucking out pieces of insulation.

I walked over to my tool shed to get some rags to plug the entrance under the overhang. A robin ran across the yard and then into the open area of the tool shed. The robin flew out squawking loudly as I got close to the tool shed. It flew over to the nearby fence and chewed me out.

*sigh*

A few years ago a pair of robins built a nest on one of the items hanging on the wall. Then got upset whenever I went into the tool shed to get a tool.

I looked around and found no nest. I removed a few items from the wall to eliminate any chance of the robins building a nest on them.

I've been tolerant of robins. I leave the pair alone who build a nest in the pole shed over my pickup. I just wash out my the pickup box the crap the birds leave. I hang bird food out my front window and right now am watching the little birds flit about and nibble on the suet.

Still... I don't know if I trust those birds anymore. The next I know my little Hungarian partridges will turn out to be a gang of thieves. Hmmm.. they sure run when they see me out and about. They are not cute but... guilty! guilty! guilty!

I think I need a cat.

Cinnamon and flirting?

I ran some errands uptown today. I needed cinnamon in order to make another pumpkin pie today. I stopped at a Dollar Store. I had heard they were going out of business. Yes, this was true but the store was still open for a few more weeks. They didn't have any cinnamon left but I did buy two bottles of imitation vanilla extract to use in making my pumpkin bread and muffins.

After I paid and was leaving the counter the cashier asked if I baked. I told her yes.

"I love a man who cooks."

Or was it "I love it when a man cooks."?

Her statement caught me by surprise so I am not sure which statement she actually said. Being a simple male, and not able to multi-task, my mind had been focused on buying what I needed then getting on to my next shopping errand. As I continued to the door I told her I am not much of a cook as I only really make a few desserts.

She said something like "That's still good." I shrugged and smiled as I slipped out the door.

I was more worried that she had this idea I could cook. My former girlfriends could all cook. They are excellent cooks. The women in my hiking group can all cook. When people get all excited when they learn I can bake one or two things, it can get intimidating. Believe me, I am nowhere close to being a cook. So when the cashier gushed about liking guys who could cook, I beat a hasty retreat as any exchange of recipes would show I am a one-trick pony.

As I walked to my car the idea then entered my mind... "Was she trying to flirt with me?" After all I did look directly into her eyes when I paid for the vanilla extract. My ex-girlfriends have all told me they really liked my eyes. Did I inadvertently seduce this poor cashier? (haha )

The geek that I am, I tend not to look people in their eyes. It is hard to talk and look into a person's eyes at the same time. Earlier she seemed knowledgeable and friendly when I asked where the store's spices were located. And she seemed trim and fit and attractive as I remember. And age appropriate. This is all in hindsight as I was focused on "finding what I needed, buying what I needed, getting out of the store to my next task". I wasn't exactly in the "notice the opposite sex" frame of mind. I know, us guys are suppose to be in that frame of mind all the time, but I have a million tasks to complete before Spring is over.

Romance and wooing takes time to do right. Time I don't have now if I am to finish trimming the willow tree, plant my garden, plant my new trees, burn the ditches and tree stumps, fix my harrows and harrow the pasture, redo fences, and buy cattle before Spring is over. Plus all the little chores.

So what phrase did the cashier exactly say? And how did she say it? Was she making conversation or flirting to get to know me? I guess I'll never know. I blew my chance.

I found cinnamon at the only other dollar store in town and that female cashier never said more than "Do you want a bag for that?"

Mountain snow in March

Here are a few photos I took Monday.

The first photo is of the mountains in Glacier National Park as seen from my place through Badrock Canyon. Note: the camera has a good telephoto lens so the mountains are not really quite this close. The snow covered mountains are in Glacier Park. Yes: lots of snow in the Park. By July/August the snow is gone from those mountains.

The second photo is of the Swan Range that I see each day from my front yard. Again the telephoto was used, though not to the extent of the Glacier photo. As you can see the grass is still dead as this is barely Spring. Thankfully the blue and white of the mountains, and the green of the pine trees, provide much needed color.

Willow tree trunk cut

Today I finally finished cutting the willow tree trunk on the left side. *whew!* It took two hours of cutting today to finish cutting through the tree. That makes 7 hours total cutting. It is tough when I could only use a hand saw.

My leg is recovered today. From the 4 hours cutting on Saturday my right thigh became numb after I climbed out of the tree. It was odd as my left leg was the one kneeling and leaning against the tree trunk to help stabilize myself. My right foot was crooked in a tree branch and my leg straight. Why the right leg would be numb is strange. My thigh was numb but worked fine. I could not tell any difference in walking or running. I could tell it was numb by how my pant leg felt against my thigh, and also went I touched it with my fingers my skin didn't have full feeling. But finally this morning my leg was back to normal. *whew!*

As you can see from the photos of the stump the left and right cuts do not exactly match. I had to almost overcut from each side before the trunk toppled over. Even then I had to give it a shove to tip over. The cut trunk was almost perfectly balanced to stay upright. I had made the cuts to have the tree fall a certain way - to the SW. A large branch coming out of the top of the trunk curved to the NE and the combination of the cut and branch balanced the tree.

The tree trunk feel exactly where I had planned it. For once this happened correctly. The trunk fell to the SW and landed on my driveway missing the sidewalk to the house. The ground shook.

The ground is no longer frozen so the falling trunk made a hole in one of the driveway's gravel wheel tracks.

The photo doesn't do justice to the hole as you can't tell how deep it is. Trust me, any hole is impressive in a wheel track that has existed since 1940. When it rains water runs down this wheel track to no effect. This wheel track is solid.

The cut trunk is heavy. I could not lift it. When the trunk is laying on the ground the curved branch rises higher than me. The distance from the ground to the tip appears to be over 6 and 1/2 feet high.

I *think* that if the left tree trunk ever fell down it could just reach my house if the trunk fell a certain way. Due to how heavy the small section I cut is, if that had still been on the tree and the tree fell it certainly would have gone right through my house roof and wall. Thankfully the tree trunk is in good shape with no signs of rot or weakness.

With the trunk cut I finished trimming some small dead branches on my way back down the tree and ladder. I am finally done trimming on the left tree trunk. This will make my mother happy as she was concerned I would fall out of the tree.

I do want to trim more on the right tree trunk. That will be a challenge. The top branches are the ones I want to cut. They are way up there. Unlike the left trunk, the ladder doesn't reach high enough where I could climb into the tree to reach the branches. I have a few ideas how I can get up that high, but I don't want to spend too much more time on this tree. While I would like to cut the tree before the sap is running which makes cutting the tree harder, I do have other projects I need to get done this Spring. We'll see if I get to cutting it.

I borrowed Tony's digital camera as I really wanted photos of the cut tree and trunk. And some people have asked for photos of my progress.

Old and new. It is hard to believe the left trunk once grew over the right trunk.

Here is a view of the tree looking to the east.

Here are some of the branches I had cut before this final one:



Here is a view of the right (north) tree trunk. Notice the ladder falls far short of where I need to go.

 

View from under the north branches

2007 state ranking on crime

Morgan Quitno Press is out with its 2007 ranking of states for being dangerous or safe places to live.

Montana has improved 2 positions to be the 7th most safe state to live.

North Dakota again - for the 10th time out of the past 14 years - is the safest state to live in.

Minnesota fell three positions to be the 19th safest state, between New York and New Jersey.

Washington state - where many of my relatives live - fell two positions to be the 37th safest state, or in another way to look at it, Washington is the 14th most dangerous state to live in.

The following image is the list from most dangerous (1) to safest (50). Click on the image to enlarge it.

First auction of the year

I went to an auction sale today. My first of the year. It is unusual to have an auction on a Sunday as most auctions are on Saturdays.

I noticed the auction ad listed portable metal corral panels. They were new. I don't really need the panels, but if they went cheap enough I would buy them and could find a use for them. They didn't sell cheap. The bidding started at $50 each and the top bid was at $65. This was cheaper than buying the panels at a store, but not so cheap as to make it worthwhile to buy them now with no immediate use for them. The winning bidder bought 4 panels and the other bidder then bought the remaining 9 at the same price.

I arrived at the auction over an hour late. The auction was south of Kalispell and started at 10 am - early for me.

The auction was held inside what appeared to be Bo's garage/storage building. This was good as the weather was cool, cloudy with off-and-on rain. Naturally when the auction moved outside to sell the bigger items the wind picked up and the rain fell lightly.

The parking lot by Bo's buildings was full, and cars lined his driveway. I parked with some other vehicles by parking with my left tires on the road and the right ones in the ditch.

The crowd was mainly male, with ages mainly in the 30s to 50s. The people looked to be cowboys and blue-collar people. A few old men had long white beards like the old mining prospectors had. Other men looked to be mechanics. When it started to rain one cowboy in a duster put a clear plastic wrap over his black cowboy hat. The wrap was made for this purpose. The woman with him also wore a duster. She didn't cover her hat. They looked to have just come off a trail ride. I have expected to see them wearing six-shooters under their dusters.

The crowd also looked to be native Montanans. The exception was a couple who I imagined to be from Denmark or some other Scandinavian country. He wore a knit hat with hanging braids on each side where the hat came down over his ears. Both his, and the woman with him, had faces that looked to be first generation Scandinavian. While people in Montana have a higher that expected rate of Scandinavian ancestry, these two people had a more pronounced European look. That's the best I can find words to explain it.

Some items went for more than I expected. A large old anvil the seller's parents originally brought from North Dakota sold for $250. Must be in demand as an antique.

Many items sold cheaply, and some items not at all. I missed out on buying a half dozen pails of nails. I seen them before I went to the other room to get my bidding number. The nails sold just as I returned to the auction room. $2.50 for all the pails. A good deal.

The only thing I bought were a pair of cross-country skis and poles. I was more interested in the poles as the skis had the old 3-pin binding system, and I have a few pairs of 3-pin skis already. The problem with 3-pin bindings are they are old obsolete style of bindings and I can't find any store that sells boots for them. The skis are nice, but the poles were the deal. They poles are nice and a matching pair. I was the only bidder at $2.50.

After a few hours I was back home again.

Cutting a willow tree trunk

I've been working on cutting off part of the tree trunk on the left side. I am cutting halfway between where the power lines cross the photo and where the smaller branches come out of the trunk.

I started cutting Friday evening. A bit of a breeze blew in the afternoon so I waited till almost 7 pm when the wind died down. I cut for an hour. Until it got dark.

Saturday there was no wind so I spent the afternoon cutting the tree. Three hours in fact. Until my legs were too tired from standing and leaning in an awkward position in the tree. It also started to lightly sprinkle rain.

After waiting for the sprinkles to end, having a lunch, and riding my bicycle a few miles (my inner tube is now patched!), I went back up in the tree for another hour of cutting.

Why the cutting is going so slow is I am limited in my position for standing. I also want to cut the tree in a way to have it fall and miss the house, entryway, sidewalk, and me.

A chainsaw would be nice and a lot faster, but I can't operate one standing way up in the tree - even if I could lug it up there somehow. I have to use a handsaw. Yes, a regular saw.

Still, sometimes I was able to use the saw pictured here. Its bigger teeth cuts faster, but the saw is larger and more to handle. Also I don't want to get going too hard when cutting as I can then feel the whole tree trunk sway in reaction to the force of my sawing.

The tree trunk is so thick that the saw's blade gets bogged down. I had made two cuts slightly apart in order to create room for the saw's blade to move. Twice the cutting, twice the fun. That is why I am only a little over halfway through the tree trunk thought it feels like I cut through it twice.

When I took the first break I noticed that line of cutting on the left and right side of the trunk won't match up. *argh!* I started a new cut line on the left side. The cut lines look closer, though still not perfectly opposite from one another. I can only tell when standing on the ground as I can't see the backside of the tree trunk when in the tree.

The way I feel I think I'm going to sleep hard tonight.