November already

Here it is November and the weather is decent. It was mostly sunny and relatively warm today with a high temperature of 50 F. The bad thing was today was an unusually windy day as the wind blew around 24 mph. I felt like I was back in North Dakota or Minnesota.

Today was mainly small odd jobs around the place. Nothing too exciting. I also split more wood.

My pile of firewood still hasn't caught up to Peter and Edwina as they sent me a photo showing how much firewood they have for this winter. Peter is a tall man. Cutting firewood keeps them young. They are in their 70s and they gather, cut, and split the wood themselves. Edwina has already shot a deer this hunting season.

I checked the tree stumps I had burned. They were still smoldering a bit and have done well in burning.

When digging around the remaining stumps I discovered I had been burning at opposite ends of the tree stump. The main stump was buried just below the ground level between the two stumps.

It took me over an hour to dig dirt away from the stump. The stump isn't that damp, but being exposed to the air should completely dry the stump so that the next time I burn the stump it should burn completely. Judging from the size of the tree stump, this must have been a huge tree.

Tonight's sunset was nice. The Swan Range was lit in purple for a time. By the time I got my camera the color started to fade. Here is the view before the color completely faded.


In the western view of the sunset, notice the tree on the left side that looks skeletal. That is a Western Larch (Tamarack) tree that has lost its needles for the year.