Census redux

I am working for the census again.  And here you thought the census was over once you mailed in your questionnaire.

The next census operation is to verify the housing units that were found to be vacant or were to be deleted for a number of reasons, such as, it couldn't be found, it burnt down or was otherwise destroyed, or was a duplicate address to another housing unit or location.  The census bureau wants to double check they aren't missing someone.

This is a smaller operation as the number of vacants or deletes are a small minority of all housing units.  This operation is called NRFU-VDC for Non-Response Follow Up - Vacant Delete Check.  Of course, with all of the barns, chicken coops, hunting sheds and garages that were initially mapped as housing units, and the large number of vacant for sale or rent, or foreclosed houses, we may have a few more 'housing units' to double check than I expect.

Last week I, other NRFU crew leaders, and potential crew leaders were trained about the new operation.  As the Field Operation Supervisors (FOS) were not chosen yet we were trained by the FOSs' supervisor out of Missoula.  The class got rocky at times as the supervisor got defensive a few times to our questions and/or comments.  We weren't criticizing her but questioning some of the procedures we had to follow and trying to explain some real life situations we encountered and how best to handle them.

The crew leaders and crew leader want-a-bees then taught this class later that week to the people who will be double checking the vacant and deleted units.  In my - and other people's - opinions the class was overkill.  We could have quickly highlighted the differences between NRFU and NFRU-VDC when we met our team and gave them their initial assignments.

As the VDC operation is smaller than NFRU, some districts were combined.  Less districts means less crew leaders.  Another change was my former FOS moved and we got a new FOS.  It appears she decided to 'clean house' and go with a number of new people as crew leaders.  There is a little bit of controversy and hurt feelings about how this was handled.

Because I will be going over to the 'dark side' in July Missoula decided not to make me a crew leader again.  This somewhat makes sense as they weren't sure I would be around until the end of VDC.  However the person they chose to handle my old district - which was so large it wasn't combined with any other districts - apparently blanched when he was assigned my old district.  And he was an experienced crew leader.  After sleeping on it overnight he decided he didn't want to do it and quit the census.

I hadn't heard anything about census work since last week until this morning when the new FOS called me asking (with desperation?) me to come back and handle my old district. Suddenly my going over to the 'dark side' was no longer an issue.  I accepted and then spent the rest of the day getting up to speed on all that I missed.  Because I wasn't part of it from the start I had to go forward with decisions the 'crew leader for a day' had made, and not all of those decisions were ones that I would have made.

But such is life.  Well... I am up for the challenge.  I better get to bed as I have to meet with some of my new team members later this morning.

Two horses

I have horses on the ranch.   As you know I didn't buy any cattle this year, and my usual renter is cutting back on cattle this year as he has other plans, so I have an open pasture.  One of my other cattle renter prospects already had pasture but he knew of an older couple looking for horse pasture for the summer.

They (she mainly) raises horses and sells them worldwide.  They were looking for extra pasture.  After looking the pasture over they decided to put a few of their horses at my place for the summer.

Being horse people they had concerns that I have barb wire fences.  There is nothing I can do about that.  Since the horses have lots of acres to roam there should not be any problems with getting cut by barb wire fences.

They brought two of their older horses to the ranch this afternoon. One is 19 and the other is 26.  Very gentle horses.  I was pleased she didn't bring her $10,000 horses as that is too much money to be walking around the pasture.

The horses have fancy names which I've since forgotten.  They are long names.

For now I am keeping the horses in the corral while they get accustomed to their new summer home.  I want them to bond with the barn and loafing shed before letting them out into another pasture.

The couple plans to bring another two or three horses this weekend.

This older couple is interesting.  He has an identical first name as me, which is not a common name.  We get a small kick out of addressing each other by our name.  He also abbreviates his name the same way as I do, which also is uncommon.

She is into flowers, etc.  As we walked the pasture she commented on the wildflowers growing about.  She and I also had an interesting conversation on how both an animal's and a person's head and neck can tell you traits and personality about a person.  For example, the shape and size on a person's nose, the shape of their face, their lips, their eyebrow locations, and so forth.  Based on my features she described some traits she thought I possessed.  I was a bit amazed how her descriptions match up to how I perceive myself.

When it rains, it pours.  After this couple and I came to an agreement another woman called me out of the blue looking for pasture for her three horses.  Horse people do not like their horses to mix with other people's horses.  While I have enough  room to separate the horses into different pastures, I decided I didn't want that hassle right now, especially since I will be working more on the census.

Also, Jim and Debbie have their grand-kid's two horses back in their pasture as of late this afternoon.   The horses had been gone for a number of weeks now.  Those horses were in an agitated state as they were running around their pasture for some time. 

Here are my new tenants.  As you can see they have plenty of grass.

Night cloud

Last night (this morning) I went to bed at 2 am.  I went outside to look at the moon and stars before going to bed and discovered one strange cloud over east Kalispell.   This was the only cloud in the sky and it didn't move.

I got a camera and took a few photos before the cloud faded away.  The first photo had a minute exposure.  The second photo, 30 seconds.  The last photo, 15 seconds.You'd think the longer the exposure the better the photo, but not in this case.  Maybe the near full moon had an effect.

I included the long exposure photo as it shows the pair of clouds. It looked like the middle of the cloud was cut out of the cloud and hung above it. It also reminded me of a hat.  The cloud was fading by the time I took the other photos.

Yet another tree stump

I dug out another tree stump.  The last one for a while I hope.   This stump I started to dig out last Fall and got almost half of it dug out then before the ground froze and the snow fell.

I worked on the stump again this past April.  Now that it appears I will be having horses soon I decided to finish digging the stump out.  The hole was pretty deep and I didn't want a chance of a horse falling into the hole.  It wouldn't be good.

What the stump and hole looked like this April when I started again.

Photo 1: April
Photo 2: June

The hole is not as deep as it was during parts of the dig.  This is the end when I moved dirt from the last side root out onto the bottom of the hole.

Rocks I also dug out from around the bottom of the roots.

Marion auction

Saturday I attended an auction Marion, MT (west of Kalispell).  The auction was to settle an estate.  The deceased had lived in a trailer back in the woods.   It was your standard "collect junk as I have a place to put it among the trees" plus "I like to collect guns" type of auction.

Not a lot to interest me, and nothing to keep me hanging around.  I was a little interested in a couple small pails of long large nails.  Mainly I was interested in the posts.  There were a dozen wooden posts and piles and piles of steel posts.  However those wouldn't be auctioned off for a several hours at least.  And I wasn't waiting.  The chances of someone else wanting them and bidding them up was too great.   From what I seen at the auction some stuff went higher than I expected while some items went cheaper than what I expected.  I didn't get a bidding number so I missed out on bidding on some axes, splitting mauls and other tools that went cheap.

I had things to do so I left.

On the back of the tractor seat was the following sticker:

The food at the auction was sold by this outfit:

Another mushroom

Nearby where I dug and cut the recent tree stump I found another type of mushroom.  I hadn't seen this type before.  The photo was taken after I picked the mushroom and set it in my wheelbarrow to take a photo of it.

Another tree stump

I finished digging out another tree stump today. Last week I had discovered this stump barely sticking out of the ground in the north pasture.  I think I uncovered it when I drug the harrow around the pasture this past Spring.

Today I finished digging around the stump.  As the stump was more like a "tooth with about four roots" I used an ax to chop some of the roots so I could wrestle broken pieces from the ground.

I got a work out and am feeling the effects tonight as I type this.

This is the seventh stump I have dug and cut out this year.
 
In the future I need to find a way to take a photo of the hole in a way that captures its size and depth.  Also, the stump always seems to look smaller when cut into pieces.

Even though this stump has been dead and buried for many many years - more likely many decades - when I chopped through one root, liquid poured out from it.

Here are photos of the insides of part of the stump. Both the yellow and white stuff was gooey.  Keep in mind this stump has been dead for at least over a decade. Probably a number of decades.  The insides were still moist.  No wonder some of these the stumps don't rot and are hard to burn.

The lighter colored wood (upper center) is part of what I chopped with the ax.

I Heart My Bicycle

Car door window switch

The driver's window in my car door quit working earlier this Spring.   I couldn't open my driver's door window.  Later I could open the other doors' windows but could not close them from the master switch.  Fortunately I could close them using each door's switch.  Not too convenient.

I discovered the problem was with the master switch.

The switch is in the middle of the photo. The left and right images are the switch's connectors at each end.

Searching www.carpart.com I found the part cost $248.56 new.   Umm... time to check a junkyard.

I went to the junkyard I usually use for parts to my car.  A worker lent me a Philips screwdriver and I went out to the Nissan Maxima they had.  The switch was gone from the car.  Darn!

I went to another junkyard.  The owner said he had one Maxima, the part would cost me $45, and that I had to wait until 12:30 pm when his workers returned from lunch for them go get the part from the car.  When the worker checked the car he found the switch was gone.

Darn!  Strike two.

At my last junkyard I found a Maxima with the switch.  I took the switch and planned to also take the window motor in case that ever failed.  With scrap metal prices rising it is harder to find cars older than 1990, and that year is rising due to the rising scrap metal prices as junkyards are less likely to keep older cars these days.   However getting the window motor out of the door was a major undertaking and not one I wanted to do for a part I didn't need now.  The switch from this junkyard cost me $15.

Tuesday the 22nd I put the "new" switch in my car and it works.  I can open all my windows now.

Mushrooms

With all the rain we've been having, lots of mushrooms have been growing here and there.

Small ones... Large ones...  Brown ones...  White ones.

Here is a photo of a couple large white ones I kicked over in my south pasture today.

YikeBike

There is a new bicycle design: YikeBike

Magazine article on YikeBike: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1934027_1934003_1933960,00.html

Here is a promotional video: http://www.yikebike.com/design/video-gallery/yikebike-promo-video

And a video from the Discovery Channel: http://www.yikebike.com/design/video-gallery/yikebike-discovery-channel

Interesting, but how do you carry anything?

Flowering Shrub

Mosquitos and tree transplant

The rained stopped on Friday.  Yay!  By mid afternoon the sun came out.  Even better!

When I was checking my gopher traps (one dead, two other traps filled with dirt) I spotted someone walking in my south pasture along the fence. Hey!!!   It turned out to be a county worker for mosquito control.  He was going over to spray the low wet area in the SW part of the pasture.  He said their check indicated mosquito larvae that will hatch soon.

By all means spray!  With all the rain this year it may be a bad year for mosquitoes once it warms up.

I mentioned the low land on Jim and Debbie's property to the north that has water now that the river is high and he said he had checked it and the larvae is not ready there yet.  Maybe in a week or two.

Due to the recent rain the river is rising.  Prior to the rain the river flow was just above 700 CPS.  Now it is 768 CFS.  The river does look higher.  The tree stump is still moving, although at a slower pace.

While in the north pasture I dug a few very small trees growing there.  There is a clump of them growing much too close together.  Since these are so small perhaps I can transplant them to my NE pasture along the fence.  It would be nice to get a line of them growing to screen out my neighbors.  It will take many years as the trees are tiny.

Photo 1: five trees in a wheelbarrow.
Photo 2: one tree planted

Water on driveway

Normally it is on the dry side here.  With the type of spoil I have - sandy loam - the water seldom stands.  Usually the only time I see standing water is when the rain is really falling hard.

Not on Thursday.  With all the rain we have had this Spring the water stands even when it is raining lightly.  We set a record rainfall Thursday at 1.13 inches, breaking the old record of .67 inches.  We are an inch above average for both the month and the year.  It rained non-stop all day on Thursday.

The second photo shows how the water is causing the tall grass to fall over.

Wet.  When will it end?

It was 60 degrees in my house Thursday afternoon, and as Tammy has told me "Your 65 degrees is colder than my 65 degrees."  So I lit my wood stove today to warm the house up.

The temperature outside was in the middle 40s most of the day.  Our normal high temperature is suppose to be 72 degrees.  It has seldom been above 70 degrees this year. Where is the global warming promised me?!!!  Another broken promise.

River flow rate

Here is the river flow rate that is pushing the tree root down the river.

Rain gutter, earlier

I came across a photo showing how some of my rain gutters sat on the ground all these years until Tammy and I re-hung them last week.

Rain gutters

I finally got rain gutters installed on my house.  Of the four different roof sections only one section had rain gutters.  That section had been off ever since I re-shingled the house roof many years ago.

Now that I have painted the fascia on the house it was time to put the rain gutters back up and also to install gutters on the other roof sections.

When Tammy was here, in between the rain and my census work, we hung the gutters on the roof.  After Tammy left it was up to me to put all the downspouts on the gutters.   I completed that work yesterday.  I also gooped the gutter joints to prevent leaks.

All this before the rain came again.  And it came.  This morning I woke to rain and it has been raining off and on all day.

The gutters work great.  The downside is that is harder for me to tell how much it is raining as I no longer have the water running off the roof to guide me.

Now with a gutter on the north side of the roof I believe this will reduce the amount of ice on my driveway from the roof's snow melt in the Spring.

Now I need to paint the gutters red.

Sun river census

The sun came out Friday.  I didn't get to enjoy it until late Saturday afternoon.  That is because there was a push from the main office to get the final census questionnaires finished for my area (my district plus 7 other districts) and the area west of ours (another 7 districts).  It was a scramble as we learned on Friday we needed to get this done by Monday.

Because next month I will be going to work on another unrelated census operation, when he left Wednesday my boss didn't select me to replace him as operations supervisor.  He selected as his replacement his second choice, as Michelle likes to tell me and others.  She jokes about it but I wonder if she has some hurt feelings.  It would only be natural.

The area to our west had their operations supervisor suddenly quit Monday so Robert was brought in to finish that area.

When I arrived at the meeting area at the mall Friday afternoon Michelle and Robert were scrambling to get stuff ready for people to go get the information about the final households.  Other people were arriving, as the call had gone out to have each district call in their best people to handle these last questionnaires.   Then it was sit and wait a long time as the bosses scrambled around in preparation.

Michelle had to leave so I stepped in for her and by the end of the night Robert and I were running the show, with Jim, another crew leader, helping us as people went out and came back with information.  We did not leave until 11:30 pm.   Robert got a hotel room and crashed instead of making the 2 plus hour drive home.  Jim went home.  I also went home but I then organized and got my head around the remaining items we had to complete.  I went to bed just before 3 am.

Before 7 am one of my enumerators came by my house to give me a completed questionnaire.  Her arrival woke me out a  dream.  On the way to the 9 am meeting with the others I stopped and completed a questionnaire with a household.

Robert had returned to Missoula, and even though Michelle had arrived, she had been out of the loop so she deferred to me and I ran the show Saturday to completion.  I stepped on a few toes and one guy was publicly embarrassed as when he presented his results to us I wouldn't accept his excuses and poor quality work.  I took his work away and gave it to another census worker to complete.

We didn't finish our work until 3 pm.  Coming home after I finished work, I ate a late lunch and then checked the pocket gopher traps out in the hayfield and pastures.  I had caught two more gophers.  I noticed more dirt mounds.  I think the pocket gopher couples are breaking up and one member of the pairs are moving out to new locations, hence the new dirt mounds.

James, the neighbor across the road, was out working on corner fence posts.  He and a friend are fencing his property and James will let the friend keep cattle and/or horses on the property to eat the grass down.

Interesting road names

In my census district I had a few interesting roads.  The locals were able to choose these road names.

Anti-Government Lane

Elvis Presley Blvd
Apparently one woman who lives on this road is a big Elvis fan.

I visited this road and you can see how the county did extra work in bolting the sign onto the post.

This is what Elvis Presley Blvd looks like...

The view from Elvis Presley Blvd.